for adventure, and glory and daring, and jolly good fun, I tell you."

"All right; we're game for whatever you please," answered the Harrisons.

After that Yaspard entered into some details of his scheme, and explained portions in which he specially required their co-operation. They were soon as enamoured of the project as he, and eager to begin a career which promised such scope for wild adventure. Some time slipped past while the confabulation lasted, and the dusk of a Shetland summer evening—the poetic "dim"—had fallen upon Boden before the lads separated.

"I'll be over again to-morrow early," said Yaspard, as he pulled out from the shore; "mind you have some armour ready by the time I come."

The light breeze which had wafted him to Noostigard had fallen to a calm, therefore the sail was of no use; but a pair of oars in his muscular hands soon carried the little Osprey to her quay, and there Signy was waiting.

"I've been longer than I meant to be, Mootie," he called out; "I am afraid it is too late to take you off."

"Never mind," she answered; "I don't want to go now. There has been such a disturbance in the house—such a terrific upset. It has made me laugh and cry—I hardly know which I ought to do now about it."

"An upset!" Yaspard exclaimed. "Praise the powers, as Mam Kirsty says. I'm glad the humdrum has had a break. What was it, Signy?"

"It was a letter."

"A letter! Was that all?"

"All!" exclaimed the girl; "you won't say a letter is a little 'all' when you hear what it did. The mailbag came across this afternoon when we were sitting at the Teng, never thinking!—and uncle got a letter from the young Laird of Lunda which made him furious. You know what happens when Uncle Brüs is angry."

"I know. I'm glad it does not happen often, poor old man! Well, what next?"

"He rampaged, and set Aunt Osla off crying. Then he began experiments with that new chemical machine, and nearly blew up the house. The windows of his Den are smashed, and you never saw anything like the mess there is in it—broken glass, books, methylated spirits, specimens, everything."

"Hurrah!" shouted Yaspard, cutting short Signy's story; "don't tell me more. Let's go and see."

He fastened up his boat, took his sister's hand, and ran quickly up the brae to his home.

There indeed was a scene of devastation, as far as the scientist's study was concerned. It looked as though a volcano had irrupted there: bookshelves were overturned, chairs and tables were sprawling legs in air, liquids were oozing in rainbow hues over manuscripts, odours of the most objectionable kind filled the air. A tame raven was hopping among the debris, with an eye to choice "remains" dropping from broken jars; a strange-looking fish was gasping its last breath on the sofa, among broken fragments of its crystal tank. A huge grey cat was standing, with her back arched, on the mantelpiece—the only place she deemed secure—surveying the scene, and ready for instant flight, or fight, if another explosion seemed imminent.

Pirate was lying at the open door, watching the movements of Thor (the raven), whose depredatory proclivities were well known to the dog. Thor, perfectly aware that a detective's eye was upon him, did not venture to abstract any of the wreckage, but assumed an air of careless curiosity as he hopped about among Mr. Adiesen's demoralised treasures.

Mr. Adiesen himself had disappeared. He had been stunned for a few moments by the explosion; but on recovering he only waited to realise the ruin he had wrought, and then, seizing a favourite geological hammer, he raced away to the rocks to practise what stood him in place of strong language.

No one had dared to attempt restoring order in the Den; the maids would not have set foot within its door for their lives. Miss Adiesen was soothing her nerves with tea, which Mam Kirsty was administering with loud and voluble speech.

"My! what a sight!" Yaspard exclaimed, as he looked into the study. "And what a smell! It's enough to frighten the French," and he turned into the parlour, where his aunt was comforting her nerves after her favourite manner, as I said.

"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.

"I do wish (as my father so long wished) that you would meet me and have a friendly talk, when I have no doubt we could smooth this matter—I mean your grievance regarding Havnholme. It seems so unneighbourly, not to say unchristian, to keep up a quarrel from generation to generation.

"Pardon me if it seems presumptuous of a young fellow like me to write thus to you; but I feel as it I were only the medium through which my good noble father were making his wishes known. If you will allow me, I will call upon you at some early time.—Yours sincerely, FRED GARSON."

"It's a very decent letter," said Yaspard, "and everybody who knows the young Laird says he is a brick; but I know how Uncle Brüs would flare up over this. One has only to utter 'holme' or 'Lunda' in uncle's hearing if one wants to bring the whole feud about one's ears."

Here Signy put in her soft little voice. "But it really was a shame about the birds, Yaspard. You said so, you know; and oh, I have dreamt about them ever so often, poor things!"

"That's true. Still, uncle persists that the holme is his property; and the Lairds of Lunda have always got the name of land-grabbers."

Miss Osla looked up at the boy with a kind of terror in her eyes. "O Yaspard," she cried, "don't you begin that way too. Don't you believe all that's told you. Don't you take up that miserable, wicked—yes, wicked—quarrel."

"Easy, easy, Aunt Osla! I haven't dug up the hatchet yet. But can you tell me what was the true origin of that affair?"

"I don't believe anybody ever knew what it began about, or why. The Garsons and Adiesens were born quarrelling with one another, I think."

"But surely you know about the particular