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 button-hole. "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.