thing
perfectly awful: he growled.

Gregory had no courage left. His tongue and lips refused to obey him.
He felt his knees turning to water.

How he wished he had let Mary come too! Dogs always liked her. Why was
it that dogs liked some people and not others? he asked himself.
Ridiculous! No one liked dogs better than he, if this ass of a collie
only knew it.

Meanwhile, the collie, still growling, drew nearer, and Gregory felt
himself pricking all over. Where would it bite him first? he wondered.

But just as he had given up all hope, a voice called out sharply,
"Caesar, come here!" and the collie turned and ran to where a tall,
red-faced man was standing.

"What do you want?" the man then said to Gregory, with equal sharpness.
"You're trespassing."

Gregory was frankly crying now--with relief; but he pulled himself
together and said he wanted to see the farmer.

"I'm the farmer," said the man. "What is it?"

Gregory explained what he had come for.

"No," said the farmer, "not on my land."

Gregory said that other farmers had said yes.

"I don't care," said the farmer, "I say NO."

Gregory longed to ask if there was another way back, but he had not the
courage, and he turned and made again for the gate of the bullock
meadow.

The bullocks were still near the path, so he climbed softly over the
gate, as he feared they might hear him, and crept round by the hedge to
the next gate without attracting any notice.

Had he only known, he might have gone safely by the path, for one
bullock was saying to another: "There's that little duffer going all
that long way out of his course just for fear of us. What do you say to
trotting down to the gate and giving him another scare?"

"No," said the other. "It's not worth while. He's very small, too, and
these horns, you know--they are a bit startling. Besides, there are all
those flies by the gate."

"True," said the other; "but it makes me smile, all the same."

So Gregory got out safely, and, performing the same manoeuvre with the
geese, he reached the caravan and Janet's arms without further
misfortune.

The others were of course disappointed at the result of his mission,
and walked on another half-mile, much farther from Cirencester than
they had wished to be, to the next farm.

There Mary and Hester made the request, which was at once granted; and
the farmer and his wife were so much interested that they both walked
down to the Slowcoach and examined i