circumstance!

I glanced quickly round, and then I realised how wonderfully luck was standing by me. At the summit of that hill there were naturally no houses, and as the descending road on either side made a sharp twist almost immediately, I stood quite invisible on my outlook tower. The road, moreover, ran through a kind of neck, with heather rising on either side; and in a moment I had hauled my cycle up the bank on the landward side, and was out of sight over the edge, even should any traveller appear.

After a few minutes' laborious dragging of my cycle I found myself in a small depression in the heather, where, by lying down, I could remain quite out of sight unless some one walked right into me—and it seemed improbable that any one should take such a promenade with the good road so close at hand. By raising myself on my knees I could command the same engrossing view I had seen from the road, only I now also saw something of the country that sloped down to the sea; and with a thrill of exultation I realised that this prospect actually included our rendezvous.

V.

WAITING.

What I saw when I cautiously peered over the rim of that little hollow was (beginning at the top) a vast expanse of pale-blue sky, with fleecy clouds down near the horizon already tinged with pink reflections from the sunset far off behind my back. Then came a shining glimpse of the North Sea; then a rim of green islands, rising on the right to high heather hills; then the land-locked waters and the grey ships now getting blurred and less distinct; then some portions of the green land that sloped up to where I lay; and among these fields, and not far away from me, the steep roof and gable-top of a grey, old-fashioned house. It was the parish manse, the pacific abode of the professional exponent and exemplar of peace—the parish minister; and yet, curiously enough, it was that house which my eyes devoured.

The single ship had now ceased firing and anchored with her consorts, the fleet had grown too indistinct to note anything of its composition, and there was nothing to distract my attention from the house. I looked at it hard and long and studied the lie of the ground between it and me, and then I lay down on a couch of soft heather and began to think.

So far as I could see I had done nothing yet to draw suspicion to this particular spot, for no one at all seemed to have seen me, but it was manifest that there would be a hard and close hunt for the mysterious motor-cyclist on the morrow. I began to half regret that I had cut that telegraph wire and advertised myself so patently for what I was. Now it was quite obvious that for some days to come motor-cycling would be an unhealthy pastime in these islands. Even at night how many ears would be listening for my "phut-phut-phut," and how many eyes would be scanning the dark roads? A few judiciously placed and very simple barricades—a mere bar on two uprights, with a sentry beside each—and what chance would I have of getting back to that distant bay, especially as I had just been seen so near it?

"However," I said to myself, "that is looking too far ahead. It was not my fault I brought this hornet's nest about my ears. Just bad luck and a clumsy sailor!"

Just then I heard something approaching on the road below me, and in a minute or two it became unmistakably the sound of a horse and trap. At one place I could catch a glimpse of this road between the hummocks of heather, and I raised myself again and looked out. In a moment the horse and trap appeared and I got a sensation I shall not soon forget. Not that there seemed to the casual passer-by anything in the least sensational about this equipage. He would merely have noticed that it contained, besides the driver, a few articles of luggage and a gentleman in a flat-looking felt hat and an overcoat—both of them black. This gentleman was sitting with his back to me (he was in a small waggonette), but I could scarcely doubt who it was. But only arriving to-night!

Curiosity and anxiety so devoured me that I ran a little risk. Getting out of my hollow, I crawled forward on my hands and knees till I could catch a glimpse of the side road leading to that house; and there I lay flat on my face and watched.

Down the steep hill the horse proceeded at a walk, and what between my impatience to make sure, and my consciousness of my own rashness in quitting even for a moment my sheltered hollow, I passed a few very uncomfortable minutes. The light by this time was failing fast, but it was quite clear enough to see (or be seen), and at last I caught one more glimpse of that horse and trap—turning off the road just where I expected. And then I was crawling back with more haste than dignity.

It was "him"! And he had only arrived to-night. If it had not been for my accident, in what a nice dilemma I should have been landed! Never did I bless any one more fervently than that awkward sailor who had let my cycle slip, and as for the wave of salt water which wet it, it seemed to have sprung from the age of miracles.

The trouble of my discovery and its possible consequences still remained, but I thought little enough of that now, so thankful did I feel for what had not happened. And then I stretched myself out again on the heather, waiting with all the patience I could muster for the falling of night.

PART II.

A FEW CHAPTERS BY THE EDITOR

I.

THE PLEASANT STRANGER.

It was in July of that same year that the Rev. Alexander Burnett was abashed to find himself inadvertently conspicuous. He had very heartily permitted himself to be photographed in the centre of a small group of lads from his parish who had heard their country's call and were home in their khaki for a last leave-taking. Moreover, the excellence of the photograph and the undeniably close resemblance of his own portrait to the reflection he surveyed each morning when shaving, had decidedly pleased him. But the appearance of this group, first as an illustration in a local paper and then in one that enjoyed a very wide circulation indeed, embarrassed him not a little. For he was a modest, publicity-avoiding man, and also he felt he ought to have been in khaki too.

Not that Mr Burnett had anything really to reproach himself with, for he was in the forties, some years above military age. But he was a widower without a family, who had already spent fifteen years in a sparsely inhabited parish in the south-east of Scotland not very far from the Border; and ever since he lost his wife had been uneasy in mind and a little morbid, and anxious for change of scene and fresh experiences. He was to get them, and little though he dreamt it, that group was their beginning. Indeed, it would have taken as cunning a brain to scent danger in the trifling incidents with which his strange adventure began as it took to arrange them. And Mr Burnett was not at all cunning, being a simple, quiet man. In appearance he was rather tall, with a clean-shaven, thoughtful face, and hair beginning to turn grey.

A few days later a newspaper arrived by post. He had received several already from well-meaning friends, each with that group in it, and he sighed as he opened this one. It was quite a different paper, however, with no illustrations, but with a certain page indicated in blue pencil, and a blue pencil mark in the margin of that page. What his attention was called to was simply the announcement that the Rev. Mr Maxwell, minister of the parish of Myredale, had been appointed to another charge, and that there was now a vacancy there.

Mr Burnett looked at the wrapper, but his name and address had been typewritten and gave him no clue. He wondered who had sent him the paper, and then his thoughts naturally