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"Haw, haw, haw!" roared the other members of the company, as they slowly realized Master Chuter's irony at the expense of the "voolish" Gearge. George took their rough banter in excellent part. He sipped his beer, and grinned like a cat at his own expense. But after the guffaws had subsided, he said, "Thee's not told un about that five pound yet, Master Chuter."
When the joiner, amused by the keen gaze of Jan's black eyes, asked him good-naturedly "how he liked it," Jan expressed his opinion, to illustrate which he involuntarily took up the fat pencil lying on the bench, and made a sketch of Master Chuter's cabinet upon a bit of wood. News spreads with mysterious swiftness in all communities, large and small.
And when, with a flourish of hyperbole, he told Master Chuter's guests that nothing to eat or drink was to be got in London, they took his word for it; and it was without suspicion of satire that Daddy Angel said, "The gen'leman do look pretty middlin' hearty too con-sid'rin'."
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.
It was Master Chuter's little daughter, a pretty child, with an oval, dainty- featured face, and a prim gentleness about her, like a good little girl in a good little story. The intervening young rustics began to nudge each other and look back at her. "Kitty Chuter be crying!" they whispered.
"Jan Lake Jan," said he. "Be thee the boy as draad out the sow and her pigs for Master Chuter's little gel?" Jan nodded. "Lor massey!" cried Master Salter. "I' told'ee, missus, about un. Look here, Jan Lake. If thee'll draa me out some pigs like them, I'll give 'ee sixpence and a new slate, and I'll try thee for a week, anyhow." Jan drew the slate-pencil from his pocket without reply. Mrs.
He could not help hoping for some turn of Fortune's wheel which should give the lad to him for his own. Jan was not likely to lack friends. The Squire had heard with amazement that Master Chuter's new sign was the work of a child, and he offered to place him under proper instruction to be trained as an artist.
It was a combination of shelves and cupboard, and was something like an old oak cabinet which stood in Master Chuter's parlor, and which, in Jan's opinion, was both handsomer and more convenient than this.
Master Chuter provided him with sheets of thick whitey-brown paper, on which he made water-color studies, from which he painted afterwards. By his desire no one was admitted to the tallet, though Master Chuter's delight increased with the progress of the picture till the secret was agony to him.
His fame would probably have spread more widely, but for a more overwhelming interest which came to distract the neighborhood, and which destroyed a neat little project of Master Chuter's for running up a few tables amongst his kidney-beans, as a kind of "tea garden" for folk from outlying villages, who, coming in on Sunday afternoons to service, should also want to see the work of the boy sign- painter.
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