the blue coat.—pig-minding and tree-studying.—leaf-paintings.—a stranger.—master swift is disappointed.
when jan returned to the windmill, and gravely announced that he had hired himself out as pig-minder to master salter, mrs. lake was, as she said, “put about.” she considered pig-minding quite beneath the dignity of her darling, and brought forward every objection she could think of except the real one. but the windmiller had no romantic dreams on jan’s behalf, and he decided that “’twas better he should be arning a shillin’ a week than gettin’ into mischief at whoam.” jan’s ambition, however, was not satisfied. he wanted a blue coat, such as is worn by the shepherd-boys on the plains. he did not mind how old it was, but it must be large; long in the skirt and sleeves. he had woven such a romance about master salter’s swineherd and his life, as he watched him week after week from dame datchett’s door with envious eyes, that even his coat, with the tails almost sweeping the ground, seemed to jan to have a dignified air. and there really was something to be said in favor of sleeves so long that he could turn them back into a huge cuff in summer, and turn them down, chinese fashion, over his hands in winter, to keep them warm.
such a blue coat abel had possessed, but it was not suitable for mill work, and mrs. lake was easily persuaded to give it to jan. he refused to have it curtailed, or in any way adapted to his figure, and in it, with a switch of his own cutting, he presented himself at master salter’s farm in good time the following morning.
it could not be said that jan’s predecessor had exaggerated the perversity of the pigs he drove. if the coat of his choice had a fault in jan’s estimation, it was that it helped to make him very hot as he ran hither and thither after his flock. but he had not studied pig-nature in vain. he had a good deal of sympathy with its vagaries, and he was quite able to outwit the pigs. indeed, a curious attachment grew up between the little swineherd and his flock, some of whom would come at his call, when he rewarded their affection, as he had gained it, by scratching their backs with a rough stick.
but there were times when their playful and errant peculiarities were no small annoyance to him. jan was growing fast both in mind and body. phases of taste and occupation succeed each other very rapidly when one is young; and there are, perhaps, no more distinct phases, more sudden strides, than in the art of painting. with jan the pig phase was going, and it was followed by landscape-sketching.
jan was drawing his pigs one day in the little wood, when he fancied that the gnarled elbow of a branch near him had, in its outline, some likeness to a pig’s face, and he began to sketch it on his slate. but in studying the tree the grotesque likeness was forgotten, and there burst upon his mind, as a revelation, the sense of that world of beauty which lies among stems and branches, twigs and leaves. painfully, but with happy pains, he traced the branch joint by joint, curve by curve, as it spread from the parent stem and tapered to its last delicate twigs. it was like following a river from its source to the sea. but to that sea of summer sky, in which the final ramifications of his branch were lost, jan did not reach. he was abruptly stopped by the edge of his slate, which would hold no more.
to remedy this, when next he drew trees, he began the branches from the outer tips, and worked inwards to the stem. it was done for convenience, but to this habit he used afterwards to lay some of the merit of his admirable touch in tree-painting. and so “pig-making” became an amusement of the past, and the spell of the woods fell on jan.
it was no very wonderful wood either, this one where he first herded pigs and studied trees. it was composed chiefly of oaks and beeches, none of them of very grand proportions. but it was little cut and little trodden. the bramble-bowers were unbroken, the leaf-mould was deep and rich, and a very tiny stream, which trickled out of sight, kept mosses ever green about its bed. the whole wood was fragrant with honeysuckle, which pushed its way everywhere, and gay with other wild flowers. but the trees were jan’s delight. he would lie on his back and gaze up into them with unwearying pleasure. he looked at his old etching with new interest, to see how the artist had done the branches of the willows by the water-mill. and then he would get abel to put a very sharp point to his own slate-pencil, and would go back to the real oaks and beeches, which were so difficult and yet so fascinating to him.
he was very happy in the wood, with two drawbacks. the pigs would stray when he became absorbed in his sketching, and the slate and slate-pencil, which did very well to draw pigs in outline, were miserable implements, when more than half the beauty of the subject to be represented was in its color. for the first evil there was no remedy but to give chase. out of the second came an amusement in favor of which even the beloved slate hung idle.
in watching beautiful bits of coloring in the wood, contrasted greens of many hues, some jutting branch with yellowish foliage caught by the sun, and relieved by a distance of blue grays beyond,—colors and contrasts which only grew lovelier as the heavy green of midsummer was broken by the inroad of autumnal tints,—jan noticed also that among the fallen leaves at his feet there were some of nearly every color in the foliage above. at first it was by a sort of idle trick that he matched one against the other, as a lady sorts silks for her embroidery; then he arranged bits of the leaves upon the outline on his slate, and then, the slate being too small, he amused himself by grouping the leaves upon the path in front of him into woodland scenes. the idea had been partly suggested to him by a bottle which stood on mrs. salter’s mantelpiece, containing colored sands arranged into landscapes; a work of art sent by mrs. salter’s sister from the isle of wight.
the slate would have been quite unused, but for the difficulties jan got into with his outlines. at last he adopted the plan of making a sketch upon his slate, which he then laid beside him on the walk, and copied it in leaves. more perishable even than the pig-drawings, the evening breeze generally cast these paintings to the winds, but none the less was jan happy with them, and sometimes in quiet weather, or a sheltered nook, they remained undisturbed for days.
dame datchett’s school reopened, but jan would not leave his pigs. he took the shilling faithfully home each week to his foster-mother. she found it very useful, and she had no very high ideas about education. she had some twinges of conscience in the matter, but she had no strength of purpose, and jan went his own way.
the tints had grown very warm on trees and leaves, when jan one day accomplished, with much labor, the best painting he had yet done. it was of a scene before his eyes. the trees were admirably grouped; he put little bits of twigs for the branches, which now showed more than hitherto, and he added a glimpse of the sky by neatly dovetailing the petals of some bluebells into a mosaic. he had turned back the long sleeves of his coat, and had with difficulty kept the tail of it from doing damage to his foreground, and had perseveringly kept the pigs at bay, when, as he returned with a last instalment of bluebells to finish his sky, he saw a man standing on the path, with his back to him, completely blotting out the view by his very broad body, and with one heel not half an inch from jan’s picture.
he was a coarsely built old man, dressed in threadbare black. the tones of his voice were broad, and quite unlike the local dialect. he was speaking as jan came up, but to no companion that jan could see, though his hand was outstretched in sympathy with his words. he was looking upwards, too, as jan was wont to look himself, into that azure sky which he was trying to paint in bluebell flowers.
in truth, the stranger was spouting poetry, and poems and recitations were alike unknown to jan; but something caught his fancy in what he heard, and the flowers dropped from his fingers as the broad but not ungraceful accents broke upon his ear:—
“the clouds were pure and white as flocks new shorn,
and fresh from the clear brook; sweetly they slept
on the blue fields of heaven, and then there crept
a little noiseless noise among the leaves,
born of the very sigh that silence heaves;
for not the faintest motion could be seen
of all the shades that slanted o’er the green.”
the old man paused for an instant, and, turning round, saw jan, and put his heavy foot into the sky of jan’s picture. he drew it back at jan’s involuntary cry, and, after a long look at the quaint figure before him, said, “are ye one of the fairies, little man?”
but jan knew nothing of fairies. “i be jan lake, from the mill,” said he.
“are ye so? but that’s not a miller’s coat ye’ve on,” said the old man, with a twinkle in his eye.
jan looked seriously at it, and then explained. “i be master salter’s pig-minder just now, but i’ve got a miller’s thumb, i have.”
“that’s well, master pig-minder; and now would ye tell an old man what ye screamed out for. did i scare ye?”
“oh, no, sir,” said jan, civilly; and he added, “i liked that you were saying.”
“are ye a bit of a poet as well as a pig-minder, then?” and waving his hand with a theatrical gesture up the wood, the old man began to spout afresh:—
“a filbert hedge with wild briar overtwined,
and clumps of woodbine taking the soft wind
upon their summer thrones; there too should be
the frequent chequer of a youngling tree,
that with a score of light green brethren shoots
from the quaint mossiness of aged roots:
round which is heard a spring-head of clear waters
babbling so wildly of its lovely daughters,
the spreading bluebells; it may haply mourn
that such fair clusters should be rudely torn
from their fresh beds, and scattered thoughtlessly
by infant hands, left on the path to die.”
between the strange dialect and the unfamiliar terseness of poetry, jan did not follow this very clearly, but he caught the allusion to bluebells, and the old man brought his hand back to his side with a gesture so expressive towards the bluebell fragments at his feet, that it hardly needed the tone of reproach he gave to the last few words—“left on the path to die”—to make jan hang his head.
“’twas the only blue i could find,” he said, looking ruefully at the fading flowers.
“and what for did ye want blue, then, my lad?”
“to make the sky with,” said jan.
“the powers of the air be good to us!” said the stranger, setting his broad hat back from his face, as if to obtain a clearer view of the little pig-minder. “are ye a sky-maker as well as a swineherd? and while i’m catechising ye, may i ask for what do ye bring a slate out pig-minding and sky-making?”
“i draws out the trees on it first,” said jan, “and then i does them in leaves. if you’ll come round,” he added, shyly, “you’ll see it. but don’t tread on un, please, sir.”
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.
