“Not that I know much, but it’s so queer!” 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’t mine!” 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 even he’s been inside! He’s called heaps of times, though, and never got any answer to his knocks. As for the gipsies....”
“The gipsies!” repeated everyone.