This he said with a lively recollection of Titmouse's performances on the journey out, and a lurking dread that he might behave a little worse on the journey home. A lively animal of that kind, going home to his stable, through the uncertain lights and shadows of woodland roads, and driven by such a charioteer as Violet Tempest, was not to be thought of without a shudder. "I think I had better walk, in any case," said Mr. Scobel thoughtfully. "I shall be wanted to keep the children together." "Let us all walk home," suggested Roderick. "We can go through the plantations. It will be very jolly in the moonlight. Bates can drive your pony back, Violet." Vixen hesitated. "It's not more than four miles through the plantations," said Roderick. "Do you think I am afraid of a long walk?" "Of course not. You were a modern Atalanta three years ago. I don't suppose a winter in Paris and a season at Brighton have quite spoiled you." "It shall be as you like, Mrs. Scobel," said Vixen, appealing to the Vicar's wife. "Oh, let us walk by all means," replied Mrs. Scobel, divining her husband's feelings with respect to Titmouse. "Then, you may drive the pony home, Bates," said Violet; "and be sure you give him a good supper." Titmouse went rattling down the hill at a pace that almost justified the Vicar's objection to him. He gave a desperate shy in the hollow at sight of a shaggy donkey, with a swollen appearance about the head, suggestive, to the equine mind, of hobgoblins. Convulsed at this appalling spectre, Titmouse stood on end for a second or two, and then tore violently off, swinging his carriage behind him, so that the groom's figure swayed to and fro in the moonlight. "Thank God we're not sitting behind that brute!" ejaculated the Vicar devoutly. The pedestrians went off in the other direction, along the brow of the hill, by a long white road that crossed a wide sweep of heathy country, brown ridges and dark hollows, distant groups of firs standing black against the moonlit sky, here and there a solitary yew that looked as if it were haunted--just such a landscape as that Scottish heath upon which Macbeth met the three weird women at set of sun, when the battle was lost and won. Vixen and Rorie led the way; the procession of school-children followed, singing hymns as they went with a vocal power that gave no token of diminution. "Their singing is very melodious when the sharp edge is taken off by distance," said Rorie; and he and Violet walked at a pace which soon left the children a good way behind them. Mellowed by a quarter of a mile or so of interesting space, the music lent a charm to the tranquil, perfumed night.