“Ah! and how?” asked Kenelm.
“The image of my thought in the sketch, be it
poetry or whatever you prefer to call it, does not
stand forlorn in the crowded streets: the child
stands on the brow of the green hill, with the city
stretched in confused fragments below, and, thoughtless
of pennies and passers-by, she is playing with the
flowers she has gathered; but in play casting them
heavenward, and following them with heavenward eyes.”
“Good!” muttered Kenelm, “good!”
and then, after a long pause, he added, in a still
lower mutter, “Pardon me that remark of mine
the other day about a beefsteak. But own that
I am right: what you call a sketch from Nature
is but a sketch of your own thought.”
THE child with the flower-ball had vanished from the
brow of the hill; sinking down amid the streets below,
the rose-clouds had faded from the horizon; and night
was closing round, as the three men entered the thick
of the town. Tom pressed Kenelm to accompany
him to his uncle’s, promising him a hearty welcome
and bed and board, but Kenelm declined. He entertained
a strong persuasion that it would be better for the
desired effect on Tom’s mind that he should be
left alone with his relations that night, but proposed
that they should spend the next day together, and
agreed to call at the veterinary surgeon’s in
the morning.
When Tom quitted them at his uncle’s door, Kenelm
said to the minstrel, “I suppose you are going
to some inn; may I accompany you? We can sup
together, and I should like to hear you talk upon poetry
and Nature.”
“You flatter me much; but I have friends in
the town, with whom I lodge, and they are expecting
me. Do you not observe that I have changed my
dress? I am not known here as the ‘Wandering
Minstrel.’”
Kenelm glanced at the man’s attire, and for
the first time observed the change. It was still
picturesque in its way, but it was such as gentlemen
of the highest rank frequently wear in the country,—the
knickerbocker costume,—very neat, very new,
and complete, to the square-toed shoes with their
latchets and buckles.
“I fear,” said Kenelm, gravely, “that
your change of dress betokens the neighbourhood of
those pretty girls of whom you spoke in an earlier
meeting. According to the Darwinian doctrine
of selection, fine plumage goes far in deciding the
preference of Jenny Wren and her sex, only we are
told that fine-feathered birds are very seldom songsters
as well. It is rather unfair to rivals when you
unite both attractions.”
The minstrel laughed. “There is but one
girl in my friend’s house,—his niece;
she is very plain, and only thirteen. But to
me the society of women, whether ugly or pretty, is
an absolute necessity; and I have been trudging without
it for so many days that I can scarcely tell you how
my thoughts seemed to shake off the dust of travel
when I found myself again in the presence of—”
