THE THIRTY-NINE STEPS
course. In a second there would have been the deuce of a wreck. I did the only thing possible, and ran slap into the hedge on the right trusting to find something soft beyond.
But there I was mistaken. My car slithered through the hedge like butter and then gave a sickening plunge forward. I saw what was coming, leaped on the seat and would have jumped out. But a branch of hawthorn got me in the chest, lifted me up and held me, while a ton or two of expensive metal slipped below me, bucked and pitched, and then dropped with an almighty smash fifty feet the bed of the stream.
Slowly that thorn let me go, I subsided
first on the hedge, and then very gently on
a bower of nettles. As I scrambled to my
feet a hand took me by the arm, and a
sympathetic and badly scared voice asked me
if I were hurt.
I found myself looking at a tall young man in goggles and a leather ulster who kept on blessing his soul and whinnying apologies.
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