BLACK AS SLANS.—VAIR AND VOOLISH.—THE MILLER AND HIS MAN.
IT was a great and important time to Abel when Jan learned to walk; but,
as he was neither precocious nor behindhand in this respect, his
biographer may be pardoned for not dwelling on it at any length.
He had a charming demure little face, chiefly differing from the faces of
the other children of the district by an overwhelming superiority in the
matter of forehead.
Mrs. Lake had had great hopes that he would differ in another respect
also.
Most of the children of the neighborhood were fair. Not fair as so many
North-country children are, with locks of differing, but equally
brilliant, shades of gold, auburn, red, and bronze; but white-headed, and
often white-faced, with white-lashed inexpressive eyes, as if they had
been bleaching through several generations.
Now, when the dark bright eyes of the little Jan first came to be of
tender interest with Mrs. Lake, she fully hoped, and constantly
prophesied, that he would be “as black as a rook;” a style of complexion
to which she gave a distinct preference, though the miller was fair by
nature as well as white by trade. Jan’s eyes seemed conclusive.
“Black as slans they be,” said his foster-mother. And slans meant
sloe-berries where Mrs. Lake was born.
An old local saying had something perhaps to do with her views:—
“Lang and lazy,
Black and proud;
Vair and voolish,
Little and loud.”
“Fair and foolish” youngsters certainly abounded in the neighborhood to
an extent which justified a wish for a change.
As to pride, meek Mrs. Lake was far from regarding it as a failing in
those who had any thing to be proud of, such as black hair and a possible
connection with the gentry. And fate having denied to her any chance of
being proud or aggressive on her own account, she derived a curious sort
of second-hand satisfaction from seeing these qualities in those who
belonged to her. It did to some extent console her for the miller’s
roughness to herself, to hear him rating George. And she got a sort of
reflected dignity out of being able to say, “My maester’s a man as will
have his way.”
But her hopes were not realized. That yellow into which the beefsteak
stage of Jan’s infant complexion had faded was not destined to deepen
into gipsy hues. It gave place to the tints of the China rose, and all
the wind and sunshine on the downs could not tan, though they sometimes
burnt, his cheeks. The hair on his little head became more abundant, but
it kept its golden hue. His eyes remained dark,—a curious mixture; for
as to hair and complexion he was irredeemably fair.
The mill had at least one “vair and voolish” inmate, by common account,
though by his own (given in confidence to intimate friends) he was “not
zuch a vool as he looked.”
This was George Sannel, the miller’s man.
Master Lake had had a second hand in to help on that stormy night when
Jan made his first appearance at the mill; but as a rule he only kept one
man, whom he hired for a year at a time, at the mop or hiring fair held
yearly in the next town.
George, or Gearge as he was commonly called, had been more than two years
in the windmill, and was looked upon in all respects as “one of the
family.” He slept on a truckle-bed in the round-house, which, though of
average size, would not permit him to stretch his legs too recklessly
without exposing his feet to the cold.
For “Gearge” was six feet one and three-quarters in his stockings.
He had a face in some respects like a big baby’s. He had a turn-up nose,
large smooth cheeks, a particularly innocent expression, a forehead
hardly worth naming, small dull eyes, with a tendency to inflammation of
the lids which may possibly have hindered the lashes from growing, and a
mouth which was generally open, if he were neither eating nor sucking a
“bennet.” When this countenance was bathed in flour, it might be an open
question whether it were improved or no. It certainly looked both
“vairer” and more “voolish!”
There is some evidence to show that he was “lazy,” as well as “lang,” and
yet he and Master Lake contrived to pull on together.
Either because his character was as childlike as his face, and because—if
stupid and slothful by nature—he was also of so submissive, susceptible,
and willing a temper that he disarmed the justest wrath; or because he
was, as he said, not such a fool as he looked, and had in his own
lubberly way taken the measure of the masterful windmiller to a nicety,
George’s most flagrant acts of neglect had never yet secured his
dismissal.
Indeed, it really is difficult to realize that any one who is lavish of
willingness by word can wilfully and culpably fail in deed.
“I be a uncommon vool, maester, sartinly,” blubbered George on one
occasion when the miller was on the point of turning him off, as a
preliminary step on the road to the “gallus,” which Master Lake expressed
his belief that he was “sartin sure to come to.” And, as he spoke,
George made dismal daubs on his befloured face with his sleeve, as he
rubbed his eyes with his arm from elbow to wrist.
“Sech a governor as you be, too!” he continued. “Poor mother! she allus
said I should come to no good, such a gawney as I be! No more I
shouldn’t but for you, Master Lake, a-keeping of me on. Give un another
chance, sir, do ’ee! I be mortal stoopid, sir, but I’d work my fingers
to the bwoan for the likes of you, Master Lake!”
George stayed on, and though the very next time the windmiller was absent
his “voolish” assistant did not get so much as a toll-dish of corn ground
to flour, he was so full of penitence and promises that he weathered that
tempest and many a succeeding one.
On that very eventful night of the storm, and of Jan’s arrival, George’s
neglect had risked a recurrence of the sail catastrophe. At least if the
second man’s report was to be trusted.
This man had complained to the windmiller that, during his absence with
the strangers, George, instead of doubling his vigilance now that the men
were left short-handed, had taken himself off under pretext of attending
to the direction of the wind and the position of the sails outside, a
most important matter, to which he had not, after all, paid the slightest
heed; and what he did with himself, whilst leaving the mill to its fate
and the fury of the storm, his indignant fellow-servant professed himself
“blessed if he knew.”
But few people are as grateful as they should be when informed of
misconduct in their own servants. It is a reflection on one’s judgment.
And unpardonable as George’s conduct was, if the tale were true, the
words in which he couched his self-defence were so much more grateful to
the ears of the windmiller than the somewhat free and independent style
in which the other man expressed his opinion of George’s conduct and
qualities, that the master took his servant’s part, and snubbed the
informer for his pains.
In justice to George, too, it should be said that he stoutly and
repeatedly denied the whole story, with many oaths and imprecations of
horrible calamities upon himself if he were lying in the smallest
particular. And this with reiteration so steady, and a countenance so
guileless and unmoved, as to contrast favorably with the face of the
other man, whose voice trembled and whose forehead flushed, either with
overwhelming indignation or with a guilty consciousness that he was
bearing false witness.
Master Lake employed him no more, and George stayed on.
But, for that matter, Master Lake’s disposition was not one which
permitted him to profit by the best qualities of those connected with
him. He was a bit of a tyrant, and more than one man, six times as
clever, and ten times as hard-working as George, had gone when George
would have stayed, from crossing words with the windmiller. The safety
of the priceless sails, if all were true, had been risked by the man he
kept, and secured by the man he sent away, but Master Lake was quite
satisfied with his own decision.
“I bean’t so fond myself of men as is so mortal sprack and fussy in a
strange place,” the miller observed to Mrs. Lake in reference to this
matter.
Mrs. Lake had picked up several of her husband’s bits of proverbial
wisdom, which she often flattered him by retailing to his face.
“Too hot to hold, mostly,” was her reply, in knowing tones.
“Ay, ay, missus, so a be,” said the windmiller. And after a while he
added, “Gearge is slow, sartinly, mortal slow; but Gearge is sure.”