"Not of so much consequence, though they come into play sometimes too," the old man replied, arranging the brushes between his fingers, "but the head" and he thoughtfully shook this interesting and important part of his person.
"I have just seen it at the exhibition," I said, a light suddenly flashing upon me in regard to the part the old man's head really played in the family arrangements.
"Does pretty well, don't it?" said the sergeant; "but the monk is better still."
"Who?"
"The monk. To be sure nobody knows what we are painting. But you must see it."
The old man sprang up with youthful alacrity and led me into a large and high apartment adjoining, which was Paula's studio. Sketches and designs of all kinds were hanging and leaning upon the walls, with heads, arms, and legs in plaster, a couple of sets of ancient armor, a lay figure draped with a long white mantle, and near the window, which reached to the ceiling, an easel with a picture from which the sergeant removed the covering.
"Here's the place to stand," he said. "Is not that splendid?"
"Splendid indeed!" I exclaimed.
"Was I not right that my head is quite another thing here?" said the old man, pointing proudly to the work. The scene was from Nathan the Wise, and represented the monk about to sound the intentions of the templar. Both figures stood out clear and plastic, with such animation in their looks that one might almost catch the words from their lips; the grand simplicity in the good weather-beaten face of the pious brother who had once been a squire, and had many a valiant lord and accomplished many a hard service, none of which had ever been so hard to him as this commission of the patriarch. On the other side the templar, young and slender, his head thrown defiantly back, his lips compressed with an expression of discontent, and his blue eyes bent upon the poor monk. In the middle distance a portion of Nathan's house, and the palms that surround the Holy Tomb; behind these the domes and slender minarets of Jerusalem, with the haughty crescent sharply defined against the southern sky, where the eye lost itself with delight in the immeasurable distance.
"The young gentleman has something from us; here, for instance, and here," said the sergeant, pointing with his finger at the eyes and mouth of the templar, and then looking again at me; "but I said at once that it is not so good as King Richard; by far not so good," and the old man shook his head gravely.