,
doubtless, unhappy little people were learning the multiplication table,
and struggling with the spelling of uncouth words, but Mhor, sitting in
state in "Wilfred the Gazelle" (for so David had christened the new
car), could only spare them a passing thought.

He looked at Peter sitting self-consciously virtuous on the seat
opposite, he leaned across Jean to send a glance of profound
satisfaction to Jock, then he raked from his pocket a cake of
butter-scotch and sank back in his seat to crunch in comfort.

They followed Tweed as it ran by wood and field and hamlet, and as they
reached the moorlands of the upper reaches Jean began to notice that
Wilfred the Gazelle was not running as smoothly as usual. Perhaps it was
imagination, Jean thought, or perhaps it was the effect of having
luggage on the top, but in her inmost heart she knew it was more than
that, and she was not surprised.

Jean was filled with a deep-seated distrust of motors. She felt that
every motor was just waiting its chance to do its owner harm. She had
started with no real hope of reaching any destination, and expected
nothing less than to spend the night camping inside the car in some
lonely spot. She had all provisions made for such an occurrence.

Jock said suddenly, "We're not going more than ten miles an hour," and
then the car stopped altogether and David and Stark got down. Jean
leaned out and asked what was wrong, and David said shortly that there
was nothing wrong.

Presently he and Stark got back into their places and the car was
started again. But it went slowly, haltingly, like a bird with a broken
wing. They made up on a man driving a brown horse in a wagonette--a man
with a brown beard and a cheerful eye--and passed him.

The car stopped again.

Again David and Stark got out and stared and poked and consulted
together. Again Jean's head went out, and again she received the same
short and unsatisfactory answer.

The brown-bearded man and his wagonette made up on them, looked at the
car in an interested way, and passed on.

Again the car started, passed the wagonette, and went on for about a
mile and stopped.

Again Jean's head went out.

"David," she said, "what _is_ the matter?" and it goes far to show how
harassed that polished Oxonian was when he replied, "If you don't take
your face out of that I'll slap it."

Jean withdrew at once, feeling that she had been tactless and David had
been unnecessarily rude--David who had