Jan of the Windmill Part 29

"All right, Jan," said the hunchback. "Keep 'em together, my dear, meanwhile. We're doing prime, and you shall have a sausage for supper."

As the Cheap Jack waddled away for the whitening, Jan said to the lockers-on, "Keep your places, ladies and gentlemen, till I return, and keep your eyes on the drawing, which is the last of the series,"

and ran off down a narrow street, at right angles to the oil-shop.

The crowd waited patiently for some moments. Then the Cheap Jack hurried back with the whitening. But Jan returned no more.

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

THE BAKER.--ON AND ON.--THE CHURCH BELL.--A DIGRESSION.--A FAMILIAR HYMN.--THE BOYS' HOME.

Jan stopped at last from lack of breath to go on. His feet had been winged by terror, and he looked back even now with fear to see the Cheap Jack's misshapen figure in pursuit. He had had no food for hours, but the pence the dark gentleman had given him were in his chalk pouch, and he turned into the first baker's shop he came to to buy a penny loaf. It was a small shop, served by a pleasant-faced man, who went up and down, humming, whistling, and singing, -

"Like tiny pipe of wheaten straw, The wren his little note doth swell, And every living thing that flies" -

"A penny loaf, please," said Jan, laying down the money, and the man turned and said, "Why, you be the boy that draws on the pavement!"

For a moment Jan was silent. It presented itself to him as a new difficulty, that he was likely to be recognized. There was a flour barrel by the counter, and as he pondered he began mechanically to sift the flour through his finger and thumb.

"You be used to flour seemingly," said the baker, smiling. "Was 'ee ever in a mill? 'ee seems to have a miller's thumb."

In a few minutes Jan had told his story, and had learned, with amazement and delight, that the baker had not only been a windmiller's man, but had worked in Master Lake's tower mill. He was, in fact, the man who had helped George the very night that Jan arrived. But he confirmed the fact that it was Sal who brought Jan, by his account of her, and he seemed to think that she was probably his mother. He was very kind. He refused to take payment for the loaf, and went, humming, whistling, and singing, away to get Jan some bacon to eat with it.

When he was alone, Jan's hand went back to the flour, and he sifted and thought. The baker was kind, but he had said that "it was an ackerd thing for a boy to quarrel with's parents." Jan felt that he expected him to go home. Perhaps at this moment the baker had gone, with the best intentions, to fetch the Cheap Jack, and bring about a family reunion. Terror had become an abiding state of Jan's mind, and it seized him afresh, like a palsy. He left the penny on the counter, and shook the flour-dust from his fingers, and, stealing with side glances of dread into the street, he sped away once more.

He had no knowledge of localities. He ran "on and on," as people do in fairy tales. Sometimes he rested on a doorstep, sometimes he hid in a shutter box or under an archway. He had learned to avoid the police, and he moved quickly from one dark corner to another with a hunted look in his black eyes. Late in the night he found a heap of straw near a warehouse, on which he lay down and fell asleep. At eight o'clock the next morning he was awakened by the clanging of a bell, and he jumped up in time to avoid a porter who was coming to the warehouse, and ran "on and on."

It was a bright morning, and the sun was s.h.i.+ning; but Jan's feet were sore, and his bones ached from cold and weariness. Yesterday the struggle to escape the Cheap Jack had kept him up, but now he could only feel his utter loneliness and misery. There was not a friendly sound in all the noises of the great city,--the street cries of food he could not buy, the quarrelling, the laughter with which he had no concern, the tramp of strange feet, the roar of traffic and prosperity in which he had no part.

He was so lonely, so desolate, that when a sound came to him which was familiar and pleasant, and full of old and good and happy a.s.sociations, it seemed to bring his sad life to a climax, to give just one strain too much to his powers of endurance. Like the white lights he put to his black sketches, it seemed to bring the darkness of his life into relief, and he felt as if he could bear no more, and would like to sit down and die. The sound came through the porch of a church. It was the singing of a hymn,--one of Charles Wesley's hymns, of which Master Swift was so fond.

The sooty iron gates were open, and so was the door. Jan crept in to peep, and he caught sight of a stained window full of pale faces, which seemed to beckon him, and he went into the church and no one molested him.

There is a very popular bit of what I venture to think a partly false philosophy which comes up again and again in magazines and story books in the shape of satirical contrasts between the words of the General Confession, or the Litany, and the particular materials in which the wors.h.i.+ppers, the intercessors, and the confessing sinners happen to be clothed. But, since broadcloth has never yet been made stout enough to keep temptation from the soul, and silk has proved no protection against sorrow, I confess that I never could see any thing more incongruous in the confessions and pet.i.tions of handsomely dressed people than of ragged ones. That any sinner can be "miserable" in satin, seems impossible, or at least offensive, to some minds; perhaps to those who know least of the reckless, callous light-heartedness of the most ragged reprobates.

This has nothing to do, it seems to me, with the fact that a certain degree of outlay on dress is criminal, on several grave accounts; nor even with the incongruous spectacle of a becoming bonnet arranged during the Litany by the tightly gloved fingers of a wors.h.i.+pper, who would probably not be any the more devout for being uncomfortably conscious of bad clothes. An old friend of my childhood used to tell me that she always thought a good deal of her dress before going to church, that she might quite forget it when there.

Surely, dress has absolutely nothing to do with devotion. And the impertinent patronage of wors.h.i.+ppers in "fustian" is at least as offensive as the older-fas.h.i.+oned vulgarity of pride in congregations who "come in their own carriages." And I do protest against the flippant inference that good clothes for the body must lower the a.s.sumptions of the spirit, or make repentance insincere; which I no more believe than that the wors.h.i.+p of a clean Christian is less acceptable than that of a brother who cannot afford or does not value the use of soap.

I am perhaps anxious to defend this congregation, on which Jan stumbled in the pale light of early morning in the city, from any imputation on the sincerity of its wors.h.i.+p, because it was mostly very comfortably clad. The men were chiefly business men, with a good deal of the obnoxious "broadcloth" about them, and with well- brushed hats beneath their seats. One of the stoutest and most comfortable-looking, with an intelligent face and a fair clean complexion which spoke of good food, stood near the door. He wore a new great-coat with a velvet collar, but his gray eyes (they had seen middle age, and did not s.h.i.+ne with any flash of youthful enthusiasm) were fixed upon the window, and he sang very heartily, and by heart, -

"Other Refuge have I none!

Hangs my helpless soul on Thee; Leave, ah! leave me not alone, Still support and comfort me."

The tears flowed down Jan's cheeks. It had been a favorite hymn of his foster-mother, and he had often sung it to her. Master Swift used to "give the note," and then sink himself into the ba.s.s part, and these quaint duets had been common at the mill. How delightful such simple pleasures seem to those who look back on them from the dark places of the earth, full of misery and wickedness!

In spite of his tears, Jan was fain to join as the hymn went on, and he sang like a bird, -

"All my trust on Thee is stayed, All my help from Thee I bring; Cover my defenceless head With the shadow of Thy wing."

It was the hymn after the third collect, and when it was ended the comfortable-looking gentleman motioned Jan into a seat, and he knelt down.

When the service was over, the same gentleman took him by the arm, and asked, "What's the matter with you, my boy?"

A rapid survey of his woes led Jan to reply, "I've no home, sir."

The congregation had dispersed quickly, for the men were going to business.

This gentleman walked fast, and he hurried Jan along with him.

"Who are your parents?" he asked. The service had recalled Jan's highest a.s.sociations, and he was anxious to tell the strict truth.

"I don't rightly know, sir," said he.

"Are you hungry?"

"Yes, sir," sobbed poor Jan.

They were stopping before a large house, and the gentleman said, "Look here, my boy. If you had a good home, and good food, and clothes, would you work? Would you try to be a good lad, and learn an honest trade?"

"I'd be glad, sir," said Jan.

"Have you ever worked? What can you do?" asked the gentleman.

"I can mind pigs; but I do think 'twould be best for I to be in a mill, and I've got a miller's thumb." Jan said this because the idea had struck him that if he could only get home again he might hire himself out at a mop to Master Lake. A traditional belief in the force of the law of hiring made him think that this would protect him against any claim of the Cheap Jack. Before the gentleman could reply, the house-door was opened by a boy some years older than Jan, who was despatched to fetch "the master." Jan felt sure that it must be a school, though he was puzzled by the contents of the room in which they waited. It was filled with pretty specimens of joiner's and cabinet-maker's work, some quite and some partly finished. There were also brushes of various kinds, so that, if there had been a suitable window, Jan would have concluded that it was a shop. In two or three moments the master's step sounded in the pa.s.sage.

Jan had pleasant a.s.sociations with the word "master," and he looked up with some vague fancy of seeing a second Master Swift. Not that Master Swift, or any one else in the slow-going little village, ever walked with this sharp, hasty tread, as if one hoped to overtake time! With such a step the gentleman himself went away, when he had said to Jan, "Be a good boy, my lad, and attend to your master, and he'll be a good friend to you."

He was not in the least like Master Swift. He was young, and youthfully dressed. A schoolmaster with neither spectacles nor a black coat was a new idea to Jan; but he seemed to be kind, for, with a sharp look at Jan's pinched face, he said, "You'll be glad of some breakfast, my lad, I fancy; and breakfast's only just over.

Come along." And away he went at double quick time down the pa.s.sage, and Jan ran after him.

On their way to the kitchen, they crossed an open court where boys were playing, and round which ran mottoes in large letters.

"You can read?" said the master, quickly, as he caught Jan's eyes following the texts. "Have you ever been to school?"

"Yes, sir," said Jan.

"Can you write? What else have you learned?"

Jan pondered his stock of accomplishments. "I can write, sir, and cipher. And I've learned geography and history, and Master Swift gave I lessons in mechanics, and I be very fond of poetry and painting, and" -

The master was painfully familiar with the inventive and boastful powers of street boys. He pushed Jan before him into the kitchen, saying smartly, but good-humoredly, "There, there! Don't make up stories, my boy. You must learn to speak the truth, if you come into the Home. We don't expect poets and painters," he added, smiling. "If you can chop wood, and learn what you're taught, you'll do for us."

A smile stole over the face of a shrewd-looking lad who was was.h.i.+ng dishes at the table. Jan saw that he was not believed, and his tears fell into the mug of cocoa, and on to the bread which formed his breakfast.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII.