I had no very clear purpose in my journey, but I steered east by
the sun, for I remembered from the map that if I went north I
would come into a region of coalpits and industrial towns. Presently
I was down from the moorlands and traversing the broad haugh of
a river. For miles I ran alongside a park wall, and in a break of the
trees I saw a great castle. I swung through little old thatched
villages, and over peaceful lowland streams, and past gardens blazing
with hawthorn and yellow laburnum. The land was so deep in
peace that I could scarcely believe that somewhere behind me were
those who sought my life; ay, and that in a month's time, unless I
had the almightiest of luck, these round country faces would be
pinched and staring, and men would be lying dead in English fields.

About mid-day I entered a long straggling village, and had a
mind to stop and eat. Half-way down was the Post Office, and on
the steps of it stood the postmistress and a policeman hard at work
conning a telegram. When they saw me they wakened up, and the
policeman advanced with raised hand, and cried on me to stop.

I nearly was fool enough to obey. Then it flashed upon me that
the wire had to do with me; that my friends at the inn had come to an
understanding, and were united in desiring to see more of me, and
that it had been easy enough for them to wire the description of me
and the car to thirty villages through which I might pass. I released
the brakes just in time. As it was, the policeman made a claw at the
hood, and only dropped off when he got my left in his eye.

I saw that main roads were no place for me, and turned into the
byways. It wasn't an easy job without a map, for there was the risk
of getting on to a farm road and ending in a duck-pond or a stable-