a tweed cap on the back of his head, and a tall, sunburnt gentleman was beside him.

'Hulloa, father! hulloa, Allan!' said Tricksy, dimpling and smiling.

Laddie looked up for a minute; then burst into a joyous barking, and sprang several feet off the ground, turning round in the air before once more alighting upon his paws; then he tore up and down the pier like a dog out of his senses.

In the midst of his excitement the gangway was thrown across, and the sailors stood aside to let the laird and his son leave the vessel.

Immediately Laddie bounded forward and danced around them, barking until the rocks echoed, and waving his bushy tail in an ecstasy of welcome.

'Down, Laddie, down,' said Mr. Stewart sternly; and Laddie, after looking up pathetically for a minute or two, contented himself with following Allan as closely as he could.

'How do you do, Marjorie?' said Allan. 'Hulloa, Hamish; glad to see you! Hulloa, Reggie!—Tricksy, why don't you keep your dog in better order?'

Tricksy looked hurt.

'He's a very well-trained dog,' she declared. 'He only barks because he is glad to see you.'

'Tricksy thinks she owns a dog,' said her father, smiling down at the little girl, 'but in reality the dog owns her.'

'Daddy, you are always teasing me,' said Laddie's eight-year-old mistress; 'he's a most obedient dog.—Laddie, come here.'

Laddie glanced at her and then looked up adoringly at Allan without stirring from his side.

'That is so like a dog,' observed Marjorie; 'they always make more fuss about a boy, even if he hardly notices them, than over a girl who is always petting them. It's too bad.'

Tricksy looked mortified.

'It's because he's so glad that Allan has come home,' she said. 'Just wait, Daddy; he'll obey me sometime.'

Mr. Stewart and Hamish smiled; but the others were clustering round Allan, asking questions.

'Had you a good journey, Allan? The steamer's very late. How are the measles? Are many of the boys ill? Lucky you didn't take it.'

'It's very jolly that you've got such long holidays, Allan,' said Tricksy, who was walking on her tip-toes with pleasurable anticipation. 'We've got such a jolly game at present; and Neil's helping us.'

'How is old Neil?' asked Allan.

'First-rate,' said Reggie. 'He was with us this morning, gathering eggs.'

'Gathering eggs!' said Allan; 'you've been up very early.'

'Yes,' replied Marjorie; 'Reggie and Tricksy heard that you were expected at six in the morning, so they rode over to ask us to be sure to come and meet you at the steamer. We got up ever so early—I don't know when; and what do you think? After we'd come all that long way those lazy people were still asleep!'

'Yes,' piped Tricksy; 'at four in the morning we were wakened by having pebbles thrown up at our windows, and we had to get up and dress in a brace of shakes.' (Reggie's face darkened. Tricksy was fond of using slang picked up from her brothers, and he felt it his duty to disapprove.) 'Then we didn't know what to do to fill up the time, so we went to Neil's mother's cottage, and Reggie knocked at Neil's window, so that he came out to see what was the matter; and we all went egg-gathering on the rocks.'

'Where's father?' said Allan suddenly; he has been left behind.'

'Go on—all of you!' called Mr. Stewart, who was engaged in talking to a respectably dressed man on the pier; 'don't wait for me.—Take Hamish and Marjorie home, Allan, and give them some breakfast, and tell your mother I shan't be long.'

'I wonder who that is with father,' said Reggie; 'I can't see his face. He looks like a stranger. Father is always having people coming to talk to him now that he has been made a J.P.'

'Allan,' said Marjorie, 'before we go to your house, I think we had better go into Mrs. MacAlister's and get a scone or a piece of oat-cake for Tricksy. She has gone far too long without food. You're hungry, aren't you, Tricksy?'

Tricksy nodded. Her little dark face was very pale, and she was struggling with a vexatious desire to cry.

'She always will insist upon doing what the rest of us do, that child,' said Marjorie in an undertone to Hamish; and Hamish looked kindly at the youngest member of the band.

'She has no end of pluck, the little kid,' he aid.

'We'll go to Mrs. MacAlister's shop,' said Marjorie. 'I am sure she must be up by now, and we'll be able to get something.'

The young folks pattered along the unevenly paved streets of the little village, which had the sea on one side and grassy cliffs on the other.

'It's curious what a lot of people are about so early,' said Marjorie, as they passed some knots of men and women standing in corners and talking. 'I wonder whether there is anything unusual going on.'

The party stopped at the door of a small shop which had some cakes and jars of sweets in the window, and a post-box let into the wall.

'Here's Mrs. MacAlister's,' said Marjorie; 'she has her shop open very early.'

The little place was in confusion. The shutters were down, but the shop had not been tidied, and Mrs. MacAlister herself, when she came forward to serve her customers, was pale and had red eyes.

'Is anything the matter, Mrs. MacAlister?' asked Marjorie, while the others looked at the untidy shop in surprise.

'Indeed, Miss Marjorie, I will just be having my shop broken into this night; and they will be opening the post-box and taking away a lot of the letters,' and the woman threw herself into a chair and began talking and lamenting in Gaelic, while the children crowded together open-eyed.

'No, Master Reggie—no, Miss Marjorie; do not be touching anything,' said Mrs. MacAlister hurriedly, as they approached the shattered letter-box; 'it hass all to remain as it iss until the chief constable and the laird hev seen it; and they will be bringing the Sheriff from Stornwell; it iss an unlucky day for a poor woman like me, whateffer.'

'It's a dreadful thing,' said Marjorie; 'I hope they'll catch the thief, Mrs. MacAlister.'

Mr. Stewart, accompanied by the stranger and the island constable, was approaching the door, so the young people trooped out into the street, feeling greatly excited.

'Who do you think has done it, Allan?' asked Tricksy in an awestruck voice.

Allan did not answer, and Reggie said, 'How can he tell, Tricksy?' somewhat curtly.

Tricksy subsided, and a cart laden with peats coming by, Allan stopped the driver and asked him to give them a 'lift.'

The man helped Tricksy into the cart, and the others scrambled in the best way they could, and settled themselves among the peats.

'It's a dreadful business this,' said Marjorie, her eyes shining brighter and bluer with excitement.

'I don't believe such a thing has ever happened with us before,' said Allan; 'our people have always had the credit of being very honest.'

'Who can it have been?' said Hamish, after considering for a minute. 'I can't believe that any of our people would have done it.'

'There will be no end of a row,' said Reggie, speaking for the first time. 'Father will have his work cut out for him, as he is a J.P. now.'

'Yes, and the Sheriff coming here, and everything,' said Marjorie. 'How will you like to meet your friend the Sheriff again, Tricksy?'

There was no reply.

Tricksy had fallen asleep among the peats, her head pillowed upon her arm, and her soft, dark waves of hair falling over her face.

The others began to realise how sleepy they were, after having risen before sunrise and spent several hours in the strong sea air, and in spite of excitement, conversation languished while the cart jolted along and finally halted at the gates of Ardnavoir, the manor-house of the island of Inchkerra.

CHAPTER II

THE PIRATES' DEN

'Neil, old fellow,' Allan was saying, 'I wonder how