“A Bicycle Built for Two,” he suggested. Yes, Cynthia knew that one. She had heard it in the movies. A moment of silence then, while they paused to think of more, and from the dark room behind them came a cheerful “Cuck ... oo. Cuckoo ...!” “What makes the bird in the clock cuckoo?” asked Cynthia when she had finished counting nine warbles. “Wait, I show you.” Monsieur sprang to his feet and disappeared into the kitchen, to return a moment later with the clock beneath his arm. Madame gave a little chuckle and Monsieur explained. “We bought this on our wedding trip, in Switzerland, almost fifty years ago.” He set it down on the step and returned for a lamp, which he lighted and placed beside the clock. Then, with delicate fingers he removed the screws in the back and exposed the carved wooden works for Cynthia to see. Unlike the usual cuckoo-clock this was all self-contained, without the long pendulum and the heavy iron weights that usually hang down below the little box. Its face and the surrounding frame was like old lace, interwoven with tiny intricate figures and small deer and cows and squirrels, the whole dark with age and good French furniture polish. “See,” explained the old man. “There are two little b’lows, here, and here,” and his finger indicated the tiny bellows of leather, like those used to blow a fire, “Now watch. I make him sing.” He turned the white hands to ten o’clock, and the cuckoo popped out, opened his little red mouth and warbled. One small bellow went _Cu ... ck_, and the other, immediately afterwards, went _ooooo. Cuck ... oo. Cuck ... oo!_ Over and over. Ten times. “Oh, I never knew what made him do it,” cried Cynthia. “Now let me try.” The bird popped out in such a quaintly serious fashion that one wanted to laugh every time he appeared. “I will keep him here and oil him in the morning,” decided Monsieur Marge. “Perhaps, in the night, he will attract other cuckoos, yes?” Madame chuckled. “Does she understand English?” asked Cynthia, getting up to put the clock on the verandah table. “I un’ stand,” murmured Madame, in the darkness and her husband shook his head. “Only little. But she too lazy to speak anything but Basque. We are conservative peepul, we Basque. Per’aps it is as well. Otherwise we could not remain so entrench’ against the centuries of invaders, and of change.” And as the night deepened and the stars came out Cynthia heard old tales of Charlemagne and of his blond barbarians from the north who had been defeated in these very hills. Of how the Basque had dwelt here for hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of years, unconquered, unchanging.