Robin hurried back to the hall, and, transferring his spear to his left hand that the right might be free, kindled a flambeau at the fire, and returned with it to the courtyard. The infant, on seeing the light, ceased crying, and stretched out his little hands towards the bickering flame.
“By the mass! a bonnie babe, and no fairy changeling, I’ll be sworn,” said Allan, and he shut the espial opening. “Let us now within doors.”
They accordingly withdrew into the hall, where Allan sat down on a buffet stool at the side of the hearth, with the young stranger on his knee, while the watch-dog stretched itself at his feet, and the clamour of its companions in the kennel died away. Robin fixed his torch into an iron sconce projecting half a foot from the wall, stirred the faggots on the andirons to a blaze, and was then told the story of the adventure.
Seemingly nobody else in the place had been aroused, all remaining quiet; but Allan now directed his subordinate to call up one of the female domestics, to whose care the foundling should be committed till morning. The woman, when she came, being dubious as to whether the boy was not a fairy changeling after all, suggested the test usually applied to such supernatural impostors, namely, by “putting it on the fire to see if it wadna flee up the lum wi’ an eldritch lauch!” But Allan was opposed to the experiment. The child’s clothes were of fine materials, and around its neck was a slender gold chain of curious links suspending an antique golden reliquary; but there was no inscription on the trinket, or mark about the dress, to afford a clue to the little wearer’s parentage.
The foundling being provided for, old Allan pulled his deerskin mantle closer around him, and went out to satisfy himself that the fastening of the aperture in the portal was secure.
“By our lady,” he muttered, “I’ll not open that vizzy again until daylight, although a score of stories of life and death should be told me. A small family might be foisted upon me ere morning.”
[Chapter II.]
He’s married a may, and he’s fessen her hame;