Jan Mayen

“ Nono lay on Karin's knee, and she was looking fondly at him, while Jan stood silently beside her.
"I am a kind of a mother to him now, a real god-mother," she said. "I don't mean to tell him that he is not quite my own child. I mean to love him just like the others, and he shall never feel like a stranger here."
"Now you are quite wrong, Karin," said Jan, with a very serious look in his face. "He isn't your own child, and you can't make him so by hiding the truth from him. Tell him from the very first how it was. He won't love you the less because he was a stranger and you took him in. ”

“ 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. ”

“ No good ever comes of going from the truth. That's my notion!"
Jan stood up very straight as he finished, and sitting as Karin was, he seemed to her in every way high above her.
"You are right, Jan," she answered sorrowfully. "I suppose I must do as you say. I did so want him to be really my own, just like my little Gustaf."
"Your little Gustaf, our little Gustaf, is in a good place, and I hope Nono will be there too sometime," said Jan.
"Not Nono in heaven yet!" said Karin, pressing the dark baby to her breast. "I cannot spare him, and I don't believe God will take him." ”

“ I’m reminding you of what ye’ll know better than me (though not by yourself, for Jan tells me you’re a grand artist) , that a man may have the ambition and the love, and some talent for an art, and yet be just without that divine spark which the gods withhold. Sir, God forbid that I should undervalue the pure pleasure of even that little gift; but it’s ill for a lad when he has just that much of an art to keep him from a thrifty trade—and no more.”
The painter replied as earnestly as Master Swift had spoken,—
“Jan’s estimate of me is weaker than his judgment in art is wont to be. ”

“ His heart pounded, his tongue hung far out of his mouth, he plunged his nose into the soft, cold drifts, sometimes stopping to take a big bite, then with yelps of joy he darted on.
And high above the steep trail rose the sharp peaks that shadowed the hundreds of deep gullies: places where the snow never melted, even in summer. And Prince Jan knew that he was following once more the path that his forefathers had trodden. ”

“ We have not been brought hither all the way to this God-forsaken and fog-ridden spot in order to stare on a tumble-down molens, or watch a solitary prisoner ere he hang.
Jan knows of course, and Jan is eager and alert, febrile in his movements, there is a glow in his hollow eyes. And Jan always looks like that when fighting is in the air, when he sniffs the scent of blood and hears the resonance of metal against metal. Jan knows of course. He has no thought of sleep, all night he wanders up and down the improvised camp. ”

“ Jan continued. “I told Master Salter it be ’most as good as a dog, to keep the rest together. But a says ’tis the fattest, and ’ull be the first to kill. And then I telled him to find another boy to mind his pigs, for I couldn’t look un in the face now, and know ’twas to be killed next month, not that one with the white spot on his ear. It do be such a very nice pig!”
Rufus licked up the tears as they fell over Jan’s smock, and the schoolmaster took Jan in and comforted him. Jan dried his eyes at last, and helped to prepare for tea. ”

“ Jan kept on drinking greedily. Then he felt a sharp slash from a carriage whip. He did not lift his head. Nothing could drive him from the water. The whip struck hard and fast across his back, each cut making him shrink, but he kept on drinking until his terrible thirst had been quenched. Then he dropped his paws from the edge of the trough to the floor and turned his great head, one eye closed, the other bloodshot and glaring hate and defiance, while his teeth gleamed and an ugly snarl rumbled in his throat. ”

“ This arrangement made him so restless and unhappy, that Jan undertook the responsibility of supplying him with flowers in the cool arbours, and keeping strict watch upon his movements. He often decorated him with a multitude of small bouquets, and twined garlands round his broad palm-leaf hat, till he looked like a dwarf May-pole, and then sent him into the house to show himself to his fond mother, who was always ready to feign ignorance, and inquire what little boy that could be; a manœuvre invariably rewarded by an infantile laugh. ”

“ He had been spending an afternoon at the windmill, and the painter had been sketching the old church from the water-meadows, when they met on the little bridge near Dame Datchett’s, and strolled together to the Heart of Oak. Master Chuter met them at the door.
“There be a letter for you, Jan,” said he. “’Twas brought by a young varment I knows well. He belongs to them that keeps a low public at the foot of the hill, and he do be for all the world like a hudmedud, without the usefulness of un.” ”

“ Jan's ears cocked up, his body quivered, his muscles stiffened, his nose pointed high in the air and the cry he sent back to the calls of his kin was clear and strong like the music of a wonderful, deep-toned bell. Then he braced himself and leaped far out into the water that caught him like many strong arms and dragged him under the waves. ”

“ If the schoolmaster had had any twinges of regret as he bought these things, in defiance of his principles for Jan’s education, they melted utterly away in view of his delight, and the glow that pleasure brought into his pale cheeks. Master Swift was regarded, too, by a colored sketch of Rufus sitting at table in his arm-chair, with his more mongrel friend on the floor beside him. It was the best sketch that Jan had yet accomplished. But most people are familiar with the curious fact that one often makes an unaccountable stride in an art after it has been laid aside for a time. ”

“ As Jan dug a hole and Love planted the bulb, his words repeated themselves in the little girl’s lonely heart. She remembered, too, what her dear father had said last to her, “Wait patiently until I come, Love.” Would her patience bring the hard bulb to life or her father back, Love wondered sorrowfully.
The days passed, with blue skies and the bright sun shining down upon the canal, and then grew shorter. The storks flew south, and Love was very happy. Her days with Jan were busy, merry ones. She, too, had wooden shoes now ”

“ I ain’t quite so sure he’s dead, anyhow. Isn’t thet him comin’ down the hill yonder?”
Jan leaped up, clasped the trunk of a tree with both hands, and began to climb with might and main, while the others rolled over and over on the ground, bursting with laughter. By the time he reached the first branch he had collected sufficient fortitude to look about him, and could see no such fearful monster as he imagined coming down upon him. The truth dawned upon him that he was the victim of a sell, and he slid down again in great wrath.
“You’s the wust liar, Penn Miffin, in dis coontry. ”

“ Shorty moved slowly toward Jan, holding out a hand and saying, "You're all right, old fellow!"
But the dog backed off and his nose twitched warningly. He would fight if these men bothered him. With a final growl of defiance Jan left the stable, but he carried with him a new sense of power. He could make people let him alone if he snarled and showed his teeth.
That night he prowled around until he found the garbage cans. So he learned to hide in the daytime and forage like a wild animal at night. ”

“ Jan breathed like a bull as he resumed the defensive; and like a bull he lowered his head with a swaying motion as though to ease his labored breathing and drain his jaws of the spume that clogged them. He was bleeding now from more than a dozen wounds. The frost nipped those wounds stingingly. The hard trampled snow about his feet was flecked with blood and foam—his life-blood, his foam. Bill remained unscathed and to all seeming as coldly calculating as ever. ”

“ Jan was growing fast both in mind and body. Phases of taste and occupation succeed each other very rapidly when one is young; and there are, perhaps, no more distinct phases, more sudden strides, than in the art of painting. With Jan the pig phase was going, and it was followed by landscape-sketching.
Jan was drawing his pigs one day in the little wood, when he fancied that the gnarled elbow of a branch near him had, in its outline, some likeness to a pig’s face, and he began to sketch it on his slate. ”

“ When Jan returned to the windmill, and gravely announced that he had hired himself out as pig-minder to Master Salter, Mrs. Lake was, as she said, “put about.” She considered pig-minding quite beneath the dignity of her darling, and brought forward every objection she could think of except the real one. But the windmiller had no romantic dreams on Jan’s behalf, and he decided that “’twas better he should be arning a shillin’ a week than gettin’ into mischief at whoam.” Jan’s ambition, however, was not satisfied. ”

“ That was not what I meant," said Jan tenderly. "You bring him up right, and he will come sometime where Gustaf is, and that's what we ought to want most for him." Jan paused a moment, and then went on: "Somehow those words of the baptism took hold of me to-day as they never did before, not even when my owny tony children were baptized. I mean to be the right kind of a godfather to him if I can."
Jan kept his resolution. He could sometimes be rough and hasty with his own boys when he was tired or particularly worried; towards Nono he was always kind, and just, and wise. ”

“ Not the cold pavement chilling him through his ragged clothes, not the strange staring and jesting of the rough crowds, not even the hideous sense of the hunchback’s vigilant oversight of him, could destroy his pleasure in the sense of the daily increasing powers of his fingers, in which genius seemed to tremble to create. In the few weeks of his apprenticeship to screeving, Jan had improved more quickly than he might have done under such teaching as the Squire had been willing to procure for the village genius. ”

“ It must be confessed that he had also a vein of indolence in his nature, and Jan soon painted most of the pot boilers. Another of his duties was to sit as a model for the picture. The painter sketched him again and again, and was never quite satisfied. What the vision of the windmill had lit up in the depth of his black eyes could not be recalled to order in the painter’s studio.
“I tell you what it is,” said the artist one day; “domestic servitude is taking the poetry out of you. You’re getting fat, Giotto! ”

“ Jan touched her cheek with his nose, and licked her face. She could not keep still any longer, because she wanted to sneeze and that would spoil the whole game. So she opened her eyes, put up her hand and unfastened the canteen from Jan's collar and swallowed such a big gulp of water that she almost choked. Her arms went about Jan's neck and while she clung, he moved slowly away from the mound, his tail waving rapidly and his big eyes full of pride. Ruth had been saved from a terrible death in the snow-drifts of the Alps! ”

“ I’m a rough man with a rough tongue, which I could never teach to speak the feelings of my heart; but I humbly thank you, sir, for your goodness to this boy.”
“It’s a very selfish kind of goodness at present, Mr. Swift, and I fancy some day the obligation of the acquaintance will be on my side.”
“Jan,” said the schoolmaster, “take Rufus wi’ ye, and run that errand I telled ye. Rufus’ll carry your basket.” When they had gone, he turned earnestly to the painter.
“Sir, I’m speaking to ye out of my ignorance and my anxiety. Ye want the lad to be a painter. Will he be a great painter? ”

“ Far away rose a huge white mountain, and around it grouped peaks of dazzling snow, the first snow Jan had seen since he was a puppy.
The doctor and the old man were watching him, but Jan did not see them. He was remembering things he had almost forgotten. Slowly the mule climbed, and the twisting trail turned and wound higher and higher. Jan lifted his head and sniffed the air that was growing colder. Then as they turned where the path seemed to end, the dog gave a loud bark and dashed ahead of them where something white lay on the ground. ”

“ The business gentleman put his gold spectacles into their case, and laid his hand on Jan’s shoulder. “I am not much of a judge of genius,” said he, “but if you have it, and if you live to make a fortune by it, remember, my boy, that there is no luxury which money puts in a man’s power like the luxury of helping others.” With which he stepped briskly into the picture-dealer’s.
And half an hour afterwards Jan burst into the painter’s studio, crying, “It’s sold, sir!” ”

“ Master Lake confirmed his account of Jan’s first coming to the mill. He took the liveliest interest in his foster-son’s fate, but he thought, with the artist, that there was little “satisfaction” to be got out of trying to trace Jan’s real parentage. It was the painter’s deliberate opinion, and he impressed it upon Jan, as they sat together in Master Chuter’s parlor.
“My dear Giotto, I do hope you are not building much on hopes of a new home and new relatives. If all we have heard is true, your mother is dead; and, if your father is not dead too, he has basely deserted you. ”