COUNTRY LIFE
WE decided we had gone far enough. The rough road came up out of the hollow and went over another rocky mound. Our springs were in danger, and it was time to turn back because one mile in such desolation is just like another. The car rolled on to the grass and was put into reverse. Only then did the nature of the ground reveal itself. The wheels spun in the turf, and in less than a minute we were bogged. Sticks from a dead tree gave no grip. We tried rushes and gorse, a scarf belonging to one of us and a piece of fence-post. The weight of the car brought water to the surface, and the more we toiled the worse the ground became. After a while we looked round at the hills, and agreed there was nothing for it but to tramp back. In an hour we reached a hill-farm. The farmer could not help us but sent us to his neighbour. At the fifth farm we found a man with a tractor, and rode with him over the splashes and among the boulders to the scene of our misfortune. In five minutes we were back on the road. Our helper was amused when we told him we had been going nowhere in particular. He was used to the treacherous weather in that part, and said we were fortunate that it had not rained. An hour's rain sometimes lifted the level of the streams that crossed the road so much as to make them impassable.
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