Viking Boys Part 6

Interpreting his actions aright, the Viking said, "I suppose you are about right, doggie; you've been here too long already, and there is nothing to keep _us_ here any longer."

Considerably crestfallen and perplexed, they left the geo, and sailed slowly up the voe once more, asking one another what was to be done next.

"I suppose we must believe that Gloy is all right," said Lowrie, "so we needn't concern ourselves about his life at the present time."

"He says he is still the prisoner," said Yaspard musingly; then after a long pause he added, "Look here, boys, we might as well go on with this night's performance as far as we can without our captive. We can possess ourselves of his intended 'cell' (in spite of this horrid 'sell'), and we can make it ready for him as we intended, in the hope that he will render himself into the hands of his conquerors as a true knight should."

"All serene," was Lowrie's reply; and Gibbie added, "Just so."

So in the grey, quiet "dim" the _Osprey_ swept silently through the Hoobes and brought up at the "d.y.k.e-end," where she had stopped in the afternoon when Signy was the Viking's sole companion.

Yaspard alone jumped on sh.o.r.e. "Keep her off," he whispered, as if an army of enemies were in ambush close by; "don't fasten her until I give the signal that the coast is clear."

Having so given his orders, he set off up the hill, dodging behind turf walls and creeping along knolls, so that no watchful eyes at Trullyabister could detect his approach.

There is no real night in those regions when summer is in its prime, therefore Yaspard's precautions were necessary if he required to steal unawares upon the scene.

When within a short distance of the old house a backdoor suddenly opened and fule-Tammy came out carrying a peat-keschie. He was going to the stack for fuel, and the particular stack he meant to visit happened to be the very object behind which Yaspard crouched.

"If," thought the boy, "he comes round _this_ end of the stack I'm done for."

But Tammy didn't. He always attacked a peat-stack from the point nearest the house, so he placed his keschie[1] at a convenient height on the broken side of the stack, and lazily proceeded to fill it with peats. Tammy had a habit, common in half-wits, of talking loudly to himself, and as he filled his keschie he declaimed in Yaspard's hearing--

"Na, na! I ken wha wad get the raiding-strake[2] if I was to gie them the run o' the raubit-house; and where wad a' my night-sports be? and what wad come o' the Trows if I let the boys rumble ower a'?"

As he piled the peats he went on talking in a disconnected, and to Yaspard, very incomprehensible, manner about midnight revels and strange beings who doubtless had a certain kind of existence in Tammy's imagination. Only one thing he said attracted the boy's serious attention, and remained in his recollection to throw light on future events.

As Tammy raised the keschie to his shoulder he exclaimed in a kind of exultation, "They think me a puir 'natural,' that can do nae gude to man or beast, but for a' that it's myself that's pit mair light upon wir isle as ever men and money will pit, though the Laird--puir body--speaks aboot it evermair, and evermair will speak. Yea, yea!

puir Tammy and his pate-keschie does mair for ill-luckit, wandering sea-folk than does the muckle kirk and the peerie[3] queen pit together. And, though I say it that shouldna, puir Tammy kens when tae wake and when tae sleep better than them that has their heads fu' o'

brains and books forby."

So maundering, Tammy returned to the house, and closed the back-door behind him, and then Yaspard stole round to the uninhabited and ruined portion of the house to reconnoitre.

When satisfied that the "coast was clear," he whistled softly in such perfect imitation of a golden plover, that the Harrisons, waiting for that same signal, were not quite sure that it was Yaspard, and no bird.

But when the wild musical notes had been repeated three distinct times, they knew that it was their captain's call.

Fastening the boat to the d.y.k.e-end, they hastened to raise the foot-boards and open lockers fore and aft. From these hiding-places they took a curious a.s.sortment of articles--a blanket and towel, armour in plenty, a knife, fork, plate, and mug; two candles, a box of matches, and a basket of nondescript victuals. Stowing these into two keschies brought for the purpose, they slung the baskets on to their backs, and marched confidently up the hill, a.s.sured that Yaspard would give the alarm if danger was to be apprehended.

They reached his side without any adventure, and then all three clambered over the broken wall into what had been a goodly apartment--now roofless and in ruin. At the farther end of this room there was a low doorway, leading to a dark pa.s.sage; and as Yaspard walked boldly towards it Gibbie said in a frightened whisper, "No' that way! surely no' _that_ way? Yon pa.s.sage ends in the haunted room."

"The haunted room, you goose, is just the place that is to be our captive's cell," replied the Viking.

"I thought ye meant _this_ room, or some other bit that's fallen tae ruin," Gibbie muttered, and hesitating to follow the others, who went boldly along the pa.s.sage, intending to enter the haunted room by a broken doorway of which Yaspard had been aware. His chagrin was great to find that aperture closed by a number of stout boards nailed firmly across it.

"What a bother! Now, I wonder why on earth this has been done?"

Yaspard exclaimed aloud, disappointment overcoming caution; but he was recalled to the "position" on hearing some strange sounds on the other side of the boarding, evidently provoked by his own unguarded tones.

The sounds were like a child's cry, blended with the sharp short barking noise which is supposed to be the manner in which trows give expression to their mirth; and these vocal utterances were supplemented by a sound of scratching and thumping applied to the boards.

The boys retreated into the outer room, where Gilbert had remained. He was leaning over the ruin, looking up at a window in the angle of the wall, and when the others reached him he said in tones of fear, "Look!

there is a light in the haunted room!"

[1] A basket.

[2] "Raiding-strake," the final blow which clears up everything.

[3] "Peerie," little.

CHAPTER VIII.

"THEREFORE THEY GO THEIR WAYS."

I ought to explain that the pa.s.sage leading to that "haunted" chamber sloped upwards steeply enough to require a step here and there along it. It might even be called a stairway; therefore the little room--which had been the goal of Yaspard's present raid--was situated on a much higher level than the larger and more dilapidated apartment.

It was not possible to walk round and peep into the room, from which a flickering light was streaming through a tiny slit in the thick wall that did duty for a window. But we must not suppose that the courage of a Viking-boy was going to be daunted by trow-laughter or ghost-lights. No; nor by stone walls and high windows! The walls of Trullyabister were rugged, and, on _that_ side at any rate, perforated by holes convenient for supporting the toe of a boot, and for otherwise a.s.sisting an athletic youth, thirsting for information, to solve the mysteries of the interior.

"I'll know what it means, or----" Yaspard did not finish his sentence in words; he shut his mouth up tight, and, scrambling over the ruins like a monkey, he was soon climbing up to the window.

The Harrisons watched him with intense interest, and when his hands were on the window-sill their excitement reached a climax.

It was with some difficulty that the bold adventurer raised himself high enough to see into the room, and it was only for one instant that he occupied such a position. Just as his face appeared at the window another face--a horrid face, from which a pair of large melancholy eyes glowed with a wild fierce light--presented itself opposite Yaspard, and stared out at him in a manner to startle the stoutest man alive.

Our hero did not wait for a second glance at that dreadful apparition, but descended from his equivocal position much more rapidly than he had reached it.

"What was it? Tell us quick," whispered Lowrie, and both he and his brother were trembling with fear. They had caught a glimpse of the face that had met Yaspard's, and its unearthly appearance had been greatly exaggerated by the shadows and the distance. Although they were too intelligent to credit any story of trows, they had lively imaginations, and had been bred in a land where the mysteries of creation take fantastic shapes in the minds of a wonder-loving and superst.i.tious peasantry. They had shrunk from penetrating the secrets of that haunted room, and were not altogether surprised, though entirely frightened, that "something" had "appeared" to rebuke and check their leader's audacity.

While Yaspard gasped for breath after his hasty descent the Harrisons again begged, "Tell us quick about it," but Yaspard was in no hurry to tell. He retreated again into the ruin, whither his companions followed, and, sitting down by the loaded keschies, he cast his eyes on the ground and would not speak.

There was something awesome in the silence, in the surroundings, in the whole adventure, therefore it is not to be wondered that Lowrie felt creepy, and Gibbie's teeth chattered in his head.

At last the elder brother took courage to say, "Let's go back to our boat. There's nae gude tae be got o' sitting here like gaping fish left dry and high upon a skerry."

"Put the keschies in the pa.s.sage, anyway," said Yaspard, agreeing to the proposal; but the Harrisons were not willing to enter that pa.s.sage again, so they suggested another hiding-place, namely, the chimney, which was stopped up and grown over _above_, but had capacious ledges inside which suited admirably for the purpose they required. Their things were deposited there, and then the three adventurers stole silently away from Trullyabister, two feeling crestfallen and very uncomfortable, the third plunged in thought, and looking the beau ideal of a pirate chief meditating over some dark and deadly project.

It was not until the _Osprey_ had pa.s.sed the Hoobes, and was being swiftly rowed to Noostigard, that Yaspard broke the eerie silence which he had maintained in a most unusual manner. "It all works in!--works in beautiful!" he remarked. Now, that was not at all the kind of speech the others had expected, and their amazement was so great that they paused in their rowing and gazed at him in speechless astonishment.

He laughed then, his own hearty laugh, which somehow had the effect of dissipating all the fears with which they had been beset, but did not diminish their surprise and curiosity.

"Ye might tell us _now_!" they begged, in coaxing tones; and Yaspard answered, "I just believe Mr. Neeven is a wizard, and Tammy a sort of trow. Anyway, they are as bad as Vikings, for they have captured a poor lady and shut her up in the haunted room, with her baby too--all just the way people did ages ago! And now, don't you see, we've got to rescue them; we are the n.o.ble warriors who defend the weak and rescue them from thraldom!"

"Has he gone stark mad?" Gibbie asked of Lowrie.

"Not he," retorted Yaspard. "He is telling you the exact truth--believe it or not, as you please. I saw the mother, and I saw the baby; and I saw the back--I am glad he wasn't looking _my_ way--of their tyrant and jailer, Mr. Neeven. So there!"

"A mother and baby in the haunted room! But how did they get there, can anybody imagine?"