“You're an enthusiast for your art?” said Nelligan, interested by the unmistakable sincerity of his zeal.
“I am, sir,” was the brief reply.
“And the painter's is certainly a glorious career.”
“If for nothing else,” burst in Crow, eagerly, “that it can make of one like me—poor, ignorant, and feeble, as I am—a fellow-soldier in the same army with Van Dyke and Titian and Velasquez—to know that in something that they thought, or hoped, or dared, or tried to do, I too have my share! You think me presumptuous to say this; you are sneering at such a creature as Simmy Crow for the impudence of such a boast, but it's in humility I say it, ay, in downright abject humility; for I 'd rather have swept out Rembrandt's room, and settled his rough boards on Cuyp's easel, than I 'd be a—a—battle-axe guard, or a lord-in-waiting, or anything else you like, that's great and grand at court.”
“I envy you a pursuit whose reward is in the practice rather than in the promise,” said Nelligan, thoughtfully. “Men like myself labor that they may reach some far-away land of rewards and successes, and bear the present that they may enjoy the future.”
“Ay, but it will repay you well, by all accounts,” said Crow. “Miss Mary told us last night how you had beat every one out of the field, and had n't left a single prize behind you.”
“Who said this?” cried Joe, eagerly.
“Miss Mary,—Miss Martin. She said it was a credit to us all of the west, here, that there was one, at least, from Galway, who could do something besides horse-racing and cock-fighting—”