midday
But he shook off the feeling , nipped the horse 's sides more tightly , and felt how the beast responded by increasing its pace . On still , and on , over the rich green flower-decked earth ; past groves of trees whose names he did not know , -- some bearing the thin foliage of grey or sage green , with delicate shades of pink and blue , others like a coarse-leaved spiky-looking fir , whose boughs touched the ground , and densely clustered upward in a pyramid of dark glistening growth that would have hidden a dozen men from a traveller 's gaze . There were the mountains , too , in a long ridge , stretching away to right and left , and always of a delicious amethystine blue , that looked as transparent as water , but always as far off as ever . A grand , a lovely ride , but a terrible one in that heat ; for this was the time when the doctor always had a midday halt by water and in the shade of trees . But there was no stopping for hours at a time like this . Nic felt that he must get on as fast as he could , and with his eyes fixed upon the notch he rode forward to the regular beat of his horse 's hoofs . Hotter and hotter grew the day , and as Nic glanced from side to side he saw that he was not the only sufferer , for the dogs were trotting along with their heads down , and they gazed up at him and whined .