A Reputed Changeling
Accordingly there was a ready welcome at the door of the old red house, which was somewhat gloomy looking, being on the north side of the hill, and a good deal stifled with trees. In a brief interval the Doctor found himself seated beside the pale languid lady at the head of the long table, placed in a large hall, wainscotted with the blackest of oak, which seemed to absorb into itself all the light from the windows, large enough indeed but heavily mullioned, and with almost as much of leading as of octagons and lozenges—greenish glass—in them, while the coats of arms, repeated in upper portions and at the intersections of beams and rafters, were not more cheerful, being sable chevrons on an argent field. The crest, a horse shoe, was indeed azure, but the blue of this and of the coats of the serving-men only deepened the thunderous effect of the black. Strangely, however, among these sad-coloured men there moved a figure entirely differently. A negro, white turbaned, and with his blue livery of a lighter shade, of fantastic make and relieved by a great deal of white and shining silver, so as to have an entirely different effect.
He placed himself behind the chair of Dr. Woodford’s opposite neighbour, a shrewd business-like looking gentleman, soberly but handsomely dressed, with a certain foreign cut about his clothes, and a cravat of rich Flemish lace. He was presented to the Doctor as Major Oakshott’s brother, Sir Peregrine. The rest of the party consisted of Oliver and Robert, sturdy, ruddy lads of fifteen and twelve, and their tutor, Mr. Horncastle, an elderly man, who twenty years before had resigned his living because he could not bring himself to accept all the Liturgy.
While Sir Peregrine courteously relieved his sister-in-law of the trouble of carving the gammon of bacon which accompanied the veal which her husband was helping, Dr. Woodford informed her of her son’s progress towards recovery.
“Ah,” she said, “I knew you had come to tell us that he is ready to be brought home;” and her tone was fretful.
“We are greatly beholden to you, sir,” said the Major from the bottom of the table. “The boy shall be fetched home immediately.”
“Not so, sir, as yet, I beg of you. Neither his head nor his side can brook the journey for at least another week, and indeed my good sister Woodford will hardly know how to part with her patient.”
“She will not long be of that mind after Master Perry gets to his feet again,” muttered the chaplain.
“Indeed no,” chimed in the mother. “There will be no more peace in the house when he is come back.”
“I assure you, madam,” said Dr. Woodford, “that he has been a very good child, grateful and obedient, nor have I heard any complaints.”
“Your kindness, or else that of Mrs. Woodford, carries you far, sir,” answered his host.
“What? Is my nephew and namesake so peevish a scapegrace?” demanded the visitor.
On which anecdotes broke forth from all quarters. Peregrine had greased the already slippery oak stairs, had exchanged Oliver’s careful exercise for a ribald broadsheet, had filled Mr. Horncastle’s pipe with gunpowder, and mixed snuff with the chocolate specially prepared for the peculiar godly guest Dame Priscilla Waller. Every one had something to adduce, even the serving-men behind the chairs; and if Oliver and Robert did not add their quota, it was because absolute silence at meals was the rule for nonage. However, the subject was evidently distasteful to the father, who changed the conversation by asking his brother questions about the young Prince of Orange and the Grand Pensionary De Witt. For the gentleman had been acting as English attaché to the Embassy at the Hague, whence he had come on affairs of State to London, and after being knighted by Charles, had newly arrived at the old home, which he had scarcely seen since his brother’s marriage. Dr. Woodford enjoyed his conversation, and his information on foreign politics, and the Major, though now and then protesting, was evidently proud of his brother.
When grace had been pronounced by the chaplain the lady withdrew to her parlour, the two boys, each with an obeisance and request for permission, departed for an hour’s recreation, and Dr. Woodford intimated that he wished for some conversation with his host respecting the boy Peregrine.
“Let us discuss it here,” said Major Oakshott, turning towards a small table set in the deep bay window, and garnished with wine, fruit, and long slender glasses. “Good Mr. Horncastle,” he added, as he motioned his guest to one of the four seats, “is with me in all that concerns my children, and I desire my brother’s counsel respecting the untoward lad with whom it has pleased Heaven to afflict me.”
When the glasses had been filled with claret Dr. Woodford uttered a diplomatic compliment on the healthful and robust appearance of the eldest and youngest sons, and asked whether any cause had been assigned for the difference between them and the intermediate brother.
“None, sir,” returned the father with a sigh, “save the will of the Almighty to visit us for our sins with a son who has thus far shown himself one of the marred vessels doomed to be broken by the potter. It may be in order to humble me and prove me that this hath been laid upon me.”
The chaplain groaned acquiescence, but there was vexation in the brother’s face.
“Sir,” said the Doctor, “it is my opinion and that of my sister-in-law, an excellent, discreet, and devout woman, that the poor child would give you more cause for hope if the belief had not become fixed in his mind that he is really and truly a fairy elf—yes, in very sooth—a changeling!”
All the auditors broke out into exclamations that it was impossible that a boy of fourteen could entertain so absurd an idea, and the tutor evidently thought it a fresh proof of depravity that he should thus have tried to deceive his kind hosts.
In proof that Peregrine veritably believed it himself, Dr. Woodford related what he had witnessed on Midsummer night, mentioning how in delirium the boy had evidently believed himself in fairyland, and how disappointed he had been, on regaining his senses, to find himself on common earth; telling also of the adventure with the King, which Sir Christopher Wren had described to him, but of which Major Oakshott was unaware, though it explained the offer of the pageship. He was a good deal struck by these revelations, proving misery that he had never suspected, though, as he said, he had often pleaded, “Why will ye revolt more and more? ye will be stricken more and more.”
“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 chastisements 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 assembly 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 identity of Master Peregrine, being, as he said, a man who had studied his Bible, listened to godly 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 superstition 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, assemble the family this very night, and expound to them that such superstitions 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. “Godly 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 companyThey never could endure,And whoso kept not secretlyTheir pranks was punished sure.It was a just and Christian deedTo pinch such black and blue;Oh, how the commonwealth doth needSuch justices as you!”BISHOP CORBETT.Several days passed, 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 grass 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.
When at length the operations were over, and numerous little pots of jam tied up as specimens for the Archfield family to taste at home, the children were not in sight. No doubt, said Mrs. Woodford, they would be playing in the castle court, and the visitor accompanied her thither in some anxiety about broken walls and steps, but they were not in sight, nor did calls bring them.
The children had gone out together, Anne feeling altogether at ease and natural with congenial playmates. Even Sedley’s tortures were preferable to Peregrine’s attentions, since the first were only the tyranny of a graceless boy, the other gave her an indescribable sense of strangeness from which these ordinary mundane comrades were a relief and protection.
However, Charles and Sedley rushed off to see a young colt in which they were interested, and Lucy, in spite of her first shrinking, found Peregrine better company than she could have expected, when he assisted in swinging her and Anne by turns under the old ash tree.
When the other two were seen approaching, the swinging girl hastily sprang out, only too well aware what Sedley’s method of swinging would be. Then as the boys came up followed inquiries why Peregrine had not joined them, and jests in schoolboy taste ensued as to elf-locks in the horses’ manes, and inquiries when he had last ridden to a witch’s sabbath. Little Anne, in duty bound, made her protest, but this only incited Charles to add his word to the teasing, till Lucy joined in the laugh.
By and by, as they loitered along, they came to the Doctor’s little boat, and there was a proposal to get in and rock. Lucy refused, out of respect for her company attire, and Anne could not leave her, so the two young ladies turned away with arms round each other’s waists, Lucy demonstratively rejoicing to be quit of the troublesome boys.
Before they had gone far an eldritch shout of laughter was responded to by a burst of furious dismay and imprecation. The boat with the two boys was drifting out to sea, and Peregrine capering wildly on the shore, but in another instant he had vanished into the castle.
Anne had presence of mind enough to rush to the nearest fisherman’s cottage, and send him out to bring them back, and it was at this juncture that the two mothers arrived on the scene. There was little real danger. A rope was thrown and caught, and after about half an hour of watching they were safely landed, but the tide had ebbed so far that they had to take off their shoes and stockings and wade through the mud. They were open-mouthed against the imp who had enticed them to rock in the boat, then in one second had cut the painter, bounded out, and sent them adrift with his mocking ‘Ho! ho! ho!’ Sedley Archfield clenched his fists, and gazed round wildly in search of the goblin to chastise him soundly, and Charles was ready to rush all over the castle in search of him.
“Two to one!” cried Anne, “and he so small; you would never be so cowardly.”
“As if he were like an honest fellow,” said Charley. “A goblin like that has his odds against a dozen of us.”
“I’d teach him, if I could but catch him,” cried Sedley.
“I told you,” said Anne, “that he would be good if you would let him alone and not plague him.”
“Now, Anne,” said Charles, as he sat putting on his stockings, “how could I stand being cast off for that hobgoblin, that looks as if he had been cut out of a root of yew with a blunt knife, and all crooked! I that always was your sweetheart, to see you consorting with a mis-shapen squinting Whig of a Nonconformist like that.”
“Nonconformist! I’ll Nonconform him indeed,” added Sedley. “I wish I had the wringing of his neck.”
“Now is not that hard!” said Anne; “a poor lad who has been very sick, and that every one baits and spurns.”
“Serve him right,” said Sedley; “he shall have more of the same sauce!”
“I think he has cast his spell on Anne,” added Charles, “or how can she stand up for him?”
“My mamma bade me be kind to him.”
“Kind! I would as lief be kind to a toad!” put in Lucy.
“To see you kind to him makes me sick,” exclaimed Charles. “You see what comes of it.”
“It did not come of my kindness, but of your unkindness,” reasoned Anne.
“I told you so,” said Charles. “You would have been best pleased if we had been carried out to sea and drowned!”
Anne burst into tears and disavowed any such intention, and Charles was protesting that he would only forgive her on condition of her never showing any kindness to Peregrine again, when a sudden shower of sand and pebbles descended, one of them hitting Sedley pretty sharply on the ear. The boys sprang up with a howl of imprecation and vengeance, but no one was to be seen, only ‘Ho! ho! ho!’ resounded from the battlements. Off they rushed headlong, but the nearest door was in a square tower a good way off, and when they reached it the door defied their efforts of frantic rage, whilst another shower descended on them from above, accompanied by the usual shout. But while they were dashing off in quest of another entrance they were met by a servant sent to summon them to return home. Coach and horses were at the door, and Lady Archfield was in haste to get them away, declaring that she should not think their lives safe near that fiendish monster. Considering that Sedley was nearly twice as big as Peregrine, and Charles a strong well-grown lad, this was a tribute to his preternatural powers.
Very unwillingly they went, and if Lady Archfield had not kept a strict watch from her coach window, they would certainly have turned back to revenge the pranks played on them. The last view of them showed Sedley turning round shaking his whip and clenching his teeth in defiance. Mrs. Woodford was greatly concerned, especially as Peregrine could not be found and did not appear at supper.
“Had he run away to sea?” the usual course of refractory lads at Portchester, but for so slight a creature only half recovered it did not seem probable. It was more likely that he had gone home, and that Mrs. Woodford felt as somewhat a mortifying idea. However, on looking into his chamber, as she sought her own, she beheld him in bed, with his face turned into the pillow, whether asleep or feigning slumber there was no knowing.
Later, she heard sounds that induced her to go and look at him. He was starting, moaning, and babbling in his sleep. But with morning all his old nature seemed to have returned.
There was a hedgehog in Anne’s bowl of milk, Mrs. Woodford’s poultry were cackling hysterically at an unfortunate kitten suspended from an apple tree and let down and drawn up among them. The three-legged stool of the old waiting-woman ‘toppled down headlong’ as though by the hands of Puck, and even on Anne’s arms certain black and blue marks of nails were discovered, and when her mother examined her on them she only cried and begged not to be made to answer.
And while Dr. Woodford was dozing in his chair as usual after the noonday dinner Mrs. Woodford actually detected a hook suspended from a horsehair descending in the direction of his big horn spectacles, and quietly moving across to frustrate the attempt, she unearthed Peregrine on a chair angling from behind the window curtain.
She did not speak, but fixed her calm eyes on him with a look of sad, grave disappointment as she wound up the line. In a few seconds the boy had thrown himself at her feet, rolling as if in pain, and sobbing out, “’Tis all of no use! Let me alone.”
Nevertheless he obeyed the hushing gesture of her hand, and held his breath, as she led him out to the garden-seat, where they had spent so many happy quiet hours. Then he flung himself down and repeated his exclamation, half piteous, half defiant. “Leave me alone! Leave me alone! It has me! It is all of no use.”
“What has you, my poor child?”
“The evil spirit. You will have it that I’m not one of—one of them—so it must be as my father says, that I am possessed—the evil spirit. I was at peace with you—so happy—happier than ever I was before—and now—those boys. It has me again—I could not help it—I’ve even hurt her—Mistress Anne. Let me alone—send me home—to be scorned, and shunned, and brow-beaten—and as bad as ever—then at least she will be safe from me.”
All this came out between sobs such that Mrs. Woodford could not attempt to speak, but she kept her hand on him, and at last she said, when he could hear her: “Every one of us has to fight with an evil spirit, and when we are not on our guard he is but too apt to take advantage of us.”