The first people who came were two men in a dog-cart. We waved the signalising petticoat and they pulled up, and one got out and came up to the Mill.
We explained about the lunatic and the wanting us to jump out of the windows.
"Right oh!" cried the man to the one still in the cart; "got him." And the other hitched the horse to the gate and came over, and the other went to the house.
"Come along down, young ladies and gentlemen," said the second man when he had been told. "He's as gentle as a lamb. He does not think it hurts to jump out of windows. He thinks it really is flying. He'll be like an angel when he sees the doctor."
We asked if he had been mad before, because we had thought he might have suddenly gone so.
"Certainly he has!" replied the man; "he has never been, so to say, himself since tumbling out of a flying-machine he went up in with a friend. He was an artist previous to that—an excellent one, I believe. But now he only draws objects with wings—and now and then he wants to make people fly—perfect strangers sometimes, like yourselves. Yes, miss, I am his attendant, and his pictures often amuse me by the half-hours together, poor gentleman."
"How did he get away?" Alice asked.
"Well, miss, the poor gentleman's brother got hurt and Mr. Sidney—that's him inside—seemed wonderfully put out and hung over the body in a way pitiful to see. But really he was extracting the cash from the sufferer's pockets. Then, while all of us were occupied with Mr. Eustace, Mr. Sidney just packs his portmanteau and out he goes by the back door. When we missed him we sent for Dr. Baker, but by the time he came it was too late to get here. Dr. Baker said at once he'd revert to his boyhood's home. And the doctor has proved correct."
We had all come out of the Mill, and with this polite person we went to the gate, and saw the lunatic get into the carriage, very gentle and gay.
"But, Doctor," Oswald said, "he did say he'd give nine pounds a week for the rooms. Oughtn't he to pay?"