The Changeling of Brandlesome

Chapter I

It is the wish of my cousin, Christabel Aleynson, and of the foundling, Roger Kay, that I should, with my own hand, set down their story. The late war has its meed of historians — most of them blasphemous, swaggering fellows, as witness the pamphlet " Lancashire's Valley of Achor," and other documents of equal profanity, if of less note. With public matters I do not propose largely to concern myself, but only to relate the narrative of our own house from 1625 to 1643. This record I must give with sincerity and candour, having observed in other biographers a proneness to B amend and polish the speeches and actions of those whose fortunes they take it upon them selves to narrate. This I will not do ; but set down our rough words as they were spoken, our rude deeds as they were performed ; and so, by the grace of God, discipline myself to chronicle rather what is strictly true than what would be more ornamental to history.

Only when I transcribe my own sentiments will I endeavour to express them with wit and grace, polishing my thoughts and reflections to that degree of stateliness in which I could wish my pen ever to find its walk. With this regard to truth I will paint my dear and honoured father, Captain Greenhalgh, as he stood before the pig-sty, the night on which Roger was found. I was a lad of ten, and I had swung myself into the elder-bush that overhung the sty. My father was regarding the pig with considerable gravity and attention ; calculating, I believe, the number of pounds of bacon that would come from her ample and bulging sides. I was regarding him with equal intentness, for it struck me for the first time that evening, as it has often been borne upon me since, that he carried in his countenance a singular and striking resemblance to the pig.

Heaven be my witness that I would do no dishonour to my beloved father's memory and name ! He fought nobly ; he died calmly ; his were the wounds of a hero and the guerdons of a saint. So, at least, declares Madam ; and my lord of Derby and Monteagle ratifies her assertions. I knew my father under a homely aspect ; not infrequently I smarted from his blows. They were doubtless well-merited, but I smarted all the same. I saw him pluck the Royalist colours from the enemy at the battle of Wigan Lane, and wrap them about his person, to save them from dishonour. I beheld him dying, and received his blessing, at Rushen Castle, in the Isle of Man, where he had so long governed with sobriety and ruth. Yet, when I recall his face to my memory, it always rises before me above the sides of the pig-sty at Brandlesome ; and I am constrained to admit, as I admitted that evening, that he was remarkably like the pig.

His nose was long, very long; his pale blue eyes were small, though wakeful and alert. His mouth and chin were heaped up above his ruffle in a meaningless fashion, as if Nature had thought to do no more than finish off his face with a lump of flesh. When I grew older I read lines of strength and determination about that mouth ; I looked, with respectful ness, to see it tighten and harden, as once I had merely looked with childish dread. His face was somewhat florid ; and he wore his own hair, disposed in graceful ringlets upon his neck. The rosy tints of his flesh, the auburn brightness of his locks, bespoke him of a temperament at once choleric and sanguine. That he was the former he revealed by the words with which he broke the silence that evening, as he leant his elbows upon the sty. "Nick!

Owd Nick! There's none can find fault wi' thy name ! What devil or changeling is at t' back o' t' sty ? " It goes sorely against my love of what is ornate and seemly to stick to my determination, and set down in these pages the plain, un polished truth. My father could turn a phrase with the best of them when he was in the presence of courtiers ; and mighty fine speeches from him has Madam made my uncle the priest set down in his diary. Yet those were, syllable for syllable, the words which he cried out at that moment ; for, when at home, we all spoke our Northern dialect alike. Nicholas Hawet, the man who had charge of the pig — and of the silver, too, for we were none so pretentious at Brandlesome — came slouching round from the stable, his clogs caked with farm-yard stuff, a straw sticking from his mouth, and his face set to reveal nothing of his disposition to man, beast, or boggart.

"What devil or changeling is at t' back o' t' sty ? " repeated my father, irritably. " Who's fed t' pig this evening ? " Nicholas Hawet moved slowly forward to the sty and peered over at the pig. I balanced myself as near the end of the elder-bough as I dared, and stared, first at the animal, then at my father and his servant. Nicholas Hawet was a broad, heavy, stooping fellow, with a red, square face and fierce eyebrows. He had been polishing a tankard as he came along, with a piece of stuff ; and he first glanced at the pig, then at my father, and then back at the pig. Then he said " Ay," through his teeth, so as not to loosen his hold of the straw, and set his tankard down upon the wall. My father caught at the wooden door of the sty and thrust it back against the palings. " Get thee in, Nick, and fetch it out.

It's a brat o' some sort." "Ay," said Nicholas again, imperturbably. And then he went into the sty and brought out Roger I fell off the elder-bough on to the pig's back, and she grunted and gobbled heavily. At another time I should have been soundly cuffed for thus bruising our prospective bacon ; but my father and Nicholas Hawet were too much taken up with Roger to observe me. I rolled off the pig into the straw, gathered myself up, and stood staring at the creature which Nick had brought forth upon his arm. " Is't a feeory ? " I asked eagerly, putting up my hands to pull the thing down to my level, and receiving in consequence a reproving tap from Nicholas upon the side of my head. " Nay." " What is't, then ? " " It's a babby." " Nobbut a babby ? " " Ay, nobbut a baby." I was profoundly disappointed.

Retiring to a [distance, I set my feet wide apart upon the cobbled stones of the yard, and flicked an ash stick discontentedly about my calves. I had expected a nixie— a "feeory," as I had called it in the dialect which came naturally to my tongue. I was indisposed to be put off with an infant, a brat of flesh and blood like my self. My father, meanwhile, gazed at the little creature with a mixture of sternness and disgust. " Whose is it ? " he demanded suddenly, lifting his small eyes to Nick's impenetrable face. Nicholas grunted ; he was ever a man of few words. Holding the baby at arm's-length, he appeared to search its lineaments for some revelation of family relationship. " Was it i' t' sty when you fed t' pig, Nick ? " " Nay." " Dosto know who put it there ? " " Nay." " Has any stranger been agate since supper ?

" " Nay." " It couldn't ha' walked into t' pig-sty, could it, Nicholas Hawet ? " My father's impatience was mastering him once more. Nick hit upon a curious expedient of answering him with accuracy and fore thought. Very deliberately, he lowered the infant to the ground, sat it upon its fat bare feet, and loosed his hold of its clothing. The child could not have been more than a twelve month old ; it overbalanced, and sat down suddenly, after the fashion of infants. I burst into a shout of laughter and fully expected that the baby would break forth into a frenzy of tears. Instead of that it sat still, chuckling to itself, and staring full at me with a pair of fine hazel eyes. " It's no' canny," said my father, stepping back a pace and looking down perplexedly upon the unabashed intruder. " What's to be done wi't, Nick ?

" " Maybe it's clemmed," said Nick, slowly. " Clemmed — not it ! Where are your eyes ? And if it is, what business is it o' mine ? Off with it ! I've childer enow o' my own, eh, Thomas?" Yet my father was tickling the baby's face with the end of the riding-whip that he held ; and Roger was crowing, stretching out his rosy palms, and drumming finely with his heels upon the ground. Nicholas Hawet remained impassive and unimpressed. " Wheer shall I tak' it to ? " he asked. " To Nut-Nan," said my father. " To Nut- Nan, where it came from." Now, Nut-Nan was the woman who lived on the side of Holcombe Hill and sold brews and potions to those who desired them. We children at Brandlesome had been taught to regard her as a witch ; and when I saw my father's look at Nicholas, divided between contempt and raillery, I thought him the bravest man in the world.

Yet, had my step-mother been present, he would not have looked and spoken so. For Madam was afraid of Nut-Nan, and the Master of Brandlesome was afraid of Madam. " Here's t' missis," said Nicholas, with a jerk of the head. And he took up his tankard and set a-polishing of it ; while my father swung briskly round. Madam was coming across the yard in high clicking pattens ; and I slid behind the pump, for it was past the hour when I should have been abed. I remember that Madam wore her petticoats tucked up high that evening, and that her ankles showed shapely, tightly clad in knitted hose. A white napkin was pinned in front of her dress, and she carried the little jug of rennet in her hand, so that I knew she had come from the dairy. As she came, pit-a-pat, across the stones, her sharp grey eyes travelled needfully round.

She was a comely woman, and gently born ; but I have seen her, with her own hands, swab out the stone trough that was let down deep into the ground, in the centre of the yard. She had a liking for men's jobs ; would perform them with a mixture of contempt and relish ; and then take pleasure in asserting that they had been properly done for once, but never had been so afore, and never would be again ; she'd given up looking for decent work from any one but herself. Nicholas Hawet set his back against the pig sty and polished away at his tankard. I do not think he was afraid of Madam ; but he confessed to me once, when he had had three quarts of beer, that she " mithered him a bit." My father pointed with his whip to the baby, and said — " Look at yon, missis. Madam spoke the very words that had, a moment since, fallen from his own tongue : "Whose is it?"

"Nay, that's what we're all asking. Nick found it in t' pig-sty." " 'Tisn't t' pig's, for sure. " Seems like as if it were. We can't mother it." Madam looked sharply at Nicholas, as if he were somewhat over-zealous in his attention to the tankard. Nick continued to polish steadily. " Hast been playing any fool's trick, Nicholas Hawet?" "A mort, missis, i' my time. But I should niver play fool's tricks wi' t' pig. Whoever clapped t' babby i' t' sty had no thought o' hoo's feelin's. An' hoo's forty pounds o' bacon on her." Nicholas Hawet did not often make so long a speech ; but he regarded the pig almost as a lover regards his mistress. He could not brook suspicion of his considerateness towards her. " What must we do wi' t' youngster ? " asked my father. " It's a bonnie brat." Madam set down the rennet jug and bent over the baby.

It stretched out its arms to her, and she smiled, and commenced making the little foolish noises with which females are wont to woo the uncertain affections of infants. Finally she lifted it to her shoulder. " Thomas ! " she cried out, " I can see thee." (I had unwisely peered round the pump handle.) " Off to bed wi' thee, or thou'lt get summat to send thee there." She took up the rennet jug again, and moved across the yard towards the kitchen, carrying the baby. My father followed her, and Nicholas remained leaning against the sty. In jeopardy of punishment, I crept towards him. He looked at me with about as much animation as one of the stone griffins carved above the entrance gate. " Nick," I whispered, " did it really come fro' Nut-Nan ? " " Maybe." " It warna' a real babby ? ' " Maybe it war — maybe it warn't." " You had it i' your hands."

" Ay." " What did it feel like ? " " Warm dough." My conversation with Nicholas Hawet was broken off. A noise of footsteps sent me, like a startled rabbit, in at the side door of Brandle some. Yet I could not exchange the fair autumn night and its mysterious gift to us, for my little plain bedroom, without some further innocent eavesdropping. I sped up the staircase and into our large guest-chamber, which overlooked the kitchen yard. Tugging at the casement, I set it open, and leant out as far as I dared, to listen. My step-mother stood, I think, upon the steps of the kitchen, dealing forth sharp in quiries and reproofs. I could see no one, but I could hear plainly each voice that spoke. The maids were replying submissively — they dared use no other language to Madam — but asseverating that no stranger had been near the yard that evening.

Madam scolded them all soundly, and insisted, with some show of truth, that the baby could not have taken refuge in the pig-sty without assistance. Finally she appeared to carry it away with her ; and then I heard Bekka Bery, our cook, speak without restraint. " I darena' tell t' missis, hoo catches one up so sharp-like, but Nut-Nan's abroad to-night. A seed hoo i' t' field above t' beck." " Ay ? " " An' 'tis Hallowe'en ! " " Hallowe'en 'tis, for sure ! " " Dosto think t' babby's canny ? " " It's canny enow — too canny. Didsto see t' way it put out its bonnie wee fingers to us ? " " Will missis keep it, thinksto ? " " How should I know, Bekka Bery ? Maybe there'll be no trace o' t' in t' mornin', but th' cream sour, an' th' cows scranny, an' mould i' th' flour ! It war noane wise to carry it into th' house o' Hallowe'en.

It war openin' th' way to th' feeorin." I had heard enough to make me quake and wonder, and I hastened from the window and the room. The guest-chamber was, in itself, enough to depress me ; it had a chill, hungry, expectant look, as if it awaited strange, nightly visitors. Creeping along the corridor to my own apartment, I found its familiar aspects cheering to my spirits. I undressed hurriedly and scrambled into bed, nestling to my small hard pillow, as I might have nestled to the bosom of some sympathetic friend. I suppose that I fell asleep ; and what occurred later on in the night may have befallen long before midnight, or only shortly before dawn. I had no means of ascertaining the hour, and can but relate what I saw and heard. It seemed to me that I was awakened from my slumber by a cry ; whether low or loud, whether at my pillow, or far away upon the fading heather of the moors, I cannot say.

But it fell across my sleep with a note of anguish, and woke me. I was cold and trem bling, and drops stood on my forehead as I buried it, in inpotent terror, below the bed clothes. As the minutes passed, and there occurred no repetition of the unearthly sound, I ventured to lift my head. My window-curtains moved softly in a current of night air, and the moonlight streamed into the room. With an impulse of fearful curiosity, I suddenly threw off the bed-clothes, and, slipping down to the c floor, ran across the chamber and looked full out into the night. The moon was floating, serene and radiant, upon the clear, dark ocean of heaven. Below her the landscape was spread out, cold and still. The flat fields, whence the corn had been garnered a month past, stretched down to the river, long pale expanses of stubble, with neither colour nor life.

The trees were black spectres, the copses groves of gloom. Neither sound nor movement was there to disturb me ; until, of a sudden, something came forth from the orchard and stood on the grass below my window. I gripped the sill with my hands and watched. I believe that I sobbed to myself, as a child will, for very fear. The figure was ragged, unkempt, and wild. Its hair streamed and tossed about its face and shoulders ; its movements and actions were indicative of the deepest grief. Whether it were man or woman I cannot say — there was a dark growth upon its lip and chin, but its form was supple, its attitudes willowy and unrestrained. For a long, long while it paced below my window ; for a long, long while I watched it, fascinated, as they say men are by snakes. Often it wrung its hands ; once it lifted its face and flung out its arms to the air ; and I saw then, even in the moonlight, that tears streamed unceasingly down its cheeks.

At last, silently as it had come, it departed. It went without sound ; with only a hurrying of its steps, a more de jected drooping of its head and shoulders. I crept back to bed, overwhelmed, abject, and shivering with cold. In the morning I found the baby at the breakfast-table, set upon my father's knee. I looked at it, but asked no question, made no comment. This, in any case, I should not have been allowed to do ; so no one marvelled that I ate my porridge in silence and phlegm. To none did I speak of the previous evening. Only now have I broken the silence of years, and set down the things that I saw and heard the night that Roger came to Brandlesome.

Chapter II

I WAS nine years older than Roger, yet it seems to me that from the time when he could walk and talk, he was the one to set afoot and carry through the deeds of mischief for which we both received punishment. How it came to pass that he was finally and decisively adopted by my father and step mother it is difficult to determine. They kept him from day to day, setting afoot inquiries concerning him, yet allowing him each week to grow into his niche in the household, his lodging in their hearts. Finally they had him christened, and from that day he seemed to belong to us. It is true that my father would sometimes grunt and grumble, my mother rate the maids soundly for having (so she declared) saddled her, by their carelessness, with some beggar's brat. On one of these occasions Bekka Bery, the cook, up and answered her.

" Beggar's brat, dosto ca' him, missis ? He's nowt o' t' sort.;' " Then what may he be, Bekka Bery ? You are mighty knowing all of a sudden ! " "He corned i' t' th' house o' Hallowe'en — Nut-Nan war abroad yon neet. What thinksto he may be thysel, missis ? It's true thou'st had him christened ? Do christenings save the soul o' the likes o' him ? " Bekka Bery looked stolidly at my stepmother. Madam started and flushed a little ; then she called to Roger, who was playing close at hand. " Roger ! " " Ay," lisped Roger, without moving. " Come here, lad." He came reluctantly, dragging after him a stringful of emptied spools. He was five years old, by then, and sturdy and straight as a last year's elder-shoot. " Look me in the face, Roger." He looked her full in the eyes and laughed. He had the crow of a triumphant goblin at dawn, and Bekka Bery set both her hands idle upon her knees and muttered " Lord-a mussy " below her breath.

Madam spoke up sharply. "Cease thy laughing, Roger, and look to thy manners afore thy betters. Hark, lad ! Dosto remember any place but Brandlesome Hall ? " Roger shook his head, pouting out his under lip, as he would always do when found in fault. Madam stared hard at him, holding his face up in her palm. He was bonny, was Roger, with great shining eyes and tight brown curls. He met her look without flinching, standing on his fat legs like any sturdy Lancashire lad of twice his age. " Pooh ! " said my step-mother, releasing him. "Go back to your games, lad. Bekka Bery, you're no more than a foolish, impudent wench, and had best stick to your spinning. Nut-Nan and Hallowe'en indeed ! Fiddlesticks ! " Bekka Bery turned her face and hands sullenly to her wheel, but I saw her lips move, and I thought she was repeating a charm.

Madam herself apparently put the matter away from her mind ; yet I perceived that she would sometimes look at Roger thoughtfully, and I believe that the conversation had impressed her. Among the maids the whispers were ever current — airy, undefined, yet persistent rumours. I heard them, but I was now grown old enough to take no heed. I loved Roger ; the chubby hand nestling in mine might be the extremity of a "feeory," but, if it were, it had used its magic to fold its fingers closely about my heart. All this while he was but known to us as Roger ; he came by the surname of Kay upon his eighth birthday. That day stands out clear and sharp in my memory for many things : for the cake mixed and baked by Bekka Bery ; for the visits of Captain Kaye and Colonel Assheton ; and for the coming of Christabel.

I was a great lad by then — a "louting fellow," Madam called me ; adding that " if she moved her wheel as slowly as I moved my wits we might whistle for our linen." I could find no reply to her, yet I believe that I thought the more for speaking the less. That very Hallowe'en which we kept as Roger's birthday, I had been turning Bekka Bery's spinning-wheel round and round, thinking that surely there must be some easier way of twisting the thread ; and so deep was I in thought that I suppose I did not hear the arrival of visitors. Then all at once I heard some one laughing in the inner hall where I sat alone. I started up from the wheel, ashamed, and standing in front of me, I saw Christabel. She was "nobbut a bit lassie," as Roger called her later, with some contempt of look and language; and she wore a little close cap and a long pinafore.

Her small square hands were tightly clasped in front of her, and she was bent somewhat forward to look at me. Her face, even then, was pale and oval ; and her big brown eyes were set deep below their clear brows. She had laughed out like the child she was ; but all at once she turned grave as any old woman, and set herself to question me. " Who art thou, laddie ? " said she, as direct and sober as you please. " I am Thomas — Thomas Greenhalgh; "Is yon thy father?" — with a backward motion of her head towards the outer hall. "Ay." " An' th' woman wi' cherry ribbon i' her cap thy mother ? " " My step-mother." " What is a step-mother ? " "A — a — my father's wife," I explained, lamely enough. And then I thought it was my turn, for the wench stood not much higher than my knee. " Where didsto come from, lassie ?

" I said, holding out my hand to her. She backed away from it, and put her own little hands safe behind her. " I came wi' Colonel Assheton." " Where is he ? " " Outside, wi' yon man thou calls thy father. He's ugly." I thought it well to take no heed of her frank avowal, and asked her another question. " What's thy name ? " "Christabel Aleynson." " Then thou'rt my cousin, wench. Come an' kiss me." " Nay, I shanna." " Why not ? " "I dunnot like thee well enow. Who's yon ? " She brought out her hand from behind her back and pointed with her tiny straight fore finger towards the door. I turned my head and saw Roger. He came forward slowly, but without hesita tion, his bonnie eyes gleaming and laughing. When he was set at a few paces from Christa bel, he threw back his head and stared at her. She stood sturdy and unabashed, facing him.

" Who is he ? " she asked me again, turning her face on me. He is Roger. " Th' feeory ? " she cried out, her cheeks suddenly flushing and her eyes brimming over with sparks. " I ha' heerd tell on him at Middleton ! " Roger's face went black and his eyes turned savage. To be called a " feeory " moved him, in those days, to a very tempest of fury. Step ping forward, before I could interfere he dealt the little wench a sounding box on the ear. Then, too proud to turn and flee, he set his feet wide apart upon the floor and stood at bay. Christabel was a slip of a baby, but sturdy and full of spirit. She staggered for a moment as if she would fall ; her face and neck crimsoned, and her eyes filled with tears. But she set her teeth firmly into her nether lip, and drove back the rising sob. I went up to Roger and cuffed him soundly.

His well-merited punishment was, however, interrupted. My father came into the hall, in the middle of it, followed by Colonel Ralph Assheton and Cap tain Kaye. " Hey ! hey ! " cried my father, " what's all this to-do ! Keep thy fingers off him, Thomas. Pie's nobbut half thy size." "Ay, an' Christabel's nobbut half his," I answered, sharp for once in my retort. And then I loosed Roger, and made my bow, awk wardly enough, to the gentlemen. " What's he been doing ? " asked my father, looking from him to Christabel, both of whom, though smarting in body, were quite unsubdued in spirit. Roger stood at my elbow, crimson and vexed. Christabel had never stirred from the flag whereon she had first set herself; her face was pale again, and her little mouth serene and steady. " What's he been doing ?

" repeated my father. " Speak up, childer." It was Roger himself who answered, sullen and grim. " I cuffed yon wench." " 'Deed, an' didst thou, ill-mannered brat ! Whatfor?" "' Hoo called me a feeory ? " "And what do you call yourself?" "A gentleman." Captain Kaye, who stood by, his glance bent upon the floor, suddenly lifted his eyes and laughed out. I looked at him, for the first time, for he was a stranger to me. Colonel Ralph Assheton was a close connection of our own, but differed somewhat from my father in his way of thinking. He was a stubborn Puritan, and head of the Asshetons of Middleton. Him I knew slightly, though it was long since he had visited us. " Well said, my lad," cried the captain. " Is this your foundling, John ? " "Ay," said my father, "we found him i' t' pig-sty seven year to-night.

Seems to me he learnt his manners from his company ! Hark ye, Roger. Go and beg the little wench's pardon." Christabel crimsoned again and looked round her rather desperately. I believe, that had there been a woman in the company she must have run, like the baby she was, and hidden her face against that friendly presence. But _the mascu line countenances bent upon her frustrated and abashed her. Colonel Assheton, her only familiar friend, was regarding her grimly. He was a harsh, gloomy man, his face lined with many strong and repressed passions. " He didn't hurt me," she said, stepping back. "An' he didn't like being called a feeory." "You're more like one yourself, aren't you, little lass?" said Captain Kaye, stooping to lift her to his knee, and sitting down with her upon the long settle.