Page:Following darkness (IA followingdarknes00reid).pdf/72

 "Why? We're not going through ploughed fields, are we? I haven't any hob-nails even if we were." A panama hat shaded his face and he swung a light cane in his hand. I knew at once we should have difficulty in getting him any distance, and was very nearly proposing he should stay at home.

"Why aren't we driving?" he asked.

"Such nonsense!" exclaimed Katherine.

"If Aunt Clara had wanted us to drive she would have said so."

"I don't mind making inquiries," Gerald intimated. "I somehow feel it's the proper thing to drive."

"You're not to say anything about it; Aunt Clara won't like it, I know."

"I'll drive with our young friend Peter, here," he said airily, tapping me on the shoulder with his cane.

I could see Katherine was becoming impatient; Gerald was the only one who was perfectly cool. "About carrying Katherine's lunch," he began. "Hadn't we better get a stick and put it through the handle of this thing?" He kicked the basket lightly. "Then two of us could struggle with it together."

The idea was a good one, and we put it into practice.

Our road kept all the way by the coast on the right, the mountains on the left, a strip of waste land, varying in width, and covered with dry, sapless grass upon which, nevertheless, there were goats feeding; below this, the steep drop down to the sea. Shadowless in the strong sun, the road wound on ahead, white with dust, like a pale ribbon on the green and russet landscape. We had gone about a mile when Gerald suddenly announced, "I'm not going any further; it's too hot."

This brought us again to a standstill. "It's so like you to spoil everything," said Katherine.

"What am I spoiling? I suppose I can please myself. Only, since I'm not coming, I'd advise you to chuck some