Miss Cayley's Adventures

by Grant Allen

YOU CAN'T GET OUT HERE, HE SAID, CRUSTILY.

For half a minute I could not speak. My heart was in my mouth. I hardly even dared to look at Harold. Then the station-master stalked up to us with a threatening manner. 'You can't get out here,' he said, crustily, in a gruff Scotch voice. 'This train is not timed to set down before Edinburgh.'

'We have got out,' I answered, taking it upon me to speak for my fellow-culprit, the Hindu—as he was to all seeming. 'The logic of facts is with us. We were booked through to Edinburgh, but we wanted to stop at Dunbar; and as the train happened to pull up, we thought we needn't waste time by going on all that way and then coming back again.'

'Ye should have changed at Berwick,' the station-master said, still gruffly, 'and come on by the slow train.' I could see his careful Scotch soul was vexed (incidentally) at our extravagance in paying the extra fare to Edinburgh and back again.

In spite of agitation, I managed to summon up one of my sweetest smiles—a smile that ere now had melted the hearts of rickshaw coolies and of French douaniers. He thawed before it visibly. 'Time was important to us,' I said—oh, he guessed not how important; 'and besides, you know, it is so good for the company!'

'That's true,' he answered, mollified. He could not tilt against the interests of the North British shareholders. 'But how about yer luggage? It'll have gone on to Edinburgh, I'm thinking.'

'We have no luggage,' I answered boldly.

He stared at us both, puckered his brow a moment, and then burst out laughing. 'Oh, ay, I see,' he answered, with a comic air of amusement. 'Well, well, it's none of my business, no doubt, and I will not interfere with ye; though why a lady like you——' He glanced curiously at Harold.

I saw he had guessed right, and thought it best to throw myself unreservedly on his mercy. Time was indeed important. I glanced at the station clock. It was not very far from the stroke of six, and we must manage to get married before the detective could miss us at Edinburgh, where he was due at 6.30.