The motor, with the effrontery usual to its class, was right on the top of the road, in the very pick and middle of it. I perceived that here was my chance. No motor would dare dash straight on in the face of so slow and bulky an obstacle as a caravan, and I was sick of them--sick of their dust, their smell, and their vulgar ostentation. Also I felt that all the other members of our party would be on my side, for I have related their indignant comments on the slaying of a pretty young woman by one of these goggled demons. Therefore I kept on immovably, swerving not an inch from the top of the road. The motor, seeing this and now very near, shrieked with childish rage (it had a voice like an angry woman) at my daring to thwart it. I remained firmly on my course, though I was obliged to push up the horse which actually tried of itself to make way. The motor, still shrieking, saw nothing for it but to abandon the heights to me, and endeavoured to pass on the slope. As it did it skidded violently, and after a short interval of upheaval and activity among its occupants subsided into calm and the gutter. An old gentleman with a very red face struggled into view from among many wrappers. I waited till he had finally emerged, and then addressed him impressively and distinctly from the top of the road. “Road hog,” I said, “let this be a lesson to you.” I would have said more, he being unable to get away and I holding, so to speak, the key to the situation, if the officious Jellaby and the too kind Lord Sigismund had not come running up from behind breathlessly eager to render an assistance that was obviously not required. The old gentleman, shaking himself free from his cloak and rising in the car, was in the act of addressing me in his turn, for his eyes were fixed on me and his mouth was opening and shutting in the spasms preliminary to heated conversation (all of which I observed calmly, leaning against my horse’s shaft and feeling myself to be in the right) when Lord Sigismund and Jellaby arrived. [Illustration: _The old gentleman was in the act of addressing me in his turn_] “I do hope you’ve not been hurt----” began Lord Sigismund with his usual concern for those to whom anything had happened. The old gentleman gasped. “What? Sidge? It’s your lot?” he exclaimed. “Hullo, Dad!” was Lord Sigismund’s immediate and astonished response. It was the Duke. Now was not that very unfortunate? CHAPTER XV