“I do think, Janny dear, that Mary, she wants me, and the others too. I think I be going after them. But thee’ll look to mother, Janny dear, eh?”
“But I want thee, too, Abel dear,” sobbed Jan.
“I be thinking perhaps them that brought thee hither’ll fetch thee away some day, Jan. But thee’ll see to mother?” repeated Abel, his eyes wandering restlessly with a look of pain.
Jan knew now that he was only an adopted child of the windmill, though he stoutly ignored the fact, being very fond of his foster-parents.
Abel’s illness came with the force of a fresh blow. There had been a slight pause in the course of the fever at the mill, and it seemed as if these two boys were to be spared. Abel had been busy helping his father to burn the infected bedding, etc., that very morning, and at night he lay raving.
He raved of Jan’s picture which swung unheeded above Master Chuter’s door, and confused it with some church-window that he seemed to fancy Jan had painted; then of his dead brothers and sisters. And then from time to time he rambled about a great flock of sheep which he saw covering the vast plains about the windmill, and which he wearied himself in trying to count. And, as he tossed, he complained in piteous tones about some man who seemed to be the shepherd, and who would not do something that Abel wanted.
For the most part, he knew no one but Jan, and then only when Jan touched him. It seemed to give him pleasure. He understood nothing that was said to him, except in brief intervals. Once, after a short sleep, he opened his eyes and recognized the schoolmaster.
“Master Swift,” said he, “do ’ee think that be our Lord among them sheep? With His hair falling on’s shoulders, and the light round His head, and the long frock?”
Master Swift’s eyes turned involuntarily in the direction in which Abel’s were gazing. He saw nothing but the dark corners of the dwelling-room; but he said,—
“Ay, ay, Abel, my lad.”