“Well done, Cheap John!” roared one. “You’ve chose a beauty, you have,” cried another. “She’s ’arf a ’ead taller, anyway,” added a third. “Many happy returns of the day, Jack!” yelled a fourth. Jan was charmed, and again and again he drew Mrs. Lake’s attention to the fact that it really _was_ the Cheap Jack. But the windmiller’s wife was staring at the bride. Not merely because the bride is commonly considered the central figure of a wedding-party, but because her face seemed familiar to Mrs. Lake, and she could not remember where she had seen her. Though she could remember nothing, the association seemed to be one of pain. In vain she beat her brains. Memory was an almost uncultivated quality with her, and, like the rest of her intellectual powers, had a nervous, skittish way of deserting her in need, as if from timidity. Mrs. Lake could sometimes remember things when she got into bed, but on this occasion her pillow did not assist her; and the windmiller snubbed her for making “such a caddle” about a woman’s face she might have seen anywhere or nowhere, for that matter; so she got no help from him. And it was not till after the Cheap Jack and his wife had left the neighborhood, that one night (she was in bed) it suddenly “came to her,” as she said, that the dwarf’s bride was the woman who had brought Jan to the mill, on the night of the great storm. CHAPTER XIV. SUBLUNARY ART.—JAN GOES TO SCHOOL.—DAME DATCHETT AT HOME.—JAN’S FIRST SCHOOL SCRAPE.—JAN DEFENDS HIMSELF. EVEN the hero of a tale cannot always be heroic, nor of romantic or poetic tastes. The wonderful beauty of the night sky and the moon had been fully felt by the artist-nature of the child Jan; but about this time he took to the study of a totally different subject,—pigs. It was the force of circumstances which led Jan to “make pigs” on his slate so constantly, instead of nobler subjects; and it dated from the time when his foster-mother began to send him with the other children to school at Dame Datchett’s. Dame Datchett’s cottage was the last house on one side of the village main street. It was low, thatched, creeper-covered, and had only one floor, and two rooms,—the outer room where the Dame kept her school, and the inner one where she slept. Dame Datchett’s scholars were very young, and it is to be hoped that the chief objects of their parents in paying for their schooling were to insure their being kept safely out of the way for a certain portion of each day, and the saving of wear and tear to clothes and shoes. It is to be hoped so, because this much of discipline was to some extent accomplished. As to learning, Dame Datchett had little enough herself, and was quite unable to impart even that, except to a very industrious and intelligent pupil.