It was a curious mood of the artist’s to sit down square in front of it and paint its paling paralleling across the picture, a somewhat daring stroke of composition to carry on the line of white tiling with one of white clothes. The sky displays an unusual departure from the artist’s custom, as the whole length of it is banked up with banks of cumuli.
The figures and the empty basket point to a little domestic episode. Boy and girl have been sent on an errand, but have not got beyond the farther side of the gate before they betake themselves to a loll on the grass, which has lengthened out to such an extent that the old grand-dame comes to the cottage door to look for their return, little witting that they are quietly crouched within a few feet of her, hidden behind the paling, over which lavender, sweet-pea, roses, peonies, and hollyhocks nod at them. They are even less conscious of wrong-doing and of impending scoldings than the cat, which sneaks homewards after a lengthened absence on a poaching expedition.
50. VALEWOOD FARM
From the Water-colour in the possession of the Artist.
Painted 1903.
Valewood is over the ridge which protects Haslemere on the south, and is a very pretty vale of sloping meadows fringed with wood, all under the shadow of Blackdown, to which it belongs. This is distinguished from most houses hereabouts in boasting a stream, the headwater of a string of ponds, whence starts the river Wey northwards on its tortuous journey round the western slopes of Hindhead. When Mrs. Allingham painted the house, which was inhabited by well-to-do yeomen from Devonshire, the dairying and the milking were still conducted by desirable hands, namely, those of milkmaids.
51. AN OLD HOUSE AT WEST TARRING
From the Water-colour in the possession of the Artist.
Painted 1900.
Worthing has been termed “a dull and dreary place, the only relief to which is its suburb of West Tarring.” This happening to have been one of the “peculiars” of the Archbishops of Canterbury, has buildings and objects of considerable antiquarian interest. The cottages which Mrs. Allingham selected for her drawing may be classed amongst them, for they are a type, as good as any in this volume, of the well-built, substantial dwelling-house of our progenitors of many centuries ago—one in which all the features that we have pointed out are to be found. The house has in course of time clearly become too big for its situation, and has consequently been parcelled out into cottages; this has necessitated some alteration of the front of the lower story, but otherwise it is an exceptionally well-preserved specimen. Long may it remain so.
52. AN OLD BUCKINGHAMSHIRE HOUSE
From the Water-colour in the possession of Mr. H. W. Birks.
Painted 1899.