"Cheerio," said the P.M.O., and they were off.
It was a dull day, and mists hung over the water-meadows by the Somme.
For all that Peter enjoyed himself immensely.

They ran swiftly through the little villages, under the sweeping trees all new-budded into green, and soon had vistas of the distant sea.

The driver of Peter's car was an observant fellow, and he knew something of gardening.

It was he who pointed out that the fruit-trees had been indifferently pruned or not pruned at all, and that there were fields no longer under the plough that had been plainly so not long before.

In a word, the country bore its war scars, although it needed a clever eye to see them.
But Peter had little thought for this.