which a private road debouched on the highway. My horn gave an
agonized roar, but it was too late. I 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.'

He plucked out a watch and studied it. 'You're the right sort of