CHAPTER VIII.
"THEREFORE THEY GO THEIR WAYS."
I ought to explain that the passage leading to that "haunted" chambersloped upwards steeply enough to require a step here and there alongit. It might even be called a stairway; therefore the littleroom--which had been the goal of Yaspard's present raid--was situatedon 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 aflickering light was streaming through a tiny slit in the thick wallthat did duty for a window. But we must not suppose that the courageof a Viking-boy was going to be daunted by trow-laughter orghost-lights. No; nor by stone walls and high windows! The walls ofTrullyabister were rugged, and, on _that_ side at any rate, perforatedby holes convenient for supporting the toe of a boot, and for otherwiseassisting an athletic youth, thirsting for information, to solve themysteries of the interior.
"I'll know what it means, or----" Yaspard did not finish his sentencein words; he shut his mouth up tight, and, scrambling over the ruinslike a monkey, he was soon climbing up to the window.
The Harrisons watched him with intense interest, and when his handswere on the window-sill their excitement reached a climax.
It was with some difficulty that the bold adventurer raised himselfhigh enough to see into the room, and it was only for one instant thathe occupied such a position. Just as his face appeared at the windowanother face--a horrid face, from which a pair of large melancholy eyesglowed with a wild fierce light--presented itself opposite Yaspard, andstared 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 hadreached it.
"What was it? Tell us quick," whispered Lowrie, and both he and hisbrother were trembling with fear. They had caught a glimpse of theface that had met Yaspard's, and its unearthly appearance had beengreatly exaggerated by the shadows and the distance. Although theywere too intelligent to credit any story of trows, they had livelyimaginations, and had been bred in a land where the mysteries ofcreation take fantastic shapes in the minds of a wonder-loving andsuperstitious peasantry. They had shrunk from penetrating the secretsof that haunted room, and were not altogether surprised, thoughentirely frightened, that "something" had "appeared" to rebuke andcheck their leader's audacity.
While Yaspard gasped for breath after his hasty descent the Harrisonsagain begged, "Tell us quick about it," but Yaspard was in no hurry totell. He retreated again into the ruin, whither his companionsfollowed, and, sitting down by the loaded keschies, he cast his eyes onthe ground and would not speak.
There was something awesome in the silence, in the surroundings, in thewhole adventure, therefore it is not to be wondered that Lowrie feltcreepy, and Gibbie's teeth chattered in his head.
At last the elder brother took courage to say, "Let's go back to ourboat. There's nae gude tae be got o' sitting here like gaping fishleft dry and high upon a skerry."
"Put the keschies in the passage, anyway," said Yaspard, agreeing tothe proposal; but the Harrisons were not willing to enter that passageagain, so they suggested another hiding-place, namely, the chimney,which was stopped up and grown over _above_, but had capacious ledgesinside which suited admirably for the purpose they required. Theirthings were deposited there, and then the three adventurers stolesilently away from Trullyabister, two feeling crestfallen and veryuncomfortable, the third plunged in thought, and looking the beau idealof a pirate chief meditating over some dark and deadly project.
It was not until the _Osprey_ had passed the Hoobes, and was beingswiftly rowed to Noostigard, that Yaspard broke the eerie silence whichhe had maintained in a most unusual manner. "It all works in!--worksin beautiful!" he remarked. Now, that was not at all the kind ofspeech the others had expected, and their amazement was so great thatthey paused in their rowing and gazed at him in speechless astonishment.
He laughed then, his own hearty laugh, which somehow had the effect ofdissipating all the fears with which they had been beset, but did notdiminish their surprise and curiosity.
"Ye might tell us _now_!" they begged, in coaxing tones; and Yaspardanswered, "I just believe Mr. Neeven is a wizard, and Tammy a sort oftrow. Anyway, they are as bad as Vikings, for they have captured apoor lady and shut her up in the haunted room, with her baby too--alljust the way people did ages ago! And now, don't you see, we've got torescue them; we are the noble warriors who defend the weak and rescuethem from thraldom!"
"Has he gone stark mad?" Gibbie asked of Lowrie.
"Not he," retorted Yaspard. "He is telling you the exacttruth--believe it or not, as you please. I saw the mother, and I sawthe baby; and I saw the back--I am glad he wasn't looking _my_ way--oftheir 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 uncommonlylike 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 thathole," was the ready reply, which satisfied the brothers, who believedthat their imaginations, and the dread they were in, as well as theuncertain light, had caused them to fancy they saw something peculiar.They were then quite ready to denounce Mr. Neeven for his inhumanconduct, and eager to devise some plan by which the poor prisonersmight 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 werealmost 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 wehave other important matters on hand. We have to find Gloy, and wehave to meet the lads of Lunda at Havnholme this afternoon. We haven'tmuch time on our hands, if Gloy has to be found before we go to receivehis 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'sbrow, and sent him home believing as implicitly as before that Yaspardwould find a way of making things come straight. "He always does," thebrothers agreed, as they softly stole up to their room, leaving theViking to paddle himself across the voe.
At breakfast next morning Mrs. Harrison asked in some surprise whatthey had done with Gloy, for she had expected her nephew wouldcertainly be brought to her house. She was not a little disturbed onhearing of his disappearance, but the factor said, "There's nae harmcome to the lad. Ye need not be frightened. It's plain enough someboat 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 taeset in."
He would not listen to his boys' arguments against such an explanation.Neither Gloy's declaring himself still "The Prisoner," nor Pirate'shonesty as policeman, could shake Harrison's belief in his own theoryof the matter. "You'll see I'm right," he ended with; "but I wad liketae 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 beentalking, Lowrie was fidgeting in his chair, trying to gather courage totell the yet more startling incident which occurred during the midnighttrespass 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 theolder girls cried out, "What in a' the world have ye got in your crazyhead,
Lowrie?"
Then Lowrie told all he knew about the mother and baby prisoned in thehaunted room, and his father listened to the story with a preternaturalsolemnity of countenance.
Mrs. Harrison, the girls, and small children stared and were dumb, asLowrie enlarged upon the baby wails which had stirred his soul, and thegreat glowing eyes that had appeared for one brief moment at the smallwindow. It was all the most remarkable tale that had ever been told atNoostigard, and it was not spoilt by any verbal interruption.
When the story was ended Harrison asked, in a curious low voice thatseemed shaken by some strange emotion, "And so ye'll be for letting outMr. 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 fellowo' 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 boysconfidently; but their father shook his head.
"I'm thinking," he said, "ye'll find ye've got a _rale_ Viking tae dealwi' if ye tackle Mr. Neeven, or meddle wi' ony o' his affairs. I wadnabe 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 crittersprisoned in such a place; and surely Yaspard is right to wish to setthem free."
"I'll no say he's wrang. I think it is a shame, but I'm just warningyou tae be careful;--I mean that ye tell your chief (as ye ca' him) taebe 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 asignificant look he gave them served to silence them on the subject forthat time.
[1] "Maute," a comrade, chum, or _mate_.
[2] Bristles.
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