Reynolds's Discourses'—both discovered in the shop, and studied incessantly, till the boy of eighteen felt himself the peer of any Academician, and walked proudly down the Kendal streets, thinking of the half-finished paintings in his garret at home, and of the dreams, the conceptions, the ambitions of which that garret had already been the scene.
After that—some evil days! Quarrels with his father, refusals to be bound to the trade, to accept the shop as his whole future and inheritance—painful scenes with the old man, and with the customers who complained of the son's rudeness and inattention—attempts of relations to mediate between the two, and all the time his own burning belief in himself and passion to be free. And at last a time of truce, of conditions made and accepted—the opening of the new Art School—evenings of delightful study there—and, suddenly, out of the mists, Phoebe's brown eyes, and Phoebe's soft encouragement!
Yes, it was Phoebe, Phoebe herself who had determined his career; let her consider that, when he asked for sacrifices! But for the balm she had poured upon his sore ambitions—but for those long walks and talks, in which she had been to him first the mere recipient of his dreams and egotisms, and then—since she had the loveliest eyes, and a young wild charm—a creature to be hotly wooed and desired, he might never have found courage enough to seize upon his fate.
For her sake indeed he had dared it all. She had consoled and inspired him; but she had made the breach with his father final. When they met she was only a struggling teacher in Miss Mason's school, the daughter of a small farmer in the Vale of Keswick. Old Fenwick looked much higher for his son. So there was renewed battle at home, till at last a couple of portrait commissions from a big house near Kendal clinched the matter. A hurried marriage had been followed by the usual parental thunders. And now they had five years to look back upon, years of love and struggle and discontent. By turning his hand to many things, Fenwick had just managed to keep the wolf from the door. He had worked hard, but without much success; and what had been an ordinary good opinion of himself had stiffened into a bitter self-assertion. He knew very well that he was regarded as a conceited, quarrelsome fellow, and rather gloried in it. The world, he considered, had so far treated him ill; he would at any rate keep his individuality.
Phoebe, too, once so sweet, so docile, so receptive, had begun to be critical, to resist him now and then. He knew that in some ways he had disappointed her; and there was gall in the thought. As to the London plan, his word would no longer be enough. He would have to wrestle with and overcome her.
London!—the word chimed him from the past—threw wide the future. He moved on along the rough road, possessed by dreams. He had a vision of his first large picture; himself rubbing in the figures, life-size, or at work on the endless studies for every part—fellow-students coming to look, Academicians, buyers; he heard himself haranguing, plunging headlong into ideas and theories, holding his own with the best of 'the London chaps.' Between whiles, of course, there would be hack-work—illustration—portraits—anything to keep the pot boiling. And always, at the end of this vista, there was success—success great and tangible.
He was amused by his own self-confidence, and laughed as he walked.
But his mood never wavered.
He had the power—the gift. Nobody ever doubted that who saw him draw. And he had, besides, what so many men of his own class made shipwreck for want of—he had imagination—enough to show him what it is that makes the mere craftsman into the artist, enough to make him hunger night and day for knowledge, travel, experience. Thanks to his father's shop, he had read a great deal already; and with a little money, how he would buy books, how he would read them!—
And at the thought, fresh images, now in rushing troops, and now in solitary fantastic beauty, began to throng before the inward eye, along the rich background of the valley; images from poetry and legend, stored deep in a greedy fancy, a retentive mind. They came from all sources—Greek, Arthurian, modern; Hephaestus, the lame god and divine craftsman, receiving Thetis in his workshop of the skies, the golden automata wrought by his own hands supporting him on either side; the maidens of Achilles washing the dead and gory body of Hector in the dark background of the hut, while in front swift-foot Achilles holds old Priam in talk till the sad offices are over, and the father may be permitted to behold his son; Arthur and Sir Bedivere beside the lake; Crusaders riding to battle—the gleam of their harness—the arched necks of their steeds—the glory of their banners—the shade and sunlight of the deep vales through which they pass; the Lady of Shalott as the curse conies upon her—Oenone—Brunhilda—Atalanta. Swift along the May woods the figures fled, vision succeeding vision, beauty treading on beauty. It became hallucination—a wildness—an ecstasy. Fenwick stood still, gave himself up to the possession—let it hold him—felt the strangeness and the peril of it—then, suddenly, wrenched himself free.
Running down to the edge of the river, he began to pick up stones and throw them violently into the stream. It was a remedy he had long learnt to use. The physical action released the brain from the tyranny of the forms which held it. Gradually they passed away. He began to breathe more quietly, and, sitting down by the water, his head in his hands, he gave himself up to a quieter pleasure in the nature round him, and in the strength of his own faculty.
To something else also. For while he was sitting there, he found himself praying ardently for success—that he might do well in London, might make a name for himself, and leave his mark on English art. This was to him a very natural outlet of emotion; he was not sure what he meant by it precisely; but it calmed him.
CHAPTER II
Meanwhile Phoebe Fenwick was watching for her husband.
She had come out upon the green strip of ground in front of Green Nab Cottage, and was looking anxiously along the portion of high-road which was visible from where she stood.
The small, whitewashed house—on this May day, more than a generation ago—stood on a narrow shelf that juts out from the face of one of the eastern fells, bounding the valley of Great Langdale.
When Phoebe, seeing no one on the road, turned to look how near the sun might be to its setting, she saw it, as Wordsworth saw it of old, dropping between the peaks of those 'twin brethren' which to the northwest close in the green bareness of the vale. Between the two pikes the blaze lingered, enthroned; the far winding of the valley, hemmed in also by blue and craggy fells, was pierced by rays of sunset; on the broad side of the pikes the stream of Dungeon Ghyll shone full-fed and white; the sheep, with their new-born lambs beside them, studded the green pastures of the valley; and sounds of water came from the fell-sides. Everywhere lines of broad and flowing harmony, moulded by some subtle union of rock and climate and immemorial age into a mountain beauty which is the peculiar possession of Westmoreland and Cumberland. Neither awful, nor yet trivial; neither too soft for dignity, nor too rugged for delight. The Westmoreland hills are the remains of an infinitely older world—giants decayed, but of a great race and ancestry; they have the finish, the delicate or noble loveliness—one might almost say the manner—that comes of long and gentle companionship with those chief forces that make for natural beauty, with air and water, with temperate suns and too abundant rains. Beside them the Alps are inhuman; the Apennines mere forest-grown heaps—mountains in the making; while all that Scotland gains from the easy enveloping glory of its heather, Westmoreland, which is almost heatherless, must owe to an infinitude of fine strokes, tints, curves, and groupings, to touches of magic and to lines of grace, yet never losing the wild energy of precipice and rock that belongs of right to a mountain world.
To-day Langdale was in spring. The withered fern was still red on the sides of the pikes; there was not a leaf on the oaks, still less on the ashes; but the larches
