United States or Lebanon ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He looked at the car but he did not recognize the occupant, then several more residential roads were left behind, a highly respectable cemetery, a tin chapel, and the car, taking a hill as Fords know how, dropped Sandbourne-on-Sea to invisibility and surrounded itself with vast stretches of green and sun warmed country, June scented, and hazy with the warmth of summer.
The vision of himself being carted back to Sandbourne-on-Sea with that crowd and then back again to Northbourne if he were not caught appeared to Jones for the moment as the last possible grimace of Fate. He struggled to get out, calling to the driver that he did not want to go to Sandbourne. The vehicle stopped, and the driver demanded the full fare two shillings.
There were three roads out of Sandbourne-on-Sea; the London road; a road across the cliffs to the west; and a road across the cliffs to the east. The easterly road led to Northbourne, a sea-side town some six or seven miles away, the westerly road to Southbourne, some fifteen miles off. London lay sixty miles to the north.
He was barely conscious of the incongruity of his present get-up topped by the tweed shooting cap of Hoover's, but he was quite conscious of the fact that some alteration in dress was imperative as a means towards escape from Sandbourne-on-Sea. He entered the shop of Towler and Simpkinson, bought a six and elevenpenny panama, put it on and had the tweed cap done up in a parcel.
So occupied was his mind by these facts that they were a mile and a half away from Northbourne and in the depths of the country before a great doubt seized him. He called across the heads of the others to the driver asking where they were going to. "Sandbourne-on-Sea," said the driver.
"Sandbourne-on-sea," replied Hoover, leading the way from the room. Now in London on the night before, something had happened. Dr. Simms, at a dinner-party, given by Doctor Took of Bethlem Hospital had, relative to the imagination of lunatics, given an instance: "Only to-day," said Simms, "I had a case in point.
Now, though the Sandbournites hate the Northbournites as the Guelphs the Ghibellines, though the two towns are at advertisemental war, the favourite pleasure drive of the char-a-bancs of Sandbourne is to Northbourne, and vice versa. It is chosen simply because the road is the best thereabouts, and the gradients the easiest for the horses. "Sandbourne-on-Sea?" cried Jones. "Yes," said the driver.
He recalled Lady Dolly in "Moths" Lady Dolly, who, on the beach of Sandbourne-on-Sea would have been the pink of propriety, and the inhabitants of this beach were not wicked society people, but respectable middle class folk. "That's pretty thick," said Jones to an old gentleman like a goat sitting close to him, whose eyes were fixed in contemplation on the bathers. "What?" "That girl in blue.
A peep of blue and perfect sea shewed at the end of the street, and on the sea the white sail of a boat. Sandbourne-on-Sea is a pleasant place to stay at, but Jones did not want to stay there. His mind was working feverishly. There was sure to be a railway station somewhere, and, as surely, the railway station would be the first place they would hunt for him. London was his objective.
The coast line, to judge by present results, was impossible, for it seemed that to keep to it he might go on for ever being chased till he reached John o' Groats. Northbourne is the twin image of Sandbourne-on-Sea, the same long high street, the same shops with blinds selling the same wares, the same trippers, children with spades, and invalids.