"Which means, that about two hours from now we shall, with a fine disregard for the highest traditions of British pugilism, strike the high road below the belt of firs, a good six miles from the roof-tree we should never have left. God forgive you."
"Am I," said Berry, "am I to understand in cold blood that, reckoning three miles to the league, some four leagues lie directly between me and the muffins?"
"You are," said I.
"To think that my wife is a bag," he said wearily.
It was an autumn afternoon in the county of Devon. There were we staying at a retired farmhouse, fleeting the time carelessly, simply, healthily. Sickened by forty-eight hours of continuous rain, we had fastened greedily upon the chance which a glorious October day at length offered, and had set out, complete with sandwiches, for one of the longer walks. Daphne constituted herself guide. We never asked her to. But as such we just accepted her. We were quite passive in the matter. Going, she had guided us with a careless confidence which shamed suspicion. But coming back, she had early displayed unmistakable signs of hesitation and anxiety. Thereafter she had plunged desperately, with the result that at three o'clock we found ourselves reduced to a swine-herd who had been drinking. The latter detailed to us four several routes, and assured us that it was utterly impossible to miss any one of them.
To put it quite shortly, he was mistaken.
Within half an hour we had missed them all. Lost on a heath (which I have every reason to suppose was blasted) in a strange county, and not a soul in sight. That was the position.
We plodded in silence across the meadow.
"Didn't say anything about a bog, did he? said Berry, drawing his left leg out of some mire with a noise that made me shudder. Jill slid a warm arm into mine, and broke into long laughter.
"Don't encourage the fool," said Daphne.