Part 12 (1/2)

Dr. Lilly smiled.

”I am afraid my granddaughter has made you think me much cleverer than I am, my dear boy,” he replied. ”I can't say I know much about it myself, but I have a young friend who does, and if you really want to learn, I daresay he might be of use to you.”

Ferdy's eyes sparkled, and so did Miss Lilly's, for she knew her grandfather too well to think that he would have spoken in this way to Ferdy unless he had good reason for it.

”Grandfather must have seen Mr. Ross and got his consent for the lessons,” she thought.

And she looked as pleased as Ferdy himself, who was chattering away like a little magpie to Dr. Lilly about all the lovely things he would make if he really learnt to carve--or ”cut out,” as he kept calling it--very nicely.

”What I'd like best of all to do is swallows,” he said. ”You see I've got to know the swallows over this window so well. I do believe I know each one of them sep'rately. And sometimes in the morning early--I can hear them out of my bedroom window too--I really can almost tell what they're talking about.”

”Swallows are charming,” said Dr. Lilly, ”but to see them at their best they should be on the wing. They are rather awkward-looking birds when not flying.”

”They've got _very_ nice faces,” said Ferdy, who did not like to allow that his friends were short of beauty in any way. ”Their foreheads and necks are such a pretty browny colour, and then their top feathers are a soft sort of blue, greyey blue, which looks so nice over the white underneath. I think they're awfully pretty altogether.”

”You have watched them pretty closely, I see,” said Dr. Lilly, pleased at Ferdy's careful noticing of his feathered neighbours. ”I love swallows as much as you do, but it takes a master hand to carve _movement_. You may begin with something easier, and who knows what you may come to do in time.”

Ferdy did not answer. He lay still, his blue eyes gazing up into the sky, from which at that moment they almost seemed to have borrowed their colour. Visions pa.s.sed before his fancy of lovely things which he would have found it difficult to describe, carvings such as none but a fairy hand could fas.h.i.+on, of birds and flowers of beauty only to be seen in dreams--it was a delight just to think of them. And one stood out from the rest, a window like his own oriel window, but entwined with wonderful foliage, and in one corner a nest, with a bird still almost on the wing, poised on a branch hard by.

”Oh,” and he all but spoke his fancy aloud, ”I feel as if I could make it _so_ lovely.”

But just then, glancing downwards, though still out of doors, he gave a little start.

”It _is_ him,” he exclaimed. ”Miss Lilly, dear, do look. Isn't that Jesse, standing at the gate?”

Yes, Jesse it was. Not peeping in shyly, as some boys would have done.

That was not Mr. Jesse's way. No, there he stood, in the middle of the open gateway, quite at his ease, one hand in his pocket, in the fellow of which the other would have been, no doubt, if it had not been holding an inconvenient shape of parcel--a long narrow parcel done up in a bit of newspaper, which had seen better days; not the sort of parcel you could possibly hide in a pocket. It was tea-time at the farm, and Jesse had slipped down to the Watch House in hopes of catching sight of Miss Lilly, for she had spoken of the afternoon as the best time for seeing Ferdy.

”Of course it is Jesse,” said the young lady. ”Look, grandfather, don't you think I may run down and ask Mrs. Ross to let me bring him in for a few minutes?”

And off she went.

A minute or two later Ferdy and Chrissie, still looking out of the window in great anxiety lest Jesse should get tired of waiting and go away before Miss Lilly could stop him, saw their governess hurry up the drive. And Jesse, as he caught sight of her, came forward, a little shy and bashful now, as he tugged at his cap by way of a polite greeting.

Ferdy's face grew rosy with pleasure.

”They're coming in,” he said to Dr. Lilly.

”Yes,” said the old gentleman. ”I will go over to the other side of the room with the newspaper, so that the poor lad won't feel confused by seeing so many people.”

But all the same from behind the shelter of his newspaper the old gentleman kept a look-out on the little scene pa.s.sing before him.

Miss Lilly came in quickly, but Jesse hung back for a moment or two at the door. He was almost dazzled at first by the bright prettiness before him. For he had never seen such a charming room before, and though he would not have understood it if it had been said to him, underneath his rough outside Jesse had one of those natures that are much and quickly alive to beauty of all kinds. And everything that love and good taste could do to make the oriel room a pleasant prison for the little invalid boy, had been done.

It was a very prettily shaped room to begin with, and the creeping plants trained round the window outside were now almost in their full summer richness. Roses peeped in with their soft blus.h.i.+ng faces; honeysuckle seemed climbing up by the help of its pink and scarlet fingers; clematis, the dear old ”traveller's joy,” was there too, though kept in proper restraint. The oriel window looked a perfect bower, for inside, on the little table by Ferdy's couch, were flowers too--one of his own moss-baskets, filled with wild hyacinth, and a beautiful large petalled begonia, one of old Ferguson's special pets, which he had been proud to send in to adorn Master Ferdy's room, and two lovely fairy-like maiden-hair ferns.

And the little group in the window seemed in keeping with the flowers and plants. There was the delicate face of the little invalid, and pretty Christine with her fluffy golden hair, and Miss Lilly, slight and dark-eyed, stooping over them, as she explained to Ferdy that Jesse was longing to see him.

Altogether the poor boy, rude and rough as he was, felt as if he were gazing at some beautiful picture; he would have liked to stand there longer--the feelings that came over him were so new and so fascinating.

He did not see old Dr. Lilly behind his newspaper in the farther corner of the room--he felt as if in a dream, and he quite started when Miss Lilly, glancing round, spoke to him by name.