"I suppose we must believe that Gloy is all right," said Lowrie, "so we needn't concern ourselves about his life at the present time."
"He says he is still the prisoner," said Yaspard musingly; then after a long pause he added, "Look here, boys, we might as well go on with this night's performance as far as we can without our captive. We can possess ourselves of his intended 'cell' (in spite of this horrid 'sell'), and we can make it ready for him as we intended, in the hope that he will render himself into the hands of his conquerors as a true knight should."
"All serene," was Lowrie's reply; and Gibbie added, "Just so."
So in the grey, quiet "dim" the Osprey swept silently through the Hoobes and brought up at the "dyke-end," where she had stopped in the afternoon when Signy was the Viking's sole companion.
Yaspard alone jumped on shore. "Keep her off," he whispered, as if an army of enemies were in ambush close by; "don't fasten her until I give the signal that the coast is clear."
Having so given his orders, he set off up the hill, dodging behind turf walls and creeping along knolls, so that no watchful eyes at Trullyabister could detect his approach.
There is no real night in those regions when summer is in its prime, therefore Yaspard's precautions were necessary if he required to steal unawares upon the scene.
When within a short distance of the old house a backdoor suddenly opened and fule-Tammy came out carrying a peat-keschie. He was going to the stack for fuel, and the particular stack he meant to visit happened to be the very object behind which Yaspard crouched.
"If," thought the boy, "he comes round this end of the stack I'm done for."
But Tammy didn't. He always attacked a peat-stack from the point nearest the house, so he placed his keschie[1] at a convenient height on the broken side of the stack, and lazily proceeded to fill it with peats. Tammy had a habit, common in half-wits, of talking loudly to himself, and as he filled his keschie he declaimed in Yaspard's hearing—