“Painting this afternoon?” asked her host, trying to be cheerful.
Yes, Cynthia had thought she’d take the tram into the tiny village and sketch the interior of the old ruined fort, with the remains of the sally-port and guardhouse.
Monsieur Marge surveyed the sky, unflinchingly blue. “Too hot to go into town,” he commented. “Why not stay and we go hunt for mushrooms. Madame wishes some for the dinner tonight. I know deep woods, cool, where the sun does not strike.”
City-bred Cynthia had never gathered mushrooms; it sounded like a new and amusing experience, and it would certainly be cooler than sketching on that hot and sunny hill beyond the town. Besides she didn’t really want to go far from the house, in case little Thomasina should be found ... no, _when_ she should be found.
Cynthia went to her room for a wide shade hat and came downstairs again to find M. Marge ready for her. He bore a leather bound _makhila_, the Basque walking stick, with its graven brass binding and leather strap.
The method, it seemed, was to string the fungus on a long thin peeled rod. They were big things, flabby and pale lavender, rather like unpleasantly raw liver, but Monsieur assured her they were delicious when cooked.
They had found the grove about two miles from the house up an old logging road now nearly overgrown with brush and deep damp moss. The pines rose huge and straight and the air was cool, but after an hour or more of scrabbling over dead logs and grubbing among fallen leaves for the mushrooms Cynthia was glad to sink wearily to a seat on a mossy stone.
“_Ouff_ but I’m weary. Goodness, how you can walk!” she exclaimed to the pleased old man.
“There’s a funny noise about here,” Cynthia commented after a moment of silence. “Sounds rather like a cricket, yet not. ... I wonder. ...” She listened again and as the old man started to speak held up her hand for silence. There was no breeze. The pine boughs high overhead scarcely moved. There were certainly no crickets about, yet what was that noise?
Then from a thicket just a few yards away came a familiar call. “Cuck ... oo! Cuck ... ooooo!”
“Your clock!” Cynthia almost shouted, and jumped to her feet. Monsieur Marge was right behind her as she parted the brush, looked downward. She chuckled and held back the branch that he might see.