MARY ROSE. Simon, it must have been the year after I was here! (_SIMON thinks she has heard enough._) SIMON. Very likely. But, I say, we mustn’t stay on gossiping. We must be getting back. Did you bail out the boat? CAMERON. I did not, but I will do it now if such iss your wish. MARY ROSE. The story first; I won’t go without the story. CAMERON. Well, then, the father of this miss he will be fond of the fishing, and he sometimes landed the little one on the island while he fished round it from the boat. MARY ROSE. Just as father used to do with me! SIMON. I dare say lots of bold tourists come over here. CAMERON. That iss so, if ignorance be boldness, and sometimes---- SIMON. Quite so. But I really think we must be starting. MARY ROSE. No, dear. Please go on, Mr. Cameron. CAMERON. One day the father pulled over for his little one as usual. He saw her from the boat, and it iss said she kissed her hand to him. Then in a moment more he reached the island, but she was gone. MARY ROSE. Gone? CAMERON. She had heard the call of the island, though no sound came to him. MARY ROSE. Doesn’t it make one shiver! CAMERON. My father was one of the searchers; for many days they searched. MARY ROSE. But it would not take many minutes to search this darling little island. CAMERON. They searched, ma’am, long after there was no sense in searching. MARY ROSE. What a curdling story! Simon dear, it might have been Mary Rose. Is there any more? CAMERON. There iss more. It was about a month afterwards. Her father was walking on the shore, over there, and he saw something moving on the island. All in a tremble, ma’am, he came across in the boat, and it was his little miss. MARY ROSE. Alive? CAMERON. Yes, ma’am. MARY ROSE. I am glad: but it rather spoils the mystery. SIMON. How, Mary Rose? MARY ROSE. Because she could tell them what happened, stupid. Whatever was it? CAMERON. It iss not so easy as that. She did not know that anything had happened. She thought she had been parted from her father for but an hour. (_MARY ROSE shivers and takes her husband’s hand._) SIMON (_speaking more lightly than he is feeling_). You and your bogies and wraiths, you man of the mists. MARY ROSE (_smiling_). Don’t be alarmed, Simon; I was only pretending. CAMERON. It iss not good to disbelieve the stories when you are in these parts. I believe them all when I am here, though I turn the cold light of remorseless Reason on them when I am in Aberdeen. SIMON. Is that ‘chancey,’ my friend? An island that has such extraordinary powers could surely send its call to Aberdeen or farther. CAMERON (_troubled_). I had not thought of that. That may be ferry true. SIMON. Beware, Mr. Cameron, lest some day when you are preaching far from here the call plucks you out of the very pulpit and brings you back to the island like a trout on a long cast. CAMERON. I do not like Mr. Blake’s way of talking. I will go and bail the boat.