jan’s prospects and master swift’s plans.—tea and milton.—new parents.—parting with rufus.—jan is kidnapped.
this shock seemed to give a last jar to the frail state of mrs. lake’s health, and the sleep into which she fell that night passed into a state of insensibility in which her sorely tried spirit was released without pain.
it was said that the windmiller looked twice his age from trouble. but his wan appearance may have been partly due to the inroads of a lung disease, which comes to millers from constantly inhaling the flour-dust. his cheeks grew hollow, and his wasted hands displayed the windmiller’s coat of arms [238] with painful distinctness. the schoolmaster spent most of his evenings at the mill; but sometimes jan went to tea with him, and by master lake’s own desire he went to school once more.
master swift thought none the less of jan’s prospects that it was useless to discuss them with master lake. all his plans were founded on the belief that he himself would live to train the boy to be a windmiller, whilst master swift’s had reference to the conviction that “miller’s consumption” would deprive jan of his foster-father long before he was old enough to succeed him. and had the miller made his will? master swift made his, and left his few savings to jan. he could not help hoping for some turn of fortune’s wheel which should give the lad to him for his own.
jan was not likely to lack friends. the squire had heard with amazement that master chuter’s new sign was the work of a child, and he offered to place him under proper instruction to be trained as an artist. but, at the time that this offer came, jan was waiting on his foster mother, and he refused to betray abel’s trust. the rector also wished to provide for him, but he was even more easily convinced that jan’s present duty lay at home. master swift too urged this in all good faith, but his personal love for jan, and the dread of parting with him, had an influence of which he was hardly conscious.
one evening, a few weeks after mrs. lake’s death, jan had tea, followed by poetry, with the schoolmaster. master swift often recited at the windmill. the miller liked to hear hymns his wife had liked, and a few patriotic and romantic verses; but he yawned over milton, and fell asleep under keats, so the schoolmaster reserved his favorites for jan’s ear alone.
when tea was over, jan sat on the rush-bottomed chair, with his feet on rufus, on that side of the hearth which faced the window, and on the other side sat master swift, with the mongrel lying by him, and he spouted from milton. jan, familiar with many a sunrise, listened with parted lips of pleasure, as the old man trolled forth,—
“right against the eastern gate,
where the great sun begins his state,
robed in flames and amber light,”
and with even more sympathy to the latter part of ‘il penseroso;’ and, as when this was ended he begged for yet more, the old man began ‘lycidas.’ he knew most of it by heart, and waving his hand, with his eyes fixed expressively on jan, he cried,—
“fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
(that last infirmity of noble minds)
to scorn delights, and live laborious days.”
and tears filled his eyes, and made his voice husky, as he went on,—
“but the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
and think to burst out into sudden blaze,
comes the blind fury with the abhorred shears”—
master swift stopped suddenly. rufus was growling, and jan was white and rigid, with his eyes fixed on the window.
as in most north countrymen, there was in the schoolmaster an ineradicable touch of superstition. he cursed the “unlucky” poem, and flinging the book from him ran to his favorite. as soon as jan could speak, he gasped, “the woman that brought me to the mill!” but when master swift went to search the garden he could find no one.
remembering the former alarm, and that no one was to be seen then, master swift came to the conclusion that in each case it was a delusion.
“ye’re a dear good lad, jan,” said he, “but ye’ve fagged yourself out. take the dog with ye to-morrow for company, and your sketch-book, and amuse yourself. i’ll not expect ye at school. and get away to your bed now. i told master lake i shouldn’t let ye away to-night.”
jan went to bed, and next morning was up with the lark, and with rufus at his heels went off to a distant place, where from a mound, where a smaller road crossed the highway to london, there was a view which he wished to sketch under an early light. as he drew near, he saw a small cart, at one side of which the horse was feeding, and at the foot of the mound sat a woman with a pedler’s basket.
when jan recognized her, it was too late to run away. and whither could he have run? the four white roads gleamed unsheltered over the plains; there was no place to hide in, and not a soul in sight.
when the large-mouthed woman seized jan in her arms, and kissing him cried aloud, “here he is at last! my child, my long lost child!” the despair which sank into the poor boy’s heart made him speechless. was it possible that this woman was his mother? his foster-mother’s words tolled like a knell in his ears,—“the woman that brought our jan hither.” at the sound of sal’s voice the hunchback appeared from behind the cart, and his wife dragged jan towards him, crying, “here’s our dear son! our pretty, clever little son.”
“i bean’t your son!” cried poor jan, desperately. “my mother’s dead.” for a moment the cheap jack’s wife seemed staggered; but unluckily jan added, “she died last month,” and it was evident that he knew nothing of his real history.
“oh, them mill people, them false wretches!” screamed the woman. “have i been a paying ’em for my precious child, all this time, for ’em to teach him to deny his own mother! the brutes!”
jan’s face and eyes blazed with passion. “how dare you abuse my good father and mother!” he cried. “you be the wretch, and”—
but at this, and the same moment, the cheap jack seized jan furiously by the throat, and rufus sprang upon the hunchback. the hunchback was in the greater danger, from which only his wife’s presence of mind saved him. she shrieked to him to let jan go, that he might call off the dog, which the vindictive little cheap jack was loath to do. and when jan had got rufus off, and was holding him by the collar, the hunchback seized a hatchet with which he had been cutting stakes, and rushed upon the dog. jan put himself between them, crying incoherently, “let him alone! he’s not mine—he won’t hurt you—i’ll send him home—i’ll let un loose if ye don’t;” and sal held back her husband, and said, “if you’ll behave civil, jan, my dear, and as you should do to your poor mother, you may send the dog home. and well for him too, for john’s a man that’s not very particular what he does to them that puts him out in a place like this where there’s no one to tell tales. he’d chop him limb from limb, as soon as not.”
jan shuddered. there was no choice but to save rufus. he clung round the curly brown neck in one agonized embrace, and then steadied his voice for an authoritative, “home, rufus!” as he let him go. rufus hesitated, and looked dangerously at the hunchback, who lifted the hatchet. jan shouted angrily, “home, rufus!” and rufus obeyed. twenty times, as his familiar figure, with the plumy tail curled sideways, lessened along the road, was jan tempted to call him back to his destruction; but he did not. only when the brown speck was fairly lost to sight, his utter friendlessness overwhelmed him, and falling on his knees he besought the woman with tears to let him go,—at least to tell master lake all about it.
the hunchback began to reply with angry oaths, but sal made signs to him to be silent, and said, “it comes very hard to me, jan, to be treated this way by my only son, but, if you’ll be a good boy, i’m willing to oblige you, and we’ll drive round by the mill to let you see your friends, though it’s out of the way too.”
jan was profuse of thanks, and by the woman’s desire he sat down to share their breakfast. the hunchback examined his sketch-book, and, as he laid it down again, he asked, “did you ever make picters on stone, eh?”
“before i could get paper, i did, sir,” said jan.
“but could you now? could you make ’em on a flat stone, like a paving-stone?”
“if i’d any thing to draw with, i could,” said jan. “i could draw on any thing, if i had something in my hand to draw with.”
the cheap jack’s face became brighter, and in a mollified tone he said to his wife, “he’s a prime card for such a young un. it’s a rum thing, too! a man i knowed was grand at screeving, but he said himself he was nowheres on paper. he made fifteen to eighteen shillin’ a week on a average,” the hunchback continued. “i’ve knowed him take two pound.”
“did you ever draw fish, my dear?” he inquired.
“no, sir,” said jan. “but i’ve drawn pigs and dogs, and i be mostly able to draw any thing i sees, i think.”
the cheap jack whistled. “profiles pays well,” he murmured; “but the tip is the young prodigy.”
“we’re so pleased to see what a clever boy you are, jan,” said sal; “that’s all, my dear. put the bridle on the horse, john, for we’ve got to go round by the mill.”
whilst the cheap jack obeyed her, sal poked in the cart, from which she returned with three tumblers on a plate. she gave one to her husband, took one herself, and gave the third to jan.
“here’s to your health, love,” said she; “drink to mine, jan, and i’ll be a good mother to you.” jan tasted, and put his glass down again, choking. “it’s so strong!” he said.
the cheap jack looked furious. “nice manners they’ve taught this brat of yours!” he cried to sal. “do ye think i’m going to take my ’oss a mile out of the road to take him to see his friends, when he won’t so much as drink our good healths?”
“oh! i will, indeed i will, sir,” cried jan. he had taken a good deal of medicine during his illness, and he had learned the art of gulping. he emptied the little tumbler into his mouth, and swallowed the contents at a gulp.
they choked him, but that was nothing. then he felt as if something seized him in the inside of every limb. after he lost the power of moving, he could hear, and he heard the cheap jack say, “i’d go in for the young prodigy; genteel from the first; only, if we goes among the nobs, he may be recognized. he’s a rum-looking beggar.”
“if you don’t go a drinking every penny he earns,” said sal, pointedly, “we’ll soon get enough in a common line to take us to ameriky, and he’ll be safe enough there.” on this jan thought that he made a most desperate struggle and remonstrance. but in reality his lips never moved from their rigidity, and he only rolled his head upon his shoulder. after which he remembered no more.
