“And whose life are ye at now, laddie?” he asked, with a smile.
Jan lifted his face, which was glowing. “’Tis Rembrandt the painter I be reading about. Eh, Master Swift, he lived in a windmill, and he was a miller’s son!”
“Maybe he’d a miller’s thumb,” Jan added, stretching out his own, and smiling at the droll idea. “Do ’ee know what etchings be, then, Master Swift?”
“A kind of picture that’s scratched on a piece of copper with needles, and costs a lot of money to print,” said Master Swift, dryly; and he turned his broad back and went out.
It was one day in the second winter of Jan’s learning under Master Swift that matters came to a climax. The schoolmaster loved punctuality, but Jan was not always punctual. He was generally better in this respect in winter than in summer, as there was less to distract his attention on the road to school. But one winter’s day he loitered to make a sketch on his slate, and made matters worse by putting finishing touches to it after he was seated at the desk.
It was not a day to suggest sketching, but, turning round when he was about half way to the village, the view seemed to Jan to be exactly suitable for a slate sketch. The long slopes of the downs were white with snow; but it was a dull grayish white, for there was no sunshine, and the gray-white of the slate-pencil did it justice enough. In the middle distance rose the windmill, and a thatched cattle shed and some palings made an admirable foreground. On the top and edges of these lay the snow, outlining them in white, which again the slate-pencil could imitate effectively. There only wanted something darker than the slate itself to do those parts of the foreground and the mill which looked darker than the sky, and for this Jan trusted to pen and ink when he reached his desk. The drawing was very successful, and Jan was so absorbed in admiring it that he did not notice the schoolmaster’s approach, but feeling some one behind him, he fancied it was one of the boys, and held up the slate triumphantly, whispering, “Look ’ee here!”
It was Master Swift who looked, and snatching the slate he brought it down on the sharp corner of the desk, and broke it to pieces. Then he went back to his place, and spoke neither bad nor good to Jan for the rest of the school-time. Jan would much rather have been beaten. Once or twice he made essay to go up to Master Swift’s desk, but the old man’s stern countenance discouraged him, and he finally shrank into a corner and sat weeping bitterly. He sat there till every scholar but himself had gone, and still the schoolmaster did not speak. Jan slunk out, and when Master Swift turned homewards Jan followed silently in his footsteps through the snow. At the door of the cottage, the old man looked round with a relenting face.
“I suppose Rufus’ll insist on your coming in,” said he; and Jan rushing in hid his face in Rufus’s curls, and sobbed heavily.
“Tut, tut!” said the schoolmaster. “No more of that, child. There’s bitters enough in life, without being so prodigal of your tears.”
“Come and sit down with ye,” he went on. “You’re very young, lad, and maybe I’m foolish to be angry with ye that you’re not wise. But yet ye’ve more sense than your years in some respects, and I’m thinking I’ll try and make ye see things as I see ’em. I’m going to tell ye something about myself, if ye’d care to hear it.”