“In the autumn of ’ninety-eight, arriving home with salt as usual from St. Jago, I found a stranger lodging in the house.  He had come over from Carbonear with a party of clerks, and had taken a fancy to the place—­or so he said; besides which, it had been recommended to him for his health, which was delicate.  He was a common-spoken man, aged between fifty and sixty, and looked like a skipper that had hauled ashore; but he never talked about the sea in my hearing, and he never mixed with the few seamen who came to the house.  He rented a separate room and kept to it.  His habits were simple enough, and his manner very quiet and friendly, though he spoke as little as he could help, unless to my sister.  My mother liked him because he paid his way and seemed content with whatever food was put before him.  The only thing he complained about was the cold.

“I had been at home for three weeks and a little more when one evening, as I was passing downstairs from my bedroom in the attic, this Mr. Shand—­that was the name he gave us—­called me into his room and showed me a small bird he had picked up dead on the beach.  He did not know its name, and I was too ignorant to tell him.  He stood there looking at it under the lamp when my sister came upstairs with a note and word that the messenger was waiting outside for an answer.  Mr. Shand took the note and read it under the lamp.  Then he turned to the fire, and stood with his back to us for a moment.  I saw him drop the note into the fire.  He faced round to us again and said he to my sister:  ’Mary, my dear, here is something I want you to keep for me.  Do not look at it to-night; and when you do, show it to no one but your brother here.’  With that he gave her the very packet you have in your hand, shook hands with us both, and went downstairs.  We never saw him again.  The weather was thick, with some snow falling, and the snow increased towards midnight.  We waited up till we were tired, but he did not return that night or the next day.  Three days later his body was found in a drift of snow, halfway down a cliff to the west of the town.  The right leg and arm were broken and two ribs on the same side.”

I asked:  “Who was the man that brought the message?” Melhuish said:  “My sister could not tell, except that he was a stranger.  She supposed he belonged to one of two ships that had arrived in harbour the day before.  She saw nothing of his face to remember; his jacket-collar being turned up against the snow, and the flaps of his fur cap pulled down over his ears.”

I asked:  “Did the man’s chest tell nothing when you came to examine it?” Melhuish said:  “Nothing at all.  It was full of new clothes, and very good clothes; but they had no mark upon them, and, besides the clothes, there was not so much as a scrap of paper.”