“‘No!—a thousand times no!’ as the persecuted heroine in the play has it. Later on—perhaps. Just now my sole desire in life is to inflict some of my French upon the humble plodder.”
Without further ado, Peur Jamais started off and George, with a good-humored smile, followed.
It took the boys but a few moments to reach the road where the peasant had been observed; but although he had been walking very slowly the man was not in sight. The road was as deserted as a road could be.
“Hello! That’s rather odd!” cried Peur Jamais. “A shabby way to treat a couple of would-be interviewers, I call it. In classic language, I wonder where he’s at!”
“That oughtn’t to be a hard job for Sherlock Holmes the Second to find out,” suggested George.
Bobby laughed and began studying the surroundings with keen attention.
In the fields were growing crops, all bathed in bright, clear sunshine. Little clumps of trees and patches of woods dotted the landscape, while, far off, the irregular contour of the hills limned itself with hazy indistinctness against the brilliant sky. To the left a touch of blue, like a bold splash of paint upon canvas, indicated a pond, and nearer at hand rose three sturdy oaks, majestic specimens of their kind. Just behind these Peur Jamais espied a house.
“I shouldn’t wonder a bit if that’s the peasant’s castle,” he remarked. “Suppose we journey over there, Georgie, and see! I declare! I won’t be satisfied until I learn a bit more about him. It’s a little odd that such an uncouth specimen should take so much interest in an aviation camp.”
“Mild adventures, after our strenuous ones, have a sort of appeal to me,” confessed George. “So I’m quite willing.”
Following the road for a short distance the boys found a narrow path leading across the field; so they headed for the ancient oaks and the house behind them.