The Thirteenth Man

By MRS. COULSON KERNAHAN Author of “Under Seal of the Confessional,” “The Gate of Sinners,” “The Fraud,” “Trewinnot of Guy’s,” “An Artist’s Model,” etc., etc.
G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY PUBLISHERS NEW YORK
Copyright, 1910, by G. W. DILLINGHAM COMPANY
THE THIRTEENTH MAN
TO MISS M. BETHAM-EDWARDS Whom all the world admires as poet, novelist and essayist, and all who know her personally love and reverence as true woman and dear friend.
THE THIRTEENTH MAN
A strange, mournful song broke the stillness of a hot July afternoon, and caused two pedestrians to come to a halt in a lane on which dust lay thick.
On either side were high banks, surmounted by unclipped hedges.
One of the pedestrians, a young and athletic man, had climbed the bank nearer to him in a second, and was peering through a gap in the hedge, where nothing met his gaze but miles of smiling country, dotted by farms at long intervals, a bungalow covered with rambler roses, and a white house on the border of a wood.
“Can you see anybody, sir?” asked the man in the lane, who was dressed as a farmer.
The weird singing rose again.
“I should take it for a sea-gull, sir,” said the puzzled farmer, “except that we are a good five miles from the sea here.”