An ode in four hundred lines would not have seemed so touching to Esther; her eyes filled with happy tears; yes, here was the father of whom she had dreamed, whom Dick had described; simple, enthusiastic, unworldly, kind, a painter at heart, and a fine gentleman in manner.
And just then the Admiral perceived a house by the wayside, and something depending over the house door which might be construed as a sign by the hopeful and thirsty.
‘Is that,’ he asked, pointing with his stick, ‘an inn?’
There was a marked change in his voice, as though he attached importance to the inquiry: Esther listened, hoping she should hear wit or wisdom.
Dick said it was.
‘You know it?’ inquired the Admiral.
‘I have passed it a hundred times, but that is all,’ replied Dick.
‘Ah,’ said Van Tromp, with a smile, and shaking his head; ‘you are not an old campaigner; you have the world to learn. Now I, you see, find an inn so very near my own home, and my first thought is my neighbours. I shall go forward and make my neighbours’ acquaintance; no, you needn’t come; I shall not be a moment.’
And he walked off briskly towards the inn, leaving Dick alone with Esther on the road.
‘Dick,’ she exclaimed, ‘I am so glad to get a word with you; I am so happy, I have such a thousand things to say; and I want you to do me a favour. Imagine, he has come without a paint-box, without an easel; and I want him to have all. I want you to get them for me in Thymebury. You saw, this moment, how his heart turned to painting. They can’t live without it,’ she added; meaning perhaps Van Tromp and Michel Angelo.