CHAPTER VI
Rosamond regarded her with eyes a-twinkle and presently interrupted her meditation to ask:
“What did Roseborough think of him before he went away?”
Mrs. Lee sighed.
“That is what adds to the difficulty. The truth is that Roseborough hardly knew him. Jack did not care for Roseborough! It seems incredible, but it is a fact. Jack did not care for Roseborough—I mean, the people. He was an orphan and a poor lad of whose beginnings we knew little. He came to us because, in his wanderings, he had met a Charleroy man and heard from him of my husband. He had been tramping about the farming country, year after year, tilling, sowing, reaping—whatever outdoor work he could get—and saving his pennies to put toward an education when he should find just the right instructor. As a child he had been with gypsies.”
“Gypsies! What adventures!”
“Yes, his mother, a young girl of excellent birth, had run away and married a poor artist and been cast off by her proud family. They suffered the hardship of poverty, and Jack was soon left an orphan. Whether he joined the gypsies or they stole him I don’t remember, but he was with them for awhile. At one time his mother’s relations found him and offered to bring him up, but he considered the restrictions of their home too irksome. After two years of it, he ran off and wandered about, earning his way, as I have told you. I shall never forget the night he came to us—it was a rainy, autumn evening—a black, splashing night. There was a loud knock on the door and, when we opened it—for I had followed the Professor, holding the candle (we did not have electric lights in our day in Villa Rose)—there stood a dark, tall, sturdy-looking young man, with long, black hair and the largest and blackest eyes I’d ever seen; and, what’s more, he stood there on two bare feet, and he had no coat, only a gray woollen shirt, belted into dark, fustian trousers turned up above his ankles.”
“You were frightened, weren’t you?”
“Hardly that; I was more amazed. He said—and his voice was mellow and attractive—‘You are Professor Lee and I have come to you to be taught.’ My husband asked, ‘What do you wish to be taught?’ And Jack said, ‘I can read and write and keep a merry heart under all skies; but I wish you to teach me whatever men must know to make them good and wise.’ Then my husband said, ‘Come in, and I will give you dry clothes and something hot to drink.’ Jack answered, ‘Oh, as to that, the weather and I are friends. It never hurts me.’ Well, my dear, he came in and we attended to his needs and gave him a room for the night. Of course he was not ready then to enter college, so my husband gave him private instruction. And he seemed to take it for granted that he could live in our home so we let him have the little room off the living-room....”