Now, however, Mr Stanforth turned his easel round and displayed the still unfinished picture for which he had begun to make sketches in Spain, when struck with the contrast of his new acquaintances, and with the capabilities of their appearance for picturesque treatment.
The picture was to be called “One of the Dragon Slayers,” and represented a woodland glade in the first glory of the earliest summer—blue sky, fresh green, white blossoms, and springing bluebells and primroses, all in full and yet delicate sunshine—a scene which might have stood for many a poetic description from Chaucer to Tennyson, a very image of nature, the same now as in the days of Arthur.
Dimly visible, as if he had crawled away among the brambles and bracken to die, was the gigantic form of the slain dragon, while, newly arrived on the scene, having dismounted from his horse, which was held by a page in the distance, was a knight in festal attire—a vigorous, graceful presentment of Alvar’s dark face and tall figure—who with one hand drew towards him the delivered maiden, a fair, slender figure in the first dawn of youth, who clung to him joyfully, while he laid the other in eager gratitude on the shoulder of the dragon slayer, who, manifestly wounded in the encounter, was leaning against a tree-trunk, and who, as he seemed to give the maiden back to her lover, with the other hand concealed in his breast a knot of the ribbon on her dress; thus hinting at the story, which after all was better told by the peculiar beaming smile of congratulation, the look of victory amid strife, of conquest over self and suffering—a look of love conquering pain, which was the real point of the picture.
Jack stood looking in silence, and uttering none of his newly-acquired opinions.
“Is it right, Jack?” said Mr Stanforth. “Yes, I know,” said Jack briefly; and then, “Every one will know Alvar’s portrait. And who is the lady?”
“She is a little niece of mine—almost a child,” said Mr Stanforth; while Cheriton interposed,—
“It is not a group of photographs, Jack. Of course the object was the idea of the picture, not our faces.”
“Well, Cherry,” said Mr Stanforth smiling, “your notion of sitting for your picture partakes of the photographic. You did not help me by calling up the dragon slayer’s look.”
“That was for the artist to supply,” said Cherry; “but it seems to me exactly how the knight ought to have looked.”
“For my part,” said Alvar, “I should not have liked to have been too late.”