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 cloth