The sun was setting when from the brow of a hill they
beheld the spires of Luscombe, imbedded amid the level
meadows that stretched below, watered by the same
stream that had wound along their more rural pathway,
but which now expanded into stately width, and needed,
to span it, a mighty bridge fit for the convenience
of civilized traffic. The town seemed near, but
it was full two miles off by road.
“There is a short cut across the fields beyond
that stile, which leads straight to my uncle’s
house,” said Tom; “and I dare say, sir,
that you will be glad to escape the dirty suburb by
which the road passes before we get into the town.”
“A good thought, Tom. It is very odd that
fine towns always are approached by dirty suburbs;
a covert symbolical satire, perhaps, on the ways to
success in fine towns. Avarice or ambition go
through very mean little streets before they gain
the place which they jostle the crowd to win,—in
the Townhall or on ’Change. Happy the man
who, like you, Tom, finds that there is a shorter
and a cleaner and a pleasanter way to goal or to resting-place
than that through the dirty suburbs!”
They met but few passengers on their path through
the fields,—a respectable, staid, elderly
couple, who had the air of a Dissenting minister and
his wife; a girl of fourteen leading a little boy seven
years younger by the hand; a pair of lovers, evidently
lovers at least to the eye of Tom Bowles; for, on
regarding them as they passed unheeding him, he winced,
and his face changed. Even after they had passed,
Kenelm saw on the face that pain lingered there:
the lips were tightly compressed, and their corners
gloomily drawn down.
Just at this moment a dog rushed towards them with
a short quick bark,—a Pomeranian dog with
pointed nose and pricked ears. It hushed its
bark as it neared Kenelm, sniffed his trousers, and
wagged its tail.
“By the sacred Nine,” cried Kenelm, “thou
art the dog with the tin tray! where is thy master?”
The dog seemed to understand the question, for it
turned its head significantly; and Kenelm saw, seated
under a lime-tree, at a good distance from the path,
a man, with book in hand, evidently employed in sketching.
“Come this way,” he said to Tom:
“I recognize an acquaintance. You will
like him.” Tom desired no new acquaintance
at that moment, but he followed Kenelm submissively.
“YOU see we are fated to meet again,”
said Kenelm, stretching himself at his ease beside
the Wandering Minstrel, and motioning Tom to do the
same. “But you seem to add the accomplishment
of drawing to that of verse-making! You sketch
from what you call Nature?”
“From what I call Nature! yes, sometimes.”
