“ARE they ‘cooked all wrong, or cold, or anything?’”asked Josy mischievously from Gretta’s right-hand side.
“No, they’re very nice,” said her table-companion, determined not to show she minded being teased. “Margot”—turning to her cousin, who sat eating bread-and-butter, and wearing an unusually solemn expression—“how do you like everything? What girls have you talked to?”
“I’m not so sure that I like it at all,” said Margot decidedly, looking very pink, and setting her chin rather obstinately. “I’ve been talking to a girl called Stella, and it seems as though we’re simply going to be cooped up! Sitting in lines, you know, and doing everything at the proper time! It doesn’t seem——”
“Oh, but Margot!” exclaimed Gretta, thankful that the buzz of talk was rendering it impossible for their conversation to be overheard; “it’s only school ways, you know.Everyone else likes it. If you look at them you can see they do, and there’s such a nice girl next me. Her name’s Josy, and——”
“Yes, do tell your cousin to look at me,” declared the said Josy, stretching a friendly fist across, and firmly shaking Margot by the hand. “I’m head of your dormer, you know, and you’ll have to do as you’re told. Has anyone asked you if you like scrambled eggs?”
“I’ve eaten them, so it’s pretty plain,” replied Margot, a little huffily perhaps, for the first part of Josy’s speech had not served to smooth her ruffled feathers. “I can make better ones myself, though; not so squashy, and with more butter on the toast!”
Josy gave a squeak of joy. “I say!” she said delightedly; “I wish you’d teachme! Where did you learn?”
“I learned in Australia, of course,” answered Margot. “My mother taught me; it’s perfectly easy. Look here, if you don’t mind, when does the post go? I’ve finished my tea, and it’s frightfully important that I should send a letter home. It must reach York by——”
“Oh, but you can’t write this evening,” said Josy, rather taken aback by Margot’s decisive tones; “you’ve nothing unpacked, have you? Besides, we write our letters on Sunday; it’s the day for it.”
“But that’s not the same,” persisted Margot. “My mother will expect to hear from me, and——” Her speech was cut short by the sudden rising of the house-mistress. Nurse and the girls at both tables followed suit, and when grace was said those nearest the door commenced to file out of the room in the same orderly and silent way as they had entered.
“Ask Miss Read, Margot!” suggested Gretta. “She’ll tell you if you may!”
“I’m not going to ‘ask’ about such a thing,” said Margot in high dudgeon; “as though I can’t write a letter to my mother, indeed! I’m going straight to that dormitory-place to see if my boxes have gone up. Anyhow, I’ve a post card in my bag; that’ll be better than nothing!” She turned on her heel as she spoke, and ran up the stairs while Gretta looked uneasily after her.
“Come back, you new child!—Margot Fleming, isn’t it?” called the head girl from the tail of the procession, as she caught sight of the flying figure. “It’s against the rules to go to the dormitories now!”
“I don’t believe in rules,” said Margot, turning and speaking emphatically from the top stair, “about silly things like that, I mean. I’m going for a post card, and I’ve simply got to have it.” She turned again, and resumed her upward journey.
“But you don’t mean to say you won’t let me write to mother!” she exclaimed three minutes later—standing with flaming cheeks, a post card clutched in her hand—to Miss Read, who had followed her upstairs, and now gazed at the independent twelve-year-old with a face of undisguised surprise; “because, if so——”
“The school rule is that letters are written home on Sundays,” said the house-mistress. “You have come here to obey the rules, haven’t you? But, unfortunately, you have broken several of them already—mostly without knowing it, of course—and now you want to breakthisone.”
“I don’t want to break rules,” said Margot passionately, “but I want to keep my promise.”
“And that was——?” asked Miss Read slowly.
“I said to mother as the train was starting, ‘I’m going to write to-night,’ so I must do it.What’s thesenseof making a rule like this one of yours; there doesn’t seem any reason!”
“I can quite see that you don’t understand the reason,” said Miss Read, speaking very quietly, “but I’ll try to explain things if you will listen. There are twenty-four boarders here, and if I gave leave tooneof them to write a letter, I must naturally give leave toall, which means that twenty-four girls would need writing material from boxes that are not yet unpacked. Writing materials are very often at the bottom of people’s trunks, of course, and if twenty-four girls were allowed upstairs to turn over their boxes, and then to leave their trunks again and go down to write letters, what would be the state of the dormitories, and when would the rest of the unpacking and arranging get done?”
“I suppose thingswouldbe in a muddle,” said Margot frankly; “but,” with her chin still held high, “mother will expect——”
“I don’t think so,” remarked Miss Read, forestalling her; “because Miss Slater understands very well indeed how the girls’ mothers feel, and she has made arrangements that they should not be anxious. A post card has been sent already to your mother—as to the parents of every one of the girls—to say that you havearrived safely, and that you will all write yourselves on Sunday.”
“Then shewillunderstand!” broke in Margot. “Oh, that’s all right then, but I’d have liked to have written myself.”
“Well”—Miss Read frankly showed her amusement now—“it’s a very good thing, Margot, that the post card wasnotleft to you to send, for the last post went before tea, and any letter sent now would not arrive in York before to-morrow evening.”
“I’m sorry,” said Margot, smiling too. “You don’t mind me not understanding, do you? I’m not used to schools, you see.”
“I don’t see how youcanunderstand the rules all at once, as you’re only twelve, you know,” remarked Miss Read cheerfully, “but we’ll be quite satisfied if you’ll just obey them, and make up your mind that they’ll have to be understood gradually. You’ll find that’s the best way to set to work.”
“All right, I’ll try,” Margot sighed. “How many have I broken already? I’ll do my best; really, I will.”
“Then please remember that in my absence the head girl’s orders must be obeyed—she takes my place, you see—also, one of nurse’s rules isthat the dormitories are not to be visited by girls without leave except at certain times. Helen told you that, you’ll remember. It will be to your own interest, you know, to remember these things; a number of people can’t live together without making certain arrangements so that the wheels run smoothly. In schools these arrangements are called ‘rules.’ You’ll get used to things very soon.”
“I feel more used to them now, I think,” said Margot, smiling bravely. “I suppose I’d better go down now, hadn’t I? I hope the girls won’t laugh at me.”
“Well, I don’t think they’re a bit likely to dothat,” said the house-mistress.
Her words proved true. On Margot’s entry into the sitting-room she found everyone so busy and intent on arranging their valuables from upstairs, where unpacking was in progress, that her reappearance was noticed by no one but Gretta, who, busily leaning over a small drawer, called to her cousin with delight.
“Margot, this is yours; just next mine. We’ve to line them with paper, Helen says, and then when we unpack—our dormitory’s going to begin next—we can bring down anything we like.”
Margot, glad of employment, threw herself into the task with great enthusiasm, and by bedtime, when the unpacking and arranging of her belongings was completed, she had begun to feel her old cheerful self again, and to settle into the ways of the other girls, who seemed so very much at home. When nurse came in, announcing firmly that in another five minutes lights would be turned out and that undressing would then have to be completed in the dark, Gretta trembled lest her cousin should lift a voice in vigorous protest; but Margot merely scrambled busily into bed behind her curtains.
“Oh, may we talk in bed to-night, nurse?” asked the head of the dormitory urgently; “just for a quarter of an hour, because it’s the first night of term! Do,dolet us!”
“Well,” said nurse, who, martial though she might be, was not always proof against Josy’s wheedling, “but not a minute longer!” She closed the door as she spoke, and fifteen minutes’ bliss began!
“Let’s take each of the minutes separately!” suggested Stella, a trifle unscrupulously, from her corner of the room.
“No, we won’t; it isn’t fair; you’re wasting a minute by talking about it. I want to askthe new girls all sorts of things while we’re alone, and it’s so ripping talking in bed,” announced Josy. “Do you like feasts, and have you any pocket-money? This is a ripping dormer to be in, you know,” she added ingenuously, “because I’m oldest in it, and there isn’t any really big girl here to order us about!”
“We’re more undernurse, though, down here,” corrected Stella, “and the babies are just opposite, so we can’t make much noise.”
“But nurse is a perfectbrickat week-ends!” Josy spoke with unction. “She gave us ten minutes to talk in, every Saturday night last term, and didn’t mind the dormer feast a scrap!”
“Do you have feasts? What fun!” exclaimed Margot, sitting up in bed and peeping through her curtains into the darkness. “We’ve got money, haven’t we, Gretta? Shall we have one this term, Stella?”
“Don’t askme!” replied that young woman dejectedly. “Igo home for week-ends; we only live five miles away. I’m out of nearly all the fun. I’d rather be an out-and-out boarder; you and Josy and Gretta will have it all your own way. I come in for matches, of course, when we have them, but that’s all. It’s notfair to talk about feasts when I’m here, Josy, when I can’t eat them. Talk about the prize instead.”
“All right,” replied Josy with alacrity.
“What’sthat?” chorused Gretta and Margot.
“It’s a mystery, so far,” explained the dormitory head with enthusiasm, “but it’s sure to be most awfully thrilling. Mrs. Hope-Scott, a great friend of Miss Slater’s, you know, has offered it—the prize, I mean—to the school.”
“But what for?” inquired Margot eagerly.
“Well, that’s what we don’t know. On the last day of last term Miss Slater told us therewasto be one; but she is to tell us more about it on the first day ofthisterm—that’s to-morrow, you know—and we’re all just longing to hear.”
“If it’s for lessons, there’s no chance forme,” groaned Stella.
“But if it’s for music, perhapsGrettamight get it,” burst in Margot excitedly. “Mother says——”
“Oh, it won’t be for anything like that, I should think,” said Josy. “It’s a prize, Miss Slater said, that anyone could get; ‘from theoldest to the youngest; age will make no difference, nor intellectual ability,’ that’s exactly what she said. I didn’t know what it meant, and Miss Read told me afterwards—for I asked her—that it means that you needn’t be so awfully clever.”
“New girls might have a chance, then?” ventured Gretta.
“Oh,rather,” replied Josy. “That won’t make any difference. Mrs. Hope-Scott had a girl at school here once; Hilda her name was, and she was head girl before I came. She went and trained to be a nurse, and then she died—nursing some poor people with fever, you know—and her mother is giving the prize in remembrance of her. Miss Slater told us all that on the last day of last term, and——”
“Now, not another word in here,” said nurse, opening the door and speaking very emphatically; “off you go to sleep this very instant!”
She shut it again decisively as she uttered the words, and it spoke well for the impression that Miss Read’s speech had left on Margot’s mind that, with a question on the very tip of her tongue, she yet refrained from asking it, and turned on her side to fall asleep almost beforethe sound of nurse’s footsteps had died away.
The other girls turned and twisted a little and finally fell asleep too; Gretta was the last, and her first dream was of her father, sitting alone with his pipe in the cheerless dining-room at home.
“ARE you going to try for the prize, Gretta? And isn’t it a funny one?”
So spoke Sybil, who, trotting by the side of her sister in the middle rank of the long crocodile of girls that was being marshalled by Miss Read for the first walk of the term, looked jolly enough certainly, and anything but home-sick.
“I suppose everybody’lltryfor it,” said Gretta slowly, “but I shouldn’t think there’s any chance forus; you see we’ve never thought much about being brave, and it seems such a new kind of thing. Did you understand what Miss Slater said about it at Prayers, Sybil?”
“About its being for the girl who did the bravest thing this term?” replied her younger sister. “Why, yes, of course, that much I did. But when she talked about different kinds of brave things, I really didn’t listen much; I was so longing to hear what the prize was going to be. But—a goldenshield, Gretta—I’d neverguessed it would be a thing like that, and with those funny words. And who was Brito—— I’ve forgotten the rest; I wasn’t listening very much just then.”
“Britomart, you mean,” said Gretta. “I hadn’t heard about her before, either. She was a Knight, Sybil, but not quite the same as the ones we know about. She was a Maiden-Knight, you know, of very long ago, and very brave. That’s what the words mean: ‘Ne Evill Thing She Feard.’ They were true about her, Miss Slater said, and they’re going to be printed on the bravery-shield.”
“She must have been awfully brave, then. I suppose she didn’t mind the—the dark, or anything, Gretta; but, I say, it was funny spelling, though,” remarked Sybil wisely. “D’you know, when we got back to the class-room, Gretta, Miss Taylor wrote it up on the blackboard—those words, I mean—and she talked about it a lot. ButIthought—though I didn’t say it, of course——”
“And a jolly good thing too, Mistress Sybil!” remarked Josy from behind, where she was walking with Stella, and listening to the child’s high-pitched voice.
“Bequiet!” flashed Sybil angrily. “Iwasn’t talking toyou, and you don’t evenknow me!”
There was a burst of laughter from the couples immediately before and behind at this retort, and Miss Read called out warningly from the rear. “Girls! Girls! Not so much noise! Sybil, keep in line; you’re continually turning round!”
“It’s not my fault, it’s this girl!” began Sybil plaintively, but as no notice at all was taken of the remark by the mistress-in-charge, and as Gretta, instead of acting comforter, simply jogged her elbow and begged her to “Shut up!” the child relapsed into silence for a time, and walked sulkily along by her sister’s side.
“What kind of lessons did you have to-day, Sybil?” inquired her older sister presently, to change the subject and to relieve the atmosphere a little.
“Oh, ripping!” exclaimed Sybil, at once alert and good-humoured again. “They’re not very easy, though,althoughI’m in the bottom class. That other new girl, Adela, who’s in my Form, is frightfully clever. She’s had a governess, and she can do fractions likeanything! Miss Taylor said that I should have to workhard because I was behind the others, but I just said thatyou’dbeen teaching me, so it wasn’tmyfault at all!”
“And what did she say when you said that?” inquired Gretta, swallowing a feeling of mortification.
“Oh, nothing. Something about not talking so much, I expect. She’s most frightfully strict. You have to sit still the whole lessons through. There’s no chance of my winning a lesson-prize inthatclassIknow, Gretta, so it’s no use trying for one. And as I told Ann that I should bring one back with me, I think I shall just try for that other one for being the bravest; it’s much more interesting, and might even be fun.”
“You mean the Hope-Scott prize!” questioned Gretta in amazement. “Oh, Sybil, do you think you’re brave enough? Whatever could you do? You’re only twelve.”
“Well, Miss Slater said, for I heard that much, that perhaps even the youngest in the school could get it, and I’m not as young asthat. Joan Curtis is younger; she’s eleven and a quarter, though shehasbeen here a year. And Margot’s only just a little older than me, and you always sayshe’sbrave.”
“Well, yes,” agreed Gretta, “but then she’s been in Australia, and she’s done brave things there, somehow. Think of riding a horse bareback; and then, that time, you know, when she was lost in the Bush for a whole day. Auntie told us how brave she was in finding her way home and everything.Icouldn’t do those things, and I’m fourteen.”
“I think I’d ratherlikeadventures and being brave,” said Sybil carelessly. “I’ve got a thing already that I think of doing, but if I tell you, you won’t let anyone else know, will you?”
“Oh, tell me!Do!” called Josy, in mock excitement from behind.
“You’re a silly, horrid, teasing thing,” cried Sybil, whipping round, and addressing the advancing couple; “and I won’t tell anyone—so there!”
“Gretta, bring Sybil to walk in the last rank,” called Miss Read’s voice from behind. “She reallymustlearn to behave in a more orderly way while we’re out.”
“It’s my fault, Miss Read,” exclaimed Josy, in a contrite voice; “I was teasing her.”
“Then you ought to know better, Josy,” said the house-mistress severely. “Talk to your own partner, and don’t be silly.”
The procession moved on again, and the discussion was over for a time, but it came up again in the dormitory that night while the girls were undressing for bed. Everyone in Dormitory 3, as in every other room in the school, was keen on the Hope-Scott prize, and every tongue was wagging over the possibilities of being the winner.
“One thing is, I suppose,” announced Josy, “to think out the very bravest thing you can think of, and then to set to work to do it, however hard it is; but d’you know, I can’t think of anything to do, though I’ve thought and thought. Lessons and things like that bother me most, and, of course,theycouldn’t count as braveness, could they? Now, if we were only in King Arthur’s time—we had it in Literature last term, and it was ripping!—things to do would come hopping up every half-hour—questing beasts, and fair maidens in distress, and wounded knights!Thenyou just had to nip in with a sword and there you were! There was no wondering what to do; adventures just came naturally!”
“Miss Slater said that if we waited andlooked out we would be sure to find something brave to do, but we were to be careful not to miss it if it looked small,” said Gretta, who had been bothering over the matter all day. “Of course, I don’t knowschool, but I’ve never done a single brave thing at home, I’m sure.”
“And I’ve been at school for two years and a term, and I’m sureI’ve never done anything brave,” added Josy.
“I know a braveman,” came in decided tones from Margot’s cubicle. “I’m sure the motto on the shield is true ofhim!”
“What sort of things does he do?” begged everybody, eager for a recipe for bravery.
“Well, for one thing, he met three robbers—bushrangers, you know, and murderers they were really—when he was on horseback all alone, and before they had time to whip out their pistols he held them up withhis, and made them all walk into the nearest town; ten miles it was, and he knew all the time that his pistol wasn’t loaded.”
“And didthey?” inquired the others breathlessly.
“Of course not, or they’d have shot him in a minute; they were a desperate gang!”
“What else did he do?” inquired Stellawith interest. “That’s not much use to us, I’m afraid, but let’s hear; it might give us ideas.”
“For one thing he spent a night in a cave that was supposed to be haunted—no one would go near it, even in the daytime, because of the stories there were about—and it was while he was in there he found out that the robbers used it as a hiding-place at night. He listened, and heard them say where they had taken some horses that had been stolen from one of the farms. He headed a band next day, and went after the horses, too, and he got them. They were awfully valuable ones; one of them was worth nearly a hundred pounds!”
“I say, what a lark to know such a man,” broke in Josy. “Who is he? Do tell us.”
“He’s a friend of dad’s,” said Margot simply. “When we were out in the Bush he helped with the farms. He was champion sheep-shearer. I told you about him, didn’t I, Gretta?” And she turned to her cousin.
“Is it Long Jake, that you were talking about in the train?” asked Gretta with interest; “that man who gave you lessons in Australia?”
“‘Long Jake!’”echoed the other listeners.“What a funny name, andhowripping he must be to know!”
“If he were in this school,” added Josy, breathing deeply, “wouldn’t I get ideas from him for the prize!”
“He’d win it himself, I should imagine,” corrected the superior Stella. “There wouldn’t be much chance for any ofus! I’m going to ask dad for ideas at the week-end. If he knows any good ones, I’ll tell you on Monday.”
“Why, it’s the week-end to-morrow,” exclaimed Margot. “Where do you live, Stella? Shall you walk home, or how do you get there?”
“No, the trap comes,” said Stella. “We live off the road that goes to the station. It’s nearly five miles away; you must have passed it as you came, only you wouldn’t see the house, perhaps; it’s behind trees.”
“We sawonehouse,” broke in Gretta excitedly—“a little house with no windows.”
“Did you noticethat?” exclaimed Stella with animation. “The ‘Little House’! Oh, what do you think of it?”
“I thought it was the rummiest place I’d ever seen,” declared Margot. “I’ve been longing to ask someone about it ever since we got here. We saw it first from the train, and thenwe saw it from the trap, and we asked Miss Read about it. Somehow or other she didn’t tell us much: something about an old man, but I thought—didn’t you, Gretta?—that she seemed to try and shut us up rather.”
“No wonder!” said Stella, in a hollow tone of mystery.
“OH, do go on!” begged the Dormitory, intrigued by Stella’s mysterious accents.
“Not that I know much, but it’s soqueer!” Stella, however, was evidently only too willing to oblige, so far as was possible. “All alone he lives! Looking out on the sea. All the windows that face the moorland are barred up. Of course, he’s mad!”
“Who? The old man?” inquired Gretta.
“Yes, or why ever would he live there like that?”
“He might be a—hermit.” Margot spoke rather slowly. “There was one that we knew, living in the Bush. He’d made a clearing-place there—just because he wanted to, and because he loved the Bush. He wasn’t mad at all. He’d come to us for food, sometimes. And sometimes I’d ride out and take him some.”
“Ride!” The Dormitory forgot the “Little House” and its inmate. “Did you ride in the Bush?”
“Yes, of course I rode. Why not? Dad and mother did. We all did. I helped in a sheep round-up once; I was always riding. Once I had to swim my horse over a river that was in flood. The horse was frightened, then; and so would I have been, only Long Jake was there to tell me what to do. He and dad had to do it often—swim their horses, I mean; because they were always riding for miles round the cattle-station.”
“And how did you swim your horse?” inquired Josy excitedly. “I wonder you weren’t drowned.”
“That was what I thought, just at first. I think the horse thought so, too. But Long Jake told me just to take my legs out of the stirrups and hold the pommel tight. To give him plenty of rein, too, and to let myself sort of float over the saddle. The horse did the rest. Boko, it was—my own horse.” Margot gave a little sigh as she suddenly came to earth in the Cliff School dormitory again, and found herself brushing her hair. “I say, Stella, I didn’t mean to interrupt about your old man. How do you take him food?”
“Food! And he isn’tmine!” Stella tossed a shiny head. “I’ve never even seen him,” continued the old man’s next neighbour. “He simply never comes out; and if he did I’d be terrified. I suppose he’s got some arrangement with the village shop; and the farm sends him milk, I think. Perhaps dad keeps an eye on things, being rector, you see. But I know that not evenhe’sbeen inside! He’s called heaps of times, though, and never got any answer to his knocks. As for the gipsies....”
“Thegipsies!” repeated everyone.
“Oh, we’ve got heaps of gipsies on the moor. It’s common land, or something; and they may pitch their tents there, dad says, by law, so long as they behave themselves. They’re there most of the year, too, because they’re horse-dealing gipsies, who go from fair to fair buying horses and selling them again. Well, mother says there’s one good point about the old man—hedoeskeep the gipsies away from our stretch of moor. They won’t camp within a mile of his little house. They say he’s a witch, or something of that sort.”
“He can’t be a witch; they’re women,” put in Josy. “Whatever does he do?”
“Well, a wizard then. Oh, it’s nothing, really. Once a horse strayed round his house and hurt itself and had to be destroyed, andthe gipsies lost money. At least, that’s what they said; they came and begged because of it, but dad sent them away. Gipsies tell awful lies.”
“They do.” Gretta, the housekeeper, spoke up. “I remember buying a fern from a gipsy woman. For dad’s surgery it was; for his birthday. And it hadn’t a single bit of root—just fern leaves stuck into a pot. It cost a shilling, too.” Gretta sighed again at the remembrance of her feelings at the time. It was almost a relief when Margot’s clear-cut tones broke in.
“Gretta, not always, though. Gipsies don’t always tell lies.”
There was a queer tone in Margot’s voice; half-shy and half-eager, and the Dormitory turned to look at her. “I mean, theydoknow true things, just because they live out-of-doors; things that other people don’t know. Long Jake said so. Not only gipsies, of course; but anyone who’s lived in the open. Long Jake learned horse language from the men in the Bush.”
“Horse language!” repeated Stella, in a superior tone. “Why, there’s not such a thing!”
“Isn’t there, indeed? Thereis!” Margotsuddenly dropped her brush and her shy tone of voice at the same time, and flared up like a rocket. “Didn’t I tell you that Long Jake said so. And he could speak it, too—talk to horses and understand them.” Margot turned her back to the company and pressed her lips together.
“Oh, Margot,dogo on!” begged Josy, almost weeping in eagerness. “Gretta and I believe everything Long Jake says. And Stella, you must, too!”
“Oh, well, come to that, I do; without all that fuss, though,” said Stella, flushing.
“Well, that’s all right, then.” Margot, evidently realizing that here was as much of an apology as anyone had ever extracted from Stella, and being quite incapable of bearing any grudge, turned. “Only, if you’re going to say that it’s gipsy lies, you needn’t listen; because it’s not. Mother was there, and she saw it.” Margot swallowed before she went on.
“It was in the Bush once,” she said. “We were driving along one of those ‘corduroy roads,’ you know; that’s what they call them, because they’re made of logs laid side by side. Awfully jolty; we were in one of dad’s buggies. And we came upon”—Margot brushed her hairvigorously—“a horse, you know. It had got its master with it, of course; but it had fallen down. It was done-up and down-and-out; and oh!... I can’t tell you.” Margot’s voice shook.
“Go on,” begged Josy.
“Well, then, even dad and Long Jake couldn’t do anything. And its master said it had been lying there for hours. They were a long way from a water-hole, so he couldn’t get it a drink; but it wasn’t a drink it wanted, really, for we’d got water, and we gave it some. Its master was just a ‘sundowner’ man—travelling on to the next farm for work; it was shearing-time. And he’d picked up the horse cheap at a sale. Its previous owner had died, you see. And this man said there was nothing to do but just to leave it there, and mother said, ‘Oh, no!’ And I....” Margot stopped. “Well, it simply couldn’t be left; and it wouldn’t get up. And dad and Long Jake did everything they could, and then....”
“Oh, hurry, do! Did it recover, after all?” begged Josy, half in tears herself.
“Listen! It simply couldn’t move; I don’t really think itcould, until.... Suddenly, what do you think Long Jake did? The horse waslying, you know, right across the road, and Long Jake knelt down beside it. And he put both his arms round its neck.” Margot’s voice was shaky. “And ... just held it. The sort of way mother might have heldme, you know, if I were to cry—only, of course, I never do. And then he put his lips to its ears and just whispered. And, after a few minutes, the horse—Oh!” Margot gave a little, gaspy laugh. “It was like a fairy tale, only better. The horse twitched its ears and opened its shut eyes, and it gave a little whinnying sound. It understood. Long Jake went on whispering and stroking its head; yes, andkissingit. And then, suddenly”—a tear rolled down Margot’s cheek, though she did not know it—“it gave a kind of shake and tried to get up. They all helped it, and it struggled up and stood there, and—it sort of smiled!—mother said she saw that, too—and it threw up its darling head and started again.”
No one in the dormitory said a word for a few minutes, and Margot began to brush her hair steadily.
“I’d have ... bought that horse,” said Josy. “I bet its owner had been unkind to it.”
“He hadn’t. No, he hadn’t. He was quitekind, but he didn’t understand—that’s what Long Jake said afterwards—that the horse was missing its old master who had died, and that it was feeling unhappy because of that,” said Margot. “I dare say the horse has grown fond of him by now.”
“But however did Long Jake find it out?” burst in Stella doubtfully.
“The horse told him, I suppose.” Margot spoke quietly. “You see, it’s all very well to say that gipsies tell lies. Perhaps they do. But it was one of the old Bush people—the ‘blacks,’ they call them out there—who taught Long Jake how to whisper to the horses. Long Jake said that, compared tothem, he knew nothing about it, really. It was ... because they loved horses that they could do it, Long Jake said; and it was only, I suppose, because he felt so horribly sorry for the horse that he simply had to try to see what he could do. The ‘blacks’ know much more than that, too. They know all sorts of woodcraft secrets about tracking and trailing, things you wouldn’t understand here in schools.” Margot broke off.
“Well, did Long Jake learn about them?” inquired Stella.
“Yes, the ‘blacks’ taught him a lot. Hebeat out a fire once, that had got started in the scrub in the hot weather and might have meant awful damage—you see, the Bush was so near. He had some method that the ‘blacks’ had taught him. And he knew a way ofmakingfires, too, that he’d learned from them. A big cane, pointed at one end, and with its point placed inside a hole made in another cane. Then he twirled the point round and round inside the hole; and smoke came, and then fire. He did that while we were camping, and it quite dazzled me—his quickness, I mean. But he said the ‘blacks’ could do it ten times quicker. Oh, and that time I was lost in the Bush. I’d have been fifty times more frightened if I hadn’t remembered something he’d told me. ‘Always bear to the left; and think of that and nothing else,’ he’d said. Well, I did; and I found my way back to the water-hole where we’d been camping. Only, of course, they’d left it to look for me. It was lovely to see them coming back!”
“What was it like—being lost?” inquired Josy.
“Oh, it was only for two hours, you know; but it seemed far, far longer. There wasn’t anything, exactly, to be afraid of. What made youfeel so dreadfully queer was the ‘great hush’ in the Bush; that’s what they call it. The feeling of the bigness, you know, and the dreadful quietness all round you. But you can grow to love it, too; the ‘hush’ of the Bush, I mean—not being lost, of course. People like that old hermit just can’t go away. ‘The Bush takes them’—that’s what Long Jake said.”
MARGOT had felt very much subdued during her first days at the Cliff School; there was no doubt about it. The events of the first evening and her interview with Miss Read had had their effect, and the new idea that had dawned upon her then—that it would be necessary to consider herself one of many and a small one at that, instead of being the one and only prime mover at home—had not been an easy one. The independent little girl from Australia had felt shy and rather sensitive in her new surroundings. Until her recital of the doings of Long Jake, Margot’s voice had hardly been heard, even in the dormitory. On that occasion, however, she had thrown all selfconsciousness to the winds, and had burst into the conversation with her old fervour.
Gretta had understood Margot’s mood pretty well, and had refrained from showing her sympathy, knowing that her cousin would “feel all right in the end.” She herself was living moreintensely than she had ever lived before through every minute of this very new kind of life, and—but for the home-sick feeling that voiced itself in her first letter to the doctor, when she “wished he could be here too!”—there was no fly in the ointment to spoil her enjoyment of school.
As for Sybil,shehad begun to settle in easily enough; already she had made and broken and re-made various friendships with other small girls; already she had been snubbed and smiled at alternately by the older girls, and had sulked or smiled back engagingly in return. She had already, although this was only the fourth day of term, experienced her first “returned lesson,” and—after the thrill of pride in such a distinction had passed into a feeling of self-pity at having to re-write such a “perfectly-good” exercise—she had then forgotten all about the matter; that is, until it was brought to her notice again somewhat forcibly by the mistress who had set, but had not received, the said imposition. She was adopting, however, along with the school slang, some of the orderly manners and ways of the Cliff School girls; Gretta wondered at this Sybil, so carefully pigtailed, so well brushed and neat after a week ofnurse’s stern regime, and felt that now only one thing remained to come before her happiness should be complete; she had not yet had the first of the promised violin lessons!
These would be, said Miss Slater—who had spoken to the child herself about the music arrangements desired by Mrs. Fleming—on every Monday evening, and the first of the course would be given in the following week. “Your aunt says that she hopes much for your music, Gretta,” explained the head mistress, “and so I am to see whether Monsieur Villon, our French master, will think it worth his while to give lessons to so young a girl as you are.” Miss Slater had heard a good deal from Mrs. Fleming about the home life of the little Greys, and she felt a particular interest in the children for that reason. “Are you fond of playing?” she asked kindly.
Gretta’s “Yes,” spoken eagerly, while her heart beat high, and her eyes glowed like stars, showed the head mistress how keenly the girl felt on the subject; Miss Slater was, for that reason, not so surprised as otherwise she might have been when, on meeting Monsieur Villon, after the first lesson, he gave utterance to volumes of praise. “Mais, it ees magnificent!Such playing I ’ave never heard at zee Cliff School!”
“Oh, Monsieur Villon, this child is only fourteen! Don’t you remember Maud Adams who left a year ago?”
“Mees Adams! But not to compare with little Mees Grey.” The professor held his hands expressively.
“But she has had so few lessons, Monsieur Villon,” pursued Miss Slater.
“That does not signify. Bien, I can give ’er lessons. Mais oui, but—music, eet ees in ’er.”
The professor departed, still chattering volubly; Miss Slater wrote rather more guardedly to Mrs. Fleming, and Gretta, knowing nothing but that her first lesson had been like the realization of her most happy dreams, and already longing impatiently for the next one, went about her work like a girl transformed, her eyes bright and joyous.
“There’s something in Margaret Grey, after all,” announced her form mistress, who had been more than a little distressed at the appearance of such a very backward fourteen-year-old on the first day of term. “I thought she was stupid, but I don’t think she’s exactly that.”
“If you’d been listening to that child’s practising,” remarked Miss Read, the house-mistress, who “understood music,” as the other mistresses said, “you’d use a very different word; there’s going to be a surprise for Gretta’s people over her violin-playing; of that I’m quite sure.”
Auntie wrote telling her older niece that Miss Slater thought it wise for her to continue the lessons with Monsieur Villon, and adding that on her visit to Redgate she had found the doctor very busy and looking well, and that although, of course, he missed the two little girls, he seemed to be managing as well as could be expected under the care of Ann, who was turning out “quite capable!”
“If she’ll onlykeep onbeing like that,” said Gretta with a sigh at the remembrance of the varying moods of the maid, “then I shall be the happiest person in the whole world.”
This was to Margot, who, being form-companion as well as room-mate of her cousin, had easily slipped into being prime confidante as well; and who proved quite as companionable and understanding in her ways as any girl of Gretta’s own age could have been.
“Oh, she’s sure to,” she now broke in. “Mother’ll manage it. She can manage everyone.”
“I should just think she can,” agreed Gretta whole-heartedly. “I think she’s just the most wonderful person in the world.”
“That’s just what Long Jake used to say,” remarked Margot, nodding sagely. “She did a lot for him, you know.”
“What! That brave man!” questioned Gretta. “What could she do forhim?”
“Well, he wasn’t brave before he met her; that’s what he used to say. I couldn’t understand it quite, but he used to say it.”
“I wonder what he meant?” said her cousin.
“Well, he came out to Australia from England, you know. He had been to college, and he’d been ‘sent down’ from Oxford. I don’t exactly understand, but I know he was in some kind of disgrace. And then his people wouldn’t speak to him, or something, for some reason that mother didn’t tell me about, and he didn’t either. Of course, he’d been travelling round some time before he struck us; but thefirsttime I saw him he was just a sundowner, in quite torn clothes, and he hadn’t had anything to eat for ages, and——”
“Oh, poor thing!” exclaimed Gretta sympathetically.
“You wouldn’t call him that now,” laughed Margot. “We wanted a new hand then, though, and dad was away selling sheep, and mother took him on. He lookeddreadful, but mother says she always knows about people. Anyhow, he grew to be dad’s great chum, and when dad went to the diggings he stayed behind and worked the farm with mother and me, and the rest of the men. Helovesmother, and he says she made a man of him again. Oh,whata height he is, andsobroad!”
“Is he in Australia still?” inquired Gretta, with interest.
“Oh, yes, but he’s coming home when he’s got a certain sum of money. I forget how much, but he said he wouldn’t come home with less. He’s got something he has to do in England, he said. I’ll show him to you, Gretta, for, ofcourse, he’ll come to see me. It’s really because of him that I’m up in your form, isn’t it? He taught me Latin and arithmetic very well; though I must say he wasn’t much good at history and geography. Miss Tate says I’m awfully bad at those. When he comes perhaps he’ll tell us some stories of the things he’s done, and we might get ideas for the bravery prize. Have you thought of anything yet?”
It was Friday afternoon and the usual walk was in progress; Gretta thought for a minute before she answered. “IknowI haven’t any chance of it, Margot; I’m not like you. You were born brave, I believe, and Josy’s the same kind. Now, I’m almost afraid of anything happening that people have to be brave about, like mad bulls and rescuing, and things of that kind. If they came along I’d have totryto do them, of course, but it somehow seems to me that if I look out for big brave things to do all the time, then I shan’t do my music properly, and I shall forget the rules, and I shall make a muddle of everything. I’m not clever, you see. So I’m just going to go on and do my best at lessons; it’s my first term and I’m so backward, and I’m not going to think much about winning the prize, because IknowI couldn’t.”
“Well,Idon’t know,” said Margot, who had listened patiently through the long speech; “I’d just love to capture burglars, or discover—— Oh, Gretta,” she broke off, “I meant to tell you. Has Sybil been telling you what she means to do?”
“Sybil! No. What?” inquired Gretta uneasily.
“Well, it’s the prize, I think, that she’s after,and I believe we ought to stop her. She wants to do something brave, and she said——”
“Well?” inquired Gretta apprehensively.
“Well, I suppose it’s not telling tales to tell you! She was talking quite loud to Adela about it, and she said that I had said—and Idid, you know—that it would be a brave thing to go and find out about that little house with no windows on the cliff, and she said that she meant to go.”
“WHAT,Sybil!” Gretta laughed outright. “She’d befartoo frightened; she’s even terrified of the dark; and think what Stella told us about it! I’d be afraid to go there, myself.”
“You mean that night when she told us about the miser that lives there, whom no one sees, and whom everyone thinks is mad? You see, Sybil doesn’t know all that; she only saw the house from the train with us, and we all talked about it then—don’t you remember? It would be a jolly adventure, of course, but she’s too small to go alone. Would it be all right, do you think, ifIwent with her?”
“Why,Margot!” exclaimed Gretta, surveying her cousin with wide-open eyes.
“If she’s set on it, I mean; for the prize, you know; she asked me to come, and I said I’d think it over.”
“But Miss Read said we weren’t to, and it’s out of bounds, and—and——” Gretta was beginning to realize that Margot’s independent spirit had only been sleeping, and that now it was about to reassert itself. “Therules, you know,” she ventured as staunchly as she could.
“Oh—rules!” exclaimed Margot, tossing her short pigtail. “Gretta, I’m sick of rules. Can’t weeverbreak them? There’s nothing to do but keep different kinds of them all day long. How are weeverto do a brave thing if we’re kept in so!”
“There’s hockey,” said Gretta; “that’s not keeping us in. You know Helen says you’ll make a good player, and I know you will.”
“Yes, thereishockey,” agreed Margot. During the three weeks that had elapsed since the beginning of term the school games had appealed more and more strongly to the athletic out-of-door little Australian girl; she had hitherto, of course, been unused to anything like this organized playing with other girls, and had found it difficult, at first, to conform to the hockey regulations enforced so carefully by the games-mistress and by Helen, the captain. Before long, however, she was as keen on strokes, goals and matches as any of the Cliff School girls, and would soon, so the captain said, be a jolly good player.
The fact of keeping the rules at hockey, though she didn’t realize it, was helping her to understand and keep the school rules also, and Margot unconsciously enough was shaking down into the ordinary school-girl life with far less difficulty than Miss Slater had at first deemed possible. The thought of hockey now changed the current of her thoughts, and she turned a very interested face in Gretta’s direction.
“You like games, too, don’t you? Of course I shall miss hockey to-morrow, as I’m going home with Stella, but there’s that match next Saturday week against the Redford School. I’m longing to watch it. Oh, I wonder if I shall ever be in the team!”
“Of course you will,” replied her cousin in all good faith. “I love games, too, of course, but I know I’ll never be much good. I’m not half so fast a runner as you are, Margot; and then your wrists are so strong and you’re so much quicker in every sort of way than I am.”
“Well, you’ve got your fiddle; that’s your sort of thing, I suppose. No, I dare say it wouldn’t do, Gretta, to go to the ‘Little House’; I’ll tell Sybil I can’t go, and she’s not to, either. Just for a minute I thought what fun it would be, as well as being a most ripping way of trying for that prize. But I suppose we can’t; I’d forgotten we were at school. There she is. I’ll tell her now. Sybil! Sybil!”
The damsel addressed, who was emerging from the cloak-room door that opened on to the playground, came running up.
“Have you seen Adela?” she inquired in rather a fretful voice. “She’s simplygotto tell me what the French preparation is; I didn’t write it down.”
“No, I haven’t. Why didn’t you take it down yourself?” replied her cousin, who had no sympathy with Sybil’s lazy ways. “And look here, why aren’t you at hockey? Helen’s coaching all the little ones, and Adela’s sure to be there. Hurry up; you’ll be late.”
“Ihatehockey,” said the child, shrugging her shoulders; “it’s a most stupid game!”
“Stupid! Well, I likethat,” rejoined Margot; “if there’s anything it’snot, it’s that! It’s just the most ripping fun.”
“Well, perhaps at first. When I hit the ball the first day Miss Carter said ‘Bravo!’ and Helen said I’d be in the team some day, andnow—why, they don’t even smile at me!”
“You juggins!” laughed Margot. “Why, you couldn’t see them if they did.”
“I could, because I look to see—always,” complained Sybil, “and everybody’s always looking at the ball; and once, yesterday, when I’d nearly got a goal, Helen said I oughtn’t to have hit the ball so hard, but that I ought to have passed it to someone else. They can just hit their old ball themselves; I’m tired of hockey!”
“That’s because you always want to be top,” said Margot sagely; “and you can’t in hockey; you have to play for your side. And look here, Sybil, I’ve talked to Gretta about the ‘Little House,’ and I’m not going; it’s not allowed, you know, and I’d somehow forgotten it was term-time. We’ll do something else instead; and I’m not sure that it would be exactly brave after all, as it’s against the rules, you see.”
“Well, then, I’m going, anyway,” declared Sybil, growing crimson and turning angrily in her cousin’s direction; “and Gretta’s a horrid grandmother to have made you break your promise. You said you’d come; you know you did, Margot; and I’m going, anyway. I’ve simply got to win that prize to show to dad and Ann.”
“Well—go then,” said Margot, equally angrily; “and see how you like it.”
“I’m going, and you’re both sneaks,” was Sybil’s parting shaft; “and see howyoulike it when I get the shield, and wear it every day.”
She hastened towards the hockey field as she spoke, in desperate fear, for all her assertions to the contrary, of being late at the practice. The others stood and looked after her.
“She won’t go to the ‘Little House,’ will she?” asked Margot rather anxiously. “It’s partly my fault, because at first I thought it would be all right.”
“Oh,shewon’t go,” said Gretta confidently; “she’s just angry; that’s why she says it.” They dismissed the subject from their minds, and did not think of it again for some time, as during supper that evening a fresh interest arose, and that a most absorbing one.
“What are the prospects of winning the Redford School match, Helen?” inquired the house-mistress, as she served out liberal helpings of pudding to the rows of waiting girls.
“Well, we didn’t manage to last year, Miss Read, but we mean to this year, if we can. It’ll take all our strength, though; they’re most awfully strong.” The head girl surveyed the members of her team as she spoke. “I’m not sure that we oughtn’t to give up sugar andsome of the puddings till then; it makes such a difference.”
“Why?” inquired Gretta of Josy. “What does she mean?”
“The Redford School match nearly always falls on half-term, and it’s our biggest match,” replied her friend, with her mouth full. “The team always goes into special training the last week for it. It’s onlythemwho stop puddings and things, of course. I’m gladwedon’t have to; though it would be jolly well worth it a thousand times over to be going to play, wouldn’t it? That’s the reason, partly, why the dormer feasts always come that night.”
“Why?” asked Margot. “That night! Saturday week! Is there really going to be one then!”
“Oh, rather!” returned Josy. “It’s partly to make up for the puddings that the team have missed, nurse says; and, besides, it’s an awfully ripping finish to the day, if we win; and it’s rather decent and comforting if we don’t. So Miss Slater always lets us have it; all but the little ones—they don’t have one now.”
“How about the dormitory lists this time, Helen?” inquired the house-mistress.
“Well, there’s more than a week left, MissRead; if I collect them and give them in to you by the Wednesday before, will that do?”
“What!” Sybil’s shrill voice was heard from the other table; “afeast! How perfectlylovely!”
“You’ll have to wait till you’re a bit older, Sybil,” replied nurse briskly. “No feasts in the babies’ dormitory, you know. Next year, perhaps.”
“I’mnota baby,” began Sybil, as crossly as she dared; “and I don’t see why other girls should be greedier than me just because they’re bigger.” Her protests died away unheeded into a rather sulky mumble.
Gretta turned to Josy, feeling sorry for her little sister, who had been endowed with such a very sweet tooth. “Why don’t the little ones have a feast, too?”
“Well, theydiduntil one year when three of them out of that dormer were all sick the next day. But they always have something else just as ripping before the end of term. Nurse arranges it, so it’s sure to be decent. None of them is in the team, of course.”
The combined excitement of the prospective match and the dormitory feast provided plenty of material for conversation during the ensuingthree weeks. As they undressed in their cubicles the girls of Dormitory 3 found much to say on these topics; and one and all combined in pitying Stella, who was to be absent from the second of the entertainments.
“That’s the worst of being a weekly boarder,” moaned the martyred one; “but you may be sure I’m coming up to watch the match. Dad’s coming, too, if he can. If not, the boy’ll bring me in the trap. I wouldn’t miss the Redford School match for anything.”
“I say,” Margot said suddenly to Gretta, “I wonder ifmotherwould come?”
“AND we might get a chance, you know,” remarked Stella, “of doing something to win the shield; though I don’t know if it would count, on a holiday!”
Margot shook her head. It was difficult to know. “Of course, I suppose there’s much more chance to find something exciting out of school,” said she. “So, perhaps, that way, it wouldn’t be fair to the rest.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean that way, exactly,” began Stella, as they walked up the little drive to the rectory front-door. “Mo—ther!”
They had driven down together in the ponycart which had been brought up to the Cliff School by the rector’s boy, Jim, to fetch Stella home. It had been ripping to jingle along the hard high road, even although the stolid Jim had kept hold of the reins all the way without realizing how Margot’s fingers were itching to handle them herself. Now she was watching, with envy in her eyes, as he led Jerry stablewards.
“I say, I’d love to go and—unharness the pony,” burst from Margot’s lips.
“What!” Stella stood still on the drive and stared.
“It’s only”—the visitor grew rather pink—“that I do so simply adore horses. Only having a car, now—oh, of course, dad’s is a ripping one, and he likes it; but it’s so un-alive after Australia.”
“I must say I’d swap Jerry for even a two-seater,” Stella sniffed. “Whereismother! Talking of horses, I know exactly what we’ll do. It’s a million times better than seeing Jerry unharnessed. That’s tame!Mother!”
An exceedingly obedient and indulgent mother appeared suddenly on the rectory terrace at the sound of the second call.
“Stella! Here you are!”
“I say, mother, here’s Margot. And, mother, she’s got to be back by six! And it gets dark so soon; so we want to go along the Cliff road before tea.” Stella permitted herself to be embraced while Margot stood rather awkwardly by.
“So here is the little girl from the Bush!” exclaimed Mrs. Hill kindly. “I am so glad that Miss Slater allowed you to come to tea.”
But Margot had not come from the Bush. Her shyness disappeared instantly, as she rectified the mistake. “The Bush! Oh, no. Nobody lives in the Bush, you know. We’ve gone through. Once we camped there. But nobody, except kangaroos and....”
“Oh, mother; talking of kangaroos,” the impatient Stella burst in, “Margot’s most awfully interested in horses, and she told us all kinds of things in the dorm. She even likes Jerry. And I want to take her straightaway, before tea, to see those horses on the gipsies’ camping-ground. There were a dozen, quite, last week-end, and....”
“But, my dear Stella!” Her mother, though certainly anxious to fall in with the arrangements of her returned daughter, looked quite aghast at the suggestion. “I don’t think you could go there alone. The horses might be dangerous. And dad’s out. Besides——” Mrs. Hill gave quite a gasp of relief as remembrance came to her.
“Besides, they’re gone. There was a fair at Rowsley this morning, and I heard the horses going by before we were up, with the gipsies in charge.”
“Oh,bother!” Stella looked as disgustedas she felt. “Well, if they’re gone, of course we can’t! But how could horses possibly be dangerous? Margot says....”
But Margot, appealed to by this very headstrong daughter, looked thoughtful. “Theycanbe fierce, even. Horses! why, of course. I don’t know aboutthese, but we once had a stampede. Mother and I didn’t see anything of it, but dad told us that if it hadn’t been for Long Jake....”
Even Stella appeared to knuckle under to the general opinion, since Long Jake, the dormitory hero, evidently shared it. “Stillthesehorses wouldn’t be,” she added. “They’re mostly old and half worn out. The gipsies buy them at fairs and sell them again. Well, I don’t know what we can do at all, then.”
Margot, however, had a suggestion to make.
“Look here. The horses would have been frightfully jolly, but there’s another thing. I thought of it as we were driving here. Aren’t you somewhere near the ‘Little House,’ where the old man lives? Couldn’t we—go and just look at it. We saw it from the train coming down, but I’d love to tell Gretta more about it to-night in the dorm.”
“Oh, if you like,” returned her hostess, inrather a bored tone of voice. “It’s only about a half-mile away.”
But if an excursion to the outside of the “Little House” was a very everyday affair to Stella, to Margot, who had been shut up for weeks within school bounds, the mere fact of being outside walls and gates, and walking in the wide, open spaces of the moor, with the huge expanse of the blue sea ahead, and all the winds of Heaven let loose around her—to Margot this was a thrilling joy in itself.
“Oh, I say, thisisjolly,” said she. “I wish Gretta were here.”
But Stella was still deep in disappointment that the thrill of the afternoon was missing. “If only you had been here last week, dad would have taken us. Then you could have tried that ‘whispering’ on some of the horses. The gipsies would have let you. Dad knows some of them, and he says they’re quite decent sorts, though all gipsies aren’t. They camp here, you know. See!”
She pointed across an expanse of moor.
“If we cut over this ridge and then down by the next, we’ll be able to see the ‘Little House,’”said Stella.
A view of the “Little House,” though certainly very secondary in excitement compared with a visit to the gipsy horse-dealers, had certainly points of interest all its own, to Margot, anyhow.
“I say....” She stood perfectly still and stared. “It must be lonely for him.”
“Lonely! I should rather think so. In winter there’s snow all round. I suppose he shuts himself up there, and, of course, nobody ever goes to see him; so it doesn’t matter forthem! All the windows look out over the sea, you know. He evidently likes being lonely because he’s mad, I suppose.”
But, to be lonelyandmad seemed a piteous combination of horrors to Margot. She stood staring through grey eyes at the quiet, unhappy-looking little house, until Stella shivered at her side. “I say,—let’s go back. You’ve seen it now, and I wouldn’t dare go too near. I’d hate it, too, if he came out suddenly. He’s told some of the village children, before now, that he’ll throw them over the cliff, if he catches them staring.”
“I’m not staring—not in that way. I don’t believe he’d mind,” said Margot slowly.
But it was with a little shiver, too, that she herself turned away. There was somethingdistinctly eerie and mysterious and—sad about the silent little dwelling-place perched up on the side of the cliff. “Doesn’t anyone go near him, then?” she inquired.
“Well, anyhow, the gipsies don’t. They think he’s uncanny. They say he bewitches their horses; and you’ll never find a horse grazing over here. Oh, I say,—why, Margot,look!”
They had been retracing their steps, but Stella suddenly stood still and pointed.
“Well, I never!” exclaimed Margot, with interest.
“It’s one of the tents. Then the gipsieshaven’tall gone. Look, there are two horses as well!”
“What a queer thing!” said Margot.
“Isn’t it!” Stella was as keen as mustard, instantly. “Perhaps they’re not our gipsies after all! Generally, all ofthemtravel together; I’ve never seen one tent left behind. I say, Margot, let’s go nearer. Mother didn’t exactly say we weren’t to look at them.”
“No. It’s all right, I should think,” agreed Margot, “so long as we don’t talk to them. I say....” She had forgotten the “Little House” entirely in her excitement. “Stella, I’ve got an idea. Let’s pretend we’re in the