The girl moved along the deck till she came to the place where her suitcase had been stowed. Close beside it were two leather kit-bags, and as she paused there it was on these that her eyes fell. She looked at them, in fact, very attentively. On each were the initials “A. B.,” and on their labels the legend, “The Rev. Alex. Burnett.” She came a step nearer and studied them still more closely. A few old luggage-labels were still affixed, and one at least of these bore the word “Berwick.” Miss Holland seemed curiously interested by her observations.
A little later the clergyman reappeared, and approached her like an old acquaintance. By this time they were running close under the cliffs, and they gazed together up to the dizzy heights a thousand feet above their heads, where dots of seabirds circled hardly to be distinguished by the eye, and then down to the green swell and bursting foam at the foot of that stupendous wall. In the afternoon sun it glowed like a wall of copper. For a few minutes both were instinctively silent. There was nothing to be said of such a spectacle.
Then Miss Holland suddenly asked—
“Do you live near the sea?”
“Not very,” he answered with his air of finality.
But this time she persisted.
“What is your part of the country?”
“Berwickshire,” he said briefly.
“Do you happen to know a minister there—a Mr. Burnett?” she inquired.
“That is my own name,” he said quietly.
“Mr. Alexander Burnett?”
He nodded.
“That is very funny,” she said. “There must be two of you. I happen to have stayed in those parts and met the other.”
There seemed to be no expression at all in his eyes as they met hers; nor did hers reveal anything. Then he looked round them quietly. There were several passengers not far away.
“It would be rather pleasant in the bows,” he suggested. “Shall we move along there for a little?”
He made the proposal very courteously, and yet it sounded almost as much a command as a suggestion, and he began to move even as he spoke. She started too, and exchanging a casual sentence as they went, they made their way forward till they stood together in the very prow with the bow wave beneath their feet, and the air beating cold upon their faces—a striking solitary couple.
“I’m wondering if yon’s a married meenister!” said one of their fellow-passengers—a facetious gentleman.
“It’s no’ his wife, anyhow!” grinned his friend.
A little later the wit wondered again.
“I’m wondering how long thae two are gaun tae stand there!” he said this time.
The cliffs fell and a green sound opened. The mail boat turned into the sound, opening inland prospects all the while. A snug bay followed the sound, with a little grey-gabled town clinging to the very wash of the tide, and a host of little vessels in the midst. Into the bay pounded the mail boat and up towards the town, and only then did the gallant minister and his fair acquaintance stroll back from the bows. The wag and his friend looked at them curiously, but they had to admit that such a prolonged flirtation had seldom left fewer visible traces. They might have been brother and sister, they both looked so indifferent.
The gangway shot aboard, and with a brief handshake the pair parted. A few minutes later Miss Holland was being greeted by an elderly gentleman in a heavy ulster, whilst the minister was following a porter towards a small wagonette.
VI
The Vanishing Governess
The house of Breck was a mansion of tolerable antiquity as mansions went in the islands, and several curious stories had already had time to encrust it, like lichen on an aged wall. But none of them were stranger than the quite up-to-date and literally true story of the vanishing governess.
Richard Craigie, Esq., of Breck, the popular, and more or less respected, laird of the mansion and estate, was a stout grey-bearded gentleman, with a twinkling blue eye, and one of the easiest-going dispositions probably in Europe. His wife, the respected, and more or less popular, mistress of the mansion, was lean and short, and very energetic. Their sons were employed at present like everybody else’s sons, and do not concern this narrative. But their two daughters, aged fifteen and fourteen, were at home, and do concern it materially.
It was only towards the end of July that Mrs. Craigie thought of having a governess for the two girls during the summer holidays. With a letter in her hand, she bustled into Mr. Craigie’s smoking-room, and announced that her friend Mrs. Armitage, in Kensington, knew a lady who knew a charming and well-educated girl—
“And who does she know?” interrupted her husband.
“Nobody,” said Mrs. Craigie. “She is the girl.”
“Oh!” said the laird. “Now I thought that she would surely know another girl who knows a woman, who knows a man—”
“Richard!” said his wife. “Kindly listen to me!”
It had been her fate to marry a confirmed domestic humourist, but she bore her burden stoically. She told him now simply and firmly that the girl in question required a holiday, and that she proposed to give her one, and in return extract some teaching and supervision for their daughters.
“Have it your own way, my dear. Have it your own way,” said he. “It was economy yesterday. It’s a governess today. Have you forced the safe?”
“Which safe?” demanded the unsuspecting lady.
“At the bank. I’ve no more money of my own, I can
