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Jean de La Fontaine - "The Tales and Novels, v9: Belphegor and Others"

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Books: Jan of the Windmill

J >> Juliana Horatia Ewing >> Jan of the Windmill




The old man fumbled in his pocket, from which he drew a shagreen
spectacle-case, as substantial looking as himself, and, planting the
spectacles firmly on his heavy nose, he held out his hand to Jan.

"There," said he, "take me where ye will. To bonnie Elf-land, if
that's your road, where withered leaves are gold."

Jan ran round willingly to take the hand of his new friend. He felt
a strange attraction towards him. His speech was puzzling and had a
tone of mockery, but his face was unmistakably kind.

"Now then, lad, which path do we go by?" said he.

"There's only one," said Jan, gazing up at the old man, as if by
very staring with his black eyes he could come to understand him.
But in an instant he was spouting again, holding Jan before him with
one hand, whilst he used the other as a sort of baton to his speech:
-

"And know'st thou not yon broad, broad road
That lies across the lily levin?
That is the path of sinfulness,
Though some think it the way to heaven."

"Go on, please!" Jan cried, as the old man paused. His rugged
speech seemed plainer in the lines it suited so well, and a touch of
enthusiasm in his voice increased the charm.

"And know'st thou not that narrow path
So thick beset with thorns and briars?
It is the path of righteousness,
And after it but few aspires.

"And know'st thou not the little path
That winds about the ferny brae?
That is the road to bonnie Elf-land,
Where thou and I this night maun gae."

"Where is it?" said Jan, earnestly. "Is't a town?"

The old man laughed. "I'm thinking it would be well to let that
path be, in your company. We'd hardly get out under a year and a
day."

"I'd go--with you," said Jan, confidently. Many an expedition had
he undertaken on his own responsibility, and why not this?

"First, show me what ye were going to show me," said the old man.
"Where's this sky you've been manufacturing?"

"It's on the ground, sir."

"On the ground! And are ye for turning earth into heaven among your
other trades?" What this might mean Jan knew not; but he led his
friend round, and pointed out the features of his leaf-picture. He
hoped for praise, but the old man was silent,--long silent, though
he seemed to be looking at what Jan showed him. And when he did
speak, his broken words were addressed to no one.

"Wonderful! wonderful! The poetry of 't. It's no child's play,
this. It's genius. Ay! we mun see to it!" And then, with clasped
hands, he cried, "Good Lord! Have I found him at last?"

"Have you lost something?" said Jan.

But the old man did not answer. He did not even speak of the leaf-
picture, to Jan's chagrin. But, stroking the boy's shoulder almost
tenderly, he asked, "Did ye ever go to school, laddie?"

Jan nodded. "At Dame Datchett's," said he.

"Ah! ye were sorry to leave school for pig-minding, weren't ye?"

Jan shook his head. "I likes pigs," said he. "I axed Master Salter
to let me mind his. I gets a shilling a week and me tea."

"But ye like school better? Ye love your books, don't ye?"

Jan shook his head again. "I don't like school," said he, "I likes
being in the wood."

The old man winced as if some one had struck him in the face, then
he muttered, "The wood! Ay, to be sure! And such a school, too!"

Then he suddenly addressed Jan. "Do ye know me, my lad?"

"No, sir," said Jan.

"Swift--Master Swift, they call me. You've heard tell of Master
Swift, the schoolmaster?"

Jan shrank back. He had heard of Master Swift as a man whose stick
was more to be dreaded than Dame Datchett's strap, and of his school
as a place where liberty was less than with the Dame.

"See thee!" said the old man, speaking broader and broader in his
earnestness. "If thy father would send thee,--nay, what am I
saying?--if I took thee for naught and gladly, thou'dst sooner come
to the old schoolmaster and his books than stay with pigs, even in a
wood? Eh, laddie? Will ye come to school?"

But the tradition of Master Swift's severity was strong in Jan's
mind, and the wood was pleasant to him, and he only shrank back
farther, and said, "No." Children often give pain to their elders,
of the intensity of which they have no measure; but, had Jan been
older and wiser than he was, he might have been puzzled by the
bitterness of the disappointment written on Master Swift's
countenance.

An involuntary impulse made the old man break the blow by doing
something. With trembling fingers he folded his spectacles, and
crammed them into the shagreen case. But, when that was done, he
still found nothing to say, and he turned his back and went away in
silence.

In silence Jan watched him, half regretfully, and strained his ears
to catch something that Master Swift began again to recite: -

"Things sort not to my will,
Even when my will doth study Thy renown:
Thou turn'st the edge of all things on me still,
Taking me up to throw me down."

Then, lifting a heavy bramble that had fallen across his path, the
schoolmaster stooped under it, and passed from sight.

And a sudden gust of wind coming sharply down the way by which he
went caught the fragments of Jan's picture, and whirled them
broadcast through the wood.



CHAPTER XX.

SQUIRE AMMABY AND HIS DAUGHTER.--THE CHEAP JACK DOES BUSINESS ONCE
MORE.--THE WHITE HORSE CHANGES MASTERS.

Squire Ammaby was the most good-natured of men. He was very fond of
his wife, though she was somewhat peevish, with weak health and
nerves, and though she seemed daily less able to bear the rough and
ready attentions of her husband, and to rely more and more on the
advice and assistance of her mother, Lady Craikshaw. From this it
came about that the Squire's affection for his wife took the shape
of wishing Lady Louisa to have every thing that she wished for, and
that the very joy of his heart was his little daughter Amabel.

Amabel was between three and four years old, and to some extent a
prodigy. She was as tall as an average child of six or seven, and
stout in proportion. The size of her shoes scandalized her
grandmother, and once drew tears from Lady Louisa as she reflected
on the probable size of Miss Ammaby's feet by the time she was
"presented."

Lady Louisa was tall and weedy; the Squire was tall and robust.
Amabel inherited height on both sides, but in face and in character
she was more like her father than her mother. Indeed, Lady Louisa
would close her eyes, and Lady Craikshaw would put up her gold glass
at the child, and they would both cry, "Sadly coarse! QUITE AN
AMMABY!" Amabel was not coarse, however; but she had a strength and
originality of character that must have come from some bygone
generation, if it was inherited. She had a pitying affection for
her mother. With her grandmother she lived at daggers drawn. She
kept up a pretty successful struggle for her own way in the nursery.
She was devoted to her father, when she could get at him, and she
poured an almost boundless wealth of affection on every animal that
came in her way.

An uncle had just given her a Spanish saddle, and her father had
promised to buy her a donkey. He had heard of one, and was going to
drive to the town to see the owner. With great difficulty Amabel
had got permission from her mother and grandmother to go with the
Squire in the pony carriage. As she had faithfully promised to "be
good," she submitted to be "well wrapped up," under her
grandmother's direction, and staggered downstairs in coat, cape,
gaiters, comforter, muffatees, and with a Shetland veil over her
burning cheeks. She even displayed a needless zeal by carrying a
big shawl in a lump in her arms, which she would give up to no one.

"No, no!" she cried, as the Squire tried to take it from her. "Lift
me in, daddy, lift me in!"

The Squire laughed, and obeyed her, saying, "Why, bless my soul,
Amabel, I think you grow heavier every day."

Amabel came up crimson from some disposal of the shawl after her own
ideas, and her eyes twinkled as he spoke, though her fat cheeks kept
their gravity. It was not till they were far on their way that a
voice from below the seat cried, "Yap!"

"Why, there's one of the dogs in the carriage," said the Squire.

On which, clinging to one of his arms and caressing him, Amabel
confessed, "It's only the pug, dear daddy. I brought him in under
the shawl. I did so want him to have a treat too. And grandmamma
is so hard! She hardly thinks I ought to have treats, and she NEVER
thinks of treats for the dogs."

The Squire only laughed, and said she must take care of the dog when
they got to the town; and Amabel was encouraged to ask if she might
take off the Shetland veil. Hesitating between his fear of Amabel's
catching cold, and a common-sense conviction that it was ludicrous
to dress her according to her invalid mother's susceptibilities, the
Squire was relieved from the responsibility of deciding by Amabel's
promptly exposing her rosy cheeks to the breeze, and they drove on
happily to the town. The Squire had business with the Justices, and
Amabel was left at the Crown. When he came back, Amabel jumped down
from the window and the black blind over which she was peeping into
the yard, and ran up to her father with tears on her face.

"Oh, daddy!" she cried, "dear, good daddy! I don't want you to buy
me a donkey, I want you to buy me a horse."

"That's modest!" said the Squire; "but what are you crying for?"

"Oh, it's such a poor horse! Such a very old, poor horse!" cried
Amabel. And from the window Mr. Ammaby was able to confirm her
statements. It was the Cheap Jack's white horse, which he had been
trying to persuade the landlord to buy as a cab-horse. More lean,
more scarred, more drooping than ever, it was a pitiful sight, now
and then raising its soft nose and intelligent eyes to the window,
as if it knew what a benevolent little being was standing on a
slippery chair, with her arms round the Squire's neck, pleading its
cause.

"But when I buy horses," said the Squire, "I buy young, good ones,
not very old and poor ones."

"Oh, but do buy it, daddy! Perhaps it's not had enough to eat, like
that kitten I found in the ditch. And perhaps it'll get fat, like
her; and mamma said we wanted an old horse to go in the cart for
luggage, and I'm sure that one's very old. And that's such a horrid
man, like hump-backed Richard. And when nobody's looking, he tugs
it, and beats it. Oh, I wish I could beat him!" and Amabel danced
dangerously upon the horsehair seat in her white gaiters with
impotent indignation. The Squire was very weak when pressed by his
daughter, but at horses, if at any thing, he looked with an eye to
business. To buy such a creature would be ludicrous. Still, Amabel
had made a strong point by what Lady Louisa had said. No one, too,
knew better than the Squire what difference good and bad treatment
can make in a horse, and this one had been good once, as his
experienced eye told him. He said he "would see," and strolled into
the yard.

Long practice had given the Cheap Jack a quickness in detecting a
possible purchaser which almost amounted to an extra sense, and he
at once began to assail the Squire. But a nearer view of the white
horse had roused Mr. Ammaby's indignation.

"I wonder," he said, "that you're not ashamed to exhibit a poor
beast that's been so ill-treated. For heaven's sake, take it to the
knacker's, and put it out of its misery at once."

"Look ye, my lord," said the Cheap Jack, touching his cap. "The
horse have been ill-treated, I knows. I'm an afflicted man, my
lord, and the boy I've employed, he's treated him shameful; and when
a man can't feed hisself, he can't keep his beast fat neither.
That's why I wants to get rid on him, my lord. I can't keep him as
I should, and I'd like to see him with a gentleman like yourself
as'll do him justice. He comes of a good stock, my lord. Take him
for fifteen pound," he added, waddling up to the Squire, "and when
you've had him three months, you'll sell him for thirty."

This was too much. The Squire broke out in a furious rage.

"You unblushing scoundrel!" he cried. "D'ye think I'm a fool?
Fifteen pounds for a horse you should be fined for keeping alive!
Be off with it, and put it out of misery." And he turned
indignantly into the inn, the Cheap Jack calling after him, "Say ten
pound, my lord!" the bystanders giggling, and the ostler whistling
dryly through the straw in his mouth, "Take it to the knacker's,
Cheap John."

"Oh, daddy dear! have you got him?" cried Amabel, as the Squire re-
entered the parlor.

"No, my dear; the poor beast isn't fit to draw carts, my darling.
It's been so badly treated, the only kindness now is to kill it, and
put it out of pain. And I've told the hunchback so."

It was a matter of course and humanity to the Squire, but it
overwhelmed poor Amabel. She gasped, "Kill it!" and then bursting
into a flood of tears she danced on the floor, wringing her hands
and crying, "Oh, oh, oh! don't, PLEASE, don't let him be killed!
Oh! do, do buy him and let him die comfortably in the paddock. Oh,
do, do, do!"

"Nonsense, Amabel, you mustn't dance like that. Remember, you
promised to be good," said the Squire. The child gulped down her
tears, and stood quite still, with her face pale from very misery.

"I don't want not to be good," said she. "But, oh dear, I do wish I
had some money, that I might buy that poor old horse, and let him
die comfortably at home."

It was not the money the Squire grudged; it was against all his
instincts to buy a bad horse. But Amabel's wan face overcame him,
and he went out again. He never lingered over disagreeable
business, and, going straight up to the Cheap Jack, he said, "My
little girl is so distressed about it, that I'll give you five
pounds for the poor brute, to stop its sufferings."

"Say eight, my lord," said the Cheap Jack. Once more the Squire was
turning away in wrath, when he caught sight of Amabel's face at the
window. He turned back, and, biting his lip, said, "I'll give you
five pounds if you'll take it now, and go. If you beat me down
again, I'll offer you four. I'll take off a pound for every bate
you utter; and, when I speak, I mean what I say. Do you think I
don't know one horse from another?"

It is probable that the Cheap Jack would have made another effort to
better his bargain, but his wife had come to seek him, and to her
sharp eyes the Squire's resolution was beyond mistake.

"We'll take the five guineas, and thank you, sir," she said,
courtesying. The Squire did not care to dispute the five shillings
which she had dexterously added, and he paid the sum, and the worthy
couple went away.

"Miles!" said the Squire. The servant he had brought with him in
reference to the donkey appeared, and touched his hat.

"Miss Amabel has persuaded me to buy this poor brute, that it may
die in peace in the paddock. Can you get it home, d'ye think?"

"I think I can, sir, this evening; after a feed and some rest."

The white horse had suddenly become a centre of interest in the inn-
yard. Everybody, from the landlord to the stable-boy, felt its
legs, and patted it, and suggested various lines of treatment.

Before he drove away, Mr. Ammaby overheard the landlord saying, "He
be a sharp hand, is the Squire. I shouldn't wonder if he brought
the beast round yet." Which, for his credit's sake, the Squire
devoutly hoped he might. But, after all, he had his reward when
Amabel, sobbing with joy, flung her arms round him, and cried, -

"Oh, you dear, darling, GOOD daddy! How I love you and how the
white horse loves you!"



CHAPTER XXI.

MASTER SWIFT AT HOME.--RUFUS.--THE EX-PIG-MINDER.--JAN AND THE
SCHOOLMASTER.

It was a lovely autumn evening the same year, when the school having
broken up for the day, Master Swift returned to his home for tea.
He lived in a tiny cottage on the opposite side of the water-meadows
to that on which Dame Datchett dwelt, and farther down towards the
water-mill. He had neither wife nor child, but a red dog with a
plaintive face, and the name of Rufus, kept his house when he was
absent, and kept him company when he was at home.

Rufus was a mongrel. He was not a red setter, though his coloring
was similar. A politely disposed person would have called him a
retriever, and his curly back and general appearance might have
carried this off, but for his tail, which, instead of being straight
and rat-like, was as plumy as the Prince of Wales's feathers, and
curled unblushingly over his back, sideways, like a pug's. "It was
a good one to wag," his master said, and, apart from the question of
high breeding, it was handsome, and Rufus himself seemed proud of
it.

Since half-past three had Rufus sat in the porch, blinking away
positive sleep, with his pathetic face towards the road down which
Master Swift must come. Unnecessarily pathetic, for there was every
reason for his being the most jovial of dogs, and not one for that
imposing melancholy which he wore. His large level eyelids shaded
the pupils even when he was broad awake; an intellectual forehead,
and a very long Vandykish nose, with the curly ears, which fell like
a well-dressed peruke on each side of his face, gave him an air of
disinherited royalty. But he was in truth a mongrel, living on the
fat of the land; who, from the day that this wistful dignity had won
the schoolmaster's heart, had never known a care, wanted a meal, or
had any thing whatever demanded of him but to sit comfortably at
home and watch with a broken-hearted countenance for the
schoolmaster's return from the labors which supported them both.
The sunshine made Rufus sleepy, but he kept valiantly watchful,
propping himself against the garden-tools which stood in the corner.
Flowers and vegetables for eating were curiously mixed in the little
garden that lay about Master Swift's cottage. Not a corner was
wasted in it, and a thick hedge of sweet-peas formed a fragrant
fence from the outer world.

Rufus was nodding, when he heard a footstep. He pulled himself up,
but he did not wag his tail, for the step was not the
schoolmaster's. It was Jan's. Rufus growled slightly, and Jan
stood outside, and called, "Master Swift!" He and Rufus both paused
and listened, but the schoolmaster did not appear. Then Rufus came
out and smelt Jan exhaustively, and excepting a slight flavor of
being acquainted with cats, to whom Rufus objected, he smelt well.
Rufus wagged his tail, Jan patted him, and they sat down to wait for
the master.

The clock in the old square-towered church had struck a quarter-past
four when Master Swift came down the lane, and Rufus rushed out to
meet him. Though Rufus told him in so many barks that there was a
stranger within, and that, as he smelt respectable, he had allowed
him to wait, the schoolmaster was startled by the sight of Jan.

"Why, it's the little pig-minder!" said he. On which Jan's face
crimsoned, and tears welled up in his black eyes.

"I bean't a pig-minder now, Master Swift," said he.

"And how's that? Has Master Salter turned ye off?"

"I gi'ed HIM notice!" said Jan, indignantly. "But I shan't mind
pigs no more, Master Swift"

"And why not, Master Skymaker?"

"Don't 'ee laugh, sir," said Jan. "Master Salter he laughs.
'What's pigs for but to be killed?' says he. But I axed him not to
kill the little black un with the white spot on his ear. It be such
a nice pig, sir, such a very nice pig!" And the tears flowed
copiously down Jan's cheeks, whilst Rufus looked abjectly depressed.
"It would follow me anywhere, and come when I called," Jan
continued. "I told Master Salter it be 'most as good as a dog, to
keep the rest together. But a says 'tis the fattest, and 'ull be
the first to kill. And then I telled him to find another boy to
mind his pigs, for I couldn't look un in the face now, and know
'twas to be killed next month, not that one with the white spot on
his ear. It do be such a VERY nice pig!"

Rufus licked up the tears as they fell over Jan's smock, and the
schoolmaster took Jan in and comforted him. Jan dried his eyes at
last, and helped to prepare for tea. The old man made some very
good coffee in a shaving-pot, and put cold bacon and bread upon the
table, and the three sat down to their meal. Jan and his host upon
two rush-bottomed chairs, whilst Rufus scrambled into an armchair
placed for his accommodation, from whence he gazed alternately at
the schoolmaster and the victuals with sad, not to say reproachful,
eyes.

"I thought that would be your chair," said Jan.

"Well, it used to be," said Master Swift, apologetically. "But the
poor beast can't sit well on these, and I relish my meat better with
a face on the other side of the table. He found that too slippery
at first, till I bought yon bit of a patchwork-cushion for him at a
sale."

Rufus sighed, and Master Swift gave him a piece of bread, which,
having smelt, he allowed to lie before him on the table till his
master, laughing, rubbed the bread against the bacon, with which
additional flavor Rufus seemed content, and ate his supper.

"So you've come to the old schoolmaster, after all?" said Master
Swift: "that's right, my lad, that's right."

"'Twas Abel sent me," said Jan; "he said I was to take to my books.
So I come because Abel axed me. For I be main fond of Abel."

"Abel was right," said the old man. "Take to learning, my lad.
Love your books,--friends that nobody can kill, or part ye from."

"I'd like to learn pieces like them you say," said Jan.

"So ye shall, so ye shall!" cried Master Swift. "It's a fine thing,
is learning poetry. It strengthens the memory, and cultivates the
higher faculties. Take some more bacon, my lad."

Which Jan did. At that moment he was not reflecting on his doomed
friend, the spotted pig. Indeed, if we reflected about every thing,
this present state of existence would become intolerable.

At much length did the schoolmaster speak on the joys of learning,
and, pointing proudly to a few shelves filled by his savings, he
formally made Jan "free of" his books. "When ye've learnt to read
them," he added. Jan thanked him for this, and for leave to visit
him. But he looked out of the window instead of at the book-
shelves.

Beyond Master Swift's gay flowers stretched the rich green of the
water-meads, glowing yellow in the sunlight. The little river
hardly seemed to move in its zig-zag path, though the evening breeze
was strong enough to show the silver side of the willows that
drooped over it. Jan wondered if he could match all these tints in
the wood, and whether Master Swift would be willing to have leaf-
pictures painted on that table in the window. Then he found that
the old man was speaking, though he only heard the latter part of
what he said. "--a celebrated inventor and mechanic, and that's
what you'll be, maybe. Ay, ay, a Great Man, please the Lord; and,
when I'm laid by in the churchyard yonder, folks'll come to see the
grave of old Swift, the great man's schoolmaster. Ye'll be an
inventor yet, lad, a benefactor to your kind, and an honor to your
country. I'm not raising false hopes in ye, without observing your
qualities. You've the quick eye, the slow patience, and the
inventive spark. You can find your own tools and all, and don't
stop where other folk leaves off: witness yon bluebells ye took to
make skies with! But, bless the lad, he's not heeding me! Is it
the bit of garden you're looking at? Come out then." And, putting
the biography back in the book-shelf, the kindly old man led Jan out
of doors.

"Say what you said in the wood again," said Jan.

But Master Swift laughed, and, stretching his hand towards the
sweet-peas hedge began at another part of the poem: -

"Here are sweet peas on tiptoe for a flight:
With wings of gentle flush o'er delicate white,
And taper fingers catching at all things
To bind them all about with tiny rings."

Then, bending towards the river, he continued in a theatrical
whisper: -

"How silent comes the water round that bend!
Not the minutest whisper does it send
To the o'erhanging sallows" -

But here he stopped suddenly, though Jan's black eyes were at their
roundest, and his attention almost breathless.

"There, there! I'm an old fool, and for making you as bad.
Poetry's not your business, you understand: I'm giving ye no
encouragement to dabble with the fine arts. Science is the ladder
for a working-man to climb to fame. In addition to which, the poet
Keats, though he certainly speaks the very language of Nature, was a
bit of a heathen, I'm afraid, and the fascination of him might be
injurious in tender youth. Never mind, child, if ye love poetry,
I'll learn ye pieces by the poet Herbert. They're just true poetry,
and manly, too; and they're a fountain of experimental religion.
And, if this style is too sober for your fancy, Charles Wesley's
hymns are touched with the very fire of religious passion."