All the auditors broke out into exclamations that it was impossible that a boy of fourteen could entertain so absurd an idea, and the tutor evidently thought it a fresh proof of depravity that he should thus have tried to deceive his kind hosts.
In proof that Peregrine veritably believed it himself, Dr. Woodford related what he had witnessed on Midsummer night, mentioning how in delirium the boy had evidently believed himself in fairyland, and how disappointed he had been, on regaining his senses, to find himself on common earth; telling also of the adventure with the King, which Sir Christopher Wren had described to him, but of which Major Oakshott was unaware, though it explained the offer of the pageship. He was a good deal struck by these revelations, proving misery that he had never suspected, though, as he said, he had often pleaded, “Why will ye revolt more and more? ye will be stricken more and more.”
“Have you ever sought his confidence?” asked the travelled brother, a question evidently scarcely understood, for the reply was, “I have always required of my sons to speak the truth, nor have they failed of late years save this unfortunate Peregrine.”
“And,” said Sir Peregrine, “if the unlucky lad actually supposes himself to be no human being, admonitions and chastisements would naturally be vain.”
“I cannot believe it,” exclaimed the Major. “’Tis true, as I now remember, I once came on a couple of beldames, my wife’s nurse and another, who has since been ducked for witchcraft, and found them about to flog the babe with nettles, and lay him in the thorn hedge because he was a sickly child, whom, forsooth, they took to be a changeling; but I forbade the profane folly to be ever again mentioned in my household, nor did I ever hear thereof again.”
“There are a good many more things mentioned in a household, brother, than the master is wont to hear of,” remarked Sir Peregrine.
Dr. Woodford then begged as a personal favour for an individual examination of the family and servants on their opinion. The master was reluctant thus, as he expressed it, to go a-fooling, but his brother backed the Doctor up, and further prevented a general assembly to put one another to shame, but insisted on the witnesses being called in one by one. Oliver, the first summoned, was beginning to be somewhat less overawed by his father than in his earlier boyhood. To the inquiry what he thought of his brother Peregrine, he made a tentative sort of reply, that he was a strange fellow, who never could keep out of disgrace.
“That is not the question,” said his father. “I am almost ashamed to speak it! Do you—nay, have you ever supposed him to be a—” he really could not bring out the word.
“A changeling, sir?” returned Oliver. “I do not believe so now, knowing that it is impossible, but as a child I always did.”
“Who durst possess you with so foolish and profane a falsehood?”