Page:Pen And Pencil Sketches - Volume I.djvu/77

44 forsaking art for literature, became a successful novelist.

In the spring of the year 1860, Mr. Mudie took a party composed of two Dissenting ministers, Smallfield, of the Old Water Colour Society, and myself for a little foreign tour. One of these ministers was Mr. Mudie’s father-in-law, a kind- hearted old gentleman with a sunny nature ; the other a much younger man, named Graham, suc- cessor to Doctor Leifchild at Craven Chapel. It might appear an oddly assorted party, but we got on very harmoniously. Mr. Mudie paid all expenses of the journey, including those of living and sight-seeing. W e had a courier,

too, who spoke the most wonderful polyglot. “Quel wein is dat?” I once heard him ask a waiter. We visited that delightful trio of pic- turesque old towns, Ghent, Bruges, and Antwerp. Thence to Holland, making brief stays at Rotter- dam ; the Hague, with its splendid Rembrandts and over-rated Paul Potter; Leyden, where we went over the nurseries of a florist with the Shake- spearian name of Rosencrantz, who had many fine varieties of tulips and quantities of feathered