The child was silent. He walked to the door, and looked wistfully out. The shadows of night were gathering, and all was still.
“If he could lean upon anybody’s arm, he would come to me, I know,” he said, returning into the room. “He always came into the garden to say good night. But perhaps his illness has only just taken a favourable turn, and it’s too late for him to come out, for it’s very damp and there’s a heavy dew. It’s much better he shouldn’t come tonight.”
The schoolmaster lighted a candle, fastened the window-shutter, and closed the door. But after he had done this, and sat silent a little time, he took down his hat, and said he would go and satisfy himself, if Nell would sit up till he returned. The child readily complied, and he went out.
She sat there half-an-hour or more, feeling the place very strange and lonely, for she had prevailed upon the old man to go to bed, and there was nothing to be heard but the ticking of an old clock, and the whistling of the wind among the trees. When he returned, he took his seat in the chimney-corner, but remained silent for a long time. At length he turned to her, and speaking very gently, hoped she would say a prayer that night for a sick child.
“My favourite scholar!” said the poor schoolmaster, smoking a pipe he had forgotten to light, and looking mournfully round upon the walls. “It is a little hand to have done all that, and waste away with sickness. It is a very, very, little hand!”
XXV
After a sound night’s rest in a chamber in the thatched roof, in which it seemed the sexton had for some years been a lodger, but which he had lately deserted for a wife and a cottage of his own, the child rose early in the morning and descended to the room where she had supped last night. As the schoolmaster had already left his bed and gone out, she bestirred herself to make it neat and comfortable, and had just finished its arrangement when the kind host returned.
He thanked her many times, and said that the old dame who usually did such offices for him had gone to nurse the little scholar whom he had told her of. The child asked how he was, and hoped he was better.
“No,” rejoined the schoolmaster shaking his head sorrowfully, “no better. They even say he is worse.”
“I am very sorry for that, sir,” said the child.
The poor schoolmaster appeared to be gratified by her earnest manner, but yet rendered more uneasy by it, for he added hastily that anxious people often magnified an evil and thought it greater than it was; “for my part,” he said, in his quiet, patient way, “I hope it’s not so. I don’t think he can be worse.”
The child asked his leave to prepare breakfast, and her grandfather coming downstairs they all three partook of it together. While the meal was in progress, their host remarked that the old man seemed much fatigued, and evidently stood in need of rest.
“If the journey you have before you is a long one,” he said, “and don’t press you for one day, you’re very welcome to pass another night here. I should really be glad if you would, friend.”
He saw that the old man looked at Nell, uncertain whether to accept or decline his offer; and added,
“I shall be glad to have your young companion with me for one day. If you can do a charity to a lone man, and rest yourself at the same time, do so. If you must proceed upon your journey, I wish you well through it, and will walk a little way with you before school begins.”
“What are we to do, Nell,” said the old man irresolutely, “say what we’re to do, dear.”
It required no great persuasion to induce the child to answer that they had better accept the invitation and remain. She was happy to show her gratitude to the kind schoolmaster by busying herself in the performance of such household duties as his little cottage stood in need of. When these were done, she took some needlework from her basket, and sat herself down upon a stool beside the lattice, where the honeysuckle and woodbine entwined their tender stems, and stealing into the room filled it with their delicious breath. Her grandfather was basking in the sun outside, breathing the perfume of the flowers, and idly watching the clouds as they floated on before the light summer wind.
As the schoolmaster, after arranging the two forms in due order, took his seat behind his desk and made other preparations for school, the child was apprehensive that she might be in the way, and offered to withdraw to her little bedroom. But this he would not allow, and as he seemed pleased to have her there, she remained, busying herself with her work.
“Have you many scholars, sir?” she asked.
The poor schoolmaster shook his head, and said that they barely filled the two forms.
“Are the others clever, sir?” asked the child, glancing at the trophies on the wall.
“Good boys,” returned the schoolmaster, “good boys enough, my dear, but they’ll never do like that.”
A small white-headed boy with a sunburnt face appeared at the door while he was speaking, and stopping there to make a rustic bow, came in and took his seat upon one of the forms. The white-headed boy then put an open book, astonishingly dog’s-eared, upon his knees, and thrusting his hands into his pockets began counting the marbles with which they were filled; displaying in the expression of his face a remarkable capacity of totally abstracting his mind from the spelling on which his eyes were fixed. Soon afterwards
