









                         Chapter XX

                      Watching the Cows


In the interval between his two letters -- the one to
Hempie, and the one to Master Nathaniel -- Luke decided that
his suspicions had been groundless, for the days at the farm
were buzzing by with a soothing hum like that of summer
insects, and Ranulph was growing gay and sunburned.
   Then towards autumn Ranulph had begun to wilt, and
finally Luke overheard the strange conversation he had
reported in his letter to Master Nathaniel, and once again
the farm grew hateful to him, and he followed Ranulph as if
he were his shadow and counted the hours for the order to
come from Master Nathaniel bidding them return to Lud.
   Perhaps you may remember that on his first evening at the
farm Ranulph had wanted to join the children who watched the
widow's cows at night, but it had evidently been nothing but
a passing whim, for he did not express the wish again.
   And then at the end of June -- as a matter of fact it was
Midsummer day -- the widow had asked him if he would not
like that night to join the little herdsmen.  But towards
evening had come a steady downfall of rain, and the plan had
fallen through.
   It was not alluded to again till the end of October,
three or four days before Master Nathaniel left
Lud-in-the-Mist.  It had been a very mild autumn in the West
and the nights were fresh rather than cold, and when, that
evening, the little boys came knocking at the door for their
bread and cheese, the widow began to jeer at Ranulph, in a
hearty jovial way, for being town-bred and never having
spent a night under the sky.
   "Why don't you go to-night with the little herdsmen?  You
wanted to when you first came here, and the Doctor said it
would do you no harm."
   Now Luke was feeling particularly downcast that night; no
answer had come from Master Nathaniel to his letter, though
it was well over a week since he had written.  He felt
forlorn and abandoned, with a weight of responsibility too
heavy for his shoulders, and he was certainly not going to
add to that weight by allowing Ranulph to run the risk of
catching a bad chill.  And as well, any suggestion that came
from the widow was greeted by him with suspicion.
   "Master Ranulph," he cried excitedly, "I can't let you
go.  His Worship and my old auntie wouldn't like it, what
with the nights getting damp and all.  No, Master Ranulph,
be a good little chap and go to your bed as usual." 
   As he was speaking he caught Hazel's eye, and she gave
him an almost imperceptible nod of approval.
   But the widow cried, with a loud scornful laugh, in which
Ranulph shrilly joined: "Too damp, indeed!  When we haven't
had so much as a drop of rain these four weeks!  Don't let
yourself be coddled, Master Ranulph.  Young Hempen's nothing
but an old maid in breeches.  He's as bad as my Hazel.  I've
always said that if she doesn't die an old maid, it isn't
that she wasn't born one!"
   Hazel said nothing, but she fixed her eyes beseechingly
on Luke.
   But Ranulph, I fear, was a very spoiled little boy, and,
into the bargain, he dearly loved annoying Luke; so he
jumped up and down, shouting, "Old maid Hempen!   Old maid
Hempen!  I'm *going* -- so there!"
   "That's right, little master!" laughed the widow. 
"You'll be a man before I am."
   And the three little herdsmen, who had been watching this
scene with shy amusement, grinned from ear to ear.
   "Do as you like, then," said Luke sullenly, "but I'm
coming too.  And, anyway, you must wrap up as warmly as you
can."
   So they went upstairs to put on their boots and mufflers.
   When they came down Hazel, with compressed lips and a
little frown knitting her brows, gave them their rations of
cheese and bread and honey, and then, with a furtive glance
in the direction of the widow, who was standing with her
back turned, talking to the little herdsmen, she slipped two
sprigs of fennel into Luke's buttonhole.  "Try and get
Master Ranulph to wear one of them," she whispered.
   This was not reassuring.  But how is an undergardener,
not yet turned eighteen, to curb the spoiled son of his
master -- especially when a strong-willed, elderly woman
throws her weight into the other scale?
   "Well, well," said the widow, bustling up, "it's high
time you were off.  You have a full three miles walk before
you."
   "Yes, yes, let's be off!" cried Ranulph excitedly; Luke
felt it would be useless to protest further, so the little
cavalcade dived into the moonlit night.
   The world was looking very beautiful.  At one end of the
scale of darkness stood the pines, like rich black shadows;
at the other end of the scale were the farm buildings, like
white glimmering human masks.  And in between these two
extremes were all the various degrees of greyness -- the
shimmer of the Dapple that was more white than grey, and all
the different trees -- plane trees, liege-oaks, olives --
and one could almost recognize their foliage by their lesser
or greater degree of density.
   On they trudged in silence, up the course of the Dapple
-- Luke too anxious and aggrieved to talk, Ranulph buried
too deep in dreams, and the little herdsmen far too shy.
   There were nothing but rough cattle paths in the valley
-- heavy enough going by day, and doubly so by night, and
before they had yet gone half the way Ranulph's feet began
to lag. 
   "Would you like to rest a bit and then go back?" said
Luke eagerly.
   But Ranulph shook his head scornfully and mended his
pace.
   Nor did he allow himself to lag again till they reached
their destination -- a little oasis of rich pasturage,
already on rising ground though still a mile or two away
from the hills.
   Once here -- in their own kingdom, as it were -- the
little herdsmen became lively and natural; laughing and
chatting with Ranulph, as they set about repairing such
breaches as had been made in the huts by the rough and
tumble of twelve odd hours.  Then there was wood to be
collected, and a fire to be lit -- and into these tasks
Ranulph threw himself with a gay, though rather feverish,
vigour.
   At last they settled down to their long watch --
squatting round the fire, and laughing for sheer love of
adventure as good campaigners should; for were there not
marching towards them some eight dark hours equipped with
who could say what curious weapons from the rich arsenal of
night and day?
   The cattle crouched round them in soft shadowy clumps,
placidly munching, and dreaming with wide-open eyes.  The
narrow zone of colour created by the firelight was like the
planet Earth -- a little freak of brightness in a universe
of impenetrable shadows.
   Suddenly Luke noticed that each of the three little
herdsmen was, like himself, wearing a sprig of fennel.
   "I say!  why are all you little chaps wearing fennel?" he
blurted out.
   They stared at him in amazement.
   "But you be wearing a bit yourself, Master Hempen," said
Toby, the eldest.
   "I know" -- and he could not resist adding in an offhand
tone -- "it was a present from a young lady.  But do you
always wear a bit in these parts?" he added.
   "Always on *this* night of the year," said the children. 
And as Luke looked puzzled, Toby cried in surprise, "Don't
you wear fennel in Lud on the last night of October?"
   "No, we don't," answered Luke, a little crossly, "and why
should we, I should like to know?"
   "Why," cried Toby in a shocked voice, "because this is
the night when the Silent People -- the dead, you know --
come back to Dorimare."
   Ranulph looked up quickly.  But Luke scowled; he was sick
to death of western superstitions, and into the bargain he
was feeling frightened.  He removed the second sprig of
fennel given him by Hazel from his button-hole, and holding
it out to Ranulph, said, "Here, Master Ranulph!  Stick that
in your hatband or somewhere."
   But Ranulph shook his head.  "I don't want any fennel,
thank you, Luke," he said.  "I'm not frightened."
   The children gazed at him in half-shocked admiration, and
Luke sighed gloomily.
   "Not frightened of... the Silent People?" queried Toby.
   "No," answered Ranulph curtly.  And then he added, "At
least not to-night." 
   "I'll wager the widow Gibberty, at any rate, isn't
wearing any fennel," said Luke, with a harsh laugh.
   The children exchanged queer little glances and began to
snigger.  This aroused Luke's curiosity: "Now then, out with
it, youngsters!  Why doesn't the widow Gibberty wear
fennel?"
   But their only answer was to nudge each other, and
snigger behind their fingers.
   This put Luke on his mettle.  "Look here, you bantams,"
he cried, "don't you forget that you've got the High
Seneschal's son here, and if you know anything about the
widow that's... well, that's a bit fishy, it's your duty to
let me know.  If you don't, you may find yourselves in gaol
some day.  So you just spit it out!" and he glared at them
as fiercely as his kindly china-blue eyes would allow.
   They began to look scared.  "But the widow doesn't know
we've seen anything... and if she found out, and that we'd
been blabbing, oh my! wouldn't we catch it!" cried Toby, and
his eyes grew round with terror at the mere thought.
   "No, you won't catch it.  I'll give you my word," said
Luke.  "And if you've really anything worth telling, the
Seneschal will be very grateful, and each of you may find
yourselves with more money in your pockets than your three
fathers put together have ever had in all their lives.  And,
anyhow, to begin with, if you'll tell me what you know, you
can toss up for this knife, and there's not a finer one to
be found in all Lud," and he waved before their dazzled eyes
his greatest treasure, a magnificent six-bladed knife, given
him one Yule-tide by Master Nathaniel, with whom he had
always been a favourite.  At the sight of this marvel of
cutlery, the little boys proved venal, and in voices
scarcely above a whisper and with frequent frightened
glances over their shoulders, as if the widow might be
lurking in the shadows listening to them, they told their
story.
   One night, just before dawn, a cow called Cornflower,
from the unusually blue colour of her hide, who had recently
been added to the herd, suddenly grew restless and began to
*moo*, the strange *moo* of blue cows that was like the
cooing of doves, and then rose to her feet and trotted away
into the darkness.  Now Cornflower was a very valuable cow
and the widow had given them special injunctions to look
after her, so Toby, leaving the other two to mind the rest
of the herd, dashed after her into the thinning darkness and
though she had got a good start of him was able to keep in
her track by the tinkling of her bell.  Finally he came on
her standing at the brink of the Dapple and nozzling the
water.  He went close up to her and found that she had got
her teeth into something beneath the surface of the stream
and was tearing at it in intense excitement.  Just then who
should drive up in a cart but the widow and Doctor Endymion
Leer.  They appeared much annoyed at finding Toby, but they
helped him get Cornflower away from the water.  Bits of
straw were hanging from her mouth and it was stained with
juices of a colour he had never seen before.  The widow then
told him to go back to his companions, and said she would 
herself take Cornflower back to the herd in the morning. 
And, to account for her sudden appearance on the scene, she
said she had come with the doctor to try and catch a very
rare fish that only rose to the surface an hour before
sunrise.  "But you see," went on Toby, "my dad's a great
fisherman, and often takes me out with him, but he never
told me about this fish in the Dapple that can only be
caught before sunrise, and I thought I'd just like to have a
peep at it.  So instead of going back to the others right
away, I hid, I did, behind some trees.  And they took some
nets, they did, out of the cart, but it wasn't fish they
drew up in them... no it wasn't."  He was suddenly seized
with embarrassment, and he and his two little friends again
began to snigger.
   "Out with it!" cried Luke impatiently.  "*What* was in
their nets?  You'll not get the knife for only half a story,
you know."
   "You say, Dorian," said Toby bashfully, nudging the
second eldest boy; but Dorian, too, would only giggle and
hang his head.
   "I don't mind saying!" cried Peter, the youngest,
valiantly.  "It was *fairy fruit* -- that's what it was!"
   Luke sprang to his feet.  "Busty Bridget!" he exclaimed
in a horrified voice.  Ranulph began to chuckle.  "Didn't
you guess right away what it was, Luke?" he asked.
   "Yes," went on Peter, much elated by the effect his words
had produced, "it was wicker baskets all full of fairy
fruit, I know, because Cornflower had torn off the top of
one of them."
   "Yes," interrupted Toby, beginning to think that little
Peter had stolen enough of his thunder, "she had torn off
the top of one of the baskets, and I've never seen fruit
like it; it was as if coloured stars had fallen from the sky
into the grass, and were making all of the valley bright,
and Cornflower, she was eating as if she would never stop...
more like a bee among flowers, she was, than a common cow. 
And the widow and the doctor, though of course they were put
out, they couldn't help laughing to see her.  And her milk
the next morning -- oh my!  It tasted of roses and
shepherd's thyme, but she never came back to the herd, for
the widow sold her to a farmer who lived twenty miles away,
and..."
   But Luke could contain himself no longer.  "You little
rascals!" he cried, "to think of all the trouble there is in
Lud just now, and the magistrates and the town guard racking
their brains to find out how the stuff gets across the
border, and three little bantams like you knowing all about
it, and not telling a soul!  Why did you keep it to
yourselves like that?"
   "We were frightened of the widow," said Toby sheepishly. 
"You won't tell that we've blabbed," he added in an
imploring voice.
   "No, I'll see that you don't get into trouble," said
Luke.  "Here's the knife, and a coin to toss up for it
with... Toasted Cheese!  A nice place this, we've come to! 
Are you sure, young Toby, it was Dr. Leer you saw?"  Toby
nodded his head emphatically.  "Aye, it was Dr. Leer and no
mistake -- her's my hand on it."  And he stuck out a brown
little paw.
   "Well, I'm blessed!  *Dr. Leer!*" exclaimed Luke; and
Ranulph gave a little mocking laugh.
   Luke fell into a brown study; surprise, indignation, and
pleasant visions of himself swaggering in Lud, praised and
flattered by all as the man who had run the smugglers to
earth, chasing each other across the surface of his brain. 
And, in the light of Toby's story, could it be that the
stranger whose mysterious conversation with the widow he had
overheard was none other than the popular, kindly doctor,
Endymion Leer?  It seemed almost incredible.
   But on one thing he was resolved -- for once he would
assert himself, and Ranulph should not spend another night
at the widow Gibberty's farm.
   Toby won the toss and pocketed the knife with a grin of
satisfaction, and by degrees the talk became as flickering
and intermittent as the light of the dying fire, which they
were too idle to feed with sticks; and finally it was
quenched to silence, and they yielded to the curious drugged
sensation that comes from being out of doors and wide-awake
at night.
   It was as if the earth had been transported to the sky,
and they had been left behind in chaos, and were gazing up
at its towns and beasts and heroes flattened out in
constellations and looking like the stippled pictures in a
neolithic cave.  And the Milky Way was the only road visible
in the universe.
   Now and then a toad harped on its one silvery note, and
from time to time a little breeze would spring up and then
die down.
   Suddenly Ranulph broke the silence with the startling
question, "How far is it from here to Fairyland?"
   The little boys nudged one another and again began to
snigger behind their hands.
   "For shame, Master Ranulph!" cried Luke indignantly,
"talking like that before youngsters!"
   "But I want to *know*!" said Ranulph petulantly.
   "Tell what your old granny used to say, Dorian," giggled
Toby.
   And Dorian was finally persuaded to repeat the old
saying: "A thousand leagues by the great West Road and ten
by the Milky Way."
   Ranulph sprang to his feet, and with rather a wild laugh,
he cried, "Let's have a race to Fairyland.  I bet it will be
me that gets there first.  One, two, three -- and *away*!"
   And he would actually have plunged off into the darkness,
had not the little boys, half shocked, half admiring, flung
themselves on him and dragged him back.
   "There's an imp of mischief got into you to-night, Master
Ranulph," growled Luke.
   "You shouldn't joke about things like that... specially
to-night, Master Chanticleer," said Toby gravely. 
   "You're right there, young Toby," said Luke, "I only wish
he had half your sense."
   "It was just a bit of fun, wasn't it, Master
Chanticleer?  You didn't *really* want us to race to...
yonder?" asked little Peter, peering through the darkness at
Ranulph with scared eyes.
   "Of course it was only fun," said Luke.
   But Ranulph said nothing.
   Again they lapsed into silence.  And all round them,
subject to blind taciturn laws, and heedless of man, myriads
of things were happening, in the grass, in the trees, in the
sky.
   Luke yawned and stretched himself.  "It must be getting
near dawn," he said.
   They had successfully doubled the dangerous cape of
midnight, and he began to feel secure of safely weathering
what remained of their dark voyage.
   It was the hour when night-watchers begin to idealize
their bed, and, with Sancho Panza, to bless the man who
invented it.  They shuddered, and drew their cloaks closer
round their shoulders.
   Then, something happened.  It was not so much a
modification of the darkness, as a sigh of relief, a slight
relaxing of tension, so that one *felt*, rather than saw,
that the night had suddenly lost a shade of its density...
ah! yes; there! between these two shoulders of the hills she
is bleeding to death.
   At first the spot was merely a degree less black than the
rest of the sky.  Then it turned grey, then yellow, then
red.  And the earth was undergoing the same transformation. 
Here and there patches of greyness broke out in the
blackness of the grass, and after a few seconds one saw that
they were clumps of flowers.  Then the greyness became
filtered with a delicate sea-green; and next, one realized
that the grey-green belonged to the foliage, against which
the petals were beginning to show white -- and then pink, or
yellow, or blue; but a yellow like that of primroses, a blue
like that of certain wild periwinkles, colours so elusive
that one suspects them to be due to some passing accident of
light, and that, were one to pick the flower, it would prove
to be pure white.
   Ah, there can be no doubt of it now!  The blues and
yellows are real and perdurable.  Colour is steadily flowing
through the veins of the earth, and we may take heart, for
she will soon be restored to life again.  But had we kept
one eye on the sky we should have noticed that a star was
quenched with every flower that reappeared on earth.
   And now the valley is again red and gold with vineyards,
the hills are clothed with pines, and the Dapple is rosy.
   Then a cock crowed, and another answered it, and then
another -- a ghostly sound, which, surely, did not belong to
the smiling, triumphant earth, but rather to one of those
distant dying stars.
   But what had taken Ranulph?  He had sprung to his feet
and was standing motionless, a strange light in his eyes. 
   And then again, from a still more distant star, it
seemed, another cock crowed, and another answered it.
   "The piper! the piper!" cried Ranulph in a loud
triumphant voice.  And, before his astonished companions
could get to their feet, he was dashing up one of the
bridle-paths towards the Debatable Hills.
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