The Oriel Window

Jesse's face expressed great interest, but then it clouded over a little.

"Yes, sir," he agreed, "but I dunnot see how I could get the teaching. There's nothing like that about here – not like in big towns, where they say there's teaching for nothing, or next to nothing – evenings at the Institutes."

"Ah well, help comes to those who help themselves. Master Ferdy may be able to give you some hints if he learns carving himself. And he can tell you some stories of the poor country boys in Switzerland and some parts of Germany – how they work away all by themselves till they learn to make all sorts of beautiful things. Have you any other bits of carving by you that you could show me?"

Again Jesse's brown face lighted up, and Ferdy listened eagerly.

"Oh lor, yes, sir, all manner of nonsense – whistles, sir, though there's some sense in whistles, to be sure," with a twinkle of fun.

"Then bring me a pocketful of nonsense this evening – no, to-morrow evening will be better – to my house at Bollins. You know it, of course? And we'll have a look over them together. Perhaps I may have a friend with me, who knows more about carving than I do."

"And after Dr. Lilly has seen them, please bring some of them for me to see too, Jesse," said Ferdy. "When can he come again, do you think, Miss Lilly?"

Miss Lilly considered.

"On Friday afternoon. Can you get off for half an hour on Friday about this time, Jesse?"

"Oh yes, miss, no fear but I can," the boy replied.

"And thank you ever so many times – a great, great many times, for old Jerry," said Ferdy as he stretched out his little hand in farewell.

Jesse beamed with pleasure.

"I'll see if I can't do something better for you, Master Ferdy," he said.

And to himself he added, "It's a deal sensibler, after all, than knocking up after mischief all the evening – a-shamming to smoke and a-settin' trees on fire." For this had been one of his worst misdeeds in the village not many months before, when he and some other boys had hidden their so-called "cigars" of rolled-up leaves, still smouldering, in the hollow of an old oak, and frightened everybody out of their wits in the night by the conflagration which ended the days of the poor tree and threatened to spread farther.

Still more pleased would he have been could he have overheard Ferdy's words after he had gone.

"Isn't it really capital, Dr. Lilly? I don't believe I could ever do anything so like real as this old Jerry."

CHAPTER IX

"MY PUPILS"

That summer was a very, very lovely one. It scarcely rained, and when it did, it was generally in the night. If it is "an ill wind that brings nobody any good," on the other hand I suppose that few winds are so good that they bring nobody any harm, so possibly in some parts of the country people may have suffered that year for want of water; but this was not the case at Evercombe, where there were plenty of most well-behaved springs, which – or some of which at least – had never been known to run dry.

So the little brooks danced along their way as happily as ever, enjoying the sunshine, and with no murmurs from the little fishes to sadden their pretty songs, no fears for themselves of their full bright life running short. Every living thing seemed bubbling over with content; the flowers and blossoms were as fresh in July as in May; never had the birds been quite so busy and merry; and as for the butterflies, there was no counting their number or variety. Some new kinds must have come this year from butterflyland, Ferdy said to Christine one afternoon when he was lying out on his new couch on the lawn. Christine laughed, and so did Miss Lilly, and asked him to tell them where that country was, and Ferdy looked very wise and said it lay on the edge of fairyland, the fairies looked after it, that much he did know, and some day perhaps he would find out more.

And then he went on to tell them, in his half-joking, half-serious way, that he really thought the swallows were considering whether it was worth while to go away over the sea again next autumn. He had heard them having such a talk early that morning, and as far as he could make out, that was what they were saying.

"The spring came so early this year, and the summer looks as if it were going to last for always," he said. "I don't wonder at the swallows. Do you, Miss Lilly?"

Eva smiled, but shook her head.

"It is very nice of them to be considering about it," she replied, "for, no doubt, they will be sorry to leave you and the oriel window, Ferdy – sorrier than ever before." For she understood the little boy so well, that she knew it did him no harm to join him in his harmless fancies sometimes. "But they are wiser than we are in certain ways. They can feel the first faint whiff of Jack Frost's breath long before we have begun to think of cold at all."

"Like the Fairy Fine-Ear," said Ferdy, "who could hear the grass growing. I always like to think of that – there's something so – so neat about it."

"What a funny word to use about a fairy thing," said Christine, laughing. "Ah, well, any way we needn't think about Jack Frost or cold or winter just yet, and a day like this makes one feel, as Ferdy says, as if the summer must last for always."

It had been a great, an unspeakable comfort to the family at the Watch House, all thinking so constantly about their dear little man, to have this lovely weather for him. It had made it possible for him to enjoy much that would otherwise have been out of the question – above all, the being several hours of the day out of doors.

The big doctor had come again, not long after the day I told you of – the day of Miss Lilly's grandfather's visit, and of the presentation of the "old Jerry stick," as it came to be called. And he gave leave at last for Ferdy to be carried out of doors and to spend some hours on the lawn, provided they waited till a special kind of couch, or "garden-bed" in Ferdy's words, was ordered and sent from London. It was a very clever sort of couch, as it could be lifted off its stand, so to say, and used for carrying the little fellow up and down stairs without the slightest jar or jerk.

And Ferdy did not feel as if he were deserting his dear oriel window, for the nicest spot in the whole garden for the daily camping-out was on the lawn just below the swallows' home. And watching their quaint doings, their flyings out and in, their "conversations," and now and then even a tiny-bird quarrel among the youngsters, came to be a favourite amusement at the times, which must come in every such life as Ferdy had to lead, when he felt too tired to read or to be read to, too tired for his dearly loved "cutting-out" even, clever as he was getting to be at it.

Miss Lilly's hopes were fulfilled. Ferdy was having real lessons in carving two or three times a week. Dr. Lilly had arranged all about it, with the young man he had thought of, before he went away. His going away had turned into a much longer absence than was at first expected, but out of this came one very pleasant thing – Miss Lilly was living altogether at the Watch House.

This was a most happy plan for Ferdy, and for everybody, especially so far as the carving lessons were concerned, for Mr. Brock could only come in the evening, and but for Miss Lilly's presence there might have been difficulties in the way, Mrs. Ross was so terribly afraid of overtiring Ferdy, and nervous about his straining himself or doing too much in any way.

But she knew she could trust Eva, who really seemed to have, as her grandfather said, "an old head on young shoulders." She was the first to see if Ferdy was getting too eager over his work, or tiring himself, and then too, though she had not actual artist talent herself, she had a very quick and correct eye. She understood Mr. Brock's directions sometimes even better than Ferdy himself, and was often able to help him out of a difficulty or give him a hint to set him in a right way when he was working by himself in the day-time.

And another person was much the gainer by Miss Lilly's stay at the Watch House. I feel sure, dear children, you will quickly guess who that was.

Jesse Piggot?

Yes, poor Jesse.

But for Eva I doubt if he would have been allowed to share Ferdy's lessons. Mrs. Ross had grown nervous since that sad birthday morning, though at the time she seemed so calm and strong.

But she was now too anxious, and I am afraid Flowers was a little to blame for her mistress's fears that Jesse would in some way or other harm little Ferdy. Flowers did not like Jesse. Indeed, a good many people besides the Watch House servants had no love for the boy. It was partly Jesse's own fault, partly a case of giving a dog a bad name.

"He came of such a rough lot," they would say. "Those Draymoor folk were all a bad lot, and Piggot's set about the worst. Jesse was idle, and 'mischeevious,' and impudent," and besides all these opinions of him, which Flowers repeated to Ferdy's mother, there was always "some illness about at Draymoor – at least there was bound to be – scarlet fever or measles or something, in a place where there were such swarms of rough, ill-kept children."

This was really not the case, for Draymoor was an extraordinarily healthy place, and when Mrs. Ross spoke to Dr. Lilly before he left of her fears of infection being brought to her boy, he was able to set her mind more at rest on this point, and Eva took care to remind her from time to time of what "grandfather had said." And Jesse's luck seemed to have turned. To begin with, he was now regularly employed at the farm, and a week or two after Mrs. Ross had consented to his sharing Ferdy's lessons, the Draymoor difficulty came to an end, for Farmer Meare gave him a little room over the cow-houses, and told him he might spend his Sundays there too if he liked, so that there was really no need for him to go backwards and forwards to the neighbourhood Ferdy's mother dreaded so, at all.

He was not overworked, for he was a very strong boy, but he had plenty to do, and there might have been some excuse for him if he had said he felt too tired "of an evening" to do anything but loiter about or go to bed before the sun did.

No fear of anything of the kind, however. Jesse was a good example of the saying that it is the busiest people who have the most time. The busier he was in the day, the more eager he seemed that nothing should keep him from making his appearance at the door of the oriel room a few minutes before the time at which the wood-carver from Whittingham was due.

And he was sure to be heartily welcomed by Ferdy and his governess, and Christine too, if she happened to be there.

The first time or two Miss Lilly had found it necessary to give him a little hint.

"Have you washed your hands, Jesse?" she said, and as Jesse looked at his long brown fingers rather doubtfully, she opened the door again and called to good-natured Thomas, who had just brought the boy upstairs. "Jesse must wash his hands, please," she said.

And from that evening the brown hands were always quite clean. Then another hint or two got his curly black hair cropped and his boots brushed, so that it was quite a tidy-looking Jesse who sat at the table on Mr. Brock's other side, listening with all his ears and watching with all his eyes.

And he learnt with wonderful quickness. The teacher had been interested in him from the first. Old Jerry's head had shown him almost at once that the boy had unusual talent, and the next few weeks made him more and more sure of this.

"We must not let it drop," he said to Eva one day when he was able to speak to her out of hearing of the boys. "When Dr. Lilly returns I must tell him about Jesse. He must not go on working as a farm-labourer much longer. His touch is improving every day, and he will soon be able to group things better than I can do myself – much better than I could do at his age," with a little sigh, for poor Mr. Brock was not at all conceited. He was clever enough to know pretty exactly what he could do and what he could not, and he felt that he could never rise very much higher in his art.

Miss Lilly listened with great pleasure to his opinion of Jesse, but, of course, she said any change in the boy's life was a serious matter, and must wait to be talked over by her grandfather and Mr. Ross when Dr. Lilly came home.

And in her own heart she did not feel sure that they would wish him to give up his regular work, not at any rate for a good while to come, and till it was more certain that he could make his livelihood in a different way; for what Dr. Lilly cared most about was to give pleasant and interesting employment for leisure hours – to bring some idea of beauty and gracefulness into dull home lives.

She said something of this kind one evening after Jesse had gone, and she saw by the bright look in Ferdy's face that he understood what she meant, better even than Mr. Brock himself did perhaps.