“He forgets none of us, my dear sir,” said the schoolmaster, “and He draws us to Himself at different times, and by different roads. I wanted to be the child’s teacher, but He has chosen you, and will bless ye in the work.” The painter drove his hands through his bushy hair, and spoke more vehemently than before. “_I_ his teacher, and not you? My good friend, I at least am the better judge of what makes a painter’s education. Is the man who shows a Giotto how to use this brush, or mix that paint, to be called his teacher? No, not for teaching him, forsooth, what he would have learned of anybody, everybody, nobody, somehow, anyhow, or done just as well without. But the man who taught him to work as a matter of principle, and apart from inclination (a lesson which not all geniuses learn); the man who fostered the love of Nature in him, and the spirit of poetry,—qualities without which draughtsmanship and painting had better not be; the man who by example and precept led him to find satisfaction in duty done, and happiness in simple pleasures and domestic affections; the man who so fixed these high and pure lessons in his mind, at its most susceptible age, that the foulest dens of London could not corrupt him; the man whose beloved and reverenced face would rise up in judgment against him if he could ever hereafter degrade his art to be a pander of vice, or a mere trick of the workshop;—this man, Master Swift, has been the painter’s schoolmaster!” Master Swift was not accustomed to betray emotion, but his nerves were less strong than they had been, and self-control was more difficult; and with his horny hands he hid the cheeks down which tears of gratified pride would force their way. He had not found voice to speak, when Rufus appeared at the gate with one basket, followed by Jan and the little innkeeper with another. Why Master Chuter had come, and why Jan was looking so particularly well satisfied, must be explained.