The Oriel Window

"We must look them all over," he said, "and carefully separate any work that gives signs of taste or talent. It is no use encouraging lads who have neither."

Jesse's face fell. He had somehow known that Mr. Brock would not feel quite as his other friends did about his "pupils."

"Yes," said Miss Lilly, "it will no doubt be a good thing to classify the work to some extent. But I would not discourage any, Mr. Brock. Taste may grow, if not talent; and if there are only one or two boys with skill enough to do real work, surely the pleasure and interest of making something in their idle hours must be good for all?"

The wood-carver smiled indulgently. He thought the young lady rather fanciful, but still he could go along with her to a certain extent.

"Well, yes," he agreed. "At worst it is harmless. When the doctor returns, Miss Lilly, we must talk it all over with him; I am anxious to consult him about – " he glanced in Jesse's direction meaningly, without the boy's noticing it. For Jesse and Ferdy were eagerly picking out for their teacher's approval some of the bits of carving which their own instinct had already told them showed promise of better things.

CHAPTER X

TAKING REFUGE

It was a Saturday afternoon.

Ferdy, as he lay on his couch in the oriel window, looked out half sadly. The lawn and garden-paths below were thickly strewn with fallen leaves, for the summer was gone – the long beautiful summer which had seemed as if it were going to stay "for always." And the autumn was already old enough to make one feel that winter had started on its journey southwards from the icy lands which are its real home.

There were no swallow voices to be heard.

Oh no; the last of the little tenants of the nests overhead had said good-bye several weeks ago now. Ferdy's fancy had often followed them in their strange mysterious journey across the sea.

"I wonder," he thought, "if they really were rather sorry to go this year – sorrier than usual, because of me."

He took up a bit of carving that he had been working at; it was meant to be a small frame for a photograph of Chrissie, and he hoped to get it finished in time for his mother's birthday. It was very pretty, for he had made great progress in the last few months. In and out round the frame twined the foliage he had copied from the real leaves surrounding his dear window, and up in one corner was his pet idea – a swallow's head, "face," Ferdy called it, peeping out from an imaginary nest behind. This head was as yet far from completed, and he almost dreaded to work at it, so afraid was he of spoiling it. To-day he had given it a few touches which pleased him, and he took it up, half meaning to do a little more to it, but he was feeling tired, and laid it down again and went back to his own thoughts, as his blue eyes gazed up dreamily into the grey, somewhat stormy-looking autumn sky.

Some changes had come in the last few months. Dr. Lilly was at home again, so Ferdy and Christine no longer had entire possession of their dear governess, though they still saw her every day except Sunday, and sometimes even then too. Ferdy was, on the whole, a little stronger, though less well than when able to be out for several hours together in the open air. What the doctors now thought as to the chances of his ever getting quite well, he did not know; he had left off asking. Children live much in the present, or if not quite that, in a future which is made by their own thoughts and feelings in the present. And he had grown accustomed to his life, and to putting far before him, mistily, the picture of the day when he would be "all right again." He had not really given up the hope of it, though his mother sometimes thought he had.

The truth was that as yet the doctors did not know and could not say.

But the present had many interests and much happiness in it for Ferdy, little as he would have been able to believe this, had he foreseen all he was to be deprived of in a moment that sad May morning.

His friendship for Jesse was one of the things he got a great deal from. Nothing as yet was settled about the boy's future, eager though Mr. Brock was to see him launched in another kind of life. For both Mr. Ross and Dr. Lilly felt that any great step of the sort must first be well thought over, especially as Jesse was now working steadily at Farmer Meare's and earning regular wages, and seemingly quite contented. Though he had had his troubles too. Some of his old wild companions were very jealous of him and very spiteful; and bit by bit a sort of league had been started against him among the worst and roughest of the Draymoor lads, several of whom were angry at not being allowed to join the class in the shed at Bollins, some still more angry at having been sent away from the class, for Jesse and his friend Barney who acted as a sort of second in command were very particular as to whom they took as pupils. Or rather as to whom they kept; they did not mind letting a boy come two or three times to see "what it was like," but if he turned out idle or disturbing to the others, and with no real interest in the work, he was told in very plain terms that he need not come back.

They were patient with some rather dull and stupid lads, however. Barney especially so. For he was very "quick" himself. And some of these dull ones really were the most satisfactory. They were so very proud of finding that they could, with patience and perseverance, "make" something, useful at any rate, if not highly ornamental. No one who has not been tried in this way knows the immense pleasure of the first feeling of the power to "make."

These things Ferdy was thinking of, among others, as he lay there quietly this afternoon. He was alone, except for an occasional "look in" from Thomas or Flowers, as Mr. Ross had taken his wife and Christine for a drive.

Ferdy had grown much older in the last few months in some ways. He had had so much time for thinking. And though he did not, as I have said, trouble himself much about his own future, he thought a good deal about Jesse's.

There was no doubt that Jesse was very clever at carving. Ferdy knew it, and saw it for himself, and Miss Lilly thought so, and the old doctor thought so; and most of them all, Mr. Brock thought so. But for some weeks past Mr. Brock's lessons had stopped. He had been sent away by the firm at Whittingham who employed him, to see to the restoration of an old house in the country, where the wood carving, though much out of repair, was very fine, and required a careful and skilful workman to superintend its repair.

So there seemed to be no one at hand quite as eager about Jesse as Ferdy himself.

"The winter is coming fast," thought the little invalid, "and they can't go on working in the shed. And Jesse may get into idle ways again – he's not learning anything new now. It fidgets me so. I'd like him to be sent to some place where he'd get on fast. I don't believe he cares about it himself half as much as I care about it for him. And he's so taken up with his 'pupils.' I wonder what could be done about getting some one to teach them. Barney isn't clever enough. Oh, if only mamma wouldn't be so afraid of my tiring myself, and would let me have a class for them up here in the winter evenings! Or I might have two classes, – there are only ten or twelve of them altogether, – and once a week or so Mr. Brock might come to help me, or not even as often as that. If he came once a fortnight or even once a month he could see how they were getting on, —extra coming, I mean, besides his teaching me, for of course the more I learn the better I can teach them. And another evening we might have a class for something else – baskets or something not so hard as carving. Miss Lilly's learning baskets, I know. And then Jesse wouldn't mind leaving his pupils. Oh, I do wish it could be settled. I wish I could talk about it again to Dr. Lilly. I don't think Jesse's quite am – I can't remember the word – caring enough about getting on to be something great."

Poor Jesse, it was not exactly want of ambition with him. It was simply that the idea of becoming anything more than a farm-labourer had never yet entered his brain. He thought himself very lucky indeed to be where he now was, and to have the chance of improving in his dearly loved "carving" without being mocked at or interfered with, neither of which so far had actually been the case, though there had been some unpleasant threatenings in the air of late. His efforts to interest and improve the boys of the neighbourhood had been looked upon with suspicion – with more suspicion than he had known till quite lately, when he and Barney had been trying to get some one to lend them a barn or an empty room of any kind for the winter.

"What was he after now? Some mischief, you might be sure, or he wouldn't be Jesse Piggot."

So much easier is it to gain "a bad name," than to live one down.

"Oh," thought little Ferdy, "I do wish something could be settled about Jesse."

He was growing restless – restless and nervous, which did not often happen. Was it the gloomy afternoon, or the being so long alone, or what? The clouds overhead were growing steely-blue, rather than grey. Could it be going to thunder? Surely it was too cold for that. Perhaps there was a storm of some other kind coming on – heavy rain or wind, perhaps.

And mamma and Chrissie would get so wet!

If only they would come in! Ferdy began to feel what he very rarely did – rather sorry for himself. It was nervousness, one of the troubles which are the hardest to bear in a life such as Ferdy's had become and might continue. But this he was too young to understand; he thought he was cross and discontented, and this self-reproach only made him the more uncomfortable. These feelings, however, were not allowed to go very far that afternoon. A sound reached Ferdy's quick ears which made him look up sharply and glance out of the window. Some one was running rapidly along the drive towards the house.

It was Jesse.

But fast as he came, his way of moving told of fatigue. He had run far, and seemed nearly spent.

Ferdy's heart began to beat quickly, something must be the matter. Could it be an accident? Oh! if anything had happened to his father and mother and Chrissie, and Jesse had been sent for help! But in that case he would have gone straight to the stable-yard, and as this thought struck him, Ferdy breathed more freely again. Perhaps, after all, it was only some message and nothing wrong, and Jesse had been running fast just for his own amusement.

The little boy lay still and listened. In a minute or two he heard footsteps coming upstairs. Then a slight tap at the door – Thomas's tap – and almost without waiting for an answer, the footman came in.

"It's Jesse, Master Ferdy," he began. "Jesse Piggot. He's run all the way from Bollins, and he's pretty well done. He's begging to see you. He's in some trouble, but he won't tell me what. I'm afraid your mamma won't be best pleased if I let him up, but I don't know what to do, he seems in such a state."

Ferdy raised himself a little on his couch. There must be something very much the matter for Jesse, merry, light-hearted Jesse, to be in a "state" at all.

"Let him come up at once, Thomas, I'll put it all right with mamma," he began, but before Thomas had time for any more hesitation the matter was taken out of his hands by Jesse's short-cropped, dark head appearing in the doorway.

"Oh, Master Ferdy!" he exclaimed, in a choking voice, "mayn't I come in?"

"Of course," said Ferdy quickly. "It's all right, Thomas," with a touch of impatience, "I'll call you if I want you," and Thomas discreetly withdrew, closing the door behind him.

"They're after me, Master Ferdy," were Jesse's first words, "at least I'm afraid they are, though I tried my best to dodge them."

"Who?" exclaimed Ferdy.

"The p'lice and Bill Turner's father, and a lot of them, and oh, Master Ferdy, some one called out he was killed!"

"Who?" said Ferdy again, though his own cheeks grew white at Jesse's words. "And what is it that's happened, and what do you want me to do. You must tell me properly, Jesse."

It said a good deal for Ferdy's self-control that he was able to speak so quietly and sensibly, for he was feeling terribly startled. Jesse choked down his gasping breath, which was very nearly turning into sobs.

"I didn't want to frighten you, Master Ferdy. I didn't ought to, I know, but I couldn't think what else to do. It's that Bill Turner, Master Ferdy," and at the name he gave a little shudder. "He was in the class once, but it was only out of mischief. He did no good and tried to upset the others. So Barney and I wouldn't keep him at no price, and he's gone on getting nastier and nastier, and the other day he 'called' me – he did – so that I couldn't stand it, and I went for him. It didn't hurt him, but it made him madder than ever, and he said he'd pay me out. And this afternoon when Barney and me were sorting the carvings at the shed – we've a box we keep them all in, there – Bill comes down upon us, him and some others. They got hold of 'em all and smashed 'em up and kicked them to pieces – all to pieces, Master Ferdy" – with a sort of wail, almost of despair, in his voice. "All the things we've been at for so long! We were going to make a show of them at Christmas; and I couldn't stand it, I went at him like a wild beast – it was for the other lads I minded so – though he's much bigger nor me, and I got him down, and he lay there without moving, and some one called out he was dead, and then the p'lice came, and one of 'em caught hold of me, but I got loose and I started running – I scarce knew what I was doing. I just thought I'd get here, and you'd tell me what to do. He can't be dead, Master Ferdy," he went on, dropping his voice – "you don't think he can be? I didn't seem to know what it meant till I got here and began to think."

"I don't know," said Ferdy, again growing very pale, while poor Jesse's face was all blotched in great patches of red and white, and smeared with the tears he had tried to rub off. "Oh, I do wish papa and mamma would come in! I don't know what to do. Do you think they saw you running this way, Jesse?"

"I – I don't know, Master Ferdy. I hope not, but there was a lot of the boys about – Draymoor boys, I mean – Bill's lot, and they may have tracked me. Of course none of my boys," he added, lifting his head proudly, "would peach on me, whatever the p'lice did."

But even as he spoke, there came, faintly and confusedly, the sound of approaching steps along the road just beyond the hedge, and a murmur of several voices all talking together. It might not have caught Ferdy's attention at any other time, but just now both his ears and Jesse's were sharpened by anxiety.

"They're a coming, Master Ferdy," exclaimed the poor boy, growing still whiter.

"Never mind," said Ferdy, trying hard to be brave, "Thomas is all right, he won't let them come up here."