* * * * *

In less than half an hour Blanchard, with his coat wrapped round some object that he carried, returned to Newtake and summoned assistance with a loud voice.

Presently his wife and mother entered the kitchen, whereupon Will discovered his burden and revealed a young child.  Phoebe fainted dead away at sight of it, and while her husband looked to her Mrs. Blanchard tended the baby, which was hungry but by no means alarmed.  As for Will, his altered voice and most unusual excitement of manner indicated something of the shock he had received.  Having described the voice which called him, he proceeded after this fashion to detail what followed: 

“I looked in the very hut-circle I was born, an’ I shivered all over, for I thought ’twas the li’l ghost of our wee bwoy—­by God, I did!  It sat theer all alone, an’ I stared an’ froze while I stared.  Then it hollered like a gude un, an’ stretched out its arms, an’ I seed ’twas livin’ an’ never thought how it comed theer.  He ‘in somethin’ smaller than our purty darling, yet like him in a way, onless I’m forgetting.”

“’Tis like,” said Damaris, dandling the child and making it happy. “’Tis a li’l bwoy, two year old or more, I should guess.  It keeps crying ’Mam, mam,’ for its mother.  God forgive the woman.”

“A gypsy’s baby, I reckon,” said Phoebe languidly.

“I doan’t think it,” answered her husband; “I’m most feared to guess what ‘tis.  Wan thing’s sure; I was called loud an’ clear or I’d never have turned back; an’ yet, second time I was called, my flesh crept.”

“The little flannels an’ frock be thick an’ gude, but they doan’t shaw nought.”

“The thing’s most as easy to think a miracle as not.  He looked up in my eyes as I brought un away, an’ after he’d got used to me he was quiet as a mouse an’ snuggled to me.”

“They’d have said ’twas a fairy changeling in my young days,” mused Mrs. Blanchard, “but us knaws better now.  ’Tis a li’l gypsy, I’ll warn ’e, an’ some wicked mother’s dropped un under your nose to ease her conscience.”

“What will you do?  Take un to the poorhouse?” asked Phoebe.

“‘Poorhouse’!  Never!  This be mine, tu.  Mine!  I was called to it, weern’t I?  By a human voice or another, God knaws.  Theer’s more to this than us can see.”

His women regarded him with blank amazement, and he showed considerable impatience tinder their eyes.  It was clear he desired that they should dwell on no purely materialistic or natural explanation of the incident.

“Baan’t a gypsy baaby,” he said; “‘tis awnly the legs an’ arms of un as be brown.  His body’s as white as curds, an’ his hair’s no darker than our awn Willy’s was.”

“If it ban’t a gypsy’s, whose be it?” said Phoebe, turning to the infant for the first time.

“Mine now,” answered Will stoutly. “‘Twas sent an’ give into my awn hand by one what knawed who ’twas they called.  My heart warmed to un as he lay in my arms, an’ he’m mine hencefarrard.”