Jan of the Windmill Part 21

"Are ye thinking ambition was dead in the old man at last? It came to life again, Jan. After a bit, I says to myself, 'In a dull place like this there's doubtless many a boy that might rise that never has the chance that I'd have given to mine. For what says the poet Gray? -

"But Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Rich with the spoils of Time, did ne'er unroll."'

"I think, Jan, sometimes, I'm like Rachel, who'd rather have taken to her servant's children than have had none. I thought, 'If there's a genius in obscurity here, I'll come across the boy, being schoolmaster, and I'll do for him as I'd have done for my own.'

Jan, I've seen nigh on seven generations of lads pa.s.s through this school, but HE'S NEVER COME! Society's quit of that blame. There's been no 'mute, inglorious Miltons' here since I come to this place.

There's been many a nice-tempered lad I've loved, for I'm fond of children, but never one that yearned to see places he'd never seen, or to know things he'd never heard of. There's no fool like an old one, and I think I've been more disappointed as time went on. I submitted myself to the Lord's will years ago; but I HAVE prayed Him, on my knees, since He didn't see fit to raise me and mine, to let me have that satisfaction to help some other man's son to knowledge and to fame.

"Jan Lake," said Master Swift, "when I found you in yon wood, I found what I've looked for in vain for thirty-five years. Have I been schoolmaster so long, d'ye think, and don't know one boy's face from another? Lad? is it possible ye don't CARE to be a great man?"

Jan cared very much, but he was afraid of Master Swift; and it was by an effort that he summoned up courage to say, -

"Couldn't I be a great painter, Master Swift, don't 'ee think?"

The old man frowned impatiently. "What have I been telling ye? The Fine Arts are not the road to fame for working-men. Jan, Jan, be guided by me. Learn what I bid ye. And when ye've made name and fortune the way I show ye, ye can buy paints and paintings at your will, and paint away to please your leisure hours."

It did not need the gentle Abel's after-counsel to persuade Jan to submit himself to the schoolmaster's direction.

"I'll do as ye bid me, Master Swift; indeed, I will, sir," said he.

But, when the pleased old man rambled on of fame and fortune, it must be confessed that Jan but thought of them as the steps to those hours of wealthy leisure in which he could buy paints and indulge the irrepressible bent of his genius without blame.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE WHITE HORSE IN CLOVER.--AMABEL AND HER GUARDIANS.--AMABEL IN THE WOOD.--BOGY.

The white horse lived to see good days. He got safely home, and spent the winter in a comfortable stable, with no work but being exercised for the good of his health by the stable-boy. It was expensive, but expense was not a first consideration with the Squire, and when he had once decided a matter, he was not apt to worry himself with regrets. As to Amabel the very narrowness of the white horse's escape from death exalted him at once to the place of first favorite in her tender heart, even over the head (and ears) of the new donkey.

"Miss Amabel's" interest in the cart-horse offended her nurse's ideas of propriety, and met with no sympathy from her mother or grandmother. But she was apt to get her own way; and from time to time she appeared suddenly, like a fairy-imp, in the stable, where she majestically directed the groom to hold her up whilst she plied a currycomb on the old horse's back. This over, she would ask with dignity, "Do you take care of him, Miles?" And Miles, touching his cap, would reply, "Certainly, miss, the very greatest of care." And Amabel would add, "Does he get plenty to eat, do you think?"

"Plenties to heat, miss," the groom would reply. And she generally closed the conversation with, "I'm very glad. You're a good man, Miles."

In spring the white horse was turned out into the paddock, where Amabel had begged that he might die comfortably. He lived comfortably instead; and Amabel visited him constantly, and being perfectly fearless would kiss his white nose as he drooped it into her little arms. Her visits to the stable had been discovered and forbidden, but the scandal was even greater when she was found in the paddock, standing on an inverted bucket, and grooming the white horse with Lady Louisa's tortoise-sh.e.l.l dressing-comb.

"They wouldn't let me have the currycomb," said Amabel, who was very hot, and perfectly self-satisfied. Lady Louisa was in despair, but the Squire laughed. The ladies of his family had been great horsewomen for generations.

In the early summer, some light carting being required by the gardener, he begged leave to employ "Miss Amabel's old horse," who came at last to trot soberly to the town with a light cart for parcels, when the landlord of the Crown would point him out in proof of the Squire's sagacity in horse-flesh.

But it was not by her attachment to the cart-horse alone that Amabel disturbed the composure of the head-nurse and of Louise the bonne.

She was a very Will-o'-the-wisp for wandering. She grew rapidly, and the stronger she grew the more of a Tom-boy she became. Beyond the paddock lay another field, whose farthest wall was the boundary of a little wood,--the wood where Jan had herded pigs. Into this wood it had long been Amabel's desire to go. But nurses have a preference for the high road, and object to climbing walls, and she had not had her wish. She had often peeped through a hole in the wall, and had smelt honeysuckle. Once she had climbed half way up, and had fallen on her back in the ditch. Louise uttered a thousand and one exclamations when Amabel came home after this catastrophe; and Nurse, distrusting the success of any real penalties in her power, fell back upon imaginary ones.

"I'm sure it's a mercy you have got back, Miss Amabel," said she; "for Bogy lives in that wood; and, if you'd got in, it's ten to one he'd have carried you off."

"You SAID Bogy lived in the cellar," said Amabel.

Nurse was in a dilemma which deservedly besets people who tell untruths. She had to invent a second one to help out her first.

"That's at night," said she: "he lives in the wood in the daytime."

"Then I can go into the cellar in the day, and the wood at night,"

retorted Amabel; but in her heart she knew the latter was impossible.

For some days Nurse's fable availed. Amabel had suffered a good deal from Bogy; and, though the fear of him did not seem so terrible by daylight, she had no wish to meet him. But one lovely afternoon, wandering round the field for cowslips, Amabel came to the wall, and could not but peep over to see if there were any flowers to be seen.

She was too short to do this without climbing, and it ended in her struggling successfully to the top. There were violets on the other side, and Amabel let down one big foot to a convenient hole, whence she hoped to be able to stoop and catch at the violets without actually treading in Bogy's domain. But once more she slipped and rolled over,--this time into the wood. Bogy lingered, and she got on to her feet; but the wall was deeper on this side than the other, and she saw with dismay that it was very doubtful if she could get back.

I think, as a rule, children are very brave. But a light heart goes a long way towards courage. At first Amabel made desperate and knee-grazing efforts to reclimb the wall, and, failing, burst into tears, and danced, and called aloud on all her protectors, from the Squire to Miles. No one coming, she restrained her tears, and by a real effort of that "pluck" for which the Ammaby race is famous began to run along the wall to find a lower point for climbing. In doing so, she startled a squirrel, and whizz!--away he went up a lanky tree. What a tail he had! Amabel forgot her terrors. There was at any rate some living thing in the wood besides Bogy; and she was now busy trying to coax the squirrel down again by such encouraging noises as she had found successful in winning the confidence of kittens and puppies. Amabel was the victim of that weakness for falling in love with every fussy, intelligent, or pitiable beast she met with, which besets some otherwise reasonable beings, leading to an inconvenient acc.u.mulation of pets in private life, though doubtless invaluable in the public services of people connected with the Zoological Gardens.

The squirrel sat under the shadow of his own tail, and winked. He had not the remotest intention of coming down. Amabel was calmer now, and she looked about her. The eglantine bushes were shoulder- high, but she had breasted underwood in the shrubberies, and was not afraid. Up, up, stretched the trees to where the sky shone blue.

The wood itself sloped downwards; the spotted arums pushed boldly through last year's leaves, which almost hid the violets; there were tufts of primroses, which made Amabel cry out, and about them lay the exquisite mauve dog-violets in unplucked profusion. And hither and thither darted the little birds; red-b.r.e.a.s.t.s and sparrows, and yellow finches and blue finches, and blackbirds and thrushes, with their cheerful voices and soft waistcoats, and, indeed, every good quality but that of knowing how glad one would be to kiss them. In a few steps, Amabel came upon a path going zig-zag down the steep of the wood, and, nodding her hooded head determinedly, she said, "Amabel is going a walk. I don't mind Bogy," and followed her nose.

It is a pity that one's skirt, when held up, does not divide itself into compartments, like some vegetable dishes. One is so apt to get flowers first, and then lumps of moss, which spoil the flowers, and then more moss, which, earth downwards (as bread and b.u.t.ter falls), does no good to the rest. Amabel had on a nice, new dress, and it held things beautifully. But it did not hold enough, for at each step of the zig-zag path the moss grew lovelier. She had got some extinguisher-moss from the top of the wall, and this now lay under all the rest, which flattened the extinguishers. About half way down the dress was full, and some cus.h.i.+on-moss appeared that could not be pa.s.sed by. Amabel sat down and reviewed her treasures. She could part with nothing, and she had just caught sight of some cup- moss lichen for dolls' wine-gla.s.ses. But, by good luck, she was provided with a white sun-bonnet, as clean and whole as her dress; and this she took off and filled. It was less fortunate that the scale-mosses and liverworts, growing nearer to the stream, came last, and, with the damp earth about them, lay a-top of every thing, flowers, dolls' wine-gla.s.ses, and all. It was a n.o.ble collection-- but heavy. Amabel's face flushed, and she was slightly overbalanced, but she staggered st.u.r.dily along the path, which was now level.

She had quite forgotten Nurse's warning, when she came suddenly upon a figure crouched in her path, and gazing at her with large, black eyes. Her fat cheeks turned pale, and with a cry of, "It's Bogy!"

she let down the whole contents of her dress into one of Jan's leaf- pictures.

"Don't hurt me! Don't take me away! Please, please don't!" she cried, dancing wildly.

"I won't hurt you, Miss. I be going to help you to pick 'em up,"

said Jan. By the time he had returned her treasures to her skirt, Amabel had regained confidence, especially as she saw no signs of the black bag in which naughty children are supposed to be put.

"What are you doing, Bogy?" said she.

"I be making a picture, Miss," said Jan, pointing it out.

"Go on making it, please," said Amabel; and she sat down and watched him.

"Do you like this wood, Bogy?" she asked, softly, after a time.

"I do, Miss," said Jan.

"Why don't you sleep in it, then? I wouldn't sleep in a cellar, if I were you."

"I don't sleep in a cellar, Miss."

"Nurse SAYS you do," said Amabel, nodding emphatically.

Jan was at a loss how to express the full inaccuracy of Nurse's statement in polite language, so he was silent; rapidly adding tint to tint from his heap of leaves, whilst the birds sang overhead, and Amabel sat with her two bundles watching him.

"I thought you were an old man!" she said, at length.

"Oh, no, Miss," said Jan, laughing.

"You don't look very bad," Amabel continued.

"I don't think I be very bad," said Jan, modestly.

Amabel's next questions came at short intervals, like dropping shots.