“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.