“Thee likes pig-minding, I reckon?” said Jan, stripping the leaves from a sallywithy wand, which he had picked to imitate that of the swineherd.
“Do I?” said the large-coated urchin, wiping his face with the big sleeve of his blue coat. “That’s aal thee knows about un. I be going to leave to-morrow, I be. And if so be Master Salter’s got another bwoy, or if so be he’s not, I dunno, it ain’t nothin’ to I.”
Jan learned that he had eighteen pence a week for driving the pigs to a wood at some little distance, where they fed on acorns, beech-mast, etc.; for giving them water, keeping them together, and bringing them home at teatime. He allowed that he could drive them as slowly as he pleased, and that they kept pretty well together in the wood; but that, as a whole, the perversity of pigs was such that— “Well, wait till ee tries it theeself, Jan Lake, that’s aal.”
Jan had resolved to do so. He did not return with his foster-brothers to the mill. He slipped off on one of his solitary expeditions, and made his way to the farm-house of Master Salter.
Master Salter and his wife sat at tea in the kitchen. In the cheerful clatter of cups, they had failed to hear Jan’s knock; but the sunshine streaming through the open doorway being broken by some small body, the farmer’s wife looked hastily up, thinking that the new-born calf had got loose, and was on the threshold.
But it was Jan. The outer curls of his hair gleamed in the sunlight like an aureole about his face. He had doffed his hat, out of civility, and he held it in one hand, whilst with the other he fingered the slate that hung at his waist.
“Massey upon us!” said the farmer, looking up at the same instant. “And who be thee?”
“Jan Lake, the miller’s son, maester.”
“Come in, come in!” cried Master Salter, hospitably. “So Master Lake have sent thee with a message, eh?”
“My father didn’t send me,” said Jan, gravely. “I come myself. Do ’ee want a pig-minder, Master Salter?”