Viking Boys Part 7

"They _are_ there, and that is enough for us."

"It's the strangest thing I ever heard tell o'," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Lowrie; "and yet," he added, "we must allow we did hear something uncommonly like a bairn greetin'."

"Of course we did," retorted Yaspard.

"But what kind of a critter was it came to the window?" Gibbie asked.

"That was surely no human critter."

"The prettiest lady in creation would cast an ugly shadow from that hole," was the ready reply, which satisfied the brothers, who believed that their imaginations, and the dread they were in, as well as the uncertain light, had caused them to fancy they saw something peculiar.

They were then quite ready to denounce Mr. Neeven for his inhuman conduct, and eager to devise some plan by which the poor prisoners might be rescued.

Yaspard had no difficulty in winning their approval of his next plan; and indeed, so ardently did they desire to set about it, that they were almost sorry when he said, "Easy, easy, boys! One thing at a time!

Don't let us forget, in our haste to be after _this_ business, that we have other important matters on hand. We have to find Gloy, and we have to meet the lads of Lunda at Havnholme this afternoon. We haven't much time on our hands, if Gloy has to be found before we go to receive his ransom."

"Strikes me," muttered Gibbie, "that we are in a mess about Gloy."

"It's puzzling, but it will all come right," was the chief's reply, spoken in his usual cheery style, which cleared the cloud from Gibbie's brow, and sent him home believing as implicitly as before that Yaspard would find a way of making things come straight. "He always does," the brothers agreed, as they softly stole up to their room, leaving the Viking to paddle himself across the voe.

At breakfast next morning Mrs. Harrison asked in some surprise what they had done with Gloy, for she had expected her nephew would certainly be brought to her house. She was not a little disturbed on hearing of his disappearance, but the factor said, "There's nae harm come to the lad. Ye need not be frightened. It's plain enough some boat has come by, and the men have insisted on his going wi' them.

For, mind ye, yon geo is a dangerous place if a high tide happened tae set in."

He would not listen to his boys' arguments against such an explanation.

Neither Gloy's declaring himself still "The Prisoner," nor Pirate's honesty as policeman, could shake Harrison's belief in his own theory of the matter. "You'll see I'm right," he ended with; "but I wad like tae ken what way young master is going tae redd it up wi' the lads o'

Lunda. My word! he will hae a bourne keschie o' crabs to sort wi'

them, if he canno' tell what's come o' their maute." [1]

While Gibbie had been answering questions and their parents had been talking, Lowrie was fidgeting in his chair, trying to gather courage to tell the yet more startling incident which occurred during the midnight trespa.s.s on Trullyabister.

At last he managed to say, "Faither, I never could hae thought that Mr.

Neeven was a--was a bairn-stealer and a wumman-stealer."

James Harrison stared at his son, as well he might, and one of the older girls cried out, "What in a' the world have ye got in your crazy head, Lowrie?"

Then Lowrie told all he knew about the mother and baby prisoned in the haunted room, and his father listened to the story with a preternatural solemnity of countenance.

Mrs. Harrison, the girls, and small children stared and were dumb, as Lowrie enlarged upon the baby wails which had stirred his soul, and the great glowing eyes that had appeared for one brief moment at the small window. It was all the most remarkable tale that had ever been told at Noostigard, and it was not spoilt by any verbal interruption.

When the story was ended Harrison asked, in a curious low voice that seemed shaken by some strange emotion, "And so ye'll be for letting out Mr. Neeven's prisoners instead o' shutting up your ain? Weel, my boys, tak care that ye dinna find yoursel's in a trap, as mony a wild fellow o' a sea-rover has found himsel' in times past. Mind ye, yon Vikings, that ye hae sae muckle sang about, did not aye come aff wi' the best o'

it. Sometimes they had tae tak their turn in the prisons too."

"Yaspard will tak care _we_ don't come off second best," said the boys confidently; but their father shook his head.

"I'm thinking," he said, "ye'll find ye've got a _rale_ Viking tae deal wi' if ye tackle Mr. Neeven, or meddle wi' ony o' his affairs. I wadna be in Yaspard Adiesen's shoes if he gets intil Mr. Neeven's birse." [2]

"But, faither, it's a crying shame of him to keep such puir critters prisoned in such a place; and surely Yaspard is right to wish to set them free."

"I'll no say he's wrang. I think it is a shame, but I'm just warning you tae be careful;--I mean that ye tell your chief (as ye ca' him) tae be careful--very careful."

"We'll tell him what you say," they answered.

Harrison would not allow his wife or girls to discuss the matter, and a significant look he gave them served to silence them on the subject for that time.

[1] "Maute," a comrade, chum, or _mate_.

[2] Bristles.

CHAPTER IX.

"NO NEED OF BINDING OR SALVING HERE."

That afternoon the _Osprey_, with the three young rovers and Pirate aboard, went out the voe. They were not so jubilant as they had expected to be when sailing to meet the foe, for they were not at all sure how the lads of Lunda would receive their story of Gloy's disappearance.

The place of meeting was Havnholme, and when they neared that island Yaspard's quick eyes detected the _Laulie_ moored by the crags and a group of boys standing near the skeo watching for the Boden boat.

"They've come in force!" our Viking exclaimed. "Five of them, no less!

and one's a man!"

"Why, one is Gloy!" cried Gibbie; and--in more subdued tones--Lowrie added "And the man is Mr. Garson, the young Laird o' Lunda!"

"_That's_ jolly!" Yaspard said; "but how Gloy got there beats me to imagine," and he cast a reproachful glance at Pirate, who was looking up into his master's face with such an expression of fidelity in his honest brown eyes that the boy could not resist their appeal. He took the dog's head between his hands and said, "No, Pirate, I will not think _you_ broke faith with me."

"The mystery will soon be cleared up now," remarked Lowrie, as he lowered the sail and directed his brother to row gently, so that they might bring up alongside of the _Laulie_.

By the time their boat was moored to the crags, the Lunda boys and their chief were standing there, all grinning from ear to ear. As for Gloy, he was all "one huge laugh," Yaspard said, with some exasperation in his tone.

"I suppose I mustn't shake hands with you, Mr. Garson," the Viking said, addressing himself to Fred as he jumped on sh.o.r.e; but Fred laughed and caught both of Yaspard's hands in his as he replied, "Nonsense, man! You ought to know that _honourable_ enemies do not scruple to shake hands even on the eve of battle. I was exceedingly pleased with your letter, and very glad to make your acquaintance under _any_ circ.u.mstances."

"Even Uncle Brus could not hold out against a fellow like you!" Yaspard exclaimed, as he returned that hearty hand-clasp, and looked into the winsome, manly face, so much endowed with the magnetic power that drew all hearts to Fred Garson.

They all laughed at Yaspard's words, but they all knew how potent was Fred's spell, and did not wonder at the boy's enthusiasm.

"I suppose," said Fred then, "that before I answer your letter we should explain about your captive, taken in fair war, and here ready to yield himself back into your hands if you are not satisfied with his explanation and the ransom we bring."

"It's here--just as you stipulated," Bill Mitch.e.l.l exclaimed, rattling a little tin pail he carried; "pebbles wet with the waves of Westervoe.

See!" and he jerked off the lid and showed some stones in a pail full of salt water.

"If I were Gloy," burst forth the blunt and tactless Tom Holtum, "I'd be ashamed of being valued at such a trumpery price. If you had priced him against a bit of lichen torn from the Head of Calloster, which might have cost us our lives to procure, _that_ would have been more like the thing. But beach stones in salt water, bah!"

"Tom, lad!" said Fred gently, "if you were living in a city far from Lunda--as I have been--you would put a higher price on pebbles wet with the sea that girdles the old isle. I picked up a small stone myself, when I left home for the first time, and I carried it always in my pocket. I keep it still for sake of its memories; one values a trifle for reasons known only to himself."

His companions had not reached the age when boys learn to put a little sentiment into their actions, so they only stared in surprised silence; but Yaspard fully appreciated what Fred said, and remarked, "It was a little like that way that I was thinking when I bade them bring those pebbles. I must not go to Westervoe myself, so I thought I'd like to have something from it. I thought I should feel more like one of you boys--not so much by myself, and all that sort of thing--if I could handle something that reminded me of you." Then, tossing back his head rather proudly, as he caught Tom winking to Bill, he added, "You value that flag at your masthead for what it reminds you of--not its mere money value. _I_ might call it a dirty old rag, but _you_ price it highly. I dare say you see what I mean now. I'm not good at explaining myself."

They broke into a cheer, and Tom's voice was the loudest of the lot.