It was on Midsummer eve, that nearly about sundown, Dr. Woodford was summoned by the severe illness of the gatekeeper’s old father, and his sister-in-law went with him to attempt what her skill could accomplish for the old man’s relief.

They were detained there till the sun had long set, though the air, saturated with his redness, was full of soft twilight, while the moon, scarcely past the full, was just high enough to silver the quiet sea, and throw the shadow of the battlements and towers on the sward whitened with dew.

After the close atmosphere of the sickroom the freshness was welcome, and Mrs. Woodford, once a friend of Katherine Phillips, ‘the Matchless Orinda,’ had an eye and a soul to appreciate the beauty, and she even murmured the lines of Il Penseroso as she leant on the arm of her brother-in-law, who, in his turn, thought of Homer.

Suddenly, as they stood in the shadow, they were aware of a small, slight, fantastic figure in the midst of the grass-grown court, where there was a large green mushroom circle or fairy ring.  On the borders of this ring it paused with an air of disappointment.  Then entering it stood still, took off the hat, whose lopsided appearance had given so strange an outline, and bowed four times in opposite directions, when, as the face was turned towards the spectators, invisible in the dark shadow, the lady recognised Peregrine Oakshott.  She pressed the Doctor’s arm, and they both stood still watching the boy bathing his hand in the dew, and washing his face with it, then kneeling on one knee, and clasping his hands, as he cried aloud in a piteous chant—­

“Fairy mother, fairy mother!  Oh, come, come and take me home!  My very life is sore to me.  They all hate me!  My brothers and the servants, every one of them.  And my father and tutor say I am possessed with an evil spirit, and I am beaten daily, and more than daily.  I can never, never get a good word from living soul!  This is the second seven years, and Midsummer night!  Oh, bring the other back again!  I’m weary, I’m weary!  Good elves, good elves, take me home.  Fairy mother!  Come, come, come!” Shutting his eyes he seemed to be in a state of intense expectation.  Tears filled Mrs. Woodford’s eyes.  The Doctor moved forward, but no sooner did the boy become conscious of human presence than he started up, and fled wildly towards a postern door, but no sooner had he disappeared in the shadow than there was a cry and a fall.

“Poor child!” exclaimed Dr. Woodford, “he has fallen down the steps to the vault.  It is a dangerous pitfall.”

They both hurried to the place, and found the boy lying on the steps leading down to the vault, but motionless, and when they succeeded in lifting him up, he was quite unconscious, having evidently struck his head against the mouth of the vault.

“We must carry him home between us,” said Mrs. Woodford.  “That will be better than rousing Miles Gateward, and making a coil.”