"People are too ready to make snapshots nowadays," was her verdict. "They are putting photography in the place of drawing. I grant that your kodaks will give a perfectly accurate picture, but a photo can never have the artistic merit of a sketch. In my mind it corresponds to a piece played on the pianola; it is correct, but has no individuality. Look at some of the pencil sketches of the great masters: how beautiful is the touch, and how much is conveyed in a few lines! Nothing gives a better art training than the habit of continually jotting down every pretty bit you may see. Hand and brain learn to work together, and you begin to get that facility with your pencil which nothing but long practice can give you."
Miss Aubrey's own drawings were delightful; the girls watched with admiration as her clever fingers in a few minutes transferred some picturesque corner to paper. They tried their best to emulate her, and filled several pages of their sketch-books with quite praiseworthy attempts. At the castle especially they secured some charming little subjects. It was a grand old Norman building, half in ruins, with ivy-clad towers, grass-grown courtyard, and the remains of a moat. The guard-room with its vaulted roof, the oratory with its rose window, and the banqueting-hall were almost intact, and a winding staircase led to a pathway round the battlements. The girls wandered about, drawing first one bit and then another, going frequently to Miss Aubrey for good advice. They were pleased with their efforts, which, as well as being good practice, would make delightful reminiscences of the place. It was perhaps a weakness on their part to purchase picture post-cards of the castle; but then, as they elaborately explained to Miss Aubrey, they only bought them to send away to friends, not to shirk sketching on their own account.
Katrine, always on the look-out for antiquities, listened to the voice of an old post-card vendor of guileless and respectable appearance, who mysteriously intimated that for a consideration he would transfer from his pocket to hers a few broken tiles out of the oratory, the removal of such keepsakes by the general public being strictly forbidden. She yielded to the temptation, pressed a shilling into his ready hand, and pocketed the fragments. She brought them in great triumph and secrecy to show to Miss Aubrey.
"It's lovely to have some real old pieces!" she exclaimed ecstatically. "These will go with some Roman tiles that I have at home. I shall get a museum together in course of time! I had to give the old chap some backsheesh, but I think he deserved it."
"Let me look," said Miss Aubrey, examining the treasures. "My dear girl, I'm grieved to blight your hopes, but I should certainly like to know how one of these antique crocks has the Doulton mark on the back of it!"
"It hasn't!" gasped Katrine.
"There it is, most unmistakably. I'm sorry to undeceive you, but I'm afraid it's no more mediæval than I am."
"Oh, the craft of the old villain!" mourned Katrine. "I wonder how often he's tried this trick on innocent and unsuspecting visitors? If I could only catch him, I'd upbraid him, and demand my money back!"
"You wouldn't get it, you silly child! He has conveniently vanished, and is perhaps boasting of his cleverness to a circle of envious and admiring friends. You must be very cautious if you want to go in for collecting; false antiquities are, unfortunately, more common than genuine ones, and clever rogues are always ready to lay traps for the unwary."
After having tea at a café, Miss Aubrey and the girls made their way to the wharf, and found Stephen Peters, the landlord of the "Dragon", ready at the trysting-place. In excellent spirits they took their seats, anticipating with much pleasure their return trip on the river. "They hadna' gane a mile, a mile", as the ballad says, before they began to wish themselves back on dry land. Miss Aubrey had not particularly noticed their boatman's condition before they started; but they had not rowed far when she made the unpleasant discovery that he was hardly fit to handle the oars. He was in a jovial mood, and insisted upon bursting into snatches of song.