A Reputed Changeling Part 6

"Have you ever sought his confidence?" asked the travelled brother, a question evidently scarcely understood, for the reply was, "I have always required of my sons to speak the truth, nor have they failed of late years save this unfortunate Peregrine."

"And," said Sir Peregrine, "if the unlucky lad actually supposes himself to be no human being, admonitions and chastis.e.m.e.nts would naturally be vain."

"I cannot believe it," exclaimed the Major. "'Tis true, as I now remember, I once came on a couple of beldames, my wife's nurse and another, who has since been ducked for witchcraft, and found them about to flog the babe with nettles, and lay him in the thorn hedge because he was a sickly child, whom, forsooth, they took to be a changeling; but I forbade the profane folly to be ever again mentioned in my household, nor did I ever hear thereof again."

"There are a good many more things mentioned in a household, brother, than the master is wont to hear of," remarked Sir Peregrine.

Dr. Woodford then begged as a personal favour for an individual examination of the family and servants on their opinion. The master was reluctant thus, as he expressed it, to go a-fooling, but his brother backed the Doctor up, and further prevented a general a.s.sembly to put one another to shame, but insisted on the witnesses being called in one by one. Oliver, the first summoned, was beginning to be somewhat less overawed by his father than in his earlier boyhood. To the inquiry what he thought of his brother Peregrine, he made a tentative sort of reply, that he was a strange fellow, who never could keep out of disgrace.

"That is not the question," said his father. "I am almost ashamed to speak it! Do you--nay, have you ever supposed him to be a--" he really could not bring out the word.

"A changeling, sir?" returned Oliver. "I do not believe so now, knowing that it is impossible, but as a child I always did."

"Who durst possess you with so foolish and profane a falsehood?"

"Every one, sir. I cannot recollect the time when I did not as entirely deem Peregrine a changeling elf as that Robin was my own brother. He believes so himself."

"You have never striven to disabuse him."

"Indeed, sir, he would scarce have listened to me had I done go; besides, to tell the truth, it has only been of late, since I have been older, and have studied more, that I have come to perceive the folly of it."

Major Oakshott groaned, and bade him call Robert without saying wherefore. The little fellow came in, somewhat frightened, and when asked the question that had been put to his elder, his face lighted up, and he exclaimed, "Oh, have they brought him back again?"

"Whom?"

"Our real brother, sir, who was carried off to fairyland!"

"Who told you so, Robert?"

He looked puzzled, and said, "Sir, they all know it. Molly Owens, that was his foster-mother, saw the fairies bear him off on a broomstick up the chimney."

"Robert, no lying!"

The boy was only restrained from tears by fear of his father, and just managed to say, "'Tis what they all say, and Perry knows."

"Knows!" muttered Major Oakshott in despair, but the uncle, drawing Robin towards him, extracted that Perry had been seen flying out of the loft window, when he had been locked up--Robin had never seen it himself, but the maids had often done so. Moreover, there was proof positive, in the mark on Oliver's head, where he had nearly killed himself by tumbling downstairs, being lured by the fairies while they stole away the babe.

The Major could not listen with patience. "A boy of that age to repeat such blasphemous nonsense!" he exclaimed; and Robert, restraining with difficulty his sobs of terror, was dismissed to fetch the butler.

The old Ironside who now appeared would not avouch his own disbelief in the ident.i.ty of Master Peregrine, being, as he said, a man who had studied his Bible, listened to G.o.dly preachers, and seen the world; but he had no hesitation in declaring that almost every other soul in the household believed in it as firmly as in the Gospel, certainly all the women, and probably all the men, nor was there any doubt that the young gentleman conducted himself more like a goblin than the son of pious Christian parents. In effect both the clergyman and the Diplomate could not help suspecting that in other company the worthy butler's disavowal of all share in the superst.i.tion might have been less absolute.

"After this," said Major Oakshott with a sigh, "it seems useless to carry the inquiry farther."

"What says my sister Oakshott?" inquired Sir Peregrine. "She! Poor soul, she is too feeble to be fretted," said her husband. "She has never been the same woman since the Fire of London, and it would be vain to vex her with questions. She would be of one mind while I spoke to her, and another while her women were pouring their tales into her ear. Methinks I now understand why she has always seemed to shrink from this unfortunate child, and to fear rather than love him."

"Even so, sir," added the tutor. "Much is explained that I never before understood. The question is how to deal with him under this fresh light. I will, so please your honour, a.s.semble the family this very night, and expound to them that such superst.i.tions are contrary to the very word of Scripture."

"Much good will that do," muttered the knight.

"I should humbly suggest," put in Dr. Woodford, "that the best hope for the poor lad would be to place him where these foolish tales were unknown, and he could start afresh on the same terms with other youths."

"There is no school in accordance with my principles," said the Squire gloomily. "G.o.dly men who hold the faith as I do are inhibited by the powers that be from teaching in schools."

"And," said his brother, "you hold these principles as more important than the causing your son to be bred up a human being instead of being pointed at and rendered hopeless as a demon."

"I am bound to do so," said the Major.

"Surely," said Dr. Woodford, "some scholar might be found, either here or in Holland, who might share your opinions, and could receive the boy without incurring penalties for opening a school without license."

"It is a matter for prayer and consideration," said Major Oakshott.

"Meantime, reverend sir, I thank you most heartily for the goodness with which you have treated my untoward son, and likewise for having opened my eyes to the root of his freakishness."

The Doctor understood this as dismissal, and asked for his horse, intimating, however, that he would gladly keep the boy till some arrangement had been decided upon. Then he rode home to tell his sister-in-law that he had done his best, and that he thought it a fortunate conjunction that the travelled brother had been present.

CHAPTER VI: A RELAPSE

"A tell-tale in their company They never could endure, And whoso kept not secretly Their pranks was punished sure.

It was a just and Christian deed To pinch such black and blue; Oh, how the commonwealth doth need Such justices as you!"

BISHOP CORBETT.

Several days pa.s.sed, during which there could be no doubt that Peregrine Oakshott knew how to behave himself, not merely to grown- up people, but to little Anne, who had entirely lost her dread of him, and accepted him as a playfellow. He was able to join the family meals, and sit in the pleasant garden, shaded by the walls of the old castle, as well as by its own apple-trees, and looking out on the little bay in front, at full tide as smooth and shining as a lake.

There, while Anne did her task of spinning or of white seam, Mrs.

Woodford would tell the children stories, or read to them from the Pilgrim's Progress, a wonderful romance to both. Peregrine, still tamed by weakness, would lie on the gra.s.s at her feet, in a tranquil bliss such as he had never known before, and his fairy romances to Anne were becoming mitigated, when one day a big coach came along the road from Fareham, with two boys riding beside it, escorting Lady Archfield and Mistress Lucy.

The lady was come to study Mrs. Woodford's recipe for preserved cherries, the young people, Charles, Lucy, and their cousin Sedley, now at home for the summer holidays, to spend an afternoon with Mistress Anne.

Great was Lady Archfield's surprise at finding that Major Oakshott's cross-grained slip of a boy was still at Portchester.

"If you were forced to take him in for very charity when he was hurt," she said, "I should have thought you would have been rid of him as soon as he could leave his bed."

"The road to Oakwood is too rough for broken ribs as yet," said Mrs.

Woodford, "nor is the poor boy ready for discipline."

"Ay, I fancy that Major Oakshott is a bitter Puritan in his own house; but no discipline could be too harsh for such a boy as that, according to all that I hear," said her ladyship, "nor does he look as if much were amiss with him so far as may be judged of features so strange and writhen."

"He is nearly well, but not yet strong, and we are keeping him here till his father has decided on what is best for him."

"You even trust him with your little maid! And alone! I wonder at you, madam."

"Indeed, my lady, I have seen no harm come of it. He is gentle and kind with Anne, and I think she softens him."

Still Mrs. Woodford would gladly not have been bound to her colander and preserving-pan in her still-room, where her guest's housewifely mind found great scope for inquiry and comment, lasting for nearly two hours.