as like as could be, ye'd be no nearer getting at your corn field, For what ye have to paint is what ye see; and when ye look at a corn field ye see nae single stalks at all, but a great mass of gold, as it were, with a touch of orange here, or paler yellow there, and a wash of green where the land is wet, and sometimes of warm red even, where the stalks are mixed with weeds; and ye are no going to get that color either by chasing the daylight out of the sky, and taking the thing into a room, and making a clever bit of a fuzzy sketch in gray and green and black. That's easy-but it's no the corn field. Ay, and

vas.

there's more. Ye've got to paint more than ye see. Ye've got to put just that something into the corn field that will make people's hearts warm to it when they see it on your canSuppose that ye've been ill for a month or two; laid on your back, maybe, and sick tired of the pattern on the walls o' your room; and at last the day comes when the doctor thinks you might be lifted into a carriage and taken oot for a drive. And we'll say it's a fine warm afternoon, and your heart is just full of wonder and gladness, like, at the trees and the soft air; and we'll say that all of a sudden, at the turning o' the road, ye come in sicht of this field of ripe corn, just as yellow as yellow can be under the afternoon sky. Ay, and what is it when ye see such a wonderful and beautiful thing what is it that brings the tears to your een? I say, what is it? For it's that ye've got to catch and put in your picture, or ye'll be a d -d mistake as a painter!"

Fitzgerald did not stay to ask him whether this was not demanding that the landscape painter should possess the nervous system of an invalid (though, perhaps, something might be said even for that theory, as applied to all forms of art); he was much too interested to interrupt. But by a singular chance Ross drifted away from painting altogether. He was

talking of the instinct for good color that many people had who had no artistic training whatsoever, and by accident he referred to fish and artificial flies, and so forth. Fitzgerald looked up suddenly.

"Are you a fisherman, too?" he said, quickly.

"A wee bit.

Are you?"

"I have thrown a fly," said Fitzgerald, modestly, and feeling in his pocket for a certain envelope.

"As I was saying, that's why I hold the salmon to be the king o' fish. He knows good color. It's no use trying him with your aniline dyes; yellow and scarlet and gold-that's what he watches for; whereas trout-ay, and even sea trout, are a mean, depraved, magenta-minded race o' creatures. Man, I filled my basket last year in Perthshire wi' the most miserable puce things."

"But what was the color?"

"Puce. A dirty, drab-lilac kind of thing it was. But that was naething to the fly that was recommended me for sea trout in Argyleshire-ay, and it took, too. Just think of this: the body, arsenic green worsted, with a bit of white tinsel; the hackle, a purple-blue; and the wings-Heaven knows where they came from except it might have been from a hoodie crow -a heedjous gray, like the color of a decayed corpse. Do ye think a salmon would have looked at such a thing?"

"Perhaps," said Master Willie, as he slowly drew out an envelope from his pocket and put it on the table, "this would be more to his liking?"

“Eh, man!” said Ross, drawing out the great flies in all their royal splendor of crimson silk, and yellow tinsel, and golden-pheasant feathers. "Where got ye them?"

"I have been amusing myself making them for a friendthe man I told you about; I could not think of any other way of showing him I was sensible of his kindness."

"Ay, did ye make these yoursel? Now that I think of it, ye dinna look as if ye had spent a' your life in a newspaper office."

"I have spent most of it tramping over wild bogs and on hill-sides," said Fitzgerald, with a laugh. "A good deal more than I should have done."

"Shooting?"

"Yes."

"What sort ?"

"Oh, mostly wild fowl, teal, snipe, woodcock, and so on, chiefly in the winter."

"Hard work, then?"

But here the conversation went far afield; for there were descriptions of winter nights on the bog-land, and winter mornings on the hill, and wild adventures along the shore in

snow-time or in the hard black frost. Even to Fitzgerald himself—who was pleased to see how interested his companion was in these reminiscences-it seemed that they were more picturesque now and here in London than when he had to get up shivering in the dark morning, and dress by candle-light, and sally forth through the silent streets of Inisheen. He forgot the wet clothes in describing the view from the mountainside outlooking to the sea. He forgot the mortification of misses in the glory of lucky finds. These days of sport that are lived over again in memory generally end with a heavy bag; and however tired and cold and wet and hungry the sportsman may have been in reality, he forgets all that, and remembers only the delight with which that heavy bag is thrown down in the hall, and the warm snug evening afterward, when the dinner things are removed, and chairs drawn to the fire, and the friendly tobacco begins to throw a charm over the soul.

Only once did Fitzgerald, who, it must be confessed, had enjoyed talking over these things, try to start his companion off again about painting. "Are you a sea-painter ?" he said. "Do you paint sea-pieces as well?" and then he glanced again at the dusty gray canvases.

"I?" said Ross. "No, I should think not! Why, it would break my heart. Other things are difficult enough; but that! Man, I see pictures of the sea at the Academy that just make one laugh. Every wave as accurately shaped and modelled as if it was cast out of melted cannon; every little turn of foam as clean cut as a meerschaum pipe. God! the fellows must be cleverer than Joshua the son of Nun, for they must have got the sea as well as the sun and clouds to stand still. Did ever man's eyes see moving water like that?—moving water, that is a constant distraction of lights and shifting shadows and forms -lightning touches, ye might say, so swift were they-all bewildering and glancing round ye; and that is what ye begin to cut and carve and stick on canvas as if it were slices of cream-cheese on the top o' green sealing-wax. No, no; it's bad enough inland. Even when ye get perfectly still shadows on a perfectly still loch, there's an oily kind of glisten that no pent-box is likely to get for ye. Eh, and such chances as we had sometimes at the wild fowl when we were camping out

that would have made your mouth water; ay, and at black game too. Nearly every morning when we went out to wash in the burn-that was when we had the caravan in the Trossachs-I've seen them walking about without the least fear o’ us. Maybe the old black-cock would give a cluck-cluck of warning, but the hen and her brood scarcely heeded. Deed, I once hit an old gray hen with a pent-brush, as sure as death. And when, at last, the keeper lent me a gun, and said I might shoot a bird once in a while-for our own cooking, ye ken, out I went as early as six o'clock." So again they were back on the various adventures and experiences of shooting; recalling vivid rambles in other years, now in Inverness-shire, now on the desolate bog-lands near to Inisheen. And so interesting was this talk that when Fitzgerald definitely rose to depart, at the hour of half past four in the morning, he had almost forgotten he had not seen his host's pictures.

66

Pictures," said John Ross, with a laugh, "toots no, man, ye can see pictures any day, and better than mine. But I would like ye to come in whenever ye have half an hour, and smoke a pipe, and let us know how ye are getting on."

"All right, I shall be delighted," said Fitzgerald, most heartily. "And I may learn something to-morrow-that is to say, if my nose has not become twice its natural size, in which case I shall keep in-doors."

CHAPTER V.

THE BEGINNING OF A CAREER.

HOWEVER, there was no trace of the blow discoverable next day, and so on this fine May morning Fitzgerald set about the accomplishment of his various tasks. First of all, he had to accompany his artist friend to the police station, though indeed he harbored no sentiment of revenge against the luckless Cobbler who had once more fallen into the clutches of the law. Then he proceeded to get the thirty pounds made transferable to Ireland. This, nevertheless, he did with some compunction. For, if he was to fight his way in London, was it fair to Kitty, who had intrusted her future to him, that he should thus throw away the sinews of war? Was it not running a tremendous risk to leave himself with only seven pounds before securing some definite work? But then, on the other hand, he had fair prospects before him; and he had the courage of two or three and twenty; besides, he was not going to allow that blackguard Maloney to triumph over his father, Coursing Club or no Coursing Club. And so he went and sent off the money, and then made his way to the Albany, where he had an appointment with Mr. Hilton Clarke. When Fiammetta showed him into the richly colored room, he found that gentleman reclining in a low easy-chair in a voluminous dressing-gown; a cigarette in one hand, a paper-covered novel in the other, while before him on the little table were the remains of a French breakfast.

'How are you, Fitzgerald?" he said, throwing aside the book. "Sit down and have some coffee and a cigarette. No? You'll find that Chartreuse worth trying. Well, and what did you think of the great Gifford? Was the godlike man up to your expectations?"

"I was very much interested," said Fitzgerald, rather timidly; for indeed he did not like the way in which Mr. Hilton Clarke spoke of the literary calling and of its professors, whilst he did not wish to show the presumption of putting himself