CHAPTER II
High Treason
“Whate’er it be that is within his reach,
The filching trick he doth his fingers teach.”
There was often a considerable distance between children and their parents in the seventeenth century, but Anne Woodford, as the only child of her widowed mother, was as solace, comfort, and companion; and on her pillow in early morning the child poured forth in grave earnest the entire story of the changeling, asking whether he could not be “taken to good Dr. Ken, or the Dean, or the Bishop to be ex—ex—what is it, mother? Not whipped with nettles. Oh no! nor burnt with red hot pokers, but have holy words said so that the right one may come back.”
“My dear child, did you really believe that old nurse’s tale?”
“O madam, she knew it. The other old woman saw it! I always thought fairies and elves were only in tales, but Lucy’s nurse knows it is true. And he is not a bit like other lads, mamma dear. He is lean and small, and his eyes are of different colours, look two ways at once, and his mouth goes awry when he speaks, and he laughs just like—like a fiend. Lucy and I call him Riquet à la Houppe, because he is just like the picture in Mademoiselle’s book, with a great stubbly bunch of hair sticking out on one side, and though he walks a little lame, he can hop and skip like a grasshopper, faster than any of the boys, and leap up a wall in a moment, and grin—oh most frightfully. Have you ever seen him, mamma?”
“I think so. I saw a poor boy, who seemed to me to have had a stroke of some sort when he was an infant.”
“But, madam, that would not make him so spiteful and malicious!”
“If every one is against him and treats him as a wicked mischievous elf, it is only too likely to make him bitter and spiteful. Nay, Anne, if you come back stuffed with old wives’ tales, I shall not allow you to go home with Lucy Archfield.”
The threat silenced Anne, who was a grave and rather silent little person, and when she mentioned it to her friend, the answer was, “Did you tell your mother? If I had told mine, I should have been whipped for repeating lying tales.”
“Oh then you don’t believe it!”
“It must be true, for Madge knew it. But that’s the way always if one lets out that one knows more than they think.”
“It is not the way with my mother,” stoutly said Anne, drawing up her dignified little head. And she kept her resolution, for though a little excited by her first taste of lively youthful companionship, she was naturally a thoughtful reticent child, with a character advanced by companionship with her mother as an only child, through a great sorrow. Thus she was in every respect more developed than her contemporary Lucy, who regarded her with wonder as well as affection, and she was the object of the boyish devotion of Charley, who often defended her from his cousin Sedley’s endeavours to put down what he considered upstart airs in a little nobody from London. Sedley teased and baited every weak thing in his way, and Lucy had been his chief butt till Anne Woodford’s unconscious dignity and more cultivated manners excited his utmost spleen.
Lucy might be incredulous, but she was eager to tell that when her cousin Sedley Archfield was going back to ‘chambers,’ down from the Close gate came the imp on his shoulders in the twilight and twisted both legs round his neck, holding tight on in spite of plunges, pinches, and endeavours to scrape him off against the wall, which were frustrated or retaliated by hair pulling, choking, till just ere entering the college gateway, where Sedley looked to get his revenge among his fellows, he found his shoulders free, and heard “Ho! ho! ho!” from the top of a wall close at hand. All the more was the young people’s faith in the changeling story confirmed, and child-world was in those days even more impenetrable to their elders than at present.
Changeling or no, it was certain that Peregrine Oakshott was the plague of the Close, where his father, an ex-officer of the Parliamentary army, had unwillingly hired a house for the winter, for the sake of medical treatment for his wife, a sufferer from a complication of ailments. Oakwood, his home, was about five miles from Dr. Woodford’s living of Portchester, and as the families would thus be country neighbours, Mrs. Woodford thought it well to begin the acquaintance at Winchester. While knocking at the door of the house on the opposite side of the Close, she was aware of an elfish visage peering from an upper window. There was the queer mop of dark hair, the squinting light eyes, the contorted grin crooking the mouth, the odd sallow face, making her quite glad to get out of sight of the strange grimaces which grew every moment more hideous.
Mrs. Oakshott sat in an arm-chair beside a large fire in a wainscotted room, with a folding-screen shutting off the window. Her spinning-wheel was near, but it was only too plain that ‘feeble was the hand, and silly the thread.’ She bent her head in its wadded black velvet hood, but excused herself from rising, as she was crippled by rheumatic pains. She had evidently once been a pretty little person, innocent and inane, and her face had become like that of a withered baby, piteous in its expression of pain and weariness, but otherwise somewhat vacant. At first, indeed, there was a look of alarm. Perhaps she expected every visitor to come with a complaint of her unlucky Peregrine, but when Mrs. Woodford spoke cheerfully of being her neighbour in the country, she was evidently relieved and even gratified, prattling in a soft plaintive tone about her sufferings and the various remedies, ranging from woodlice rolled into natural pills, and grease off the church bells, to diamond dust and Goa stones, since, as she said, there was no cost to which Major Oakshott would not go for her benefit. He had even procured for her a pound of the Queen’s new Chinese herb, and it certainly was as nauseous as could be wished, when boiled in milk, but she was told that was not the way it was taken at my Lady Charnock’s. She was quite animated when Mrs. Woodford offered to show her how to prepare it.
Therewith the master of the house came in, and the aspect of affairs changed. He was a tall, dark, grave man, plainly though handsomely dressed, and in a gentlemanly way making it evident that visits to his wife were not welcome. He said that her health never permitted her to go abroad, and that his poor house contained nothing that could please a Court lady. Mrs. Oakshott shrank into herself, and became shy and silent, and Mrs. Woodford felt constrained to take leave, courteously conducted to the door by her unwilling host.
She had not taken many steps before she was startled by a sharp shower from a squirt coming sidelong like a blow on her cheek and surprising her into a low cry, which was heard by the Major, so that he hastened out, exclaiming, “Madam, I trust that you are not hurt.”
“Oh no, sir! It is nothing—not a stone—only water!” she said, wiping it with her handkerchief.
“I am grieved and ashamed at the evil pranks of my unhappy son, but he shall suffer for it.”
“Nay, sir, I pray you. It was only childish mischief.”
He had not waited to hear her pleadings, and before she was half across the Close he had overtaken her, dragging the cowering struggling boy in his powerful grasp.
“Now, Peregrine,” he commanded, “let me instantly hear you ask the lady’s pardon for your dastardly trick. Or—!” and his other hand was raised for a blow.
“I am sure he is sorry,” said Mrs. Woodford, making a motion to ward off the stroke, and as the queer eyes glanced up at her in wondering inquiry, she laid her hand on the bony shoulder, saying, “I know you did not mean to hurt me. You are sorry, are you not?”
“Ay,” the boy