Next morning the sun peeped in at all the odd-shaped windows on the two boys sprawled over their beds in the attitudes in which they said they best enjoyed slumber.

It was another crystal-clear morning, with mist in the hollows and the hilltops sharp against the sky.  When Stark, taciturn as ever, came to the door at nine o’clock, he found his party impatiently awaiting him on the doorstep, eager for another day of new roads and fresh scenes.

Jean asked him laughingly if Wilfred the Gazelle would live up to its name this run, but Stark received the pleasantry coldly, having no use for archness in any form.

It was wonderful to rush through the morning air still sharp from a touch of frost in the night, ascending higher and higher into the hills.  Mhor sang to himself in sheer joy of heart, and though no one knew what were the words he sang, and Jock thought poorly of the tune, Peter snuggled up to him and seemed to understand and like it.

The day grew hot and dusty as they ran down from the Lake district, and they were glad to have their lunch beside a noisy little burn in a green meadow, from the well-stocked luncheon-basket provided by the Penrith inn.  Then they dipped into the black country, where tall chimneys belched out smoke, and car-lines ran along the streets, and pale-faced, hurrying people looked enviously at the big car with its load of youth and good looks.  Everything was grim and dirty and spoiled.  Mhor looked at the grimy place and said solemnly: 

“It reminds me of hell.”

“Haw, haw!” laughed Jock.  “When did you see hell last?”

“In the Pilgrim’s Progress,” said Mhor.

One of the black towns provided tea in a cafe which purported to be Japanese, but the only things about it that recalled that sunny island overseas were the paper napkins, the china, and two fans nailed on the wall; the linoleum-covered floor, the hard wooden chairs, the fly-blown buns being peculiarly and bleakly British.

Before evening the grim country was left behind.  In the soft April twilight they crossed wide moorlands (which Jock was inclined to resent as being “too Scots to be English”) until, as it was beginning to get dark, they slid softly into Shrewsbury.

The next day was as fine as ever.  “Really,” said Jean, as they strolled before breakfast, watching the shops being opened and studying the old timbered houses, “it’s getting almost absurd:  like Father’s story of the soldier who greeted his master every morning in India with ’Another hot day, sirr.’  We thought if we got one good day out of the three we were to be on the road we wouldn’t grumble, and here it goes on and on....  We must come back to Shrewsbury, Davie.  It deserves more than just to be slept in....”

“Aren’t English breakfasts the best you ever tasted?” David asked as they sat down to rashers of home-cured ham, corpulent brown sausages, and eggs poached to a nicety.