clapped on my brakes, but my impetus was too great, and there before me a car

was sliding athwart my course. In a second there would have been the deuce of a

wreck. I did the only thing possible, and ran slap into the hedge on the right,

trusting to find something soft beyond.

 

But there I was mistaken. My car slithered through the hedge like butter, and

then gave a sickening plunge forward. I saw what was coming, leapt on the seat

and would have jumped out. But a branch of hawthorn got me in the chest, lifted

me up and held me, while a ton or two of expensive metal slipped below me,

bucked and pitched, and then dropped with an almighty smash fifty feet to the

bed of the stream.

 

Slowly that thorn let me go. I subsided first on the hedge, and then very gently

on a bower of nettles. As I scrambled to my feet a hand took me by the arm, and

a sympathetic and badly scared voice asked me if I were hurt.

 

I found myself looking at a tall young man in goggles and a leather ulster, who

kept on blessing his soul and whinnying apologies. For myself, once I got my

wind back, I was rather glad than otherwise. This was one way of getting rid of

the car.

 

“My blame, sir,” I answered him. “It’s lucky that I did not add homicide to my

follies. That’s the end of my Scotch motor tour, but it might have been the end

of my life.”