"Grandpapa! dear grandpapa! where is grandpapa? Will no one save my dear grand-papa?" cried Phoebe.
And placing the little girl at the side of her aunt, Jesse again mounted the blazing staircase. For a few moments all gave him up for lost But he returned, tottering under the weight of a man scarcely yet aroused from heavy sleep, and half suffocated by the smoke and flames.
"Miss Phoebe! he's safe, Miss Phoebe!—Down, Venus, down—He's safe, Miss Phoebe! And now, I sha'n't mind going to prison, 'cause when I come back you'll be living at the Moors. Sha'n't you, Miss Phoebe? And I shall see you every day!"
One part of this speech turned out true and another part false—no uncommon fate, by the way, of prophetic speeches, even when uttered by wiser persons than poor Jesse. Phoebe did come to live at the Moors, and he did not go to prison.
On the contrary, so violent was the revulsion of feeling in the honest hearts of the good yeoman, John Cobham, and his faithful servant, old Daniel, and so deep the remorse which they both felt for their injustice and unkindness towards the friendless lad, that there was considerable danger of their falling into the opposite extreme, and ruining him by sudden and excessive indulgence. Jesse, however, was not of a temperament to be easily spoilt. He had been so long an outcast from human society that he had become as wild and shy as his old companions of the fields and the coppice, the beasts of the earth and the birds of the air. The hare which he had himself given to Phoebe was easier to tame than Jesse Cliffe.
Gradually, very gradually, under the gentle influence of the gentle child, this great feat was accomplished, almost as effectually, although by no means so suddenly, as in the well-known case of Cymon and Iphigenia, the most noted precedent upon record of the process of reaching the head through the heart. Venus, and a beautiful Welsh pony called Taffy, which her grandfather had recently purchased for her riding, had their share in the good deed; these two favourites being placed by Phoebe's desire under Jesse's sole charge and management; a measure which not only brought him necessarily into something like intercourse with the other lads about the yard, but ended in his conceiving so strong an attachment to the animals of whom he had the care, that before the winter set in he had deserted his old lair in the wood, and actually passed his nights in a vacant stall of the small stable appropriated to their use.
From the moment that John Cobham detected such an approach to the habits of civilised life as sleeping under a roof, he looked upon the wild son of the Moors as virtually reclaimed, and so it proved. Every day he became more and more like his fellow-men. He abandoned his primitive oven, and bought his bread at the baker's. He accepted thankfully the decent clothing necessary to his attending Miss Phoebe in her rides round the country. He worked regularly and steadily at whatever labour was assigned to him, receiving wages like the other farm servants; and finally it was discovered that one of the first uses he made of these wages was to purchase spelling-books and copy-books, and enter himself at an evening school, where the opening difficulties being surmounted, his progress astonished every body.
His chief fancy was for gardening. The love, and, to a certain point, the knowledge of flowers which he had always evinced increased upon him every day;—and happening to accompany Phoebe on one of her visits to the young ladies at the Hall, who were much attached to the lovely little girl, he saw Lady Mordaunt's French garden, and imitated it the next year for his young mistress in wild flowers, after such a fashion as to excite the wonder and admiration of all beholders.
From that moment Jesse's destiny was decided. Sir Robert's gardener, a clever Scotchman, took great notice of him and offered to employ him at the Hall; but the Moors had to poor Jesse a fascination which he could not surmount. He felt that it would be easier to tear himself from the place altogether, than to live in the neighbourhood and not there. Accordingly he lingered on for a year or two, and then took a grateful leave of his benefactors, and set forth to London with the avowed intention of seeking employment in a great nursery-ground, to the proprietor of which he was furnished with letters, not merely from his friend the gardener, but from Sir Robert himself.
N. B. It is recorded that on the night of Jesse's departure,
Venus refused her supper and Phoebe cried herself to sleep.