Read Ebook: The Spy in Black by Clouston J Storer Joseph Storer

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 1453 lines and 48446 words, and 30 pages

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 , 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 , 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.

A FEW CHAPTERS BY THE EDITOR

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.

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 turned to the vacant parish. He knew that it lay in a certain group of northern islands, which we may call here the Windy Isles, and he presumed that the stipend would not be great. Still, it was probably a better living than his own small parish, and as for its remoteness, well, he liked quiet, out-of-the-way places, and it would certainly be a complete change of scene. He let the matter lie in the back of his mind, and there it would very likely have remained but for a curious circumstance on the following Sunday.

His little parish church was seldom visited by strangers, and when by any chance one did appear, the minister was very quickly conscious of the fact. He always took stock of his congregation during the first psalm, and on this Sabbath his experienced eye had noted a stranger before the end of the opening verse. A pleasant-looking gentleman in spectacles he appeared to be, and of a most exemplary and devout habit of mind. In fact, he hardly once seemed to take his spectacled gaze off the minister's face during the whole service; and Mr Burnett believed in giving his congregation good measure.

It was a fine day, and when service was over the minister walked back to his manse at a very leisurely pace, enjoying the sunshine after a week of showery weather. The road he followed crossed the river, and as he approached the bridge he saw the same stranger leaning over the parapet, smoking a cigar, and gazing at the brown stream. Near him at the side of the road was drawn up a large dark-green touring car, which apparently the gentleman had driven himself, for there was no sign of a chauffeur.

"Good day, sir!" said the stranger affably, as the minister came up to him. "Lovely weather!"

Mr Burnett, nothing loath to hear a fresh voice, stopped and smiled and agreed that the day was fine. He saw now that the stranger was a middle-sized man with a full fair moustache, jovial eyes behind his gold-rimmed spectacles, and a rosy healthy colour; while his manner was friendliness itself. The minister felt pleasantly impressed with him at once.

"Any trout in this stream?" inquired the stranger.

Mr Burnett answered that it was famed as a fishing river, at which the stranger seemed vastly interested and pleased, and put several questions regarding the baskets that were caught. Then he grew a little more serious and said--

"I hope you will pardon me, sir, for thanking you for a very excellent sermon. As I happened to be motoring past just as church was going in I thought I'd look in too. But I assure you I had no suspicion I should hear so good a discourse. I appreciated it highly."

Though a modest man, Mr Burnett granted the stranger's pardon very readily. Indeed, he became more favourably impressed with him than ever.

"I am very pleased to hear you say so," he replied, "for in an out-of-the-way place like this one is apt to get very rusty."

Again the minister pardoned him without difficulty.

"Of course, one needs a change now and then, I admit," continued the stranger. "But, my dear sir, whatever you do, don't go and bury yourself in a crowd!"

This struck Mr Burnett as a novel and very interesting way of putting the matter. He forgot all about the dinner awaiting him at the manse, and when the stranger offered him a very promising-looking cigar, he accepted it with pleasure, and leaned over the parapet beside him. There, with his eyes on the running water, he listened and talked for some time.

The stranger began to talk about the various charming out-of-the-way places in Scotland. It seemed he was a perfervid admirer of everything Scottish, and had motored or tramped all over the country from Berwick to the Pentland Firth. In fact, he had even crossed the waters, for he presently burst forth into a eulogy of the Windy Islands.

"The most delightful spot, sir, I have ever visited!" he said enthusiastically. "There is a peacefulness and charm, and at the same time something stimulating in the air I simply can't describe. In body and mind I felt a new man after a week there!"

The minister was so clearly struck by this, and his interest so roused, that the stranger pursued the topic and added a number of enticing details.

This struck Mr Burnett as quite extraordinary.

"I don't know him personally," he began.

"A very sensible fellow," continued the stranger impetuously. "He told me his parish was as like heaven as anything on this mortal earth!"

"He has just left it," said Mr Burnett.

The stranger seemed surprised and interested.

"What a chance for some one!" he exclaimed.

Mr Burnett gazed thoughtfully through the smoke of his cigar into the brown water of the river below him.

"I have had thoughts of making a change myself," he said slowly. "But of course they might not select me even if I applied for Myredale."

"In the Scottish Church the custom is to go to the vacant parish to preach a trial sermon, isn't it?" inquired the stranger.

The minister nodded. "A system I disapprove of, I may say," said he.

"I quite agree with you," said the stranger sympathetically. "Still, so long as that is the system, why not try your luck? Mind you, I talk as one who knows the place, and knows Mr Maxwell and his opinion of it. You'll have an enviable visit, whatever happens."

"It is a very long way," said Mr Burnett.

"Don't they pay your expenses!"

"Yes," admitted the minister. "But then I understand that those islands are very difficult for a stranger to enter at present. The naval authorities are extremely strict."

The stranger laughed jovially.

"My dear sir," he cried, "can you imagine even the British Navy standing between a Scotch congregation and its sermon! You are the one kind of stranger who will be admitted. All you have to do is to get a passport--and there you are!"

"Are they difficult to get?"

The stranger laughed again.

Mr Burnett again gazed at the water 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.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet