"Though as to the jerkin—my eyes not being as sharp as they once were...."
"Oh! never mind about the jerkin," cried Luke. "Did you stop and speak to him?"
"But about that jerkin—you do cut an old man short, you do ... it might have been green, but then again it might have been yellow. But the young gentleman what I saw was not the one as you're after."
"How do you know?"
"Why, because he was the Seneschal's son—the one I saw," said the old man proudly, as if the fact put him at once into a superior position to Luke.
"But it's the Seneschal's son—Master Ranulph Chanticleer, that I'm after, too!" cried Luke, eagerly. "How long is it since you saw him? I must catch up with him."
"You'll not do that, on your two feet," said the goatherd calmly. "That young gentleman, and his yellow jerkin and his red hair, must be well on the way to Moongrass by now."
"To Moongrass?" And Luke stared at him in amazement.
"Aye, to Moongrass, where the cheeses come from. You see it was this way. I'm goatherd to the Lud yeomanry what the Seneschal has sent to watch the border to keep out you know what. And who should come running into their camp about half an hour ago with his red jerkin and his green hair but your young gentleman. 'Halt!' cries the Yeoman on guard. 'Let me pass. I'm young Master Chanticleer,' cries he. 'And where are you bound for?' cries the Yeoman on guard. 'For Fairyland,' says he. And then didn't they all laugh! And the little chap flew into quite a rage, and said he was off to Fairyland, and no one should stop him. And, of course, that just made them laugh all the more. But though they wouldn't let him go to Fairyland, the young rascal...." And here the old man was seized with a paroxysm of wheezy laughter which brought on another bout of coughing.
"Well, as I was saying," he went on, when he had recovered, "they wouldn't let him through to Fairyland, but they said they would ride back with him where he came from. 'No, you won't,' says he; 'my dad,' says he, 'don't want me to go back there, never any more.' And he whisks out a letter signed by the Seneschal, bidding him leave the widow Gibberty's farm, where he was staying, and go straight off to Farmer Jellygreen's at Moongrass. So one of the Yeomen saddled his horse, and the youngster got up behind him, and they set off for Moongrass by one of the cattle-paths running northeast, which comes out at about the middle of the road between Swan and Moongrass. So that's that, my young fellow." In his relief Luke tossed his cap into the air.