Ossian's Ride by Fred Hoyle

file of papers and to race out after her to the bikes. This left twenty seconds to reach the turn of the lane beyond the cottage before the car appeared. We managed it with nothing to spare.
    The car would stop at the cottage, but not for long. However skillfully Morag prevaricated, we had left obvious signs of our flight. It occurred to me that I ought to have left the papers behind too. This would have delayed them longer and might even have caused them to call off the pursuit altogether.
    We came out of a thin wood into open fields, and my heart fell, for there were gates across the path. I fretted at the precious seconds that were lost in opening the first of them—the car had started again. But it was the gates that saved us. It takes longer to open a gate from a car than from a bicycle, and what we gained in this way made up for the extra speed of the car on the stretches between.
    It must have looked a preposterous race to an onlooker. I would forge ahead, slide off onto one of the pedals, jump down and half open the gate. Cathleen following behind would ride through and head for the next gate at full speed. Meanwhile I would slam the gate, making sure it was firmly shut. By the time I reached the next one, Cathleen would have it open and I would ride through and then head for the third and so on. By this technique we kept the car at bay, a couple of fields behind, and certainly out of shooting range.
    At length we came to what I had been hoping for, a stout gate that simply couldn’t be opened. I lifted the cycles over. This cost some time—I could now see Houseman in the front seat by the driver. But the great thing was that they could not lift the car over, and to attempt to batter a way through would be to risk damage and delay.
    Looking back I saw that we had won. The big car was being slowly turned. Another couple of hundred yards along I saw why. The path—it was now no more than a farm track—ran between stone walls which narrowed here and there enough to prevent the transit of any but the smallest vehicle.
    We came out onto what in England would have been described as a common. I knew it stretched away to the southeast as far as the huge trunk road from Cavan to Athlone. My plan was to ride as far as we could in this direction, but more of this later.
    The immediate danger was that Houseman would get his car onto the common by some other route. We therefore pushed ahead as hard as we could go. After a mile or two, patches of bog appeared. This was good, because it would make the use of a car extremely hazardous. And indeed there was no sign of any car, presumably because Houseman knew the difficulties—it really takes very little in the way of an obstacle to turn this particular form of transportation into a mockery, just a very short stretch of soft ground. Twice we had to lift the bicycles over belts of bog and peat hags that I thought would be sufficient to stop even a jeep.
    I learned from Cathleen that there was ample cover within a mile of the main road—trees and bushes, in contrast to the open ground we were now crossing. This seemed to solve the whole problem. It would be useless for Houseman to try to intercept us at the road. All we had to do was to lie in cover until a bus was due—I had my precious timetable. At the right moment we would simply mount onto the road, flag the bus to a standstill and then away! (This was an occasion when the risk of public transportation must be taken.) Everything was easy. I. discounted an attempt to follow us on bicycles; they were much too far behind for that. Horseback might be a good idea, but I doubted if horses would be ready saddled.
    And on this basis I allowed the pace to slacken, not to a dawdle by any means, but to a pace more congenial to a tired girl. In this I grievously underestimated my opponent. I want to emphasize this point because a great deal followed from my mistake. Just as two streams, a couple of hundred yards apart, on opposite sides