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88thpp.com
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and patruski growled whenever he passed by bascoaches.
This is outlois's nameday, is it not?' said theold man das that night from the corner where hewas stretched upon his bed of sacking.
The boy gave a gesture of ascent, he wished thatthe old man's memory had earth a little, insteadof keeping such sure account.'
And why not there?' his grandfather pursued.'
Thou hast ne'er missed a year before, Nello.Th
ou art too sick to leave,' murmured the lad,bending his handsome head over the bed.
tut!tut!
mother noulet would have come and sat with me, asshe does scores of times.
what is the cause, Nello?
the old man persisted.
thou surely hast not had ill words with the littleone?
nay, grandfather, never, said the boy quickly,with a hot color in his bent face.
simply and truly,ba's coges did not have me assedthis year.
he has taken some whim against me.
but thou hast done nothing wrong?
that I know,nothing.
I took the portrait of Alois on a piece of pine,that is all.
ah!
the old man was silent, the truth suggested itselfto him with the boy's innocent answer.
he was tied to a bed of dried leaves in the cornerof a wattle hut, but he had not wholly
forgotten what the ways of the world were like.
he drew Nello's fair head fondly to his breastwith a tenderer gesture.
thou art very poor, my child, he said with a quiver the more in his aged, trembling voice,
so poor.
it is very hard for thee.
nay, I am rich, murmured Nello, and in hisinnocence he thought so, rich with the imperishable
powers that are mightier than the might of kings.
and he went and stood by the door of the hut inthe quiet autumn night, and watched the
stars troop by and the tall poplars bend and shiver in the wind.
all the casements of the mill-house were lighted,and every now and then the notes
of the flute came to him.
The tears fell down his cheeks, for he was but achild, yet he smiled, for he said to
himself, in the future.
He stayed there until all was quite still anddark, then he and Patruski went within
and slept together, long and deeply, side by side.
Now he had a secret which only Patruski knew.
There was a little outhouse to the hut, which noone entered but himself, a dreary place,
but with abundant clear light from the north.
Here he had fashioned himself rudely an easel inrough lumber, and here on a great grey
sea of stretched paper he had given shape to oneof the innumerable fancies which possessed
his brain.
No one had ever taught him anything, colours hehad no means to buy, he had gone without
bread many a time to procure even the few rudevehicles that he had here, and it was
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only in black or white that he could fashion thethings he saw.
This great figure which he had drawn here in chalkwas only an old man sitting on a
fallen tree, only that.
He had seen old Michelle the woodman sitting so atevening many a time.
He had never had a soul to tell him of outline orperspective, of anatomy or of shadow,
and yet he had given all the weary, worn-out age,all the sad, quiet patience, all the
rugged, careworn pathos of his original, and giventhem so that the old lonely figure
was a poem, sitting there, meditative and alone,on the dead tree, with the darkness
of the descending night behind him.
It was rude, of course, in a way, and had manyfaults, no doubt, and yet it was real,
true in nature, true in art, and very mournful,and in a manner beautiful.
Patruski had lain quiet countless hours watchingits gradual creation after the labour
of each day was done, and he knew that Nello had ahope, vain and wild perhaps, but strongly
cherished, of sending this great drawing tocompete for a prize of two hundred francs
a year which it was announced in Antwerp would beopen to every lad of talent, scholar
or peasant, under eighteen, who would attempt towin it with some unaided work of chalk
or pencil.
Three of the foremost artists in the town of Rubens were to be the judges and elect
the victor according to his merits.
All the spring and summer and autumn Nello hadbeen at work upon this treasure, which,
if triumphant, would build him his first steptoward independence and the mysteries of
the art which he blindly, ignorantly and yetpassionately adored.
He said nothing to any one, his grandfather wouldnot have understood, and little Alois
was lost to him.
Only to Patruski he told all, and whispered, Rubens would give it me, I think, if he knew.
Patruski thought so too, for he knew that Rubenshad loved dogs or he had never painted
them with such exquisite fidelity, and men wholoved dogs were, as Patruski knew, always
pitiful.
The drawings were to go in on the first day ofDecember, and the decision be given on
the twenty-fourth, so that he who should win mightrejoice with all his people at the
Christmas season.
In the twilight of a bitter wintry day, and with abeating heart, now quick with hope,
now faint with fear, Nello placed the greatpicture on his little green milk-cart, and
took it, with the help of Patruski, into the townand there left it, as enjoined, at
the doors of a public building.
Perhaps it is worth nothing at all.
How could I tell?
He thought, with a heart-sickness of a great timidity.
Now that he had left it there, it seemed to him sohazardous, so vain, so foolish,
to dream that he, a little lad with bare feet, whobarely knew his letters, could do anything
at which great painters, real artists, could everdeign to look.
Yet he took heart as he went by the cathedral, thelordly form of Rubens seemed to rise from
the fog and the darkness, and to loom in itsmagnificence before him, whilst the lips,
with their kindly smile, seemed to him to murmur,Nay, have courage.
It was not by a weak heart and by faint fears thatI wrote my name for all time upon Antwerp.
Nello ran home through the cold night, comforted.
He had done his best, the rest must be as God willed, he thought, in that innocent,
unquestioning faith which had been taught him inthe little grey chapel among the willows
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and the poplar trees.
The winter was very sharp already.
That night, after they reached the hut, snow fell,and fell for very many days after that,
so that the paths and the divisions in the fieldswere all obliterated, and all the smaller
streams were frozen over, and the cold was intenseupon the plains.
Then, indeed, it became hard work to go round forthe milk while the world was all dark,
and carry it through the darkness to the silenttown.
Hard work, especially for Patruski, for thepassage of the years, that were only bringing
Nello a stronger youth, were bringing him old age,and his joints were stiff and his
bones ached often.
But he would never give up his share of thelabour.
Nello would fain have spared him and drawn thecard himself, but Patruski would not allow
it.
All he would ever permit or accept was the help ofa thrust from behind to the truck
as it lumbered along through the ice ruts.
Patruski had lived in harness, and he was proud ofit.
He suffered a great deal sometimes from frost, andthe terrible roads, and the rheumatic
pains of his limbs, but he only drew his breathhard and bent his stout neck, and trod onward
with steady patience.
Rest thee at home, Patruski, it is time thou didstrest, and I can quite well push
in the cart by myself, urged Nello many a morning,but Patruski, who understood him
aright, would no more have consented to stay athome than a veteran soldier to shirk when
the charge was sounding, and every day he wouldrise and place himself in his shafts,
and plod along over the snow through the fieldsthat his four round feet had left their print
upon so many, many years.
One must never rest till one dies, thought Patruski, and sometimes it seemed to him
that that time of rest for him was not very faroff.
His sight was less clear than it had been, and itgave him pain to rise after the night's
sleep, though he would never lie a moment in hisstraw when once the bell of the chapel
tolling five let him know that the daybreak oflabour had begun.
My poor Patruski, we shall soon lie quiettogether, you and I, said old Jehan Das,stretching
out to stroke the head of Patruski with the oldwithered hand which had always shared with
him its one poor crust of bread, and the hearts ofthe old man and the old dog ate together
with one thought, when they were gone, who wouldcare for their darling?
One afternoon, as they came back from Antwerp overthe snow, which had become hard and smooth
as marble over all the Flemish plains, they founddropped in the road a pretty little
puppet, a tambourine player, all scarlet and gold,about six inches high, and, unlike
greater personages when fortune lets them drop,quite unspoiled and unhurt by its fall.
It was a pretty toy.
Nello tried to find its owner, and, failing,thought that it was just the thing to please
Alois.
It was quite night when he passed the mill-house,he knew the little window of her room.
It could be no harm, he thought, if he gave herhis little piece of treasure-trove, they
had been playfellows so long.
There was a shed with a sloping roof beneath hercasement, he climbed it and tapped softly
at the lattice, there was a little light within.
The child opened it and looked out half-frightened.
Nello put the tambourine player into her hands.
Here is a doll I found in the snow, Alois.
Take it, he whispered, take it, and God blessthee, dear.
He slid down from the shed roof before she hadtime to thank him, and ran off through
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the darkness.
That night there was a fire at the mill.
Outbuildings and much corn were destroyed,although the mill itself and the dwelling-house
were unharmed.
All the village was out in terror, and enginescame tearing through the snow from Antwerp.
The miller was insured, and would lose nothing,nevertheless, he was in furious wrath, and
declared aloud that the fire was due to noaccident, but to some foul intent.
Nello, awakened from his sleep, ran to help withthe rest, while his coaches thrust him
angrily aside.
Thou wert loitering here after dark, he saidroughly.
I believe, on my soul, that thou dost know more ofthe fire than any one.
Nello heard him in silence, stupefied, not supposing that any one could say such things
except in jest, and not comprehending how any onecould pass a jest at such a time.
Nevertheless, the miller said the brutal thingopenly to many of his neighbours in the day
that followed, and though no serious charge wasever preferred against the lad, it got
brooded about that Nello had been seen in the millyard after dark on some unspoken errand,
and that he bore Boz Coge's a grudge for forbidding his intercourse with little Alois, and so
the hamlet, which followed the sayings of itsrichest landowner Servaly, and whose families
all hoped to secure the riches of Alois in somefuture time for their sons, took the
hint to give grave looks and cold words to old Jehandas's grandson.
No one said anything to him openly, but all thevillage agreed together to humour the
miller's prejudice, and at the cottages and farmswhere Nello and Patrusky called every
morning for the milk for Antwerp, downcast glancesand brief phrases replaced to them
the broad smiles and cheerful greetings to whichthey had been always used.
No one really credited the miller's absurdsuspicion, nor the outrageous accusations
born of them, but the people were all very poorand very ignorant, and the one rich
man of the place had pronounced against him.
Nello, in his innocence and his friendlessness,had no strength to stem the popular tide.
Thou art very cruel to the lad, the miller's wifedared to say, weeping, to her lord.
Sure he is an innocent lad and a faithful, andwould never dream of any such wickedness,
however sore his heart might be.
But Boz Coge's being an obstinate man, having oncesaid a thing held to it doggedly, though
in his innermost soul he knew well the injusticethat he was committing.
Meanwhile, Nello endured the injury done againsthim with a certain proud patience
that disdained to complain, he only gave way alittle when he was quite alone with
old Patrusky.
Besides, he thought, if it should win.
They will be sorry then, perhaps.
Still, to a boy not quite sixteen, and who had dwelt in one little world all his short
life, and in his childhood had been caressed andapplauded on all sides, it was a hard trial
to have the whole of that little world turnagainst him for naught.
Especially hard in that bleak, snowbound, famine-stricken wintertime, when the only
light and warmth there could be found abode besidethe village hearths and in the kindly
greetings of neighbours.
In the wintertime all drew nearer to each other,all to all, except to Nello and Patrusky,
with whom none now would have anything to do, andwho were left to fare as they might
with the old paralysed, bed-ridden man in thelittle cabin, whose fire was often low,
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and whose board was often without bread, for therewas a buyer from Antwerp who had taken
to drive his mule in of a day for the milk of thevarious dairies, and there were only
three or four of the people who had refused histerms of purchase and remained faithful
to the little green cart.
So that the burden which Patrusky drew had becomevery light, and the santine pieces
in Nello's pouch had become, alas! very smalllikewise.
The dog would stop, as usual, at all the familiargates, which were now closed to him, and look
up at them with wistful, nude appeal, and it costthe neighbours a pang to shut their
doors and their hearts, and let Patrusky draw hiscart on again, empty.
Nevertheless, they did it, for they desired toplease Bas Coge's.
Noël was close at hand.
The weather was very wild and cold.
The snow was six feet deep, and the ice was firmenough to bear oxen and men upon it everywhere.
At this season the little village was always gayand cheerful.
At the poorest dwelling there were possets andcakes, joking and dancing, sugared saints
and gilded jesu.
The merry Flemish bells jingled everywhere on thehorses, everywhere within doors some
well-filled soup-pots sang and smoked over thestove, and everywhere over the snow without
laughing maidens pattered in bright kerchiefs andstout kirtles, going to and from the mass.
Only in the little hut it was very dark and verycold.
