The Rector had found and taken Johnny from the Charity School at Wroote to help him with the maps and drawings for his great work, the _Dissertationes in Librum Jobi_, and in return the lad found board and lodging and picked up what scraps he could of Greek and Latin.

He wrote a neat hand and transcribed carefully; his drawings were atrocious, and he never attempted a woodcut without gashing himself.

But he kept a humble heart, and for all the family a devotion almost canine.

To him the Rector, with his shovel-hat and stores of scholarship, was a god-like man; with his air, too, of apostolical authority--for Johnny, whom all Epworth set down as good for nothing, reflected the Wesley notions of the Church's majesty.
In his dreams--but only in his dreams--he saw himself such a man, an Oxford scholar, treading that beatific city of which the Rector disclosed a glimpse at times; his brows bathed by her ineffable aura, and he--he, Johnny Whitelamb--baptized into her mysteries, a participant with the Rector's second son John, now at Christ Church-- of whom (he noted) the family spoke but seldom and with a constraint which hinted at hopes too dear to be other than fearful.

Meanwhile he did his poor tasks, stayed his stomach when he could, and rewarded his employers with love.
He loved them all: but Hetty he worshipped.
He knew his place.