A Reputed Changeling

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A Reputed Changeling

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Yonge
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Title: A Reputed Changeling
Author: Charlotte M. Yonge
Release Date: May 26, 2004 [eBook #12449]
Language: English
Character set encoding: US-ASCII
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A REPUTED
CHANGELING***
Transcribed by David Price, email [email protected]

A REPUTED CHANGELING, or, THREE SEVENTH YEARS TWO
CENTURIES AGO

PREFACE
I do not think I have here forced the hand of history except by giving
Portchester to two imaginary Rectors, and by a little injustice to her
whom Princess Anne termed 'the brick-bat woman.'
The trial is not according to present rules, but precedents for its
irregularities are to be found in the doings of the seventeenth century,
notably in the trial of Spencer Cowper by the same Judge Hatsel, and I
have done my best to represent the habits of those country gentry who
were not infected by the evils of the later Stewart reigns.
There is some doubt as to the proper spelling of Portchester, but,
judging by analogy, the t ought not to be omitted.
C. M. YONGE. 2d May 1889.
CHAPTER I
: THE EXPERIENCES OF GOODY MADGE
"Dear Madam, think me not to blame; Invisible the fairy came. Your
precious babe is hence conveyed, And in its place a changeling laid.
Where are the father's mouth and nose, The mother's eyes as black as
sloes? See here, a shocking awkward creature, That speaks a fool in
every feature."
GAY.
"He is an ugly ill-favoured boy--just like Riquet a la Houppe."
"That he is! Do you not know that he is a changeling?"
Such were the words of two little girls walking home from a school for
young ladies kept, at the Cathedral city of Winchester, by two
Frenchwomen of quality, refugees from the persecutions preluding the
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, and who enlivened the studies of

their pupils with the Contes de Commere L'Oie.
The first speaker was Anne Jacobina Woodford, who had recently
come with her mother, the widow of a brave naval officer, to live with
her uncle, the Prebendary then in residence. The other was Lucy
Archfield, daughter to a knight, whose home was a few miles from
Portchester, Dr. Woodford's parish on the southern coast of Hampshire.
In the seventeenth century, when roads were mere ditches often
impassable, and country-houses frequently became entirely isolated in
the winter, it was usual with the wealthier county families to move into
their local capital, where some owned mansions and others hired
prebendal houses, or went into lodgings in the roomy dwellings of the
superior tradesmen. For the elders this was the season of social
intercourse, for the young people, of education.
The two girls, who were about eight years old, had struck up a rapid
friendship, and were walking hand in hand to the Close attended by the
nurse in charge of Mistress Lucy. This little lady wore a black silk hood
and cape, trimmed with light brown fur, and lined with pink, while
Anne Woodford, being still in mourning for her father, was wrapped in
a black cloak, unrelieved except by the white border of her round cap,
fringed by fair curls, contrasting with her brown eyes. She was taller
and had a more upright bearing of head and neck, with more promise of
beauty than her companion, who was much more countrified and would
not have been taken for the child of higher station.
They had traversed the graveyard of the Cathedral, and were passing
through a narrow archway known as the Slype, between the south-
western angle of the Cathedral and a heavy mass of old masonry
forming part of the garden wall of the present abode of the Archfield
family, when suddenly both children stumbled and fell, while an elfish
peal of laughter sounded behind them.
Lucy came down uppermost, and was scarcely hurt, but Anne had
fallen prone, striking her chin on the ground, so as to make her bite her
lip, and bruising knees and elbows severely. Nurse detected the cause
of the fall so as to avoid it herself. It was a cord fastened across the

archway, close to the ground, and another shout of derision greeted the
discovery; while Lucy, regaining her feet, beheld for a moment a weird
exulting grimace on a visage peeping over a neighbouring headstone.
"It is he! it is he! The wicked imp! There's no peace for him! I say," she