g with the legs of him for all the world like the
drumsticks of a fowl, and his hands like claws, and his face wizened
up like an old gaffer of a hundred, or the jackanapes that Martin
Boats'n brought from Barbary. So after a while madam saw the rights
of it, and gave consent that means should be taken as Madge and
other wise folk would have it; but he was too old by that time for
the egg shells, for he could talk, talk, and ask questions enough to
drive you wild. So they took him out under the privet hedge, Madge
and her gossip Deborah Clint, and had got his clothes off to flog
him with nettles till they changed him, when the ill-favoured elf
began to squall and shriek like a whole litter of pigs, and as ill
luck would have it, the master was within hearing, though they had
watched him safe off to one of his own 'venticles, but it seems
there had been warning that the justices were on the look-out, so
home he came. And behold, the thing that never knew the use of his
feet before, ups and flies at him, and lays hold of his leg,
hollering out, "Sir, father, don't let them," and what not. So then
it was all over with them, as though that were not proof enow what
manner of thing it was! Madge tried to put him off with washing
with yarbs being good for the limbs, but when he saw that Deb was
there, he saith, saith he, as grim as may be, "Thou shalt not suffer
a witch to live," which was hard, for she is but a white witch; and
he stormed and raved at them with Bible texts, and then he vowed
(men are so headstrong, my dears) that if ever he ketched them at it
again, he would see Deb burnt for a witch at the stake, and Madge
hung for the murder of the child, and he is well known to be a man
of his word. So they had to leave him to abide by his bargain, and
a sore handful he has of it."

Anne drew a long sigh and asked whether the real boy in fairyland
would never come back.

"There's no telling, missie dear. Some say they are bound there for
ever and a day, some that they as holds 'em are bound to bring them
back for a night once in seven years, and in the old times if they
was sprinkled with holy water, and crossed, they would stay, but
there's no such thing as holy water now, save among the Papists, and
if one knew the way to cross oneself, it would be as much as one's
life was worth."

"If Peregrine was to die," suggested Lucy.

"Bless your heart, dearie, he'll never die! When the true one's
time comes, you'll