Old Ben was a mighty figure of a man, even though he was over eighty. He didn’t shoe many horses now, but sat in the sun, watching all that was going on. He had a great mane of white hair, and eyes that were as black as the coal he had so many times heated to a fiery flame.

“Good morning, young masters and Miss,” he said and Julian grinned. That would please George and Henry!

“We’ve got some questions to ask you,” said George, dismounting.

“Ask away!” said the old man. “If it’s about this place, there’s nothing much old Ben can’t tell you! Give Jim your horses. Now, ask away!”

Chapter Nine

The blacksmith tells a tale

“Well, began Julian, ‘we went riding on Mystery Moor yesterday, and for one thing we’d like to know if there is any reason for the curious name. Was there ever a mystery on that moor?”

“Oh, there be plenty of mysteries away there,” said Old Ben. “People lost and never come back again, noises that no one could find the reason of...”

“What kind of noises?” said Anne, curiously.

“Ah now, when I were a boy, I spent nights up on that moor,” said old Ben, solemnly, “and the noises that went on there! Screeches and howls and the like, and moans and the sweep of big wings...”

“Well, all that might have been owls and foxes and things like that,” said Dick. “I’ve heard a barn-owl give a screech just over my head which made me nearly jump out of my skin. If I hadn’t known it was an owl I’d have run for miles!”

Ben grinned and his face ran into a score of creases and wrinkles.

“Why is it called Mystery Moor?” persisted Julian. “Is it a very old name?”

“When my Grandad was a boy it were called Misty Moor,” said the old blacksmith, remembering. “See, Misty, not Mystery. And that were because of the sea-fogs that came stealing in from the coast, and lay heavy on the moor, so that no man could see his hand in front of his face. Yes, I’ve been lost in one of them mists, and right scared I was too. It swirled round me like a live thing, and touched me all over with its cold damp fingers.”

“How horrid!” said Anne with a shiver. “What did you do?”

“Well, first I ran for my life,” said Ben, getting out his pipe and looking into the empty bowl. “I ran over heather and into gorse. I fell a dozen times, and all the time the mist was feeling me with its damp fingers, trying to get me, that’s what the old folk used to say of that mist, it was always trying to get you!”

“Still, it was only a mist,” said George, feeling that the old man was exaggerating. “Does it still come over the moor?”

“Oh ay,” said Ben, ramming some tobacco into his pipe. “Autumn’s the time, but it comes sudden-like at any moment of the year. I’ve knowed it come at the end of a fine summer’s day, creeping in stealthy-like, and my, if you don’t happen to see it soon enough, it gets you!”