"You've been having a high old time, auntie," he cried, laughing. "I never saw such a rare turn-out in Moolapund before."
"You may say so," sobbed Aunt Osla. "It is a 'turn-out' and a 'high old' business. We were near going high enough, let alone your uncle, whose escape is nothing short of a miracle. I always said there would be mischief done with those mixtures and glass tubes, and machines for heating dangerous coloured stuff. A rare turn-out! Yes; there is not much left in his room to turn out—it's all turned. But it isn't the specimens and all that I mind so very much, after all, though that is bad enough, considering all the time and money he has spent on them. It is the—the cause of all this that—that breaks my heart. Oh dear!" and she broke out a-weeping again.
CHAPTER III.
"WIDE TOLD OF IS THIS."
"What had young Garson said to make Uncle Brüs so angry?" asked Yaspard.
"He did not say much that was unpleasant—even from our point of view. It is the letter of a gentleman anyway; and I know very well that his mother's son could not say or do or think anything that was not like a gentleman. I knew her, poor dear, when we were both young. See, here is the letter. You may read it. It was flung to me. Your uncle did not care who saw it, or who knows about his 'feud'—oh, I'm sick of the word."
Yaspard smoothed out the letter, which his uncle had crushed up in his rage, and read—
"DEAR MR. ADIESEN,—I very much regret being obliged to remind you once more that Havnholme is part of the Lunda property, and that it was my dear father's wish that the sea-birds on the island should not be molested.
"I shall always be very pleased to give you, or any other naturalist, every facility for studying the birds in their haunts, but I cannot (knowing as I do so well the mind of my late father in this matter) permit innocent creatures to be disturbed and distressed as they have been of late. You know the circumstances to which I allude.