r Oakshott, who had got into trouble about
some of his nonconforming doings. The poor lady had a mortal fright
before she could be got out of Gracechurch Street as was all of a
blaze, and she was so afeard of her husband being burnt as he lay in
Newgate that she could scarce be got away, and whether it was that,
or that she caught cold lying out in a tent on Highgate Hill, she
has never had a day's health since."

"And the gentleman--her husband?" asked Anne.

"They all broke prison, poor fellows, as they had need to do, and
the Major's time was nearly up. He made himself busy in saving and
helping the folk in the streets; and his brother, Sir Peregrine, who
was thick with the King, and is in foreign parts now, took the
chance to speak of the poor lady's plight and say it would be the
death of her if he could not get his discharge, and his Majesty,
bless his kind heart, gave the order at once. So they took madam
home to the Chace, but she has been but an ailing body ever since."

"But the fairy, the fairy, how did she change the babe?" cried Anne.

"Hush, hush, dearie! name them not. I am coming to it all in good
time. I was telling you how the poor lady failed and pined from
that hour, and was like to die. My gossip Madge told me how when,
next Midsummer, this unlucky babe was born they had to take him from
her chamber at once because any sound of crying made her start in
her sleep, and shriek that she heard a poor child wailing who had
been left in a burning house. Moll Owens, the hind's wife, a comely
lass, was to nurse him, and they had him at once to her in the
nursery, where was the elder child, two years old, Master Oliver, as
you know well, Mistress Lucy, a fine-grown, sturdy little Turk as
ever was."

"Yes, I know him," answered Lucy; "and if his brother's a
changeling, he is a bear! The Whig bear is what Charley calls him."

"Well, what does that child do but trot out of the nursery, and try
to scramble down the stairs.--Never tell me but that they you wot of
trained him out--not that they had power over a Christian child, but
that they might work their will on the little one. So they must
needs trip him up, so that he rolled down the stair hollering and
squalling all the way enough to bring the house down, and his poor
lady mother, she woke up in a fit. The womenfolk ran, Molly and
all, she being but a slip of a girl herself and giddy-pated, and
when they came back after quieting Master Olive