ry good to me! If you would only cross
me thrice, and not be afraid! They could not hurt you!"

"Who? What do you mean?" she asked, for fairy lore had not become a
popular study, but comprehension came when he said in an awe-
stricken voice, "You know what I am."

"I know there have been old wives' tales about you, my poor boy, but
surely you do not believe them yourself."

"Ah! if you will not believe them, there is no hope. I might have
known. You were so good to me;" and he hid his face.

She took his unwilling hand and said, "Be you what you will, my poor
child, I am sorry for you, for I see you are very unhappy. Come,
tell me all."

"Nay, then you would be like the rest," said Peregrine, "and I could
not bear that," and he wrung her hand.

"Perhaps not," she said gently, "for I know that a story is afloat
that you were changed in your cradle, and that there are folk
ignorant enough to believe it."

"They all _know_ it," he said impressively. "My mother and brothers
and all the servants. Every soul knows it except my father and Mr.
Horncastle, and they will never hear a word, but will have it that I
am possessed with a spirit of evil that is to be flogged out of me.
Goody Madge and Moll Owens, they knew how it was at the first, and
would fain have forced them--mine own people--to take me home, and
bring the other back, but my father found it out and hindered them."

"To save your life."

"Much good does my life do me! Every one hates or fears me. No one
has a word for me. Every mischance is laid on me. When the kitchen
wench broke a crock, it was because I looked at it. If the keeper
misses a deer, he swears at Master Perry! Oliver and Robert will
not let me touch a thing of theirs; they bait me for a moon-calf,
and grin when I am beaten for their doings. Even my mother quakes
and trembles when I come near, and thinks I give her the creeps. As
to my father and tutor, it is ever the rod with them, though I can
learn my tasks far better than those jolter-heads Noll and Robin. I
never heard so many kind words in all my life as you have given me
since I have been lying here!"

He stopped in a sort of awe, for tears fell from her eyes, and she
kissed his forehead.

"Will you not help me, good madam?" he entreated. "I went down to
Goody Madge, and she said there was a chance for me every seven
years. The first went by, but this is my fourteenth year. I had a
hope when the King spoke of b