Page:A Legend of Camelot, Pictures and Poems, etc. George du Maurier, 1898.djvu/133

 school of Art which finds its home on the walls of the Grosvenor Gallery; they regarded its disciples as renegades, and its gifted leader as a base apostate, who, having once known the better way, had chosen to depart from it, and had been branded in consequence with the indelible Hall Mark of ineffaceable popular renown. In extenuation of such extreme views, it must be admitted that the authorities of the Grosvenor Gallery had not invited Jack Spratt and his trusty friends to exhibit there; not through any ill-will, but because they had never heard of them.

Their appearance in the streets of busy London was in no way remarkable, for they walked abroad in shapeless hats, long cloaks, and cheap garments of an ordinary reach-me-down description; but often, when they met at the Jack Spratts' in the gloaming, or at evensong, or Curfew time, as they would alternately call it, they would doff their ponchos, slip their ready-made trousers, and display themselves, regardless of expense, in the outward bravery of that early Italian time they held so dear; and all this without ever departing from the grave and impressive demeanour that was habitual to them.

Sorrow and sickness seldom visit those who lead such pure, simple, and innocent lives. In their hours of sorrow, the Spratts and their friends would find comfort in gazing at some pretty combination of form and colour; such as a dead frog lying on a blue china plate in the sun, or a cracked sackbut with a peacock's feather sticking out of its bung-hole. Their only abiding grief was a hideous red pillar-post which stood outside the gates of their pretty dwelling; and so much did they loath this undecorative object, that they never used it, on principle, but even in bad weather would walk half a mile to post such few letters as they ever had occasion to write. Indeed, most of these had been written to the Vestry, demanding that the pillar-post should be removed, on the score of its unsightliness, and offering to replace it by a new sundial, designed, free of charge, by Jack Spratt, from the old one in his arbour, on condition that the parish should bear the expense of the original material, its carving according to Jack Spratt's design, and its subsequent erection. But the Vestry had taken no notice of these appeals.

In their hours of sickness alone the Spratts were as other people, and sent immediately for the nearest medical practitioner (or leech, as they preferred to call him); their only sickness to speak of had arisen from once feasting mediævally on an old roast peacock, in company with the trusty friends, who had also been taken very bad on that occasion; and they ever afterwards avoided that dish, but at their banquets would have the peacock's head and what was left of its tail tacked on to some more digestible bird, which, duly roasted beforehand, and allowed to cool, would thus adorn their board with borrowed plumes before it was carved and eaten, and so please their æsthetic sense without making them sick afterwards; a very wise precaution; for they were very much given to such old-fashioned hospitality, these Spratts: although their acquaintance was by their own choice (so they said) rather limited; for as staunch Radicals, they hated the aristocracy, whose very existence they ignored; shunned the professional class, which they scorned, on account of its scientific and utilitarian tendency; and loathed the middle class, from which they had sprung, because it was Philistine; and although they professed to deeply honour the working man, they very wisely managed to see as little of him as they possibly could; and thus, living for each other, and their chosen friends, they haughtily held aloof from the outer world, which, it must be owned, betrayed no wish whatever to lure them from their seclusion.

Although the kind of felicity we have tried to depict may not commend itself to the taste of the general reader, he cannot fail to see that for such unworldly people as the Spratts, it leaves nothing to be desired. Youth, health, simplicity of life, a modest competency, self-respect, friendship, domestic affection, the love of Art, innocence of mundane ambition, blameless aspirations and regrets, everything seems combined to make their existence happy and blessed; not to mention that belief in themselves and each other and all that belongs 60