Jan of the Windmill Part 33

Master Chuter was right. The schoolmaster only thanked him heartily, and pressed him to remain. But the little innkeeper, bustling round the table with professional solicitude, declined the invitation.

"I be obliged to 'ee all the same, Master Swift. But I hope I knows better manners than to intrude on you and Jan just now, let alone a gentleman on whom I shall have pleasure in waiting at the Heart of Oak. There be beds, sir, at your service and Jan's, and well aired they be. And I'll be proud to show you the sign, sir, painted by that boy when he were an infant, as I may say. But I knowed what was in un. Master Swift can bear me witness. 'Mark my words,' says I, 'the boy Jan be 'most as good as a sign-painter yet.' And I do think a will. But you knows best, sir."

"I feel quite convinced that he will," said the painter, gravely.

Whilst Master Chuter and the artist thus settled Jan's career, he cooked the eggs and bacon; and when Master Swift had propelled himself to the table, and the others (including Rufus) had taken their seats, the innkeeper drew cork, dusted the bottle-mouth, and filled the fat-legged wine-gla.s.ses; then, throwing a parting glance over the arrangements of the table, he withdrew.

Jan's fears for the credit of his home, his anxieties as to the effect of the frugal living of his old friends upon the more luxurious taste of his new patron, were very needless. The artist was delighted with every thing, and when he said that he had never tasted food so good as the eggs and bacon, or relished any wine like that from the cellar of the Heart of Oak, he quite believed what he said. In truth, none should be so easily pleased as the artistic, when they wish to be so, since if "we receive but what we give," and our happiness in any thing is according to the mind we bring to it, imaginative people must have an advantage in being able to put so much rose color into their spectacles.

Warmed by the good cheer, Master Swift discoursed as vigorously as of old. With a graphic power of narration, commoner in his cla.s.s than in a higher one, he entertained the artist with stories of Jan's childhood, and gave a vivid picture of his own first sight of him in the wood. He did not fail to describe the long blue coat, the pig-switch, and the slate, nor did he omit to quote the lines which so well described the scene which the child-genius was painting in leaves.

"Well have I named him Giotto!" said the artist; "the shepherd boy drawing on the sand."

"If ye'd seen the swineherd painting with nature's own tints," said Master Swift, with a pertinacious adherence to his own view of things, which had always been characteristic of him, "I reckon you'd have thought he beat the shepherd boy. Not that I could pretend to be a judge of the painting myself, sir; what took MY mind was the inventive energy of the child. For maybe fifty men in a hundred do a thing, if you find them the tools, and show them the way, but not five can make their own materials and find a way for themselves."

"Necessity's the mother of invention," said the painter, smiling.

"So they say, sir," said the schoolmaster, smartly; "though, from my own experience of the s.h.i.+ftlessness of necessitous folk, I've been tempted to doubt the truth of the proverb."

The painter laughed, and thought of the widow, as Master Swift added, "Necessity may be the MOTHER of invention, sir, but the father must have had a good head on his shoulders."

The sun had set, the moon had risen, and the dew mixed with kindred rain-drops on the schoolmaster's flowers, when Jan and the painter bade him good-by. For half an hour past it had seemed to the painter that he was exhausted, and spoke languidly.

"Don't get up till I come in the morning, Master Swift," said Jan; "I'll come early and dress you."

Rufus walked with them to the gate, and waved his tail as Jan kissed his soft nose and brow, but then he went back to Master Swift and lay down at his feet. The old man had refused to have the door shut, and he propelled his chair to the porch again, and lay looking at the stars. The moon set, and the night grew cold, so that Rufus tucked his nose deeper into his fur, but Master Swift did not close the door.

The sun was s.h.i.+ning brightly when Jan came back in the morning. It was very early. The convolvulus bells were open, but Rufus and the schoolmaster still slept. Jan's footsteps roused Rufus, who stretched himself and yawned, but Master Swift did not move, nor answer to Jan's pa.s.sionate call upon his name. And in the very peace and beauty of his countenance Jan saw that he was dead.

But at what hour the silent messenger had come--whether at midnight, or at c.o.c.k-crow, or in the morning--there was none to tell.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

GEORGE AGAIN.--THE PAINTER'S ADVICE.--"HOME BREWED" AT THE HEART OF OAK.--JAN CHANGES THE PAINTER'S MIND.

Master Swift's death was a great shock to the windmiller, who was himself in frail health; and Jan gave as much time as he could to cheering his foster-father.

He had been spending an afternoon at the windmill, and the painter had been sketching the old church from the water-meadows, when they met on the little bridge near Dame Datchett's, and strolled together to the Heart of Oak. Master Chuter met them at the door.

"There be a letter for you, Jan," said he. "'Twas brought by a young varment I knows well. He belongs to them that keeps a low public at the foot of the hill, and he do be for all the world like a hudmedud, without the usefulness of un." The letter was dirty and ill-written enough to correspond to the innkeeper's account of its origin. Misspellings omitted, it ran thus: -

"MASTER JAN FORD,

"Sir,--If so be you wants to know where you come from, and where to look for them as belongs to you, come to the public at the foot of the hill this evening, with a few pounds in your pocket to open the lips of them as knows. But fair play, mind. Gearge bean't such a vool as a looks, and cart-horses won't draw it out of un, if you sets on the police. Don't you be took in by that cusnashun old rascal Cheap John. You may hold your head as high as the Squire yet, if you makes it worth the while of ONE WHO KNOWS. I always was fond of you, Jan, my dear. Keep it dark."

The painter decided to accept the invitation; but when George Sannel's face loomed out of the smoke of the dingy little kitchen, all the terrors of his childhood seemed to awake again in Jan. The face looked worn and hungry, and alarmed; but it was the face of the miller's man. In truth, he had deserted from his regiment, and was in hiding; but of this Jan and his master knew nothing.

If George's face bore some tokens of change, he seemed otherwise the same as of old. Cunning and stupidity, distrust and obstinacy, joined with unscrupulous greed, still marked his loutish attempts to overreach. Indeed, his surly temper would have brought the conference to an abrupt end but for the interference of the girl at the inn. She had written the letter for him, and seemed to take an interest in his fate which it is hardly likely that he deserved.

She acted as mediator, and the artist was all the more disposed to credit her a.s.surance that "Gearge did know a deal about the young gentleman, and should tell it all," because her appearance was so very picturesque. She did good service, when George began to pursue his old policy of mixing some lies with the truth he told, by calling him to account. Nor was she daunted by his threatening glances. "It be no manners of use thee looking at me like that, Gearge Sannel," said she, folding her arms in a defiant att.i.tude, which the painter hastily committed to memory. "Haven't I give my word to the gentleman that he should hear a straight tale? And it be all to your advantage to tell it. You wants money, and the gentleman wants the truth. It be no mortal use to you to make up a tale, beyond annying the gentleman."

Under pressure, therefore, George told all that he knew himself, and what he had learned from the Cheap Jack's wife, and part of the purchase-money of the pot boiler was his reward.

Master Lake confirmed his account of Jan's first coming to the mill.

He took the liveliest interest in his foster-son's fate, but he thought, with the artist, that there was little "satisfaction" to be got out of trying to trace Jan's real parentage. It was the painter's deliberate opinion, and he impressed it upon Jan, as they sat together in Master Chuter's parlor.

"My dear Giotto, I do hope you are not building much on hopes of a new home and new relatives. If all we have heard is true, your mother is dead; and, if your father is not dead too, he has basely deserted you. You have to make a name, not to seek one; to confer credit, not to ask for it. And I don't say this, Giotto, to make you vain, but to recall your responsibilities, and to dispel useless dreams. Believe me, my boy, your true mother, the tender nurse of your infancy, sleeps in the sacred shadow of this dear old church.

It is your part to make her name, and the name of your respectable foster-father, famous as your own; to render your windmill as highly celebrated as Rembrandt's, and to hang late laurels of fame on the grave of your grand old schoolmaster. Ah! my child, I know well that the ductile artistic nature takes shape very early. The coloring of childhood stains every painter's canvas who paints from the heart. You can never call any other place home, Giotto, but this idyllic corner of the world!"

It will be seen that the painter's rose-colored spectacles were still on his nose. Every thing delighted him. He was never weary of sketching garrulous patriarchs in snowy smocks under rickety porches. He said that in an age of criticism it was quite delightful to hear Daddy Angel say, "Ay, ay," to every thing; and he waxed eloquent on the luxury of having only one post a day, and that one uncertain. But his highest flights of approbation were given to the home-brewed ale. That pure, refres.h.i.+ng beverage, sound and strong as a heart of oak should be, which quenched the thirst with a certain stringency which might hint at sourness to the vulgar palate, had--so he said--destroyed for ever his contentment with any other malt liquor. He spoke of Ba.s.s and Allsopp as "palatable tonics" and "non-poisonous medicinal compounds." And when, with a flourish of hyperbole, he told Master Chuter's guests that nothing to eat or drink was to be got in London, they took his word for it; and it was without suspicion of satire that Daddy Angel said, "The gen'leman do look pretty middlin' hearty too--con-sid'rin'."

It was evident that the painter had no intention of going away till the pot boiler fund was exhausted, and Jan was willing enough to abide, especially as Master Lake had caught cold at the schoolmaster's funeral, and was grateful for his foster-son's company and care. Jan was busy in many ways. He was Master Swift's heir; but the old man's illness had nearly swallowed up his savings, and Jan's legacy consisted of the books, the furniture, the gardening tools, and Rufus, who attached himself to his new master with a wistful affection which seemed to say, "You belong to the good old times, and I know you loved him."

Jan moved the schoolmaster's few chattels to the windmill, and packed the books to take to London. With them he packed the little old etching that had been bought from the Cheap Jack. "It's a very good one," said the painter. "It's by an old Dutch artist. You can see a copy in the British Museum." But it was not in the Museum that Jan first saw a duplicate of his old favorite.

He was nailing up this box one afternoon, and humming as he did so, -

"But I alone am left to pine, And sit beneath the withy tree, For truth and honesty be gone" -

when the painter came in behind him.

"Stop that doleful strain, Giotto, I beg; you've been painfully sentimental the last day or two."

"It's an old song they sing about here, sir," said Jan.

"Never mind the song, you've been doleful yourself, Giotto! I believe you're dissatisfied that we do not push the search for your father. Is it money you want, child? Believe me, riches enough lie between your fingers and your miller's thumb. Or do you want a more fas.h.i.+onable protector than the old artist?"

"No, no, sir!" cried Jan. "I never want to leave you; and it's not money I want, but" -

"Well, my boy? Don't be afraid."

"It's my mother, sir," said Jan, with flushed cheeks. "My real mother, I mean. She didn't desert me, sir; she died--when I was born. I doubt n.o.body sees to her grave, sir. Perhaps there's n.o.body but me who would. I can't do any thing for her now, sir, I know; but it seems as if I hardly did my duty in not knowing where she lies."

The painter's hands were already deep in his loose pockets, from which, jumbled up with chalk, india-rubber, bits of wash-leather, cakes of color, reed pens, a penknife, and some drawing-pins, he brought the balance of his loose cash, and became absorbed in calculations. "Is that box ready?" he asked. "We start to-morrow, mind. You are right, and I was wrong; but my wish was to spare you possible pain. I now think it is your duty to risk the possible pain. If those rascally creatures who stole you are in London, the police will find them. Be content, Giotto; you shall stand by your mother's grave!"

CHAPTER XL.

D'ARCY SEES BOGY.--THE ACADEMY.--THE PAINTER'S PICTURE.

The Ammabys were in London. Amabel preferred the country; but she bore the town as she bore with many other things that were not quite to her taste, including painfully short petticoats, and Mademoiselle, the French governess. She was in the garden of the square one morning, when D'Arcy ran in.

"O Amabel!" he cried, "I'm so glad you're alone! Whom do you think I've seen? The boy you called Bogy. It must be he; I've looked in the gla.s.s, and oh, he IS like me!"