United States or Puerto Rico ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Strange gleams under a stormy sky, sunshine on some kingfisher's plumage rising from the river, and all the ever-changing beauties about him, stirred his heart with emotions that he could not have defined. There was much to see even from Dame Datchett's open door, but there was more to be imagined. Jan's envy of the pig-minder had reached a great height when the last school-day came.
He had woven such a romance about Master Salter's swineherd and his life, as he watched him week after week from Dame Datchett's door with envious eyes, that even his coat, with the tails almost sweeping the ground, seemed to Jan to have a dignified air.
Dame Datchett's cottage was the last on one side of the street; but it did not face the street, but looked over the water-meadows, and the little river, and the bridge.
The two had been of the same party during Goodwood week. Teddy had joined them after on board Lord Datchett's yacht at Cowes; and, his leave up, and he forced to stop in London during the end of August, what more natural than that when she came up to town for a few days' shopping, Teddy should offer to act escort to her? it was such a pleasure to him, poor fellow!
The fame of Jan's "pitcher-making" had gone before him to Dame Datchett's school by the mouths of his foster-brothers and sisters, and he found a dozen little voices ready to dictate subjects for his pencil. "Make a 'ouse, Janny Lake." "Make thee vather's mill, Janny Lake." "Make a man. Make Dame Datchett. Make the parson. Make the Cheap Jack. Make Daddy Angel. Make Master Chuter.
"Have you lost something?" said Jan. But the old man did not answer. He did not even speak of the leaf- picture, to Jan's chagrin. But, stroking the boy's shoulder almost tenderly, he asked, "Did ye ever go to school, laddie?" Jan nodded. "At Dame Datchett's," said he. "Ah! ye were sorry to leave school for pig-minding, weren't ye?" Jan shook his head. "I likes pigs," said he.
If any one had been present outside Dame Datchett's cottage at that moment who had been in the windmill when Jan first came to it, he would have seen a likeness so vivid between the face of the child and the face of the man who brought him to the mill as would have seemed to clear up at least one point of the mystery of his parentage.
The other children wrote so slowly that time had hung heavy on his hands; and, instead of copying the figures in a row, he had made a drawing of the clock-face, with the figures on it; but instead of the hands, he had put eyes, nose, and mouth, and below the mouth a round gray blot, which William instantly recognized for a portrait of the mole on Dame Datchett's chin.
Day after day, when the tedium of doing nothing under Dame Datchett's superintendence was insufficiently relieved to Jan's active mind by pinching "Willum" till he giggled, or playing cat's-cradle with one of his foster- brothers, did he welcome the sight of a flock of pigs with their keeper, scuttling past the Dame's door, and rushing snorting to the stream.
Dame Datchett's scholars were very young, and it is to be hoped that the chief objects of their parents in paying for their schooling were to insure their being kept safely out of the way for a certain portion of each day, and the saving of wear and tear to clothes and shoes. It is to be hoped so, because this much of discipline was to some extent accomplished.
Word Of The Day