Jan of the Windmill Part 16

As it was, he pressed upon his acceptance the sum of one shilling, which the miller's man pocketed with tears.

What recruit can afterwards remember which argument of the skilful sergeant did most to melt his discretion into valor?

The sun had not dried the dew from the wolds, and the sails of the windmill hung idle in the morning air, when George Sannel made his first march to the drums and fifes, with ribbons flying from his hat, a recruit of the 206th (Royal Wiltshire) Regiment of Foot.

As the Cheap Jack and his wife hastened home from the mop, Sal had some difficulty in restraining her husband's impatience to examine the pocket-book as they walked along.

Prudence prevailed, however, and it was not opened till they were at home and alone.

In notes and money, George's savings amounted to more than thirteen pounds.

"Pretty well, my dear," said the Cheap Jack, grinning hideously.

"And now for the letter. Read it aloud, Sal, my dear; you're a better scholar than me."

Sal opened the thin, well-worn sheet, and read the word "Moerdyk,"

but then she paused. And, like Abel, she paused so long that the hunchback pressed impatiently to look over her shoulder.

But the letter was written in a foreign language, and the Cheap Jack and his wife were no wiser for it than the miller's man.

CHAPTER XVIII.

MIDSUMMER HOLIDAYS.--CHILD FANCIES.--JAN AND THE PIG-MINDER.--MASTER SALTER AT HOME.--JAN HIRES HIMSELF OUT.

Midsummer came, and the Dame's school broke up for the holidays.

Jan had longed for them intensely. Not that he was oppressed by the labors of learning, but that he wanted to be out of doors. Many a little one was equally eager for the freedom of the fields, but the common child-love for hedges and ditches, and flower-picking, and the like, was intensified in Jan by a deeper pleasure which country scenes awoke from the artist nature within him. That it is no empty sentimentality to speak of an artist nature in a child, let the child-memories of all artists bear witness! That they inspired the poet Wordsworth with one of his best poems, and that they have dyed the canvas of most landscape painters with the indestructible local coloring of the scenes of each man's childhood, will hardly be denied.

That this is against the wishes and the theories of many excellent people has nothing to do with its truth. If all children were the bluff, hearty, charmingly naughty, enviably happy, utterly simple and unsentimental beings that some of us wish, and so a.s.sert them to be, it might be better for them, or it might not--who can say? That the healthy, careless, rough and ready type is the one to encourage, many will agree, who cannot agree that it is universal, or even much the most common. It is probably from an imperfect remembrance of their nursery lives that some people believe that the griefs of one's childhood are light, its joys uncomplicated, and its tastes simple. A clearer recollection of the favorite poetry and the most cherished day-dreams of very early years would probably convince them that the strongest taste for tragedy comes before one's teens, and inclines to the melodramatic; that sentimentality (of some kind) is grateful to the verge of mawkishness; and that simple tastes are rather a result of culture and experience than natural gifts of infancy.

But in this rummaging up of the crude tastes, the hot little opinions, the romance, the countless visions, the many affectations of nursery days, there will be recalled also a very real love of nature; varying, of course, in its intensity from a mere love of fresh air and free romping, and a destructive taste for nosegays, to a living romance about the daily walks of the imaginative child,--a world apart, peopled with invisible company, such as fairies, and those fancy friends which some children devise for themselves, or with the beasts and flowers, to which love has given a personality.

To the romance child-fancy weaves for itself about the meadows where the milkmaids stand thick and pale, and those green courts where lords and ladies live, Jan added that world of pleasure open to those gifted with a keen sense of form and color. Strange gleams under a stormy sky, sunshine on some kingfisher's plumage rising from the river, and all the ever-changing beauties about him, stirred his heart with emotions that he could not have defined.

There was much to see even from Dame Datchett's open door, but there was more to be imagined. Jan's envy of the pig-minder had reached a great height when the last school-day came.

He wanted to be free by the time that the pig-herd brought his pigs to water, and his wishes were fulfilled. The Dame's flock and the flock of the swineherd burst at one and the same moment into the water-meadows, and Jan was soon in conversation with the latter.

"Thee likes pig-minding, I reckon?" said Jan, stripping the leaves from a sallywithy wand, which he had picked to imitate that of the swineherd.

"Do I?" said the large-coated urchin, wiping his face with the big sleeve of his blue coat. "That's aal thee knows about un. I be going to leave to-morrow, I be. And if so be Master Salter's got another bwoy, or if so be he's not, I dunno, it ain't nothin' to I."

Jan learned that he had eighteen pence a week for driving the pigs to a wood at some little distance, where they fed on acorns, beech- mast, etc.; for giving them water, keeping them together, and bringing them home at teatime. He allowed that he could drive them as slowly as he pleased, and that they kept pretty well together in the wood; but that, as a whole, the perversity of pigs was such that-- "Well, wait till ee tries it theeself, Jan Lake, that's aal."

Jan had resolved to do so. He did not return with his foster- brothers to the mill. He slipped off on one of his solitary expeditions, and made his way to the farm-house of Master Salter.

Master Salter and his wife sat at tea in the kitchen. In the cheerful clatter of cups, they had failed to hear Jan's knock; but the sunshine streaming through the open doorway being broken by some small body, the farmer's wife looked hastily up, thinking that the new-born calf had got loose, and was on the threshold.

But it was Jan. The outer curls of his hair gleamed in the sunlight like an aureole about his face. He had doffed his hat, out of civility, and he held it in one hand, whilst with the other he fingered the slate that hung at his waist.

"Ma.s.sey upon us!" said the farmer, looking up at the same instant.

"And who be thee?"

"Jan Lake, the miller's son, maester."

"Come in, come in!" cried Master Salter, hospitably. "So Master Lake have sent thee with a message, eh?"

"My father didn't send me," said Jan, gravely. "I come myself. Do 'ee want a pig-minder, Master Salter?"

"Ay, I wants a pig-minder. But I reckon thee father can't spare Abel for that now. A wish he could. Abel was careful with the pigs, he was, and a sprack boy, too."

"I'll be careful, main careful, Master Salter," said Jan, earnestly.

"I likes pigs." But the farmer was pondering.

"Jan Lake--Jan," said he. "Be thee the boy as draad out the sow and her pigs for Master Chuter's little gel?" Jan nodded.

"Lor ma.s.sey!" cried Master Salter. "I' told'ee, missus, about un.

Look here, Jan Lake. If thee'll draa me out some pigs like them, I'll give 'ee sixpence and a new slate, and I'll try thee for a week, anyhow."

Jan drew the slate-pencil from his pocket without reply. Mrs.

Salter, who had been watching him with motherly eyes, pushed a small stool towards him, and he began to draw a scene such as he had been studying daily for months past,--pigs at the water-side. He had made dozens of such sketches. But the delight of the farmer knew no bounds. He slapped his knees, he laughed till the tears ran down his cheeks, and, as Jan put a very wicked eye into the face of the hindmost pig, he laughed merrily also. He was not insensible of his own talents, and the stimulus of the farmer's approbation gave vigor to his strokes.

"Here, missus," cried Master Salter; "get down our Etherd's new slate, and give it to un; I'll get another for he. And there's the sixpence, Jan; and if thee minds pigs as well as 'ee draas 'em, I don't care how long 'ee minds mine."

The object of his visit being now accomplished, Jan took up his hat to depart, but an important omission struck him, and he turned to say, "What'll 'ee give me for minding your pigs, Master Salter?"

Master Salter was economical, and Jan was small, and anxious for the place.

"A shilling a week," said the farmer.

"And his tea?" the missus gently suggested.

"Well, I don't mind," said Master Salter. "A shilling a week and thee tea."

Jan paused. His predecessor had had eighteen pence for very imperfect services. Jan meant to be beyond reproach, and felt himself worth quite as much.

"I give the other boy one and sixpence," said the farmer, "but thee's very small."

"I'm sprack," said Jan, confidently. "And I be fond of pigs."

"Ma.s.sey upon me," said Master Salter, laughing again. "Tis a peart young toad, sartinly. A might be fifty year old, for the ways of un. Well, thee shall have a shilling and thee tea, or one and sixpence without, then." And seeing that Jan glanced involuntarily at the table, the farmer added, "Give un some now, missus. I'll lay a pound bill the child be hungry."

Jan was hungry. He had bartered the food from his "nunchin bag" at dinner-time for another child's new slate-pencil. The cakes were very good, too, and Mrs. Salter was liberal. He rose greatly in her esteem by saying grace before meat. He cooled his tea in his saucer too, and raised it to his lips with his little finger stuck stiffly out (a mark of gentility imparted by Mrs. Lake), and in all points conducted himself with the utmost propriety. "For what we have received the Lord be praised," was his form of giving thanks; to which Mrs. Salter added, "Amen," and "Bless his heart!" And Jan, picking up his hat, lifted his dark eyes candidly to the farmer's face, and said with much gravity and decision, -

"I'll take a shilling a week and me tea, Master Salter, if it be all the same to you. And thank you kindly, sir, and the missus likewise."