One of the best things in life is to start on a spring morning for a holiday.  To Jock and Mhor at least life seemed a very perfect thing as the car slid down the hill, over Tweed Bridge, over Cuddy Bridge, and turned sharp to the left up the Old Town.  Soon they were out of the little grey town that looked so clean and fresh with its shining morning face, and running through the deep woods above Peel Tower.  Small children creeping unwillingly to school stopped to watch them, and Mhor looked at them pityingly.  School seemed a thing so far removed from his present happy state as not to be worth remembering.  Somewhere, doubtless, unhappy little people were learning the multiplication table, and struggling with the spelling of uncouth words, but Mhor, sitting in state in “Wilfred the Gazelle” (for so David had christened the new car), could only spare them a passing thought.

He looked at Peter sitting self-consciously virtuous on the seat opposite, he leaned across Jean to send a glance of profound satisfaction to Jock, then he raked from his pocket a cake of butter-scotch and sank back in his seat to crunch in comfort.

They followed Tweed as it ran by wood and field and hamlet, and as they reached the moorlands of the upper reaches Jean began to notice that Wilfred the Gazelle was not running as smoothly as usual.  Perhaps it was imagination, Jean thought, or perhaps it was the effect of having luggage on the top, but in her inmost heart she knew it was more than that, and she was not surprised.

Jean was filled with a deep-seated distrust of motors.  She felt that every motor was just waiting its chance to do its owner harm.  She had started with no real hope of reaching any destination, and expected nothing less than to spend the night camping inside the car in some lonely spot.  She had all provisions made for such an occurrence.

Jock said suddenly, “We’re not going more than ten miles an hour,” and then the car stopped altogether and David and Stark got down.  Jean leaned out and asked what was wrong, and David said shortly that there was nothing wrong.

Presently he and Stark got back into their places and the car was started again.  But it went slowly, haltingly, like a bird with a broken wing.  They made up on a man driving a brown horse in a wagonette—­a man with a brown beard and a cheerful eye—­and passed him.

The car stopped again.

Again David and Stark got out and stared and poked and consulted together.  Again Jean’s head went out, and again she received the same short and unsatisfactory answer.

The brown-bearded man and his wagonette made up on them, looked at the car in an interested way, and passed on.

Again the car started, passed the wagonette, and went on for about a mile and stopped.

Again Jean’s head went out.

“David,” she said, “what is the matter?” and it goes far to show how harassed that polished Oxonian was when he replied, “If you don’t take your face out of that I’ll slap it.”