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1 86 MOONFOLK.
fusion and ran to help her ;
but the boy, snatching it
from the ground, sang loudly
:
" Lady, that fire was but a sign
Of fires that hotter, fiercer barn ;
They do not come from me or mine,
But shall be yours, unless you turn."
"What! is there never a lady here that can wear
this scandalous cloak in safety ? " cried Sir Oaddocke, a
grim, gray-haired knight, sitting beside his wife, toward
whom he turned, and added :
" Get thee forward, dame, and put the thing about
thee ! These ten years that thou hast been ray wife I
have proved thee true and leal, and if the mantle shames
thee, I for one shall know it for a lying mantle, and its
malapert owner for a knave that needs a beating."
Modestly, yet without fear, the lady stepped forward,
and Sir Craddocke himself laid the mantle across her
shoulders. For a moment it
hung there straight and
whole, and the husband cried triumphantly :
" See ! Here is one true dame, if no more "
But the boy with his strange and mocking smile laid
a hand upon Sir Craddocke's arm, and pointed downward
to where the hem of the mantle was beginning tc
shrink and crack and draw upward as if withered and
decayed.
" It is the falsehood I passed upon my father and
mother, when I stole away from them and home to