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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 weekend 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.