But they had reckoned their time without the villagers. So insistent and eager were they to help the children that they hindered and delayed them in every way. Children and men and women suggested likely places where the Black Leaf might be growing, and insisted on taking Jack and Molly to the places; but each search proved in vain.
They searched a field by special request of the man who owned it, and who expressed great surprise when told that the Leaf was not there. (Although he knew very well that the Leaf was not there as he had already gone over the field himself. Still he felt he couldn't have his ground neglected when all his neighbours' fields were being searched.)
And one old lady insisted on digging up her window box to show them that the Leaf wasn't there, conscious of the importance she was gaining in the eyes of her neighbours while the children stayed about her place.
The attention they received made the children rather uncomfortable. However, every garden, every yard of roadway, every field and lane and paddock, and even every plant-pot, having been searched to the villagers' (and the children's) satisfaction, Jack and Molly at length said good-bye to the village and turned eagerly toward the Orange Wood.
The afternoon was well advanced by this time, and the sun gleaming through the trees in the wood turned the gold and brown leaves on the branches to a mass of flaming colour.
As soon as the children entered the wood all sounds of life seemed to die away, and everything was still. No birds sang or fluttered overhead; no little wood animals scurried through the dry, dead leaves on the ground; no breeze rustled the golden leaves on the trees; the sun shone softly through the branches and cast a strange orange-coloured shimmer over the scene--which accounted for the name by which the wood was known. As Jack and Molly went along they found themselves talking to each other in whispers, afraid to disturb the brooding quietness of the wood; the sound of their footsteps on the path seemed unusually loud.
"I say, Molly, what do you say if we keep to the footpath and go straight to Mr Papingay's house as quickly as possible and see if it really is the Leaf? Then we can search the rest of the wood afterward--if it isn't," suggested Jack.