ter in silence.

Then he looked up and said with a serious face--

"I must really tell you, sir, of a very remarkable coincidence. Only a
few days ago some unknown friend sent me a copy of a newspaper with a
notice of this very vacancy marked in it!"

The Lancashire lad looked almost thunder-struck by this extraordinary
disclosure.

"Well, I'm hanged!" he cried--adding hurriedly, "if you'll forgive my
strong language, sir."

"It seems to me to be providential," said Mr Burnett in a low and very
serious voice.

With equal solemnity the stranger declared that though not an unusually
good man himself, this solution had already struck him forcibly.

At this point the minister became conscious of the distant ringing of a
bell, and recognised with a start the strident note of his own dinner
bell swung with a vigorous arm somewhere in the road ahead. He shook
hands cordially with the stranger, thanked him for the very interesting
talk he had enjoyed, and hurried off towards his over-cooked roast.

The stranger remained for a few moments still leaning against the
parapet. His jovial face had been wreathed in smiles throughout the
whole conversation; he still smiled now, but with rather a different
expression.

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 passion for
conversation.

On the Saturday afternoon before he was due to start, he was returning
from a walk, when he