Chapter Fifteen.
A Sketcher Surprised.
On the road to Rome, leading out into the Campagna, a young man might have been seen wending his way towards the hill country where shoot down the spurs of the Apennines. At a glance he was not an Italian. A fine open face, with cheeks of ruddy hue, curls caressing them, of a rich auburn colour; but, above all, a frame of strong, almost herculean, build, borne forward by a free unfettered step, pronounced a son of the north—a Saxon! A portfolio under his arm, a palette carried in his left hand alongside, some half-dozen camel’s-brushes, clearly proclaimed his profession—a painter in search of a subject.
There was nothing in all this to attract the attention of those he met or passed upon the route—neither the personal appearance of the painter nor the paraphernalia that declared his calling. An artist on the roads around Rome is an entity that may be often encountered—though perhaps not so often as a bandit.
If any one took notice of the individual in question, it was merely to remark that he was a stranger—un Inglese—and perhaps wonder why he was trudging out towards the hills, while he might be enjoying himself ten times better in the cabarets and inns of the Eternal City.
That the artist in question was “Inglese,” no one who saw him doubted; nor will the reader, when told that he was no other than Henry Harding.
Why he was upon a Roman instead of an English road is already known. Flung upon his own resources in the great city of London—too proud to return to his father’s home, stung by what he fancied to have been a refusal to his last request—he had, under the tutelage of his Italian friend, now taken to painting as his profession. He had not stained canvas without some success—enough to justify him in following the advice of Luigi Torreani, and completing his studies under the bright skies of Italy, and amid the classic scenes of the seven-hilled city. Thither had he found his way, with no other support than the precarious earnings of his pencil. This was fully evidenced by his threadbare coat and chafed chaussure, as he trudged afoot along the dusty road of the Romagna.
Whither was he going? He was far enough out to have almost lost sight of the Eternal City, and those classic monuments that only give proof of its decay. These, one would think, should have been the objects of his study—the subjects upon which to perfect it. And so they had been. He had painted them one after another—portal and palace, sculptured figure and fresco, Capitol and Coliseum—till his head was tired with such art delineation; and he was now on his way to the hills, to drink from the pure fountain of Nature—to fling rock and stream and tree upon the canvas, under the light of an Italian sun, and the canopy of an azure sky.