When the boy and his father came into his presence, the aged man, although stricken with painful infirmity, rose to his feet and welcomed them with a beautiful courtesy.
“I cannot expect you to remember me, sir,” said the boy’s father, with a simplicity that was a little timorous.
The aged school-master approached quite close to the boy’s father; in his faded eyes was a peering intentness.
“You must give me a minute to think, if you please,” he quavered in a low voice, which in the ears of the boy had the effect of music. “Now that I am old, my memory, of which I have always been vain, is the first to desert me. If you are one of my scholars I shall recall you, for it is my boast that each of my scholars has graven a line in the tablets of my mind.”
Of a sudden the aged school-master gave a cry of joy.
“Why—why!” he exclaimed, “it must be William Jordan.”
He held out both his hands to the boy’s father with an eagerness that was like a child’s, and the boy saw that his eyes, which a moment since were destitute of meaning, had now the pregnant beauty of an ancient masterpiece.
“O that the hour should be at hand,” said the old man, “when I should cease to recall William Jordan!”
The old man seemed to avert his face from that of the boy’s father in a kind of dismay; and his voice pierced the boy with an emotion that he had never felt before.
“It is thirty years since you saw me last,” said the boy’s father.