"Let Yaspard speak for himself, my dear," her uncle answered gently, while his grim feature relaxed as he looked at her; and the boy, braced by the touch of the little hand in his, blurted out—
"I wanted to know the lads of Lunda, and have some fun, as they have and most boys have; and I couldn't be friends with them because you had forbidden that, so I took up the feud in a sort of way on my own account, and determined to make raids upon them, and have fights (sham-fights) and do as the Vikings did—in a kind of play, of course. They are the enemy; and we could make-believe to slaughter and capture each other, and——"
Mortal man could stand no more than that. Mr. Adiesen, drawing his brows together savagely to hide his strong inclination to burst into laughter, called his nephew by some not complimentary names, and dismissed him abruptly, saying, "Go along with you, and take your fun any way you please. Only remember—no friendships with Lunda folk. Play with them under the black flag, if that gives you amusement; and see that your Viking-craze keeps within the bounds of civilised laws."
Yaspard escaped, rejoicing; but Signy lingered to ask, "Would you object to taking prisoners, uncle?"
"Child, let him prison every man and boy in Lunda if he likes—if he can catch them."
Signy flew to tell her brother of this further concession, and Mr. Adiesen shut the door upon himself. If the young folks had listened outside that door they would have heard a curious noise; but whether it meant that the old man was growling to himself or suppressing laughter, we, who do not know Mr. Adiesen's moods very well, cannot tell.
Yaspard was only too glad to get off so easily, and paused for nothing, but, racing off to his boat with Signy, was soon sailing up the voe—not across, as before, for his destination was not Noostigard.
Boden voe is very beautiful It curves between steep shores, and at one place narrows so much that you could almost touch either shore with a sillack-rod from a boat passing through. When it is ebb-tide you can walk dry-shod across this passage (called the Hoobes). Here the voe terminates in a lovely little basin, almost land-locked, and placid as a mountain tarn.
Where the voe ends there is only a mere neck of land. It rises abruptly from both sides, and is crowned by a peak known as the Heogne.
Under shelter of the Heogne, and commanding a magnificent view of islands and ocean-wastes, stands the old dwelling of Trullyabister. Mr. Neeven was the cousin of Mr. Adiesen: he left Shetland in his early youth, and no one heard whether he was alive or dead for thirty years. Then he returned to his native land, a gloomy, disappointed man, hard to be recognised as the light-hearted lad who had gone away to make a fortune in California, and be happy ever afterwards. It seemed that he had made the fortune, but the happiness had eluded him. He would give no account of his life, and seldom cared to converse with any one except Brüs Adiesen, from whom he asked and readily obtained the half-ruined home of their fathers. Two or three rooms were made habitable; the half-witted brother of James Harrison was hired as attendant; cart-loads of books were brought from the South (by which vague term the Shetlanders mean Great Britain); and Gaun Neeven settled himself in that wild, lone spot, purposing to end his days there. He was there when Yaspard was very small, therefore the boy always associated his hermit-relative with the "haunted" house of Boden; and as he grew older, and the romantic side of his character developed rapidly, he was greatly attracted to Trullyabister and its queer occupants—fule-Tammy being, in his way, as mysterious a recluse as his master.