iably does when there's any
trouble.

To my joy, however, plucky Parson Radcliff had actually advanced the
idea of the Landes, during their excursion, and the Goddess sent for me
on Sunday evening, full of enthusiasm. Far be it from me to dampen the
ardour of youth; and early on Monday morning we started to follow the
route La Teste, Sanguinet, Parentis, Yehoux, Liposthey, which names
reminded Miss Randolph of _Gulliver's Travels_.

She and I were in fine spirits, expecting the unexpected, and bracing
ourselves to encounter difficulties. There was mystery in the very
thought of the Landes--that strange waste of forest and sand so little
known outside its own people. I felt it, and so did Miss Randolph, I
knew. How I knew I couldn't explain to you; but some electric current
usually communicates her mood to me, and I should almost believe from
various signs that it was so with her in regard to me, if I weren't a
mere _chauffeur_ in the lady's pay.

For some distance the going was good, but we were only reading the
preface to the true Landes as yet; and when we reached the boundary post
between the department of the Gironde and the real Landes, there was one
of those sudden, complete changes I've mentioned in the quality of the
road. To drive into this dim, pine-clad region was like driving back
into the years a century or two. A motor-car was an anachronism, and if
we came to grief our blood was upon our own heads. The way became
grass-grown and rutty, and I was obliged to drive slowly. Deeper and
deeper we penetrated into the forest, and deeper and deeper also we sank
into the soft earth. Aunt Mary groaned and prophesied disaster as we
crawled along in ruts up to our axles; but I think Miss Randolph and I
would have perished sooner than retreat. I trusted in the Napier and she
trusted in me. In one place the road had been mended with a covering of
loose rocks rather than stones; we panted and crunched our way over
them, enormously to the astonishment of the road-menders and one or two
dark-faced peasants, perched like cranes on the old-fashioned stilts not
yet utterly abandoned as a means of navigating this sea of sand and
pines. Still, on we went, the engine labouring a little, like an
overworked heart; but it was a loyal heart, and the tyres were trumps.

Miss Randolph said that if she were a tyre and condemned to such hard
labour, she would burst out of sheer spite. I think Miss Kedison nearly
did so as it was; bu