After another period of mere gazing, he looked around. Yes, the place would do admirably for a painting room. The vault ran north and south, and the back or lower end of the archway, that from which the scene should be painted, faced the north, which settled the question of light in his favour. Then the archway was quite wide enough for an easel.
The legs of the easel might stand in the water, and he could make a little platform of flat stones on which to rest a seat for himself. At the back of the archway spread an open green space. The place was damp. But then in summer the roof would not drip, and that was all he cared about. He should have to write up to London for a much larger canvas than any he had with him. His easel, too, he should write for. Well, he'd go back to The Beagle now and have some breakfast, and write his letters afterwards.
He clambered up out of the hollow on the northern side, and walked back to the inn much more briskly than he had come.
"I shall make sketches and studies of the place while I am waiting for the easel and the canvas," he thought, as he went along the road.
When he arrived at the inn he ordered breakfast, and sat down to write a couple of letters while he was waiting. The first of these was to the man in London from whom he got his colours, asking him to send a canvas of the size he wanted. The second ran as follows:
"Beagle Inn, Anerly, Devonshire,
"June, 18--.
"May it please your Grace,--I am now sojourning in Anerly, one of the most charming villages in the dominions of her who calls you Our right trusty and right entirely beloved Cousin. Everything here, including, of course, myself, is excellent, except the bread, which is beastly. The cocks and hens, the scenery, the cider, and all other things of that class, cannot be surpassed. There is a man here, six feet high, twenty-three years of age, sixteen stone ten (not an ounce of which you could pinch with a steel nippers), whom I have been telling of you, and who is awfully anxious to fight you. He is by profession a carpenter. He never saws a three-inch deal, but breaks it across his knee. He says he will fight you for nothing with great pleasure. I want you to come down at once and stop with me for a week or two. I'll treat you like a prince. You shall have three full meals and as many quarts of cider. The fact is, dear old Duke, I am going to paint a picture here. It's awfully good. I'll swear to you it's the loveliest thing you ever saw. It's the real whangdoodle, and no mistake. Come down and judge for yourself. And now I want you to do a thing for me. Go to my diggings (I mean the studio), get my big box of oils and my easel, and send them on here. You shall have one extra quart of cider for this job if you come. But if you don't come you shall not have a stiver. If you come I will tell you a story I heard here, and which will surely make your fortune if you write it. I am going to paint Anerly church, and this story is about Anerly church; so that if you come down, see the place, and do the story, it will be in a magnificent way writing up to my picture; and if you get out your book by next May, when your 'Romance of Anerly Church' is in the libraries, and my 'Under Anerly Bridge' is on the line, we shall both be helping one another to fame and fortune. Now, whatever you do or avoid doing, you must come here. I am called for breakfast. But remember and come.--I have the honour to be, my lord Duke, your Grace's most obliged and obedient servant,
"Edward Graham.
"To His Grace the Duke of Long Acre.