II.

THE CHAUFFEUR.

Mr Burnett was somewhat slow in coming to decisions, but once he had taken an idea to do a thing he generally carried it out. In the course of a week or ten days he had presented himself as a candidate for the vacant church of Myredale, and made arrangements for appearing in the pulpit there on a certain Sunday in August. He was to arrive in the islands on the Thursday, spend the week-end in the empty manse, preach on Sunday, and return on Monday or Tuesday. His old friend Mr Drummond in Edinburgh, hearing of the plan, invited him to break his journey at his house, arriving on Tuesday afternoon, and going on by the North train on Wednesday night. Accordingly, he arranged to have a trap at the manse on Tuesday afternoon, drive to Berwick and catch the Scotch express, getting into Edinburgh at 6.15.

He was a reticent man, and in any case had few neighbours to gossip with, so that as far as he himself knew, the Drummonds alone had been informed of all these details. But he had in the manse a very valuable domestic, who added to her more ordinary virtues a pa.s.sion for conversation.

On the Sat.u.r.day afternoon before he was due to start, he was returning from a walk, when he caught a glimpse of a man's figure disappearing into a small pine wood at the back of his house, and when his invaluable Mary brought him in his tea, he inquired who her visitor had been.

"Oh, sic a nice young felly!" said Mary enthusiastically. "He's been a soger, wounded at Mons he was, and walking to Berwick to look for a job."

Though simple, the minister was not without some sad experience of human nature, particularly the nature of wounded heroes, tramping the country for jobs.

"I hope you didn't give him any money," said he.

"He never askit for money!" cried Mary. "Oh, he was not that kind at a'! A maist civil young chap he was, and maist interested to hear where you were gaun, and sic like."

The minister shook his head.

"You told him when I was leaving, and all about it, I suppose?"

"There was nae secret, was there?" demanded Mary.

Mr Burnett looked at her seriously.

"As like as not," said he; "he just wished to know when the man of the house would be away. Mind and keep the doors locked, Mary, and if he comes back, don't let him into the kitchen whatever c.o.c.k-and-bull story he tells."

He knew that Mary was a sensible enough woman, and having given her this warning, he forgot the whole incident--till later.

Tuesday was fine and warm, a perfect day on which to start a journey, and about mid-day Mr Burnett was packing a couple of bags with a sense of pleasant antic.i.p.ation, when a telegram arrived. This was exactly how it ran:--

"My friend Taylor motoring to Edinburgh to-day. Will pick you and luggage up at Manse about six, and bring you to my house. Don't trouble reply, a.s.sume this suits, shall be out till late. DRUMMOND."

"There's no answer," said Mr Burnett with a smile.

He was delighted with this change in his programme, and at once countermanded his trap, and ordered Mary to set about making scones and a currant cake for tea.

"This Mr Taylor will surely be wanting his tea before he starts," said he, "though it's likely he won't want to waste too much time over it, or it will be dark long before we get to Edinburgh. So have everything ready, Mary, but just the infusing of the tea."

Then with an easy mind, feeling that there was no hurry now, he sat down to his early dinner. As he dined he studied the telegram more carefully, and it was then that one or two slight peculiarities struck him. They seemed to him very trifling, but they set him wondering and smiling a little to himself.

He knew most of the Drummonds' friends, and yet never before had he heard of an affluent motor-driving Mr Taylor among them. Still, there was nothing surprising about that, for one may make a new friend any day, and one's old friends never hear of him for long enough.

The really unusual features about this telegram were its length and clearness and the elaborate injunctions against troubling to answer it.

Robert Drummond was an excellent and Christian man, but he had never been remarkable for profuse expenditure. In fact, he guarded his bawbees very carefully indeed, and among other judicious precautions he never sent telegrams if he could help it, and when fate forced his hand, kept very rigorously within the twelve-word limit. His telegrams in consequence were celebrated more for their conciseness than their clarity. Yet here he was sending a telegram thirty-four words long, apart from the address and signature, and spending halfpenny after halfpenny with reckless profusion to make every detail explicit!

Particularly curious were the three clauses all devoted to saving Mr Burnett the trouble of replying. Never before had Mr Drummond shown such extraordinary consideration for a friend's purse, and it is a discouraging feature of human nature that even the worthy Mr Burnett felt more puzzled than touched by his generous thoughtfulness.

"Robert Drummond never wrote out that wire himself," he concluded. "He must just have told some one what he wanted to say, and they must have written it themselves. Well, we'll hope they paid for it too, or Robert will be terrible annoyed."

The afternoon wore on, and as six o'clock drew near, the minister began to look out for Mr Taylor and his car. But six o'clock pa.s.sed, and quarter-past six, and still there was no sign of him. The minister began to grow a little worried lest they should have to do most of the journey in the dark, for he was an inexperienced motorist, and such a long drive by night seemed to him a formidable and risky undertaking.

At last at half-past six the thrum of a car was heard, and a few minutes later a long, raking, dark-green touring car dashed up to the door of the modest manse. The minister hurried out to welcome his guest, and then stopped dead short in sheer astonishment. Mr Taylor was none other than the Lancashire lad.

On his part, Mr Taylor seemed almost equally surprised.

"Well, I'm blowed!" he cried jovially. "If this isn't the most extraordinary coincidence! When I got Robert Drummond's note, and noticed the part of the country you lived in, I wondered if you could possibly be the same minister I'd met; but it really seemed too good to be true! Delighted to meet you again!"

He laughed loud and cheerfully, and wrung the minister's hand like an old friend. Mr Burnett, though less demonstrative, felt heartily pleased, and led his guest cordially into the manse parlour.

"You'll have some tea before you start, I hope?" he inquired.

"Ra-ther!" cried Mr Taylor. "I've a Lancashire appet.i.te for tea! Ha, ha, ha!"

"Well, I'll have it in at once," said the minister, ringing the bell, "for I suppose we ought not to postpone our start too long."

"No hurry at all, my dear fellow," said Mr Taylor, throwing himself into the easiest chair the minister possessed. "I mean to have a jolly good tuck in before I start!"

At that moment Mr Burnett remembered that this time he had seen a chauffeur in the car. He went hospitably out of the room and turned towards the front door. But hardly had he turned in that direction when he heard Mr Taylor call out--

"Hallo! Where are you going?"

And the next moment he was after the minister and had him by the arm just as they reached the open front door. Mr Burnett ever afterwards remembered the curious impression produced on him by the note in Mr Taylor's voice, and that hurried grip of the arm. Suspicion, alarm, a note of anger, all seemed to be blended.

"I--I was only going to ask your driver to come and have a cup of tea in the kitchen," stammered the embarra.s.sed minister.

"My dear sir, he doesn't want any; I've asked him already!" said Mr Taylor. "I a.s.sure you honestly I have!"

Mr Burnett suffered himself to be led back wondering greatly. He had caught a glimpse of the chauffeur, a clean-shaven, well-turned-out man, sitting back in his seat with his cap far over his eyes, and even in that hurried glance at part of his face he had been struck with something curiously familiar about the man; though whether he had seen him before, or, if not, who he reminded him of, he was quite unable to say. And then there was Mr Taylor's extraordinary change of manner the very moment he started to see the chauffeur. He could make nothing of it at all, but for some little time afterwards he had a vague sense of disquiet.

Mr Taylor, on his part, had recovered his cheerfulness as quickly as he had lost it.

"Forgive me, my dear Mr Burnett," he said earnestly, yet always with the rich jolly note in his voice. "I must have seemed a perfect maniac. The truth is, between ourselves, I had a terrible suspicion you were going to offer my good James whisky!"

"Oh," said the minister. "Is he then--er--an abstainer?"

Mr Taylor laughed pleasantly.

"I wish he were! A wee drappie is his one failing; ha, ha! I never allow my chauffeur to touch a drop while I'm on the road, Mr Burnett--never, sir!"

Mr Burnett was slow to suspect ill of any one, but he was just as slow in getting rid of a suspicion. With all his simplicity, he could not but think that Mr Taylor jumped extraordinarily quickly to conclusions and got excited on smaller provocation than any one he had ever met.

Over his first cup of tea he sat very silent.