Several were spread out upon the table, and regarded with curious and inquiring eyes by the occupants of the parlour.
Peace had pictures to please persons of different tastes. Some were bits of rustic scenery, farm-yards, horses ploughing, hay-making; others consisted of highly-coloured sporting subjects, such as hunting, ratting, and deer stalking; but, as it would never do for an itinerant dealer in these commodities to confine himself to one particular class of art, he had specimens of every conceivable variety, suitable to persons of opposite tastes; pictures addressed to persons of a devotional turn of mind formed a large element in his stock in trade. The Holy Family, the head of our Saviour, together with three young gentlemen in surplices, casting up their eyes, were there in abundance; also a young lady clinging to an impossible-looking cross, her garments dripping with wet, was another. This fine specimen was called “The Rock of Ages,” the title of the young gentlemen in surplices being, “We Praise Thee, O Lord.” He had also large photos of the “Light of the World,” together with a variety of others of a similar character. These subjects went down with some of his customers, while others would not honour them with a cursory glance.
One print, entitled the “Labourers’ Best Friends,” was greatly admired by the frequenters of the “Old Carved Lion.”
The subjects represented were a substantial piece of fat bacon, a quartern loaf, half a cheese, a foaming tankard of ale, and a clay pipe.
“Ah, that be summut loike,” exclaimed several, “I call that wonderfully natural, as real as life itself; I should loike to ha’ that. How much be it, measter?”
“Cheap enough,” answered Peace, “only half-a-crown.”
“Umph, I wish it was in a frame.”
“I’ll undertake to frame any of my prints at cost price.”
“Do un, now?”
“Yes, you can have a frame from a shilling to a sovereign-according to the quality.”