Chapter 21

"NOUGHT HAD'ST THOU TO PRAISE."

When Trullya disappeared, the ogre turned upon the boys with a savageness that was very much put on; for their rueful looks, disappointment, headlong action, and love of fun, had appealed to him in a way he was not prepared to combat very seriously. But he was not going to let them know that. He laid a hand heavily on Tom's shoulder, and asked, "How came you to know about the seal?"

"I saw her at the window, and I guessed a lot."

Mr. Neeven saw in the four candid faces before him that there was more to tell.

"How did you find your way into my house, and to that particular portion of it? Very few persons know about those passages and places."

They were silent. They would not tell on Yaspard, and seeing that his question remained likely to be unanswered, he asked another.

"Haven't you entered into a Viking campaign, with my young relative Yaspard Adiesen for your 'enemy,' of all games in the world?"

"Yes," said Tom; "but his uncle was told about it, and our fathers know."

"Then your fathers are as----" He stopped short, for Harry Mitchell's eyes were flashing on him in a very spirited manner, and Harry's voice, raised and determined, interrupted him.

"Excuse me, sir, but I think we must not listen if you go on _that_ tack. Blow us sky high about our _own_ doings. We own up that we might have made our raid in a more open way, and given you warning that we meant to attack your castle. _That_ would have been more like honest Vikings; but, all the same, we aren't going to admit that we've done anything really wicked, or that our fathers would have permitted us to carry on so if it had been wrong. And we are ready to take any punishment you think right to inflict."

"It was only our madram," [1] added Tom, using an old Shetland word, which Gaun Neeven had heard applied to himself in days gone by more often than any other term.

"Only _boys' madram_," his gentle mother had so often said to excuse his foolishness and screen him from the results of many an escapade. His boyhood was being swiftly recalled by the antics of those boys, and by Tom Holtum's ways and words. He saw his boyish self more in Tom than in the others, and the contact with those young spirits was doing the recluse good.

The hand on Tom's shoulder pressed more heavily, but it was not an ungentle touch, and Tom wondered what was coming next.

"Madram!" muttered Neeven, as if he were thinking aloud, and had forgotten their presence. "Madram, boys' madram! There may be worse things in the world than that."

The cloud lifted a little from their spirits then; and a welcome diversion took place at that moment in the form of Yaspard, who presented himself on the scene, flustered, and eager to take the blame of whatever had happened on his own shoulders.

After a dreamless slumber of an hour or two, he had waked up to remember his tryst, and getting up at once, had hastened to a spot where he could see if the _Laulie_ were anywhere near the geo. Pirate accompanied him, and did not at all care for going in the direction of the geo, but kept scampering towards another point, frequently looking back, as if he wished his young master to follow.

The _Laulie_ was not in sight, and Yaspard feared the boys had returned home on finding he did not keep his promise, or had heard of the _Osprey's_ misfortunes, and had not come at all.

While he speculated Pirate grew impatient, and begged in every expressive canine manner that he knew better than Yaspard, who at last yielded to the dog's persuasions and followed, to find the _Laulie_ moored not far from where he was.

"Just so!" he exclaimed. "I see! When they found I did not come, they started on the adventure without me."

After that he set off for Trullyabister, and appeared before Mr. Neeven and his "enemies," as I have stated.

"You are early afoot!" was the salutation spoken sarcastically by the master of the situation. But our hero, nothing daunted, answered--

"Good morning, sir! Well, boys, I suppose you tried it without me, and failed, of course."

"I was convinced none other than yourself was head and tail of the affair," remarked Mr. Neeven, in the same cool, sarcastic manner. "I think you must be finding by this time that Vikinging, otherwise burglary, doesn't fit in with modern civilisation."

"And there are other things don't fit in either," retorted Yaspard quickly; then recovering himself at once, he added hastily, "but I don't mean to fuss. If you please, by-and-by I'll have a quiet talk with you, sir, about a very important matter. Now, boys, you want to know why I didn't keep my tryst with you. It is a long story, and a very dreadful and a very strange one."

He then recounted all that had occurred since the _Laulie_ and _Osprey_ parted company, and Mr. Neeven, as well as the lads of Lunda, was deeply moved by the story. Yaspard alluded as little as possible to the light which had caused the wreck, and he did not mention at all that he had seen one similar himself.

Many were the exclamations of astonishment and sympathy with which his story was heard, but when it was finished our young adventurers found their usual mode of expressing much feeling.

"Three cheers for the little lady, and three times three for Fred Garson!" Tom called out.

Up went their caps in the air, and out rang their wild hurrahs, louder and heartier at each renewal, to the consternation of fule-Tammy, who was waked from slumber by the uproar, and came out rubbing his eyes, with all his hair on end, and wailing, "The trows! the trows! they've come tae pu' doon a' the house at last."

He was a comical sight, and laughter took the place of cheering. The boys caught each other's hands and formed a circle round Tammy, dancing, laughing, shouting, like the wildest of wild savages, until he recognised some of them, and added to their mirth by squatting in the midst of them, and saying, "Weel, noo! and I thought it wis the trows! My lambs, ye can carry on like yon till ye're weary. It's no puir Tammy 'at sall stop your madram. But, for a' that, ye're a set o' filskit moniments." [2]

"Get up, Tammy. Boys, come into the house with me," said Mr. Neeven, when the tumult subsided and he could make himself heard.

They followed him to his study, and they were not ungrateful for some scones and milk which he caused Tammy to set before them; but his grim expression did not relax, and they did not find their confidence rise very much.

After a little time Yaspard said, "Will you please let me have some private talk with you? I really _must_, before uncle begins to question me to-day, or any one comes from Lunda, as I expect they will."

He was taken to another room, but we will not intrude upon that interview. Mr. Neeven's face wore a heavy frown when they returned, but he only said, "You will all go now with Yaspard; he can stow you somewhere, I expect, till the family gets out of bed. You and your boat may find employment in conveying the Laird of Lunda to his own island. I have nothing further to say to you, except to warn you not to make raids upon me again."

"Thank you, sir," said the Mitchell brothers; and Tom added, "It is more than good of you to let us off so easy; all the same, I wish we had Fred's sealkie for him. But thank you, Mr. Neeven; and I'm sure if I can ever do anything for yon, I'll be as pleased as Punch."

Then they were dismissed curtly, but not unkindly; and Gaun Neeven felt his room to be all the darker and lonelier when the mischief-loving laddies were gone.

When they got a bit away from the house Harry called a halt. "Look you," said he, "this is no kind of hour in which to invade a decent house. Let's go to our boat, and bring her round to Moolapund."

"And say we've come for Fred, as flat as you like," added Tom; "it will be quite like our impudence."

"And will be true enough," said Yaspard. "Only there is more in it than that."

"We shan't mind telling your uncle all about it," Tom replied, "if you don't think it will make a row."

"There won't be any need to tell him at present, and he is bound to hear it from Mr. Neeven. These two have long confabs every day, and I just believe--for I've sometimes heard bits of their talk--that they don't talk science so much as all about the pranks they played when they were boys. You wouldn't think it, to look at him, but Aunt Osla says Mr. Neeven was an awful boy."

It was hard to imagine the serious scientist and the melancholy recluse two restless mischievous boys. The irreverent young rascals amused themselves till they reached the _Laulie_ with fancy sketches of the two gentlemen (when they were known merely as Brüs and Gaun) getting into all sorts of ridiculous pickles, until Harry checked the nonsensical chatter by remarking, "Every man is a boy first, and has to be a bit of a donkey, with the tricks of a monkey, till he grows up and gets sense. I hope we will all grow up with half the brains in our noddles that these two have got."

Bill Mitchell had scarcely spoken a word since the time they were discovered, but now he said very solemnly, "He's full of brains, that man! but I'd rather be more empty-headed, and less like a katyogle[3] that's been sitting on a stone all day with a dozen of undigested sandyloos[4] and sna-fowl[5] in his crop."

[1] "Madram," extravagant action, the result of wild, animal spirits.

[2] Frisky simpletons.

[3] "Katyogle," snowy owl.

[4] "Sandyloos," ringed plover.

[5] "Sna-fowl," snow buntings.