“Rond, rond, rond, peti’ pie pon’ ton’!
C’éta’t une bonne femme,
Qui garda’t sex moutons,
Rond’, rond’, rond, peti’ pie pon’ ton’!”
“He’s singing about the woman who was taking care of her sheep and how the lamb got his chin in the milk! He translated it for me,” said Colin.
“’Translate!’ He doesn’t know enough English to say ‘Boo!’ straight,” threw back Leon, as he gained the edge of the clearing. “It is Toiney!” he cried exultingly. “Toiney—and the Hare!”
“The—what? My word! there are surprises enough in these woods—what with forest paintpots—and the rest.” Nixon, as he spoke, was bounding out into the open too, thrilled by expectation: a musical woodchopper attended by a tame rodent would certainly be a unique item upon the forest playbill which promised a variety of attractions already.
But he saw no skipping hare upon the green patch of clearing—nothing but a boy of twelve whose full forehead and pointed face was very slightly rodent-like in shape, but whose eyes, which at this startled moment showed little save their whites, were as shy and frightened as a rabbit’s, while he shrank close to Toiney’s side.
“My brother says that whenever he sees that boy he feels like offering him a bunch of clover or a lettuce leaf!” laughed Leon, repeating the thoughtless speech of an adult. He stooped suddenly, picked some of the shaded clover leaves and a pink blossom: “Eh! want some clover, ‘Hare’?” he asked teasingly, thrusting the green stuff close to the face of the abnormally frightened boy.
The hapless, human Hare sought to efface himself behind Toiney’s back. And the woodchopper began to execute an excited war-dance, flourishing the axe wherewith he had been musically felling a young birch tree for fuel.
“Ha! you Leon, you coquin, gamin—rogue —you’ll say dat one time more, den I go lick you, me!” he cried in his imperfect English eked out with indignant French.
“No, you won’t go lick me—you!” Nevertheless Starrie Chase and his mocking face retreated a little; he had no fancy for tackling Toiney and the axe.