"
"That makes me the more hopeful. You fellows, with your Tam o' Shanters and
aggressive neckties and knickerbockers and calves, would frighten the
devil. I'm shy myself. If she's natural, then we shall possibly understand
each other."
"I'll bet you ten to one in pounds you won't have your wish," said Brady.
"No, shan't bet. You're all so certain. Probably I shall find myself beaten
like the rest of you. But it's worth trying. She's a pretty thing."
"How will you paint her if you get the chance?"
"Don't know yet. I should like to paint her in a wolf-skin with a thread of
wolf's teeth round her neck and a celt-headed spear in her hand."
"Art will be a loser by the pending repulse," declared Brady. "And now, as
my whisky-bottle's empty and my lamp going out, you chaps can follow its
example whenever you please."
So the men scattered into a starry night, and went, each his way, through
the streets of the sleeping village.
CHAPTER TWO
IN A HALO OF GOLD
Edmund Murdoch's studio stood high on Newlyn hill, and Barron had taken
comfortable rooms in a little lodging-house close beside it. The men often
enjoyed breakfast in each other's company, but on the following morning,
when Murdoch strolled over to see his friend, he found that his rooms were
empty.
Barron, in fact, was already nearly a mile from Newlyn, and, at the moment
when the younger artist sought him, he stood upon a footpath which ran
through plowed fields to the village of Paul.
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