“’Tis a Q, not a F,” he said, boldly and aloud.
A titter ran through the class, and the biggest and stupidest boy found the joke so overwhelming that he stretched his mouth from ear to ear, and doubled himself up with laughter, till it looked as if his corduroy-breeched knee were a turnip, and he about to munch it.
The Dame dropped her sallywithy and began to feel under her chair.
“Which be the young varment as said a F was a Q?” she rather unfairly inquired.
“A didn’t say a F was a Q”— began Jan; but a chorus of cowardly little voices drowned him, and curried favor with the Dame by crying, “’Tis Jan Lake, the miller’s son, missus.”
And the big boy, conscious of his own breach of good manners, atoned for it by officiously dragging Jan to Dame Datchett’s elbow.
“Hold un vor me,” said the Dame, settling her spectacles firmly on her nose.
And with infinite delight the great booby held Jan to receive his thwacks from the strap which the Dame had of late years substituted for the birch rod. And as Jan writhed, he chuckled as heartily as before, it being an amiable feature in the character of such clowns that, so long as they can enjoy a guffaw at somebody’s expense, the subject of their ridicule is not a matter of much choice or discrimination.
After the first angry sob, Jan set his teeth and bore his punishment in a proud silence, quite incomprehensible by the small rustics about him, who, like the pigs of the district, were in the habit of crying out in good time before they were hurt as a preventive measure.
Strangely enough, it gave the biggest boy the impression that Jan was “poor-spirited,” and unable to take his own part,—a temptation to bully him too strong to be resisted.
So when the school broke up, and the children were scattering over the road and water-meads, the wide-mouthed boy came up to Jan and snatched his slate from him.
“Give Jan his slate!” cried Jan, indignantly.
He was five years old, but the other was seven, and he held the slate above his head.
“And who be _Jan_, then, thee little gallus-bird?” said he, tauntingly.
“I be Jan!” answered the little fellow, defiantly. “Jan Lake, the miller’s son. Give I his slate!”
“Thee’s not a miller’s son,” said the other; and the rest of the children began to gather round.