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 it, and the farmer advised its being taken into a yard where there was a great empty barn and backed against that; so that they had the whole of the barn as a kind of anteroom, and a most enchanting smell of hay everywhere.