Page:Once a Week Jul - Dec 1859.pdf/346

October 22, 18M.] THE SWINEHERD PAINTER. 335

existing housewives cannot teach their daughters, somebody else must. And why not? In certain factories in large towns, a room or two, and plenty of water, is granted by the employer, to enable the women to learn, in the evenings, to cook and to sew, as well as to read and write. Wherever the education (not the mere teaching to read and write) of girls of the labouring class is under- taken, there should be instruction in the ordinary arts of life. Why are not our National Schools in the country like that of Sandbach in Cheshire, where the girls cook for the sick, and thereby learn the economy of the table? By a report of that school published in the “Times ” a year ago, it appears that upwards of two thousand meat dinners, well-cooked, hot, and savoury, were supplied in the year 1857, besides pud- dings, broths, arrow-root, and vegetables, at a cost of less than 701, including a Christmas dinner of roast beef and plum pudding to a large party of old folks. The money was supplied mainly from the Offertory: the girls of the parish were qualified for service, and, what is of more conse- quence, to be good wives; and the surgeons of the parish found a wonderful power of recovery in their patients.

As the vicar says: — “While a return to a gene- rous diet after sickness, in the case of those who have been habituated to it, naturally renews the strength, with the poor, unaccustomed to animal food, the improvement is so marked as to be almost like life from the dead. ”

Here is a hint as to lessening the unnecessary mortality of the kingdom, — a kind of mortality which, we fear, hardly enters into the recognised 100,000 of the Registrar’s Reports. If the admi- nistration of animal food, in a wholesome and agreeable form, is like life from the dead, how long shall any of the homes of England be without it? There will be good meals in every house when there is a good cook there. If we cannot put good dinners upon all tables, we may proceed a long way towards putting a cook into every home in England. Let us have a kitchen attached to every girls* school, and schools for cookery in every town, and the nation will be nearer than it has ever been yet to being well fed, which is the same thing as saying that the children will grow up well, the men and women will wear well, and the aged will go down to their graves in comfort. This will not be disputed by doctor or nurse, gentle or simple: and if it be true, almost everybody may save and fortify life by teaching, or getting taught to one or more future wife, mistress, or maid, the simple, pleasant, and inestimable art of spreading the household table. Harriet Martineau.

THE SWINEHERD PAINTER.

One autumn day, about two or three and thirty years ago, a travelling carriage was slowly ascend- ing a steep and sandy hill on the high road, about ten miles from Antwerp. It was one of those days of alternate cloud and sunshine, when the landscape shows to the greatest advantage; great shadows of clouds driven by the fresh, plea- sant west wind, rested here and there upon woods and valleys, making their shades deeper, while

capricious gleams of light gilded upland fields, from whence the corn was not yet carried, or played on the foam of the water-wheel, and brought out in full relief the peaked red gables of the miller’s house, backed by fruit-trees heavily laden.

The owner of the carriage seemed to enjoy this beautiful scene and weather, for he alighted from his carriage at the foot of the hill; and slowly as the horses climbed up its sandy ascent, his pro- gress was still slower, for he turned round every three yards to note the different changes in the scene as the driving clouds cast fresh shadows, or the objects of the landscape assumed fresh com- binations as he advanced; so that the carriage was almost out of sight by the time he came up to a boy, who, leaning against a rail, was drawing figures in the sand with so much atten- tion and interest, that he did not perceive the stranger’s approach.

“What are you doing, my little man?” said the gentleman.

The boy looked up, and without answering, ran to him and tried to pull him backwards by the tails of his coat. “Oh, you are walking over St. Peter,” he cried, in such a tone of tragic despair, that the gentleman laughed and retreated a few steps.

“What do you mean?”

“Why my beautiful head that I have been all the morning drawing,” said the boy, endeavouring to efface the footmarks in the loose sand which covered the spot where they stood; “it was so exactly like!”

“Lake what?”

“The image of St. Peter in the church. I have done it a great many times, but never got it so like before, and I meant to have drawn the whole figure, with the keys and all, but the sand is so trampled now, I shall not be able to do it. I had just left it for a moment, to draw that carriage that passed just now; the postilion had such a comical face, and the valet, perched up behind, looked so hungry and cross, and never once turned round to look at the view, though there is nothing half so pretty between this and Antwerp.”

While he spoke the stranger was examining a drawing traced on the sand with the point of a stick, of his own carriage and servants, and although, from the nature of the implements used, roughly done, yet a spirited likeness of the some- what remarkable features of the men had been produced, while the attitude of the horses labour- ing to draw the heavy vehicle up the hill, was very well done. He made no observation, how- ever, but simply asked the child if he had ever been at Antwerp.

“Yes, once.” Then folding his hands with an expression of reverential admiration, he added, “And in the great church there I saw Rubens’s pictures!”

“Ah, indeed; and what did you think of them?”

“Oh, sir, if I could only see them always, I should be happy. I dream of them almost every night, and I try to draw bits of them on the sand, but I can do so little,” he went on, with a sigh.

“Would you not like to have pencil and paper