To avoid, so far as might be possible, the dangers of these untoward meetings, the grey touring-car crawled like a snail round bends, and made haste where haste did not seem suicidal. Its driver was a middle-aged man, tanned and weather-beaten, whose ordinarily cheerful face was set, just now, in anxious lines. His wife sat beside him, little, and plump, and pretty. She said nothing, but occasionally emitted short gasps of horror. To ease her feelings—it was clear that she did not ease those of her husband—she leaned forward constantly and pressed the button of the horn, so that their advance was preluded by a succession of piercing shrieks. Occasionally the driver said patiently, “I wish you wouldn’t, Milly.” To which she invariably responded:—“But you mustn’t take a single finger from the wheel, dear, and somebody must hoot!”
The third member of the party occupied the back seat, amid a litter of luncheon-baskets, cushions, rugs, and fishing-rods. He was a thick-set boy of fifteen, whose dark face betrayed nothing but boredom with his surroundings. The bush through which they travelled did not interest him; a motor-car was, in his view, a means of moving swiftly through space, and to crawl along a mountain track at the pace of a bullock-waggon failed to appeal to him in the least. His mother’s nervous gasps moved him only to faint scorn. Finally he produced a paper-covered book from his pocket, and became lost in its pages.
Fate contrived to make Mrs. Edward Lane press unusually hard on the button after a period of silence very grateful to her husband’s nerves. The ear-splitting hoot that ensued made him swerve a few inches—at a spot where there was, unfortunately, not an inch to spare. The bracken, growing thickly from below, hid the fact that the edge of the track had broken off. Bracken, however thick, cannot support the weight of a six-cylinder car. There was a moment’s sick suspense as the big Buick toppled sideways, slid for a few yards, and came to rest, wedged against a huge tree.
Mrs. Lane shot head-first over the edge, landing in a patch of fern, while her husband and son saved themselves in some miraculous fashion. The bottom of the car received them, amid the flying pieces of the shattered windscreen. Considerably astonished at finding themselves alive, they climbed out and hurried to the assistance of the lady of the party, who sat among the ferns, holding her ankle. She had taken her own meteoric flight in silence, but she screamed as she saw their faces.
“Oh, you’re hurt!” she cried. “Barry!”
“Only scratches, Mother,” said Barry Lane, gruffly, his face white under streaks of blood. “Are you hurt?”
She leaned back against her husband’s arm.
“My ankle,” she said. “Something has happened to it. But not much, I think. Are you sure you are not injured, Edward?”
“Quite sure, dear—just scratches and bruises.” He felt her ankle tenderly, while she winced. “No bone broken, thank goodness! Sure you’re all right, Barry-boy?”
“Rather!” said Barry. “A bit of glass just missed my eye—luck, wasn’t it?”