“I didn’t think o’ that,” she said: “there’s mother’s.”
“No, that wouldn’t do,” interrupted Polly. “Your mother has only two rooms. I couldn’t hide long in her house; and besides, she is poor, I would not put myself on her for anything. I’ll tell you what, Maggie, we’ll go across Peg-Top Moor, and make straight for the old hut by the belt of fir-trees. You know it, we had a picnic there once, and I made up a story of hermits living in the hut. Well, you and I will be the hermits.”
“But what are we to eat?” said Maggie, whose ideas were all practical, and her appetite capacious.
Polly’s bright eyes, however, were dancing, and her whole face was radiant. The delight of being a real hermit, and living in a real hut, far surpassed any desire for food.
“We’ll eat berries from the trees,” she said, “and we’ll drink water from the spring. I know there’s a spring of delicious water not far from the hut. Oh! come along, Maggie, do; this is delightful!”
An old pony, who went in the family by the stately name of Sultan, had been wont to help the children in their long rambles over the moor. They were never allowed to wander far alone, and had not made one expedition since their mother’s death. It was really two years since Polly had been to the hut at the far end of Peg-Top Moor. This moor was particularly lonely, it was interspersed at intervals with thickets of rank undergrowth and belts of trees, and was much frequented on that account by gipsies and other lawless people. Polly, who went last over the moor, carried the greater part of the way on Sultan’s friendly back, had very little idea how far the distance was. It was September now, but the sun shone on the heather and fern with great power, and as Polly had no hat on her head, having refused to take Maggie’s from her; she was glad to take shelter under friendly trees whenever they came across her path.
At first the little girls walked very quickly, for they were afraid of being overtaken and brought back; but after a time their steps grew slow, their movement decidedly languid, and Maggie at least began to feel that berries from the trees and water from the spring, particularly when neither was to be found anywhere, was by no means a substantial or agreeable diet to dwell upon.
“I don’t think I like being a hermit,” she began. “I don’t know nought what it means, but I fancy it must be very thinning and running down to the constitootion.”
Polly looked at her, and burst out laughing.
“It is,” she said, “that’s what the life was meant for, to subdue the flesh in all possible ways; you’ll get as thin as a whipping-post, Mag.”