ip in the region of
the borrowed breeching.

Now that the expedition had been shaken off and cast behind us, the
humbler possibilities of the day began to stretch out alluring hands.
There was the new box from the library; there was the afternoon post;
there was a belated tea, with a peaceful fatigue to endear all. We
reached at last the welcome turn that brought us into the coast road. We
were but three miles now from that happy home from which we had been
driven forth, years ago as it seemed, at such desperate hazard. We drove
pleasantly along the road at the top of the cliffs. The wind was behind
us; a rising tide plunged and splashed far below. It was already raining
a little, enough to justify our sagacity in leaving the river, enough to
lend a touch of passion to the thought of home and Julia.

The grey horse began to lean back against the borrowed breeching, the
chains of the traces clanked loosely. We had begun the long zig-zag
slant down to the village. We swung gallantly round the sharp turn
half-way down the hill.

And there, not fifty yards away, was the Dean's inside car, labouring
slowly, inevitably, up to meet us. Even in that stupefying moment I was
aware that the silver-banded hat was at a most uncanonical angle.
Behind me on the car was stowed my sketching umbrella; I tore it from
the retaining embrace of the camp-stool, and unfurled its unwieldy tent
with a speed that I have never since achieved. Robert, on the far side
of the car, was reasonably safe. The inestimable Croppy quickened up.
Cowering beneath the umbrella, I awaited the crucial moment at which to
shift its protection from the side to the back. The sound of the
approaching wheels told me that it had almost arrived, and then,
suddenly, without a note of warning, there came a scurry of hoofs, a
grinding of wheels, and a confused outcry of voices. A violent jerk
nearly pitched me off the car, as Croppy dragged the white horse into
the opposite bank; the umbrella flew from my hand and revealed to me the
Dean's bearded coachman sitting on the road scarcely a yard from my
feet, uttering large and drunken shouts, while the covered car hurried
back towards the village with the unforgettable yell of Miss McEvoy
bursting from its curtained rear. The black horse was not absolutely
running away, but he was obviously alarmed, and with the long hill
before him anything might happen.

"They're dead! They're dead!" said Croppy, with philosophic calm;