An English holiday with car and camera . ilst we were so doing a man came up to us andproclaimed himself as the caretaker, and asked ifwe would like to see over the place. Then hewent on: Its a pretty little house; its calledConstables Cottage, for the painter of that name,of whom you may have heard, lived in it for sometime, and painted a lot of pictures in that room,pointing at the same time indefinitely upwards tothe sky ; but we imagined he meant to indicate thewindow in the large gable, and it happened weimagined rightly. It has been restored, and isas good as new, he added, but its very
An English holiday with car and camera . ilst we were so doing a man came up to us andproclaimed himself as the caretaker, and asked ifwe would like to see over the place. Then hewent on: Its a pretty little house; its calledConstables Cottage, for the painter of that name,of whom you may have heard, lived in it for sometime, and painted a lot of pictures in that room,pointing at the same time indefinitely upwards tothe sky ; but we imagined he meant to indicate thewindow in the large gable, and it happened weimagined rightly. It has been restored, and isas good as new, he added, but its very old-fashioned inside. Truly, one need not look twiceto discover that externally it had been thoroughlyrestored, even to the extent of looking painfullymodern, but not unpicturesquely so. Within wefound it much as the man said, very old-fashioned,with low oak-beamed ceilinged rooms, doors thatopened with a latch, hearth fireplaces, and a generallook of ancientness, in strange contrast with itsmuch-restored exterior. The best room was upr. pweso HIf)HBi O<HHOU MJSI <; Hin?Z, oo XXII CONSTABLES BIRTHPLACE 411 Stairs, the one that Constable used as a studio, wewere informed, quite a humble apartment and in noway impressive; but It is not places that grace men,but men places. Leaving Felixstowe, we returned to Ipswich bythe way we came, for the simple reason that therewas no other road out of the town to take, for therewas the river Deben to the north and the riverOrwell to the south, and no bridge over either. Beyond Ipswich we struck upon the old Londonturnpike road, a pleasant enough road for a highway,though not particularly inspiriting. As we weredriving leisurely along, thinking of nothing in par-ticular, we espied a signpost with an arm pointingdown a leafy and inviting lane, and on the arm wasinscribed, To East Bergholt. Then we remem-bered that we were in Constables country, andthat at East Bergholt he was born, and in theneighbourhood he painted many of his most famo
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookidcu3192, booksubjectlegends
