“There’s nothing to do but what you say?” I asked.

“Nothing—­not a thing!” he affirmed.

“And the time?” I said.  “And the word—­for surety?”

“Eleven o’clock is the time,” he answered.  “Eleven—­an hour before midnight.  And as for the word—­get you to the place and wait about a bit, and if you see nobody there, say out loud, ’From James Gilverthwaite as is sick and can’t come himself’; and when the man appears, as he will, say—­aye!—­say ‘Panama,’ my lad, and he’ll understand in a jiffy!”

“Eleven o’clock—­Panama,” said I.  “And—­the message?”

“Aye!” he answered, “the message.  Just this, then:  ’James Gilverthwaite is laid by for a day or two, and you’ll bide quiet in the place you know of till you hear from him.’  That’s all.  And—­how will you get out there, now?—­it’s a goodish way.”

“I have a bicycle,” I answered, and at his question a thought struck me.  “How did you intend to get out there yourself, Mr. Gilverthwaite?” I asked.  “That far—­and at that time of night?”

“Aye!” he said.  “Just so—­but I’d ha’ done it easy enough, my lad—­if I hadn’t been laid here.  I’d ha’ gone out by the last train to the nighest station, and it being summer I’d ha’ shifted for myself somehow during the rest of the night—­I’m used to night work.  But—­that’s neither here nor there.  You’ll go?  And—­private?”

“I’ll go—­and privately,” I answered him.  “Make yourself easy.”

“And not a word to your mother?” he asked anxiously.

“Just so,” I replied.  “Leave it to me.”

He looked vastly relieved at that, and after assuring him that I had the message by heart I left his chamber and went downstairs.  After all, it was no great task that he had put on me.  I had often stayed until very late at the office, where I had the privilege of reading law-books at nights, and it was an easy business to mention to my mother that I wouldn’t be in that night so very early.  That part of my contract with the sick man upstairs I could keep well enough, in letter and spirit—­all the same, I was not going out along Tweed-side at that hour of the night without some safeguard, and though I would tell no one of what my business for Mr. Gilverthwaite precisely amounted to, I would tell one person where it would take me, in case anything untoward happened and I had to be looked for.  That person was the proper one for a lad to go to under the circumstances—­my sweetheart, Maisie Dunlop.

And here I’ll take you into confidence and say that at that time Maisie and I had been sweethearting a good two years, and were as certain of each other as if the two had been twelve.  I doubt if there was such another old-fashioned couple as we were anywhere else in the British Islands, for already we were as much bound up in each other as if we had been married half a lifetime, and there was not an affair of mine that I did not tell her of, nor had she a secret that