Part 6 (1/2)

”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.”