Читать книгу The Finger of Fate: A Romance - Reid Mayne - Страница 15

On the road to Rome, leading out into the Campagna, a young man might have been seen wending his way towards the hill country where shoot down the spurs of the Apennines. At a glance he was not an Italian. A fine open face, with cheeks of ruddy hue, curls caressing them, of a rich auburn colour; but, above all, a frame of strong, almost herculean, build, borne forward by a free unfettered step, pronounced a son of the north – a Saxon! A portfolio under his arm, a palette carried in his left hand alongside, some half-dozen camel’s-brushes, clearly proclaimed his profession – a painter in search of a subject.

There was nothing in all this to attract the attention of those he met or passed upon the route – neither the personal appearance of the painter nor the paraphernalia that declared his calling. An artist on the roads around Rome is an entity that may be often encountered – though perhaps not so often as a bandit.

If any one took notice of the individual in question, it was merely to remark that he was a stranger —un Inglese– and perhaps wonder why he was trudging out towards the hills, while he might be enjoying himself ten times better in the cabarets and inns of the Eternal City.

That the artist in question was “Inglese,” no one who saw him doubted; nor will the reader, when told that he was no other than Henry Harding.

Why he was upon a Roman instead of an English road is already known. Flung upon his own resources in the great city of London – too proud to return to his father’s home, stung by what he fancied to have been a refusal to his last request – he had, under the tutelage of his Italian friend, now taken to painting as his profession. He had not stained canvas without some success – enough to justify him in following the advice of Luigi Torreani, and completing his studies under the bright skies of Italy, and amid the classic scenes of the seven-hilled city. Thither had he found his way, with no other support than the precarious earnings of his pencil. This was fully evidenced by his threadbare coat and chafed chaussure, as he trudged afoot along the dusty road of the Romagna.

Whither was he going? He was far enough out to have almost lost sight of the Eternal City, and those classic monuments that only give proof of its decay. These, one would think, should have been the objects of his study – the subjects upon which to perfect it. And so they had been. He had painted them one after another – portal and palace, sculptured figure and fresco, Capitol and Coliseum – till his head was tired with such art delineation; and he was now on his way to the hills, to drink from the pure fountain of Nature – to fling rock and stream and tree upon the canvas, under the light of an Italian sun, and the canopy of an azure sky.

It was his first journey to the Campagna; he was going without a guide, only inquiring now and then for Valdiorno, a small mountain town lying near the Neapolitan frontier. To the “sindico” of this place he carried a letter of introduction, obtained from his son, who was the young Italian artist he had left behind him in London. But the chief object of this country excursion was to find some scene paintable, and worthy of being painted.

He had not made many miles along his route before he was tempted to stop, and this more than once. Every turn of the road presented him with a landscape; every peasant would have made a picture. He resisted these allurements with the thought, that these landscapes, so near to the city, might all have been sketched before; while the peasants could be caught at any time, in the streets of Rome itself, and there painted in all their picturesqueness.

On towards some shaggy hills he saw looming out in the distance; and on went he, until near the close of the day he found himself toiling up a steep ravine, whose every turn gave him a tableau worthy of being transferred to canvas, framed, and conspicuously suspended against the walls of the Royal Academy.

After a slight repast drawn from his wallet, and a smoke from his meerschaum pipe, he set about painting a scene, he had at length selected. He fought against the fatigue of his journey, for the sake of catching a magnificent mellow sunset that had welcomed his approach to the place. He had no need to add to the “composition” of his picture. Rocks, trees, cliffs, torrents foaming over them, points of chiaro and oscuro, abruptly contrasted – all were under his eye. If there was aught wanting to give life to the landscape, it was only a few figures – animal or human – and these he could fill in according to his fancy.

“Ah,” he reflected aloud, “just the scene for a band of brigands. I’d give something to have a half-dozen of them in the foreground. I could then make a picture of these fantastic Turpins drawn from real life – a thing, I take it, which has never been done before. That would be something to hang up in the Royal Academy – something worth wasting colour and canvas on. I’d give – ”

“How much?” answered a voice that seemed to issue out of the rocks behind him. “How much would you give, Master Painter, for that you speak o’? If you bid high enough, I dare say I mout find the means o’ accommodatin’ you.”

Along with the voice came the footsteps of a man – not in soft, stealthy tread, as of one approaching unawares, but with a quick thump, as the man himself dropped down from a rock above upon the little platform where the artist had planted his sticks. The latter looked up, at first in surprise, then rather in pleased admiration. He was thinking only of his art, and before him stood the very model of his imagination – a man clad in a complete suit of plush and coloured velvet, breeched, bandaged, and belted, with a plumed hat upon his head, and a short carbine across his arms – in costume and caparison the beau-ideal of a brigand. Two things alone hindered him from appearing the true heroic type of stage representation, such as we are accustomed to see in “Mazzaroni” and the “Devil’s Brother.” There was a broad Saxon face, and a tongue unmistakably from the shire of Somerset. Both were so marked, that but for the velveteen knee-breeches, the waist-belt, the elaborately buttoned vest, and the plumed hat upon his head, Henry Harding might have thought himself at home, and in the presence of a man he had met before.

Ere the young artist had sufficiently recovered from his surprise to respond to the unexpected salutation, the picturesque stranger continued —

“Want to paint brigands, do ye? Well, there’s a chance for ye now. The band’s close by. Jess wait a bit; I’ll call ’em down. Hey, there, captin!” he cried, changing his English to Italian, “ye may come on. It’s only one o’ them poor devils o’ daubers from the city. He wants to take our likenesses. I s’pose you’ve no objection to his doin’ it?”

Before the painter could make response, or remove his paraphernalia out of the way, the ledge he had selected for his “point of view” was crowded with figures – one and all of them so picturesquely attired, that had they stood in the Corso, or elsewhere within police protection, he would have been only too delighted to have painted them with the most Pre-Raphaelitish detail. As it was, all thoughts of art were chased out of his mind. He saw that he was encircled by banditti!

To attempt to retreat was out of the question. They were above, below, on all sides of him. Even had he been swifter than any of the gang, their carbines were slung handy en bandoulière; and a volley from these would certainly have checked his flight. There was no alternative but to resign himself to his fate – which was now to be made a captive.