This was really not the case, for Draymoor was an extraordinarily healthy place, and when Mrs. Ross spoke to Dr. Lilly before he left of her fears of infection being brought to her boy, he was able to set her mind more at rest on this point, and Eva took care to remind her from time to time of what "grandfather had said." And Jesse's luck seemed to have turned. To begin with, he was now regularly employed at the farm, and a week or two after Mrs. Ross had consented to his sharing Ferdy's lessons, the Draymoor difficulty came to an end, for Farmer Meare gave him a little room over the cow-houses, and told him he might spend his Sundays there too if he liked, so that there was really no need for him to go backwards and forwards to the neighbourhood Ferdy's mother dreaded so, at all.
He was not overworked, for he was a very strong boy, but he had plenty to do, and there might have been some excuse for him if he had said he felt too tired "of an evening" to do anything but loiter about or go to bed before the sun did.
No fear of anything of the kind, however. Jesse was a good example of the saying that it is the busiest people who have the most time. The busier he was in the day, the more eager he seemed that nothing should keep him from making his appearance at the door of the oriel room a few minutes before the time at which the wood-carver from Whittingham was due.
And he was sure to be heartily welcomed by Ferdy and his governess, and Christine too, if she happened to be there.
The first time or two Miss Lilly had found it necessary to give him a little hint.
"Have you washed your hands, Jesse?" she said, and as Jesse looked at his long brown fingers rather doubtfully, she opened the door again and called to good-natured Thomas, who had just brought the boy upstairs. "Jesse must wash his hands, please," she said.
And from that evening the brown hands were always quite clean. Then another hint or two got his curly black hair cropped and his boots brushed, so that it was quite a tidy-looking Jesse who sat at the table on Mr. Brock's other side, listening with all his ears and watching with all his eyes.
And he learnt with wonderful quickness. The teacher had been interested in him from the first. Old Jerry's head had shown him almost at once that the boy had unusual talent, and the next few weeks made him more and more sure of this.
"We must not let it drop," he said to Eva one day when he was able to speak to her out of hearing of the boys. "When Dr. Lilly returns I must tell him about Jesse. He must not go on working as a farm-labourer much longer. His touch is improving every day, and he will soon be able to group things better than I can do myself—much better than I could do at his age," with a little sigh, for poor Mr. Brock was not at all conceited. He was clever enough to know pretty exactly what he could do and what he could not, and he felt that he could never rise very much higher in his art.
Miss Lilly listened with great pleasure to his opinion of Jesse, but, of course, she said any change in the boy's life was a serious matter, and must wait to be talked over by her grandfather and Mr. Ross when Dr. Lilly came home.