The Slowcoach

CHAPTER 19

THE LETTERS TO X.

They reached Cirencester at five o'clock, and at once turned to the left to the Fairford road, intending to camp just outside the town till Monday; and it was here that Gregory had his first rebuff in his capacity as Requester of Camping Grounds. He brought it upon himself by refusing to let Mary accompany him, and, indeed, refusing advice altogether.

He marched off to the farmhouse, which could be seen in the distance across the meadows, full of assurance; but misfortunes began at once. No sooner was he well in the first meadow than a flock of geese suddenly appeared from nowhere and approached him. There is something very horrid about the approach of a flock of geese. They are not really dangerous, but they lower their heads and hiss and come on so steadily and are so impossible to deal with. A dog can be hit with a stick; but you can't hit a goose. There were no stones to throw, and the stupid, angry birds came every moment nearer.

Gregory did not wish to go back, and did not want to appear frightened in the eyes of the others, who were very likely watching, and he therefore had nothing to do but run as fast as he could for the farther gate and scramble over it.

Here he paused for a moment, to be in no way reassured by the sight, much too near the path, of a number of bullocks. In the ordinary way Gregory did not mind bullocks—did not, in fact, think about them—but just now he was flustered and rather nervous. However, he walked steadily forward and got safely past the first. Then, with his face kept straight and brave, but his eye anxiously peering through the back of his head to see what the first was doing, he approached the second and got past that all right. But the third gave him a wild and, as it seemed, furious look, and this turned him cold; and then he was perfectly certain that he could feel the others close behind him breathing hot on his neck, and once again he broke into a terrified run, and so gained the next gate, over which he may be said to have fallen rather than climbed.

On the other and safe side he paused again, and again looked for the enemy. Seeing none, he once more started forward.

This was the last meadow, and the farm was at the end of it, and Gregory was quite close to the farm, when suddenly there appeared, right in his path, with a challenging tail in air, a large dog—a collie.

Gregory stopped and the collie stopped, and the two looked at each other carefully.

Gregory remembered all that he had ever heard about collies being treacherous and fierce.

He advanced a step; the collie did not move.

He advanced another step; and then, to his horror, the collie began to advance too, lifting his feet high and dangerously.

Gregory forced himself to say, "Good dog!" but the collie still advanced.

Gregory said, "Poor fellow, then!" and the collie at once did something perfectly awful: he growled.

Gregory had no courage left. His tongue and lips refused to obey him. He felt his knees turning to water.

How he wished he had let Mary come too! Dogs always liked her. Why was it that dogs liked some people and not others? he asked himself. Ridiculous! No one liked dogs better than he, if this ass of a collie only knew it.

Meanwhile, the collie, still growling, drew nearer, and Gregory felt himself pricking all over. Where would it bite him first? he wondered.

But just as he had given up all hope, a voice called out sharply, "Caesar, come here!" and the collie turned and ran to where a tall, red-faced man was standing.

"What do you want?" the man then said to Gregory, with equal sharpness. "You're trespassing."

Gregory was frankly crying now—with relief; but he pulled himself together and said he wanted to see the farmer.

"I'm the farmer," said the man. "What is it?"

Gregory explained what he had come for.

"No," said the farmer, "not on my land."

Gregory said that other farmers had said yes.

"I don't care," said the farmer, "I say NO."

Gregory longed to ask if there was another way back, but he had not the courage, and he turned and made again for the gate of the bullock meadow.

The bullocks were still near the path, so he climbed softly over the gate, as he feared they might hear him, and crept round by the hedge to the next gate without attracting any notice.

Had he only known, he might have gone safely by the path, for one bullock was saying to another: "There's that little duffer going all that long way out of his course just for fear of us. What do you say to trotting down to the gate and giving him another scare?"

"No," said the other. "It's not worth while. He's very small, too, and these horns, you know—they are a bit startling. Besides, there are all those flies by the gate."

"True," said the other; "but it makes me smile, all the same."

So Gregory got out safely, and, performing the same manoeuvre with the geese, he reached the caravan and Janet's arms without further misfortune.

The others were of course disappointed at the result of his mission, and walked on another half-mile, much farther from Cirencester than they had wished to be, to the next farm.

There Mary and Hester made the request, which was at once granted; and the farmer and his wife were so much interested that they both walked down to the Slowcoach and examined it, and the farmer advised its being taken into a yard where there was a great empty barn and backed against that; so that they had the whole of the barn as a kind of anteroom, and a most enchanting smell of hay everywhere.

"All I ask," he said, "is that you don't burn the place down with your cooking."

The pot was then filled and placed on the fire. Kink skinned the rabbits and Janet and Mary put them in, while Jack and Robert and Horace walked into Cirencester to buy eatables and picture postcards and send off the telegram.

That evening after supper Janet suggested that it might be the best opportunity they would have to write the letters to X. of which they had often talked; so they made themselves comfortable in the caravan and on the barn floor, and each wrote something, not after the style of the Snarker's game at Oxford, but quite separately.

Janet wrote:

"Saturday Evening, July 8,
"In a Barn near Cirencester.

DEAR X.,

"We thank you very much for the caravan, which is much the most beautiful present that anyone can ever have had. We have now been in it nearly ten days, and we like it more every day. We have called it the Slowcoach. The party is seven, and Kink, who drives. We have with us Mary and Jack Rotheram and Horace Campbell; but whether you know who they are or not, of course I don't know. I hope some day you will tell us who you are.

"I am,
"Yours sincerely,
JANET AVORY.

Mary Rotheram wrote:

DEAR MR. X.

Then she crossed out the "Mr." because, as she said, it might be a lady, and began again:

DEAR X.,

"I am not one of the Avories, and the caravan was therefore not given to me, but my brother and I have been so happy in it that I want to say thank you for it quite as if I were an Avory all the time. We live near them at Chiswick, you know. It has been a supreme holiday, with hardly any rain and no real troubles, although even the strongest people must sometimes get a little tired of walking on dusty roads and having to wait for meals. We each have a special duty, and I am the head cook, but Janet is really better at it than I am. Our only real disappointment is that caravaning makes you so tired that there is no chance of cricket, for we brought cricket things with us, but have never been able to use them. We might have done so at Salford, perhaps, but the river was so very tempting that we rowed about instead.

"Yours sincerely and gratefully,
MARY ROTHERAM.

Jack Rotheram wrote:

DEAR X.,

"My sister Mary has said who I am, but she has not explained how it is I am here. It is because my brother William and I tossed up for it; He called 'Heads,' and it was tails, so I won at once. And then he said 'Threes,' which means the best out of three, and this time he called 'Tails' and it was heads, so that settled the thing absolutely. He was, of course, most frightfully sick about it, but the next time the Avories go out in the caravan they are going to ask him and not me, which will put the thing right. It is a ripping caravan, and I am sure I thank you very much, although it's not mine.

"Yours truly,
"JOHN ILFORD ROTHERAM.

Robert, who was not a sprightly writer, merely described the course they had followed, which we all know. The only news he had to give was at the end: "So far, up to the time of writing, my pedometer registers fifty-six miles; which is, of course, only what I have walked, and not what we have done, for we all take turns to ride for fear of getting too tired and being seedy. The caravan has done altogether one hundred and forty miles, and since we were in it ninety miles exactly."

Horace, after great difficulty, wrote:

DEAR X.,

"I am having a top-hole holiday in the caravan you gave the Avories. I am the Keeper of the Tin-opener.

"Yours truly,
HORACE CAMPBELL.

Hester wrote:

DEAR X.,

"I have long wanted to write to you and tell you that we adore the Slowcoach, which is the name we have given your caravan, and think you were awfully clever to think of it and to make it so complete.

We have not had to buy anything, and the only thing you forgot was the license; but Uncle Christopher remembered. I love walking behind the Slowcoach and seeing the world pass by. But the evenings are the most alluring, and I like to wake up at night and hear the birds and animals just outside the window, although on the first night I was frightened. We had one evening with real gipsies, but Janet would not allow me to go inside their caravan, because of fleas and things. But I could see through the door that it was not so attractive as the Slowcoach. I wish this journey would never end, but I fear it has to do so on Tuesday, which draws nearer every moment.

"I am,

"Your grateful and admiring friend,
HESTER MARGARET AVORY.

"P.S.—I hope we shall never know who you are, because anonymous things are so much more exciting.

"P.S. 2.—We have met many motors, and they are always coming up behind us and making us jump and blinding us with dust, but we have never envied them."

Gregory wrote painfully:

DEAR X.,

"Thank you most awfully for the Slowcoach. It is very good and suitable. I am the Keeper of the Corkscrew, and also the Requester of Camping-Grounds.

"Your affectionate
GREGORY BRUCE AVORY.