Lud-in-the-Mist

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—here’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