As she reached the threshold,
the dreadful truth broke upon her: the kitchen was empty, and so was
the cradle!
It made her frantic for a while. Meriden the Priest offered what
consolation he could, and suggested that one of her neighbours had
called indeed, and finding the baby alone in the cottage, had taken
it off to her own home to guard it. But this he felt to be a forlorn
hope, and it proved a vain one. Neither search nor inquiry could
trace the infant. Beyond a doubt the Piskies had carried him off.
When this was established so that even the hopefullest of the
good-wives shook her head over it, Lovey grew calm of a sudden and
(as it seemed) with the calm of despair. She grew obstinate too.
"My blessed cheeld!" she kept repeating. "The tender worm of 'en!
But I'll have 'en back, if I've to go to the naughty place to fetch
'en. Why, what sort of a tale be I to pitch to my Dan'l, if he comes
home and his firstborn gone?"
They shook their heads again over this. It would be a brave blow for
the man, but (said one to another) he that marries a fool must look
for thorns in his bed.
"What's done can't be undone," they told her.
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