'Actually it was a pig,' said Peregrine. 'When you started snoring it started moving this way and I thought I'd better go out and head it off.'
'All right, let's get some breakfast,' said Glodstone. 'The one good thing about this drizzle is that we'll be able to approach the Chateau without being seen, especially if we move off as soon as possible.'
But getting anywhere near the Chateau proved easier said than done. They had covered a couple of miles when the plateau ended on the edge of a deep ravine whose sides were thick with thorny undergrowth. Glodstone looked over and hesitated. There was no question of fighting their way down it. 'I think we'd better head round to the north,' he said but Peregrine was consulting his map.
'If I'm right,' he said, adopting an expression Glodstone considered his own and consequently resented, 'we're too far to the north already, the Chateau lies three miles south-south-west from here.'
'What makes you so sure?' said Glodstone, once more feeling that Peregrine was getting the upper hand.
'I counted the paces.'
'The paces?'
'We've come about three thousand yards and if we'd been going in the right direction we should have come to these woods by now.'
'What woods?' said Glodstone looking round wearily.
'The ones on the map,' said Peregrine, 'they're marked green and the river is just beyond them.'
Glodstone peered at the map and was forced to agree that they were woods opposite the Chateau. 'Must be something wrong with my compass,' he said. 'All right, you lead the way but for God's sake go carefully and don't hurry. We can't afford to take any chance of being spotted now.' And having tried to ensure that Peregrine wouldn't march off at some godawful speed he plodded along behind him. This time there was no mistake and an hour later they had entered the woods marked on the map. They sloped away from the plateau and then rose to a ridge.
'The river must be on the other side,' said Peregrine, 'We have only to get to the top and the Chateau should be opposite us.'
'Only,' muttered Glodstone, disentangling his sodden trousers from a bramble bush. But Peregrine was already pushing ahead, weaving his way through the undergrowth with a cat-like stealth and litheness that Glodstone couldn't emulate. Before they had reached the ridge, he had twice had to retrieve his monocle from bushes and once, when Peregrine suddenly froze and signalled to him to do the same, had stood awkwardly with one foot poised over a pile of twigs.
'What the devil are we waiting for?' he asked in a hoarse whisper. 'I can't stand here like a damned heron on one leg.'
'I could have sworn I heard something,' said Peregrine.
'Another bloody sheep, I daresay,' muttered Glodstone but Peregrine was immune to sarcasm.
'You don't get sheep in woods. They're ruminants. They eat grass and '
'Have two blasted stomachs. I know all that. I didn't come all this way to listen to a lecture on animal physiology. Get a move on.'
'But you said '
Glodstone put his foot down to end the discussion and, shoving past Peregrine, blundered on up the hill. As he crested the rise, he stopped for a moment to get his breath back only to have it taken away again by the view ahead. Like some holy shrine to which he had at last come, the Chateau Carmagnac stood on a pinnacle of rock half a mile away across the Gorge du Boose. Even to Glodstone the Chateau exceeded a life-time's devotion to the unreal. Towers and turrets topped by spire-like roofs were clustered around an open courtyard which seemed to overhang the river. An
