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Fortunately for his peace, his former owner waskilled in a drunken brawl at the Kermessa ofMeklin,
and so sought not after him nor disturbed him inhis new and well-loved home.
A few years later, old Jehan Das, who had alwaysbeen a cripple, became so paralyzed withrheumatism that it was impossible for him to goout with the cart anymore.
Then little Nello, being now grown to his sixthyear of age, and knowing the town well from havingaccompanied his grandfather so many times,
took his place beside the cart, and sold the milkand received the coins in exchange,
and brought them back to their respective ownerswith a pretty grace and seriousness which charmedall who beheld him.
The little Ardennes was a beautiful child, withdark, grave, tender eyes, and a lovely bloom uponhis face, and fair locks that clustered to histhroat,
and many an artist sketched the group as it wentby him, the green cart with the brass flagons ofTenere and Miris and Van Tal,
and the great tawny-colored, massive dog, with hisbelt harness that chimed cheerily as he went,
and the small figure that ran beside him which hadlittle white feet and great wooden shoes,
and a soft, brave, innocent, happy face like thelittle fair children of Rubens.
Nello and Patrusky did the work so well and sojoyfully together that Jehan Das himself, when thesummer came and he was better again,
had no need to stir out, but could sit in thedoorway in the sun and see them go forth throughthe garden wicket,
and then doze and dream and pray a little, andthen awake again as the clock told three and watchfor their return.
And on their return Patrusky would shake himselffree of his harness with a bay of glee,
and Nello would recount with pride the doings ofthe day, and they would all go in together totheir meal of rye bread and milk or soup,
and would see the shadows lengthen over the greatplain, and see the twilight veil the faircathedral spire,
and then lie down together to sleep peacefullywhile the old man said a prayer.
So the days and the years went on, and the livesof Nello and Patrusky were happy, innocent andhealthful.
In the spring and summer especially were theyglad.
Flanders is not a lovely land, and around the Burgof Rubens it is perhaps least lovely of all.
Corn and calza, pasture and plough, succeed eachother on the characterless plain in wearyingrepetition,
and save by some gaunt grey tower, with its pealof pathetic bells, or some figure coming athwartthe fields,
made picturesque by a gleaner's bundle or awoodman's faggot, there is no change, no variety,no beauty anywhere,
and he who has dwelt upon the mountains or amidstthe forests feels oppressed as by imprisonmentwith the tedium
and the endlessness of that vast and dreary level.
But it is green and very fertile, and it has widehorizons that have a certain charm of their owneven in their dullness and monotony,
and among the rushes by the waterside the flowersgrow, and the trees rise tall and fresh where thebarges glide
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with their great hulks black against the sun, andtheir little green barrels and varie-colouredflags gay against the leaves.
Anyway, there is greenery and breadth of spaceenough to be as good as beauty to a child and adog,
and these two asked no better, when their work wasdone, than to lie buried in the lush grasses onthe side of the canal,
and watch the cumbrous vessels drifting by andbring the crisp salt smell of the sea among theblossoming scents of the country summer.
True, in the winter it was harder, and they had torise in the darkness and the bitter cold,
and they had seldom as much as they could haveeaten any day, and a hut was scarce better than ashed when the nights were cold,
although it looked so pretty in warm weather,buried in a great kindly clambering vine, thatnever bore fruit,
indeed, but which covered it with luxuriant greentracery all through the months of blossom andharvest.
In winter the winds found many holes in the wallsof the poor little hut, and the vine was black andleafless,
and the bare lands looked very bleak and drearwithout, and sometimes within the floor wasflooded and then frozen.
In winter it was hard, and the snow numbed thelittle white limbs of Nello, and the icicles cutthe brave, untiring feet of Patrusky.
But even then they were never heard to lament,either of them. The child's wooden shoes and
the dog's four legs would trot manfully togetherover the frozen fields to the chime of the bells
on the harness, and then sometimes, in the streetsof Antwerp, some housewife would bring them a bowl
of soup and a handful of bread, or some kindlytrader would throw some billets of fuel into the
little cart as it went homeward, or some woman intheir own village would bid them keep a share of
the milk they carried for their own food, and theywould run over the white lands, through the early
darkness, bright and happy, and burst with a shoutof joy into their home. So, on the whole,
it was well with them, very well, and Patrusky,meeting on the highway or in the public streets
the many dogs who toiled from daybreak intonightfall, paid only with blows and curses,
and loosened from the shafts with a kick to starveand freeze as best they might, Patrusky in his
heart was very grateful to his fate, and thoughtit the fairest and the kindliest the world could
hold. Though he was often very hungry indeed whenhe lay down at night, though he had to work in the
heats of summer noons and the rasping chills ofwinter dawns, though his feet were often tender
with wounds from the sharp edges of the jaggedpavement, though he had to perform tasks beyond
his strength and against his nature, yet he wasgrateful and content, he did his duty with each
day, and the eyes that he loved smiled down onhim. It was sufficient for Patrusky.
There was only one thing which caused Patrusky anyuneasiness in his life,
and it was this. Antwerp, as all the world knows,is full at every turn of old piles of stones,
dark and ancient and majestic, standing in crookedcourts, jammed against gateways and taverns,
rising by the water's edge, with bells ringingabove them in the air,
and ever and again out of their arched doors aswell of music pealing. There they remain,
the grand old sanctuaries of the past, shut inamidst the squalor, the hurry, the crowds,
the unloveliness and the commerce of the modernworld, and all day long the clouds drift and the
birds circle and the winds sigh around them, andbeneath the earth at their feet their sleeps,
Rubens. And the greatness of the mighty masterstill rests upon Antwerp, and wherever we turn
in its narrow streets his glory lies therein, sothat all mean things are thereby transfigured.
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And as we pace slowly through the winding ways,and by the edge of the stagnant water,
and through the noisome courts, his spirit abideswith us, and the heroic beauty of his visions is
about us, and the stones that once felt hisfootsteps and bore his shadow seem to arise
and speak of him with living voices. For the citywhich is the tomb of Rubens still lives to us
through him, and him alone. It is so quiet thereby that great white sepulchre, so quiet,
save only when the organ peals and the choir criesaloud the Sav Regina or the Kyrie Elysine.
Sure no artist ever had a greater gravestone thanthat pure marble sanctuary gives to him in the
heart of his birthplace and the chancel of St.Jacques. Without Rubens, what were Antwerp? A
dirty, dusky, bustling mart, which no man wouldever care to look upon save the traders who do
business on its wharves. With Rubens, to the wholeworld of man it is a sacred name, a sacred soil,
a Bethlehem where a god of art saw light, aGolgotha where a god of art lies dead.
O nations! closely should you treasure your greatmen, for by them alone will the future know of
you. Flanders in her generations has been wise. Inhis life she glorified this greatest of her sons,
and in his death she magnifies his name. But herwisdom is very rare.
Now, the trouble of Patrusky was this. Into thesegreat, sad piles of stones, that reared their
melancholy majesty above the crowded roofs, thechild Nella would many and many a time enter,
and disappear through their dark-arched portals,whilst Patrusky, left without upon the pavement,
would wearily and vainly ponder on what could bethe charm which thus allured from him his
inseparable and beloved companion. Once or twicehe did essay to sea for himself, clattering up
the steps with his milk cart behind him, butthereon he had been always sent back again
summarily by a tall custodian in black clothes andsilver chains of office, and fearful of
bringing his little master into trouble, hedesisted, and remained couched patiently before
the churches until such time as the boyreappeared. It was not the fact of his going intothem which
disturbed Patrusky, he knew that people went tochurch, all the village went to the small,
tumble-down grey pile opposite the red windmill.What troubled him was that little Nella always
looked strangely when he came out, always veryflushed or very pale, and whenever he returned
home after such visitations would sit silent anddreaming, not caring to play, but gazing out at
the evening skies beyond the line of the canal,very subdued and almost sad. What was it?
wondered Patrusky. He thought it could not be goodor natural for the little lad to be so grave,
and in his dumb fashion he tried all he could tokeep Nella by him in the sunny fields or in
the busy marketplace. But to the churches Nellawould go, most often of all would he go to the
Great Cathedral, and Patrusky, left without on thestones by the iron fragments of Quentin Matsys's
gate, would stretch himself and yawn and sigh, andeven howl now and then, all in vain, until the
doors closed and the child perforce came forthagain, and winding his arms about the dog's neck
would kiss him on his broad, tawny-colouredforehead, and murmur always the same words,
If I could only see them Patrusky! If I could onlysee them! What were they? pondered Patrusky,
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looking up with large, wistful, sympathetic eyes.
One day, when the custodian was out of the way andthe doors left ajar, he got in for a moment
after his little friend and saw. They were twogreat covered pictures on either side of the
choir. Nella was kneeling, wrapped as in anecstasy, before the altar picture of theAssumption,
and when he noticed Patrusky, and rose and drewthe dog gently out into the air,
his face was wet with tears, and he looked up atthe veiled places as he passed them,
and murmured to his companion, It is so terriblenot to see them, Patrusky, just because one is
poor and cannot pay. He never meant that the poorshould not see them when he painted them,
I am sure. He would have had to see them any day,every day, that I am sure. And they keep
them shrouded there, shrouded in the dark, thebeautiful things, and they never feel the light
and no eyes look on them, unless rich people comeand pay. If I could only see them, I would be
content to die. But he could not see them, andPatrusky could not help him, for to gain the
silver piece that the Church exacts as the pricefor looking on the glories of the elevation of
the cross and the descent of the cross was a thingas utterly beyond the powers of either of them as
it would have been to scale the heights of thecathedral spire. They had never so much as a
suit of spare, if they cleared enough to get alittle wood for the stove, a little broth for the
pot, it was the utmost they could do. And yet theheart of the child was set in sore and endless
longing upon beholding the greatness of the twoveiled Rubens. The whole soul of the little
Ardennas thrilled and stirred with an absorbingpassion for art. Going on his ways through the
old city in the early days before the sun or thepeople had risen, Nello, who looked only a little
peasant boy, with a great dog drawing milk to sellfrom door to door, was in a heaven of dreams
where of Rubens was the God. Nello, cold andhungry, with stockingless feet in wooden shoes,
and the winter winds blowing among his curls andlifting his poor thin garments, was in a
rapture of meditation, wherein all that he saw wasthe beautiful fair face of the Mary of the
Assumption, with the waves of her golden hairlying upon her shoulders, and the light of an
eternal sun shining down upon her brow. Nello,reared in poverty, and buffeted by fortune,
and untaught in letters, and unheeded by men, hadthe compensation or the curse which is calledgenius.
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