d that I would not be a cad merely because some of my remote
ancestors had been Calvinists. I would keep my appointment if I lost all
my money and all my wits. I went out into the quiet London street, where
my quiet London cab was still waiting for its fare in the cold misty
morning. I placed myself comfortably in the London cab and told the
London driver to drive me to the other end of Hertfordshire. And he did.

.....

I shall not forget that drive. It was doubtful weather, even in a
motor-cab, the thing was possible with any consideration for the driver,
not to speak of some slight consideration for the people in the road.
I urged the driver to eat and drink something before he started, but
he said (with I know not what pride of profession or delicate sense of
adventure) that he would rather do it when we arrived--if we ever did. I
was by no means so delicate; I bought a varied selection of pork-pies
at a little shop that was open (why was that shop open?--it is all a
mystery), and ate them as we went along. The beginning was sombre and
irritating. I was annoyed, not with people, but with things, like a
baby; with the motor for breaking down and with Sunday for being Sunday.
And the sight of the northern slums expanded and ennobled, but did
not decrease, my gloom: Whitechapel has an Oriental gaudiness in its
squalor; Battersea and Camberwell have an indescribable bustle of
democracy; but the poor parts of North London... well, perhaps I saw
them wrongly under that ashen morning and on that foolish errand.

It was one of those days which more than once this year broke the
retreat of winter; a winter day that began too late to be spring. We
were already clear of the obstructing crowds and quickening our pace
through a borderland of market gardens and isolated public-houses, when
the grey showed golden patches and a good light began to glitter on
everything. The cab went quicker and quicker. The open land whirled
wider and wider; but I did not lose my sense of being battled with
and thwarted that I had felt in the thronged slums. Rather the feeling
increased, because of the great difficulty of space and time. The faster
went the car, the fiercer and thicker I felt the fight.

The whole landscape seemed charging at me--and just missing me. The
tall, shining grass went by like showers of arrows; the very trees
seemed like lances hurled at my heart, and shaving it by a hair's
breadth. Across some vast, smooth valley I s