While all this was going on, Brisquet had come home via the main road to Puchay by way of the Asses' Cross and Mortemer Abbey as he had a bundle of thinly chopped firewood to deliver to Jean Paquier.
"Have you seen our children?" said Brisquette.
"Our children?" said Brisquet. "Our children? My God! Have they gone out?"
"I sent them as far as the mound and the pond to meet you, but you came by a different route."
Brisquet did not put down his sharp axe. He started to run in the direction of the mound.
"Why don't you take Bichonne with you?" Brisquette shouted after him.
But Bichonne was already way ahead of him.
She was so far ahead that Brisquet soon lost sight of her. And it did him no good to shout: "Biscotin! Biscotine!" There was no answer.
He started to cry then, for he imagined that his children were a lost cause.
After running for a long long time, it seemed to him that he could hear Bichonne barking. He walked straight towards the thicket, to the place whee he had heard her and went in with his sharp axe raised.