The immediate thing to do was to get to the loneliest roads. These I soon found

when I struck up a tributary of the big river, and got into a glen with steep

hills all about me, and a corkscrew road at the end which climbed over a pass.

Here I met nobody, but it was taking me too far north, so I slewed east along a

bad track and finally struck a big double-line railway. Away below me I saw

another broadish valley, and it occurred to me that if I crossed it I might find

some remote inn to pass the night. The evening was now drawing in, and I was

furiously hungry, for I had eaten nothing since breakfast except a couple of

buns I had bought from a baker’s cart.

 

Just then I heard a noise in the sky, and lo and behold there was that infernal

aeroplane, flying low, about a dozen miles to the south and rapidly coming

towards me.

 

I had the sense to remember that on a bare moor I was at the aeroplane’s mercy,

and that my only chance was to get to the leafy cover of the valley. Down the

hill I went like blue lightning, screwing my head round, whenever I dared, to

watch that damned flying machine.

 

Soon I was on a road between hedges, and dipping to the deep-cut glen of a

stream. Then came a bit of thick wood where I slackened speed.

 

Suddenly on my left I heard the hoot of another car, and realized to my horror

that I was almost up on a couple of gate-posts through which a private road

debouched on the highway. My horn gave an agonized roar, but it was too late. I