This is a very fair specimen of the criticisms that the long-enduring landscape painter has frequently to put up with when at work in the open.
Next our art-critic and photograph-admirer presumed that we must be strangers, as he knew most of the folk round about, but did not remember having “sighted us afore.” We replied that we were. “Now, do you know,” responded he, “I was sure of that”; and seeing no advantage in further continuing the conversation, we hastened off to our inn—and breakfast.
In spite of our early rising, it was ten o’clock before we got “under weigh,” but when one sets out exploring and sketching, to say nothing of gossiping, time flies.
It was one of those rare and perfect days that come only now and then in the year, which, when they come, linger lovingly in the memory for long after. A stilly day of soft sunshine wherein is no glare; overhead great rounded clouds of golden white, shading off into a tender pearly-gray, were sailing slowly across a sea of pure, pale blue,—clouds
CLOUD SCENERY
ever varying in size and form, so that the eye was involuntarily attracted to the scenery of the sky, as well as to that of the land; for the changeful sky-scape—as Turner, Constable, and other painters have shown—lends a wonderful charm to our English scenery,—clouds that caused vast cool-gray shadows to chase each other in endless succession over the wide countryside, till, space-diminished, the shadows vanished into infinity, where the circling gray of the dim horizon melted into a misty nothingness.
The warmth of the cheerful sunshine was tempered by a soothing southerly wind—a lazy wind that came to us laden with a mingling of fragrant country odours distilled from flower, field, tree, and countless green growing things as it lightly passed them by. It was a day inspiriting enough, one would have imagined, to convert even a confirmed pessimist into a cheerful optimist, and for us it made the fact of simply existing a something to be thankful for!
Manifestly the Fates were kindly disposed towards us. It was no small matter to start forth thus in the fulness and freshness of such a morning, free as the air we breathed, with our holiday only just beginning, its pleasures barely tasted, and positively no solicitude whatever except to reach an inn for the night; in truth, there was no room for the demon Care in our dog-cart, so he was compelled to stay behind “out of sight” and “out of mind.” We were purely on pleasure bent, and we managed very successfully to maintain that part of our programme from the beginning to the end of our tour. Good health means good spirits, and being out so much in the open air, we laid in a plentiful stock of the former. An out-of-door life, such as the one we led, without fatigue, and with a sufficiency of interest to pleasurably engage the attention, is the finest tonic in the world, I verily believe, for mind and body, bracing both up; so that the answer of the happy driving tourist to the doleful query, “Is life worth living?” would be, to employ the schoolboy’s expressive slang, “Very much so.”
After Stevenage we entered upon a pleasantly undulating and purely agricultural and pastoral country, with nothing noteworthy till we came to a neat little village that we made out from our map to be Graveley. Here an unpretending inn, the “George and Dragon” to wit, boasted of a fine wrought-iron support for its sign, doubtless a relic of a past prosperity when this was a much-travelled highway, and the hostelries on the road had the benefit of many customers. We noticed that the painting of the sign, at least in our estimation, was sadly inferior in artistic spirit to the clever craftsmanship displayed in the iron-work supporting it; possibly the sign-board was of old as artistically limned as its support was wrought, but the weathering of years would efface the drawing and colouring, and later and less skilful hands may have renewed the design, whilst, of course, the more enduring iron would still retain its ancient charm of form unimpaired.
The gracefulness and bold curving and twisting of the metal-work that supports and upholds the sign of many an ancient coaching inn had a peculiar fascination for us, and frequently brought our pencil