Jan of the Windmill, by Juliana Horatia Ewing The Project Gutenberg EBook of Jan of the Windmill, by Juliana Horatia Ewing (#1 in our series by Juliana Horatia Ewing) Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the header without written permission. Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. **Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** **eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** *****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** Title: Jan of the Windmill Author: Juliana Horatia Ewing Release Date: May, 2004 [EBook #5601] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on July 18, 2002] Edition: 10 Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII This etext was produced by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset. JAN OF THE WINDMILL (A Story of the Plains) by JULIANA HORATIA EWING. DEDICATED TO MY DEAR SISTER MARGARET. CONTENTS. Chapter I. The windmiller’s wife. - Strangers. - Ten shillings a week. - The little Jan. Chapter II. The miller’s calculations. - His hopes and fears. - The nurse-boy. - Calm. Chapter III. The windmiller’s words come true. - The red shawl. - In the clouds. - Nursing v. pig-minding. - The round-house. - The miller’s thumb. Chapter IV. Black as slans. - Vair and voolish. - The miller and his man. Chapter V. The pocket-book and the family bible. - Five pounds’ reward. Chapter VI. George goes courting. - George as an enemy. - George as a friend. - Abel plays schoolmaster. - The love-letter. - Moerdyk. - The miller-moth. - An ancient ditty. Chapter VII. Abel goes to school again. - Dame Datchett. - A column of spelling. - Abel plays moocher. - The miller’s man cannot make up his mind. Chapter VIII. Visitors at the mill. - A windmiller of the third generation. - Cure for whooping-cough. - Miss Amabel Adeline Ammaby. - Doctors disagree. Chapter IX. Gentry born. - Learning lost. - Jan’s bedfellow. - Amabel. Chapter X. Abel at home. - Jan objects to the miller’s man. - The alphabet. - The Cheap Jack. - “Pitchers”. Chapter XI. Scarecrows and men. - Jan refuses to “make Gearge.” - Uncanny. - “Jan’s off.” - The moon and the clouds. Chapter XII. The white horse. - Comrogues. - Moerdyk. - George confides in the Cheap Jack - with reservation. Chapter XIII. George as a moneyed man. - Sal. - The “White Horse.” - The wedding. - The windmiller’s wife forgets, and remembers too late. Chapter XIV. Sublunary art. - Jan goes to school. - Dame Datchett at home. - Jan’s first school scrape. - Jan defends himself. Chapter XV. Willum gives Jan some advice. - The clock face. - The hornet and the Dame. - Jan draws pigs. - Jan and his patrons. - Kitty Chuter. - The fight. - Master Chuter’s prediction. Chapter XVI. The mop. - The shop. - What the Cheap Jack’s wife had to tell. - What George withheld. Chapter XVII. The miller’s man at the mop. - A lively companion. - Sal loses her purse. - The recruiting sergeant. - The pocket-book twice stolen. - George in the King’s Arms. - George in the King’s service. - The letter changes hands, but keeps its secret. Chapter XVIII. Midsummer holidays. - Child fancies. - Jan and the pig-minder. - Master Salter at home. - Jan hires himself out. Chapter XIX. The blue coat. - Pig-minding and tree-studying. - Leaf-paintings. - A stranger. - Master Swift is disappointed. Chapter XX. Squire Ammaby and his daughter. - The Cheap Jack does business once more. - The white horse changes masters. Chapter XXI. Master Swift at home. - Rufus. - The ex-pig-minder. - Jan and the schoolmaster. Chapter XXII. The parish church. - Rembrandt. - The snow scene. - Master Swift’s autobiography. Chapter XXIII. The white horse in clover. - Amabel and her guardians. - Amabel in the wood. - Bogy. Chapter XXIV. The paint-box. - Master Linseed’s shop. - The new sign-board. - Master Swift as Will Scarlet. Chapter XXV. Sanitary inspectors. - The pestilence. - The parson. - The doctor. - The squire and the schoolmaster. - Desolation at the windmill. - The second advent. Chapter XXVI. The beasts of the village. - Abel sickens. - The good shepherd. - Rufus plays the philanthropist. - Master Swift sees the sun rise. - The death of the righteous. Chapter XXVII. Jan has the fever. - Convalescence in Master Swift’s cottage. - The squire on demoralization. Chapter XXVIII. Mr. Ford’s client. - The history of Jan’s father. - Amabel and Bogy the Second. Chapter XXIX. Jan fulfils Abel’s charge. - Son of the mill. - The large-mouthed woman. Chapter XXX. Jan’s prospects, and Master Swift’s plans. - Tea and Milton. - New parents. - Parting with Rufus. - Jan is kidnapped. Chapter XXXI. Screeving. - An old song. - Mr. Ford’s client. - The penny gaff. - Jan runs away. Chapter XXXII. The baker. - On and on. - The church bell. - A digression. - A familiar hymn. - The Boys’ Home. Chapter XXXIII. The business man and the painter. - Pictures and pot boilers. - Cimabue and Giotto. - The salmon-colored omnibus. Chapter XXXIV. A choice of vocations. - Recreation hour. - The bow-legged boy. - Drawing by heart. - Giotto. Chapter XXXV. “Without character?” - The widow. - The bow-legged boy takes service. - Studios and painters. Chapter XXXVI. The miller’s letter. - A new pot boiler sold. Chapter XXXVII. Sunshine after storm. Chapter XXXVIII. A painter’s education. - Master Chuter’s port. - A farewell feast. - The sleep of the just. Chapter XXXIX. George again. - The painter’s advice. - “Home-brewed” at the Heart of Oak. - Jan changes the painter’s mind. Chapter XL. D’arcy sees Bogy. - The academy. - The painter’s picture. Chapter XLI. The detective. - The “Jook”. - Jan stands by his mother’s grave. - His after history. Chapter XLII. Conclusion. JAN OF THE WINDMILL. CHAPTER I. THE WINDMILLER’S WIFE. - STRANGERS. - TEN SHILLINGS A WEEK. - THE LITTLE JAN. Storm without and within? So the windmiller might have said, if he had been in the habit of putting his thoughts into an epigrammatic form, as a groan from his wife and a growl of thunder broke simultaneously upon his ear, whilst the rain fell scarcely faster than her tears. It was far from mending matters that both storms were equally unexpected. For eight full years the miller’s wife had been the meekest of women. If there was a firm (and yet, as he flattered himself, a just) husband in all the dreary straggling district, the miller was that man. And he always did justice to his wife’s good qualities, - at least to her good quality of submission, - and would, till lately, have upheld her before any one as a model of domestic obedience. From the day when he brought home his bride, tall, pretty, and perpetually smiling, to the tall old mill and the ugly old mother who never smiled at all, there had been but one will in the household. At any rate, after the old woman’s death. For during her life-time her stern son paid her such deference that it was a moot point, perhaps, which of them really ruled. Between them, however, the young wife was moulded to a nicety, and her voice gained no more weight in the counsels of the windmill when the harsh tones of the mother-in-law were silenced for ever. The miller was one of those good souls who live by the light of a few small shrewdities (often proverbial), and pique themselves on sticking to them to such a point, as if it were the greater virtue to abide by a narrow rule the less it applied. The kernel of his domestic theory was, “Never yield, and you never will have to,” and to this he was proud of having stuck against all temptations from a real, though hard, affection for his own; and now, after working so smoothly for eight years, had it come to this? The miller scratched his bead, and looked at his wife, almost with amazement. She moaned, though he bade her be silent; she wept, in spite of words which had hitherto been an effectual styptic to her tears; and she met the commonplaces of his common sense with such wild, miserable laughter, that he shuddered as he heard her. Weakness in human beings is like the strength of beasts, a power of which fortunately they are not always conscious. Unless positively brutal, you cannot well beat a sickly woman for wailing and weeping; and if she will not cease for any lesser consideration, there seems nothing for an unbending husband to do but to leave her to herself. This the miller had to do, anyhow. For he could only spare a moment’s attention to her now and then, since the mill required all his care. In a coat and hat of painted canvas, he had been in and out ever since the storm began; now directing the two men who were working within, now struggling along the stage that ran outside the windmill, at no small risk of being fairly blown away. He had reefed the sails twice already in the teeth of the blinding rain. But he did well to be careful. For it was in such a storm as this, five years ago “come Michaelmas,” that the worst of windmill calamities had befallen him, - the sails had been torn off his mill and dashed into a hundred fragments upon the ground.