Under ordinary circumstances, Myron would have been annoyed by the interruption of the butler, a both unassuming, and simultaneously irresistible, servant named Peasblossom, announcing a visitor. They had made no progress whatsoever in seeing, much less procuring, the mushrooms that had inspired the blasted trip. Seamus and Gordon had run off back to town – probably for the best, given how needy Seamus tended to get when bored – and Lord Uhelbar seemed quite easily distracted, not at all what Myron would have guessed from Seamus’s descriptions of him as a serious and studious boy.

So whereas an interruption, in this case the butler presenting “the very Reverend Pouque," would ordinarily have been an annoyance, Myron instead felt relief. Perhaps the rector would break up the rhythm of the rambling p...

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