What Will He Do With It | Page 9

returned Vance, "naturally you have, for it is you, I
suspect, who alone have the intention to pay for it, and three pounds
appear to be the price. Dearish, eh?"
"Ah, Vance, if I had three pounds!"
"Tush; and say no more till we have supped. I have the hunger of a
wolf."
Just in sight of the next milestone the young travellers turned a few
yards down a green lane, and reached a small inn on the banks of the

Thames. Here they had sojourned for the last few days, sketching,
boating, roaming about the country from sunrise, and returning to
supper and bed at nightfall. It was the pleasantest little inn,--an arbour,
covered with honeysuckle, between the porch and the river,--a couple
of pleasure-boats moored to the bank; and now all the waves rippling
under the moonlight.
"Supper and lights in the arbour," cried Vance to the waiting-maid,
"hey, presto, quick! while we turn in to wash our hands. And hark! a
quart jug of that capital whiskey-toddy."
CHAPTER IV.
Being a chapter that links the past to the future by the gradual
elucidation of antecedents.
O wayside inns and pedestrian rambles! O summer nights, under
honeysuckle arbours, on the banks of starry waves! O Youth, Youth!
Vance ladled out the toddy and lighted his cigar; then, leaning his head
on his hand and his elbow on the table, he looked with an artist's eye
along the glancing river.
"After all," said he, "I am glad I am a painter; and I hope I may live to
be a great one."
"No doubt, if you live, you will be a great one," cried Lionel, with
cordial sincerity. "And if I, who can only just paint well enough to
please myself, find that it gives a new charm to Nature--"
"Cut sentiment," quoth Vance, "and go on."
"What," continued Lionel, unchilled by the admonitory interruption,
"must you feel who can fix a fading sunshine--a fleeting face--on a
scrap of canvas, and say 'Sunshine and Beauty, live there forever!'"
VANCE.--"Forever! no! Colours perish, canvas rots. What remains to
us of Zeuxis? Still it is prettily said on behalf of the poetic side of the

profession; there is a prosaic one;--we'll blink it. Yes; I am glad to be a
painter. But you must not catch the fever of my calling. Your poor
mother would never forgive me if she thought I had made you a dauber
by my example."
LIONEL (gloomily).--"No. I shall not be a painter! But what can I be?
How shall I ever build on the earth one of the castles I have built in the
air? Fame looks so far,--Fortune so impossible. But one thing I am bent
upon" (speaking with knit brow and clenched teeth), "I will gain an
independence somehow, and support my mother."
VANCE.--"Your mother is supported: she has the pension--"
LIONEL.--"Of a captain's widow; and" (he added with a flushed cheek)
"a first floor that she lets to lodgers."
VANCE.--"No shame in that! Peers let houses; and on the Continent,
princes let not only first floors, but fifth and sixth floors, to say nothing
of attics and cellars. In beginning the world, friend Lionel, if you don't
wish to get chafed at every turn, fold up your pride carefully, put it
under lock and key, and only let it out to air upon grand occasions.
Pride is a garment all stiff brocade outside, all grating sackcloth on the
side next to the skin. Even kings don't wear the dalmaticum except at a
coronation. Independence you desire; good. But are you dependent now?
Your mother has given you an excellent education, and you have
already put it to profit. My dear boy," added Vance, with unusual
warmth, "I honour you; at your age, on leaving school, to have shut
yourself up, translated Greek and Latin per sheet for a bookseller, at
less than a valet's wages, and all for the purpose of buying comforts for
your mother; and having a few pounds in your own pockets, to rove
your little holiday with me and pay your share of the costs! Ah, there
are energy and spirit and life in all that, Lionel, which will found upon
rock some castle as fine as any you have built in air. Your hand, my
boy."
This burst was so unlike the practical dryness, or even the more
unctuous humour, of Frank Vance, that it took Lionel by surprise, and
his voice faltered as he pressed the hand held out to him. He answered,

"I don't deserve your praise, Vance, and I fear the pride you tell me to
put under lock and key has the larger share of the merit you ascribe to
better motives. Independent? No! I have never been so."
VANCE.--"Well, you depend on a parent: who,