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when their poor little hearts must have longed to go on the picnic. Parents had done crueller things out of a misguided sense of duty.
    â€˜Hullo, Miss Godwin.’
    She trembled and closed her book and noted each from the youngest to the eldest, observed that some had been crying, some very pale, and that all were trying to smile. She fell into the old familiar pattern of schoolroom procedure. ‘Good morning, children. It’s a lovely day. The sun is shining. We’ll take our first lesson out of doors.’
    She knew she was talking nonsense, but saved herself with a slow smile, and they thought she was making a joke.
    â€˜Miss Godwin,’ said Adrian awkwardly, ‘I—I suppose you’re wondering why we’re here?’
    â€˜Adrian, I have long since ceased to wonder about children. But I see you have your lunches with you.’
    â€˜Yes, miss. We want to know if we can come with you?’
    â€˜You may.’
    â€˜â€™Cos—well—we planned it as a surprise.’
    â€˜You’ve surprised me all right. Yes, you have. A very pleasant surprise. Shall we start then? We have a long way to go.’
    Adrian was floundering a little. ‘You—you don’t want to hear any more?’
    â€˜No.’ Miss Godwin stepped from her stump, brushed a few ants from her jodhpurs, and smiled again. ‘I told you, I have long since ceased to wonder about children. Come along.’
    Again she heaved up her haversack, squared her thin shoulders, and they had no choice but to follow with pounding hearts and not a little confusion. Frances was the only one mature enough to observe that everything was not right with Miss Godwin. Frances was no older than Paul or Adrian or Butch in years, but much older in wisdom. She knew that something was wrong, but that was as far as her reasoning went. Admittedly the others thought it was odd, but all grown-ups were peculiar anyway. Grown-ups were like the wind. One hour they blew in one direction, the next hour in another. At least with kids a fellow knew where he was. A bully on Monday was a bully on Tuesday, but one never knew what grown-ups were going to say or do next. Very peculiar.
    So they set off through the ever-rising succession of lesser hills and gullies that lay between them and the great bluff, wading through the many streams, or jumping them, or crossing them over fallen logs or rocks. No distant throb reached them from the trucks so long gone, no voices apart from their own, no sound except the cracking of twigs, the hissing and whispering and rushing of waters, the mysterious groaning of big trees, and the birds and the distant dogs. The dogs were back home in Hills End and were very annoyed about it. Almost every dog in the town was attached to a stake in the ground, a running wire, or a kennel. They wailed into the morning air until they realized that no one was coming to release them and one by one accepted that it was better to doze in the sun or gnaw a bone.
    All sound except the beating of the diesel eased away through the hills like the dying of a pain. The fires went out, the smoke vanished, the sun blazed down, the dust was still, and Frank Tobias in the office at the mill nodded over his book until his head dropped and his eyes closed.
    Everything went to sleep except the great River Magnus. It writhed and rippled and rumbled and cried out its warning, but no one heard.
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    â€˜I think,’ said Miss Elaine Godwin at precisely ten o’clock, ‘that we will take time off for recess.’
    It was a good idea, and Butch, in particular, agreed wholeheartedly.
    Miss Godwin added, ‘Ten minutes, children. One mustn’t rest for too long or one will lose the urge to keep going.’
    They flopped down on the last ridge short of the bluff and here the ground was too rocky even for stunted trees to grow. It was barren, except for tenacious little wild flowers, a few grasses and a few isolated bushes.