Read Online Five Go to Mystery Moor by Enid Blyton - Free Book Online

eyes skinned," said old Ben. „Look away to the coast-side and watch there, that"s where it comes from. But there baint many mists nowadays, l don"t know for why. No, now I think on it, there haven"t been a mist, not a proper wicked one, for nigh on three years."
    „What I"d like to know is why was the name changed to Mystery Moor," said Henry. „I can understand its being called Misty Moor, but now everyone cal s it Mystery, not Misty."

    „Well now, that must have been about seventy years ago, when I were a bit of a boy,"
    said Ben, lighting his pipe and puffing hard. He was enjoying himself. He didn"t often get such an interested audience as this, five of them, including a dog who sat and listened too!
    „That was when the Bartle Family built the little railway over the moor," he began, and stopped at the exclamations of his five listeners.
    „Ah! We wanted to know about that!"
    „Oh! You know about the railway then!"
    „Do go on!"
    The blacksmith seemed to get some trouble with his pipe and pulled at it for an exasperatingly long time. George wished she was a horse and could stamp her foot impatiently!
    „Well, the Bartle Family was a big one," said Ben at last. „Al boys, but for one ailing little girl. Big strong fellows they were, I remember them well. I was scared of them, they were so free with their fists. Well, one of them, Dan, found a mighty good stretch of sand out there on the moor..."
    „Oh yes, we thought there might have been a sand-quarry," said Anne. Ben frowned at the interruption.
    „And as there were nine or ten good strong Bartles, they reckoned to make a fine do of it,"
    said Ben. „They got wagons and they went to and from the quarry they dug, and they sold their sand for miles around, good, sharp sand it were..."
    „We saw some," said Henry. „But what about the rails?"
    „Don"t hurry him," said Dick, with a frown.
    „They made a mort of money," said Ben, remembering. „And they set to work and built a little railway to carry an injin and trucks to the quarry and back, to save labour. My, my, that were a nine days" wonder, that railway! Us youngsters used to follow the little injin, puffing along, and it were the longing of us al to drive it. But we never did. Them Bartles kept a big stick, each one of them, and they whipped the hide off any boy that got too near them. Fierce they were, and quarrelsome."
    „Why did the railway fall into ruin?" asked Julian. „The rails are al overgrown with heather and grass now. You can hardly see them."
    „Well, now we come to that there Mystery you keep on about," said Ben, taking an extra big puff at his pipe. „Them Bartles fel foul of the gypsies up on the moor..."
    „Oh, were there gypsies on the moor then?" said Dick. „There are some now!"
    „Oh ay, there"s always been gypsies on the moor, long as I can remember," said the blacksmith. „Well, it"s said them gypsies quarrelled with the Bartles, and it wasn"t hard to do that, most people did! And the gypsies pulled up bits of the line, here and there, and the little injin toppled over and pulled the trucks with it."
    The children could quite well imagine the little engine puffing along, coming to the damaged rails and falling over. What a to-do there must have been up on the moor then!
    „The Bartles weren"t ones to put up with a thing like that," said Ben, „so they set about to drive al the gypsies off the moor, and they swore that if so much as one caravan went there, they"d set fire to it and chase the gypsies over to the coast and into the sea!"
    „They must have been a fierce family," said Anne.
    „You"re right there," said Ben. „Al nine or ten of them were big upstanding men, with great shaggy eyebrows that almost hid their eyes, and loud voices. Nobody dared to cross them. If they did, they"d have the whole family on their door-step with sticks. They ruled this place, they did, and my, they were hated! Us children ran off as soon as we saw one coming round a