Part 36 (1/2)
”_He_ do . . . And that's what I got to find out. But it'll be all right when we get to 'Olmness.”
”Holmness?” queried Mr. Jessup. ”Where's Holmness?”
”It's an Island, in the Bristol Channel, w'ich is in the Free Library.
We're goin' that way, ain't we?”
”That's our direction, certainly; though we're a goodish way off.”
”No 'urry,” said Tilda graciously. ”We'll get there in time.”
Mr. Jessup smiled.
”Thank you. I am delighted to help, of course. You'll find friends there--at Holmness?”
She nodded.
”Though, as far as that goes,” she allowed yet more graciously, ”I'm not conplainin'. We've made friends all the way yet--an' you're the latest.”
”I am honoured, though in a sense I hardly deserve it. You did--if I may say--rather take charge of me, you know. Not that I mind. This is my picnic, and I don't undertake to carry you farther than Tewkesbury.
But is does occur to me that you owe me something on the trip.”
Tilda stiffened.
”You can put us ash.o.r.e where you like,” said she; ”but one d. is all I 'ave in my pocket, as may be 'twould a-been fairer t' a-told yer.”
The young man laughed outright and cheerfully as he headed the canoe for sh.o.r.e. They were close upon another weir and an ancient mill, whence, as they landed for another portage, clouds of fragrant flour-dust issued from the doorway, greeting their nostrils.
”It's this way,” he explained. ”I'm here to sketch Shakespeare's Country, and the trouble with me is, I've a theory.”
”It's--it's not a bad one, I 'ope?”
She hazarded this sympathetically, never having heard of a theory.
It sounded to her like the name of an internal growth, possibly malignant.
”Not half bad,” he a.s.sured her. He was cheerful about it, at any rate.
”I'm what they call an Impressionist. A man--I put it to you--has got to hustle after culture in these days and take it, so to speak, in tabloids. Now this morning, before you came along, I'd struck a magnificent notion. As I dare say you've been told, the way to get at the essence of a landscape is to half-close your eyes--you get the dominant notes that way, and shed the details. Well, I allowed I'd go one better, and see the whole show in motion. Have you ever seen a biograph--or a cinematograph, as some call it?”
”'Course I 'ave,” said Tilda. ”There was one in Maggs's Circus.”
”Then you'll have no trouble in getting the hang of my idea.
My complaint with Art is that it don't keep itself abreast of modern inventions. The cinematograph, miss, has come to stay, and the Art of the future, unless Art means to get left, will have to adopt its principles . . . Well, I couldn't put Shakespeare's country into motion; but on the river I could put myself in motion, which amounts to the same thing. With the cinematograph, I grant you, it's mostly the scene that's that in motion while _you_ sit still; but there's also a dodge by which _you're_ in the railway car and flying past the scenery.”
Tilda nodded.
”Maggs 'ad 'old of that trick too. 'E called it _A Trip on the Over'ead Railway, New York._”
”Right; and now you see. I allowed that by steering down Avon and keeping my eyes half closed, by the time I reached Tewkesbury I'd have Shakespeare's environment all boiled down and concentrated; and at Tewkesbury I 'd stop and slap in the general impression while it was fresh. But just here I ran my head full-b.u.t.t against another principle of mine, which is _plein air_.”
”Wot's that?”