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.

So far David had made an excellent guide. They had never once diverged
from the road they meant to take, but this third day of the run turned
out to be somewhat confused. They started off almost at once on the
wrong road and found themselves riding up a deep green lane into a
farmyard. Out again on the highway David found the number of cross-roads
terribly perplexing. Once he urged Stark to ask directions from a
cottage. Stark did so and leapt back into his seat.

"Which road do we take?" David asked, as five offered themselves.

"Didna catch what they said," Stark remarked as he chose a road at
random.

"Didna catch it," was Stark's favourite response to everything. Later on
they came to the top of a steep hill ornamented by an enormous
warning-post w