"Really my grandfather, and the owner of Black Anchor Farm, also the patron of the living. Now you know why the vicar condescends to visit us. Brock is such a common name in this part of Devonshire that nobody could dream he is _the_ Mr. Brock." "And why did you come here? Why have you lived, like a couple of common people, in this ramshackle place, without housekeeper or servant? You simply made the people talk about you. How could they understand a couple of gentlemen pigging it! Your mother and sisters coming here naturally made a scandal. Even I couldn't believe they were your relations, though I was positive you were much better than you pretended to be. I shall never forgive you for talking to me in Devonshire dialect, though I'm quite willing to forget you had supper one Sunday evening in our kitchen." "Wasn't it fun too!" Sidney chuckled. "I wanted grandfather to come, but he drew the line at that. When you know grandfather well--and that's going to be jolly soon--you will guess how enormously he has enjoyed his time here. It was his idea entirely. He loves roughing it, he has spent most of his life knocking about the world, and he's only really happy in a cottage. He declares luxury and high feeding kill more people than any disease. It's only the rustic who lives to be a hundred, he says; and, as he means to score a century himself, he takes a spell of living like a rustic occasionally. He could never get a satisfactory tenant for this place, so he told father one day he'd made up his mind to show the commoners what hard work could accomplish on a Dartmoor farm." "Where do you come in?" "Just here. I hadn't been very strong since leaving school--crocked myself rowing--and the doctor said I ought to work in the open air for a time before taking up anything serious. You can't persuade doctors that farming is work; they look upon it as a recreation. So grandfather suggested I should come along with him. Father was willing, but mother was horrified. I jumped at the idea of course. Grandfather is the grandest old fellow alive, and I would rather be under him than all the doctors in the world. He wouldn't have a housekeeper, as he likes doing everything for himself when he's roughing: besides, a woman would have seen his papers and letters, and found out who he was; and naturally he doesn't want the people to know that the patron of the living, and biggest landowner in the parish, is grubbing in the bogs down here." "Didn't the scandal make him angry?" "He has never heard a word of it." "So that's the mystery!" cried Nellie, feeling rather ashamed of herself.