e fell asleep,
and she could lay him on the settle, and cover him with a cloak,
musing the while on the strange story, until presently she started
up and repaired to the buttery in search of the old servant.

"Ralph, what is this Master Philip tells me?" she asked. "What has
he seen?"

"Well, Mistress Anne, that is what I can't tell--no, not I; but I
knows this, that the child has had a narrow escape of his precious
life, and I'd never trust him again with that there Sedley--no, not
for hundreds of pounds."

"You _really_ think, Ralph--?"

"What can I think, ma'am? When I finds he's been a-setting that
there child to slide up to where he'd be drownded as sure as he's
alive, and you see, if we gets ill news of Master Archfield (which
God forbid), there's naught but the boy atween him and this here
place--and he over head and ears in debt. Be it what it might that
the child saw, it saved the life of him."

"Did you see it?"

"No, Mistress Anne; I can't say as I did. I only heard the little
master cry out as he fell. I was in the shed, you see, taking a
pipe to keep me warm. And when I took him up, he cried out like one
dazed. 'Twas Penny Grim, Ralph! Keep me. He is come to steal me."
But Sir Philip wouldn't hear nothing of it, only blamed Master Phil
for being foolhardy, and for crying for the fall, and me for letting
him out of sight."

"And Mr. Sedley--did he see it?"

"Well, mayhap he did, for I saw him as white as a sheet and his eyes
staring out of his head; but that might have been his evil
conscience."

"What became of him?"

"To say the truth, ma'am, I believe he be at the Brocas Arms, a-
drowning of his fright--if fright it were, with Master Harling's
strong waters."

"But this apparition, this shape--or whatever it is? What put it
into Master Philip's head? What has been heard of it?"

Ralph looked unwilling. "Bless you, Mistress Anne, there's been
some idle talk among the women folk, as how that there crooked slip
of Major Oakshott's, as they called Master Perry or Penny, and said
was a changeling, has been seen once and again. Some says as the
fairies have got him, and 'tis the seven year for him to come back
again. And some says that he met with foul play, and 'tis the ghost
of him, but I holds it all mere tales, and I be sure 'twere nothing
bad as stopped little master on that there pond. So I be."

Anne could not but be of the same mind, but her confusion, alarm,
and perpl