“A son! ay, that had I —­ the light and brightness of my life!” cried the old man, with a sudden burst of rude eloquence that showed him to have been at some former time something better than his present circumstances seemed to indicate.  “Young sirs, I know not who you are; I know not why you ask me of my boy.  But your faces are kind, and perchance there may be help in the world, though I have found it not.  I know not how time has fled since that terrible sorrow fell upon me.  Perchance not many years by the calendar, but in misery and suffering a lifetime.  Listen, and I will tell you all.  I was not ever as you see me now.  I was no lonely woodman buried in the heart of the forest.  I was second huntsman to Sir Hugh Vavasour of Woodcrych, in favour with my master and well contented with my lot.  I had a wife whom I loved, and she had born me a lovely boy, who was the very light of my eyes and the joy of my heart.  I should weary you did I tell you of all his bold pranks and merry ways.  He was, I verily believe, the loveliest child that God’s sun has ever looked down upon.  When it pleased Him to take my wife away from me after seven happy years, I strove not to murmur; for I had still the child, and every day that passed made him more winsome, more loving, more mettlesome and bold.  Even the master would draw rein as he passed my door to have a word with the boy; and little Mistress Joan gave me many a silver groat to buy him a fairing with, and keep him always dressed in the smartest little suit of forester’s green.  The priest noticed him too, and would have him to his house to teach him many things, and told me he would live to carve out a fortune for himself.  I thought naught too good for him.  I would have wondered little if even the King had sent for him to make of him a companion for his son.

“Perchance I was foolish in the boastings I made.  But the beauty and the wisdom of the boy struck all alike —­ and thence came his destruction.”

“His destruction?” echoed both brothers in a breath.  “What! is he then dead?”

“He is worse than dead,” answered the father, in a hollow, despairing voice; “he has been bewitched —­ undone by foul sorcery, bound over hand and foot, and given to the keeping of Satan.  Even the priest can do nothing for us.  He is lost, body and soul, for ever.”

The brothers exchanged wondering glances as they made the sign of the cross, the old man watching the gesture with a bitter smile in his eye.  Then Raymond spoke again: 

“But what was it that happened? we do not yet understand.”

“I will tell you all.  If you know this part of the world, young sirs, you have doubtless heard of the old Manor of Basildene, where dwells one, Peter Sanghurst by name, who is nothing more nor less than a wizard, who should be hunted to death without pity.  Men have told me (I know not with what truth) that these wizards, who give themselves over to the devil, are required by their master from time to time to furnish him with new victims, and these victims are generally children —­ fair and promising children, who can first be trained in the black arts of their earthly master, and are then handed over, body and soul, to the devil, to be his slaves and his victims for ever.”