Gibbous House 15

The tedium of the journey was somewhat relieved a day later at York, where two passengers joined the coach. One was a young man of about 25 years dressed in a studiedly shabby fashion. The other, his companion, though of a similar age, most unaccountably affected a beard of patriarchal proportions. I surmised that they could not but be artists, as they did not interrupt their spiky debate save for a nod to each of the four of us. Although I could not follow or fathom the argument, it was entertaining enough in its conduct to grace the lower class of theatre. At least at first. Most pontificatory in style, as one might have expected, were the declarations made from behind the abramic whiskers:

‘It is, dear Collins, the duty of every artist to reveal the correspondence between sign and fact.’

Incredibly, the other’s reponse began, ‘Pshaw.’ A word in whose existence, outside of the theatre and novels attributed to 'A Lady', I had thitherto not believed:

‘Pshaw, Hunt! Are we so in thrall to symbolism that we cannot paint the world as it is? ‘

‘What are signs but those things which signify?’

It was onerous, but I contained myself and did not enquire what this last itself might signify.

Collins gulped like a hooked fish, trying to swallow this tasty bait. Hunt went on:

‘Even your brother would admit, that there is surface and there is the hidden for both word and image.’

On and on they went, back and forth, forth and back: an interminable game of battledore and shuttlecock undeterred by the rolling eyes of their audience. I confess that, after an hour or two, I felt an urge to pull fiercely on that prodigious beard until he finally offered a communication in a tongue common to his fellow travellers.

In desperation, Collins, the more earthbound of the two daubers, attempted to dragoon some support for his side in the argument and addressed the Reverend Parminter thus:

‘Reverend, the church no longer needs the power of religious imagery to spread it’s message surely?’

‘Among the lost and fallen there are many without the gift of letters.’

Resolving to feign sleep, lest I be drawn into this lofty debate, I was soon blessed by dreamless oblivion.

At least until Newcastle, where the dusk was falling. All passengers debarked with none of the insincere invitations and certainly no exchanging of cards which might have been expected in more congenial company. I stood by the coach step and watched as the merchants took leave of each other a little reluctantly, it seemed. The Reverend stalked away straight-backed with nary a backward glance. The artists, arm in arm in brotherhood, continued their debate for all the world as if the winning of any argument were not the purpose of it.

When I stood quite alone before the coaching house, I withdrew my purse with some trepidation and counted the sum of six shillings threepence ha’penny, of which an alarming amount consisted in worn copper. Still it was sufficient unto my needs and, forswearing any likelihood of indebtedness to John Brown & Son of Seahouses, I went in search of the Landlord to enquire of an outside seat to Alnwick.