It was now beginning to get dark. Johnson drew up suddenly, and declared that he must have taken the wrong road. There were no sign-posts anywhere, and it had begun to rain heavily. We were standing just at the foot of a steep hill where the road lay through a thick wood. Above us was a tower of rock,—another 'tor,' I suppose, if not a 'monolith.'
Johnson proposed to drive the machine on into the wood, and leave us under shelter whilst he went to a cottage that we saw farther up, to inquire about the road. This I decidedly objected to. Mrs. Pomeroy and Cecilia seemed to think me foolish, and could not understand my being afraid.
'But,' I said, 'I have good reason to refuse to enter that wood. Indeed it will not be safe for Johnson to leave us there alone: I recognise the place perfectly. In one of the books by that Mr. Phillpotts, who, you have all told me, is most accurate in his descriptions, I read about this place, and he said, 'The Wolf suckled her young there yesterday.' Yes, Cecilia, laugh if you like; those were the very words, and I examined the date of the publication, which was not a year ago. Yesterday was the word used.'
'Then the cubs will still be too small to attack us,' observed Cecilia, who has no tact and is constantly trying to be facetious when she should be endeavouring to allay my nervous terrors.
'He would be meaning foxes, ma'am,' said Johnson, who had been listening whilst fright compelled me to quote the exact expression I had read.
'It is possible that he meant foxes, Johnson,' allowed I, 'but three ladies alone in a motor, in the dark, attacked even by wild foxes, would be in some danger; so I hope that you will drive on directly, and get us out of this horrid place as soon as possible.'
They tried to smooth over the situation, but I would listen to none of them, and Johnson at last drove on. Half-way up the hill the motor stuck. Something had gone wrong with it inside, and I felt that we might stay there in the wilderness all night, which would have been impossible, as I had taken very few remedies of any kind with me, and cannot sleep sitting up. These stoppages occurred several times. How we at length got home I scarcely remember. My velvet mantle was like a sponge, my feet so cold that it was all I could do to dismount from the motor when it ground up to the hotel door. There was Sir Archibald standing smoking as if nothing extraordinary had occurred.
'Why, Mrs. MacGill,' he cried, 'you are even later than we were, and I thought that blessed pony was going to her own funeral.'
I thought that in spite of his tone he looked rather pale and agitated; he was of course anxious, and rightly so, about my safety.
'Sir Archibald,' I said, as soon as I could speak,'I trust that I never again may have to enter one of those motors. Human life, especially mine, is too precious to be thrown away in such a fashion. Another half-hour of it would have killed me outright. Had Mr. MacGill been alive he would never have consented to my going into it for a moment. As it is, I can scarcely hear or see owing to the frightful noises and the rain lashing on my face; every hair on my head feels pulled the wrong way, and I'm sure I shall have another bad relapse of influenza by to-morrow morning. Your uncle was a friend of my poor brother-in-law who died at Agra in a moment, and unless you take a warning you will have an end quite as sudden and much more frightful, for his was heart complaint, and you will be smashed to pieces by the wheels of that hideous machine.'