“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—he does keep 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, and the 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, they do know 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? There is!” Margot suddenly 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, do go 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.