CHAPTER XXVI
The Legend Of Penny Grim
“O dearest Marjorie, stay at hame,
For dark’s the gate ye have to go,
For there’s a maike down yonder glen
Hath frightened me and many me.”HOGG.
“Nana,” said little Philip in a meditative voice, as he looked into the glowing embers of the hall fire, “when do fairies leave off stealing little boys?”
“I do not believe they ever steal them, Phil.”
“Oh, yes they do;” and he came and stood by her with his great limpid blue eyes wide open. “Goody Dearlove says they stole a little boy, and his name was Penny Grim.”
“Goody Dearlove is a silly old body to tell my boy such stories,” said Anne, disguising how much she was startled.
“Oh, but Ralph Huntsman says ’tis true, and he knew him.”
“How could he know him when he was stolen?”
“They put another instead,” said the boy, a little puzzled, but too young to make his story consistent. “And he was an elf—a cross spiteful elf, that was always vexing folk. And they stole him again every seven years. Yes—that was it—they stole him every seven years.”
“Whom, Phil; I don’t understand—the boy or the elf?” she said, half-diverted, even while shocked at the old story coming up in such a form.