It was this way--one night, I don't know how it was, but I couldn't get to sleep, and thinking that a bite, may be, of something would send me off, towards midnight I got up from my bed to go and look in the kitchen for a bit of bread. And half-way down the stairs I heard the sound of low voices, and someone said, "I fear the Chanticleers," so I stood still where I was, and listened. And I peeped down and the kitchen fire was nearly out, but there was enough left for me to see the widow, and a man wrapped up in a cloak, sitting opposite to her with his back to the stairs, so I couldn't see his face. Their talk was low and at first I could only hear words here and there, but they kept making mention of the Chanticleers, and the man said something like keeping the Chanticleers and Master Ambrose Honeysuckle apart, because Master Ambrose had had a vision of Duke Aubrey. And if I hadn't known the widow and how she was a deep one and as fly as you make them, I'd have thought they were two poor daft old gossips, whose talk had turned wild and nasty with old age. And then the man laid his hand on her knee, and his voice was low, but this time it was so clear that I could hear it all, and I think I can remember every word of it, so I'll write it down for your Worship: "I fear counter orders. You know the Chief and his ways--at any moment he might betray his agents. Willy Wisp gave young Chanticleer fruit without my knowledge. And I told you how he and that doitered old weaver of yours have been putting their heads together, and that's what has frightened me most." And then his voice became too low for me to hear, till he said, "Those who go by the Milky Way often leave footprints. So let him go by the other." And then he got up to go, and I crept back to my room. But not a wink of sleep did I get that night for thinking over what I had heard. For though it seemed gibberish, it gave me the shivers, and that's a fact. And mad folks are often as dangerous as bad ones, so I hope your Worship will excuse me writing like this, and that you'll favour me with an answer by return, and take Master Ranulph away, for I don't like the look in the widow's eye when she looks at him, that I don't. And hoping this finds your Worship well as it leaves me,--I am, Your Worship's humble obedient servant, LUKE HEMPEN. How Master Nathaniel longed to jump on to his horse and ride post-haste to the farm! But that was impossible. Instead, he immediately despatched a groom with orders to ride day and night and deliver a letter to Luke Hempen, which bade him instantly take Ranulph to the farm near Moongrass (a village that lay some fifteen miles north of Swan-on-the-Dapple) from which for years he had got his cheeses.