"THEREFORE THEY GO THEIR WAYS."
I ought to explain that the passage 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
assisting 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
superstitious 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 passage, anyway," said Yaspard, agreeing to
the proposal; but the Harrisons were not willing to enter that passage
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 passed 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 noble 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?"
"They _are_ there, and that is enough for us."
"It's the strangest thing I ever heard tell o'," ejaculated 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
trespass 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.