out beneath him, was soaked in sunshine, a haze of heat quivered visibly
above the roofs of the pretty town it cradled. There was a river and
there were woods, but the trees hung motionless, and the river wound
like a snake of brass among them.

The doctor regarded both the knapsack and the prospect resentfully. He
had hoped for a breeze upon the hill-top, and there was no breeze.
Raising his hand to remove his hat, he noticed that the hand was
trembling, and swore softly. The hand continued to tremble, and holding
it out before him he watched it, interestedly, until a powerful will
brought the quivering nerves into subjection.

"Jove!" he muttered. "Not a moment too soon--this holiday!"

Then, hat in hand, he started down the hill.

It was a long hill, very long, much longer than it had any need or right
to be. It had a twist in its nature which would not allow it to run
straight. It meandered; it hesitated; it never knew its own mind, but
twisted and turned and thought better of it a dozen times in half a
mile. It was a hill with short cuts favourably known to small boys and
to tramps with a distaste for highways; but this tramp, not being a real
one, knew none of them, and was compelled to do exactly as the hill did.
The result was, that when at last it slipped into the cool shade of a
row of beeches at its base, its victim was as exhausted as itself.

He was thirsty, too, and, worse still, he knew from a certain dizzy
blindness that one of his bad headaches was coming on--and there still
lay another mile between him and the town. Pressing his hand against his
eyes to restore for the moment their normal clearness of vision, he saw,