The Adventure League

By Hilda T. Skae

The Adventure League was written in the year 1907 by Hilda T. Skae. This book is one of the most popular novels of Hilda T. Skae, and has been translated into several other languages around the world.

This book is published by Booklassic which brings young readers closer to classic literature globally.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Booklassic
• Release date: Jul 7, 2015
• ISBN: 9789635248568

Book preview

978-963-524-856-8

Chapter 1

WHAT HAPPENED IN ERRICHA.

It was very early on a bright summer morning. Rocks and heather and green fields lay bathed in sunshine; and round the shores of a small island on the west coast of Scotland the sea was dancing and splashing, while in the distance the Highland hills raised their bare crests towards a cloudless sky.

The sun had not long risen, and it seemed as though no one could be stirring at this early hour; yet there was an unusual commotion among the birds nesting on the ledges of a high cliff. The funny little puffins, with their red, parrot-like bills, were peering anxiously out of the crevices; while the curious little auks, standing erect in rows like black and white mannikins, were exceedingly perturbed; and the kittiwakes flew screaming from the rocky shelves, joining their voices to the hoarser cries of the guillemots and the booming of the waves among walls and pillars of rock.

The cause of the birds' agitation was not far to seek. Some figures, looking very small upon the huge cliff, were crawling on their hands and knees upon the ledges, gathering eggs. Two were boys; and the red cap and serge frock of another proclaimed her to be a girl. About fifty feet below, with nothing between him and the waves which looked small in the distance, a lad hung suspended by a rope, while the birds circled and screamed around him.

One of the boys came to where the ledge ended in a sheer drop down to the sea; and putting something very carefully in his pocket, he rose to his feet and began to climb upward.

Catching hold of the tufts of heather on the verge of the cliff, he swung himself on to firm ground, and proved to be a boy of about ten years of age; thin and wiry, with a dark face and bright twinkling eyes. His thin brown wrists had grown a long way out of the sleeves of his jacket; and he had torn a hole in the knee of each knicker.

After rubbing his elbows, which he had grazed against the rocks, he turned to speak to a little girl who was sitting on a tuft of heather, looking somewhat forlorn. A handsome collie dog, yellow-brown with a white ruffle round his neck, was lying impatiently at her feet, every now and again glancing up at his mistress with bright, inquiring eyes.

'Well, Tricksy,' said the boy; 'tired of waiting, eh?'

'Yes,' replied his sister, 'you've been a long time, and I'm cold. I don't see why I shouldn't go down the cliffs with the rest of you. Laddie's tired of waiting too.'

The collie rose upon hearing his name mentioned, and thrust his nose into the boy's hand, wagging his tail and looking as though he would say, 'Come along now, do; and tell the others to come; you've played at that dangerous game long enough; let's all have a jolly scamper after rabbits!'

A red cap appeared over the edge of the cliff, followed immediately by a laughing face framed in a crop of fair curly hair; then a girl scrambled on to firm ground.

'Hulloa, Reggie! are you there already?' she said. 'How many have you got?'

'Five,' said Reggie, displaying the contents of his pockets; 'an auk's, two puffin's, and two kittiwake's. Aren't they prettily marked?'

'Beauties,' replied the girl, examining the eggs. 'Better get Neil to blow them for you; he always does it the best. I have only two, and another broke as I was getting it out; but oh, it was glorious down on these ledges! I'd like to have a scramble like this every morning!'

'I daresay,' broke in an exasperated little voice; 'fine fun for you others to get up at four in the morning when the steamer isn't expected until six, and go scrambling about on the rocks, getting sea-birds' eggs, saying that you'll only be five minutes, and then stay an hour!'

The child spoke in little rushes and gushes, and her eyes twinkled and looked pathetic by turns in her little dark, round face.

'An hour, Tricksy! It can't have been so long as that!'

'Indeed it was, Marjorie, because I have Reggie's watch; he left it with me, and it has been rather tiresome waiting here, when you know I mayn't climb the rocks as you do.'

'Poor Tricksy, what a shame! It's too bad of us, leaving you alone all that time. Just wait until you are a year or two older, and then your mother will let you climb like the rest of us. Who would have thought that we had been away so long! Time does go so quickly when you're scrambling about for eggs!'

She looked around with bright, fearless blue eyes; a tall, slight girl of fifteen, with a face so tanned by sun and wind as almost to have lost its extreme fairness, and with the quick, free movements which speak of perfect health and an open-air life.

'Hulloa,' said Reggie suddenly; 'there's the steamer!'

'Where?' asked both the girls eagerly.

'Over there, just rounding the headland, quite in the distance; you can see the trail of smoke, She won't be in for some time yet.'

For a minute or two the young people stood watching the grey line upon the horizon; then Marjorie said—

'She's coming along pretty quickly. Hadn't we better call the others and let them know?'

'Yes, do,' said Reggie; and hollowing their hands, they shouted, 'Neil!—Hamish!—hulloa!—the steamer!'

Their voices were blown back to them by the wind; but the lad on the rope happening to look up, the others pointed energetically out to sea, where the hull of the steamer was now becoming visible.

The boy glanced round; then climbed quickly hand over hand up the rope, and joined the others.

'The steamer at last,' said Reggie. 'See, she is just rounding Erricha Point now; she won't be long in coming in. Isn't it jolly about the measles, Neil?'

'Jolly for those who didn't happen to take them,' suggested Marjorie.

'Allan's holidays began six weeks sooner than they would have done if the boys hadn't all been sent home,' continued Reggie.

'He is coming just when we're having the best fun,' said Marjorie, watching the steamer with thoughtful eyes; 'what jolly times we'll have now. That was an awfully good idea of yours, Neil.'

The tall lad looked gratified. He was a handsome youth of about seventeen, dressed in the rough clothes of a fisherman, but refined in appearance, with a straight nose, dark blue eyes, and curly black hair.

'I will be thinking that you and the others had as much to do with it as I had, Miss Marjorie,' he replied.

'Not at all, old fellow,' said Reggie, who always spoke to his friend as though he were a boy of his own age; 'not at all; we never could have made the place what it is if it hadn't been for you. Hulloa, Hamish, old chap,' he added good-humouredly, as a somewhat sleepy-looking, fair-haired boy joined the group—'reached the top?'

Marjorie looked angry, as she always did when Reggie Stewart assumed patronising airs towards her brother.

'Yes,' replied Hamish simply; 'I thought there was no hurry, as the steamer won't be in for a while, and I was trying to reach down for these little things. Look, Tricksy, I thought you might like to have them—two young puffins, not long hatched.'

'O Hamish, what lovely little things!' cried Tricksy, her eyes growing large and her little round face dimpling with pleasure; 'it was good of you to get them for me.'

At this moment Laddie, who had been standing impatiently beside the group, pricked up his ears with a growl, looking at something a short distance away.

'What's the matter with you, Laddie?' said Reggie.

'He's looking at that man over there,' said Marjorie; 'who is it? He seems to want to speak to you, Neil.'

Neil looked round and then reddened slightly.

'It will be that poor fellow Gibbie Mackerrach, one of the band of gipsies who are staying here just now,' he said. 'Go away, Gibbie,' he added in Gaelic, shaking his head, since it was unlikely that the gipsy would be able to hear distinctly where he stood; 'I can't come.'

'It's the lad who isn't quite right in his mind, isn't it?' said Marjorie; 'the one whom you helped when his boat was upset on the loch?'

'Yes, it will be the poor fellow who had the ducking,' replied Neil. 'He will be quite harmless, only a little odd. You will nefer be seeing him with the others; he will always be wandering about by himself, and sleeping in all kinds of places. Och! but this will not do though; he is meddling with our coats that we took off when we were going to climb. Hi, Gibbie! you must not be touching these things.'

The lad's handsome, foolish face became overspread with a smile as Neil came towards him.

'Good Neil—kind Neil,' he said, patting him on the arm.

'Now go away, Gibbie; there's a good lad,' said Neil. 'I will have no time to be talking to you just now, and you must not be touching our things. You had better go home, Gibbie; they will be looking for you.'

'Be quiet, Laddie,' said Reggie authoritatively to the dog, who was still growling; 'he is not doing any harm.'

Laddie's remonstrances died away in a disapproving grumble, as though he were saying that he wasn't satisfied yet, and would renew the subject upon some future occasion.

'If you don't mind,' said Neil, who had been watching the retreating form of the gipsy, 'I will be going a bit of the way with him. He iss trying to cross the Shaking Bog now, and he might be coming to harm in it.'

'All right, Neil; see you again later,' said the others.

'Tricksy, what's the matter with you?' cried Marjorie; 'you are trembling like anything, and your teeth are chattering in your head.'

'Cold,' said the little girl, whose small dark face was beginning to look pinched and unhappy; 'and I'm a little hungry too; we hadn't time to get anything to eat when you and Hamish came for us so early.'

'Comes of leaving you up there so long,' said Marjorie; 'how careless we were. Whatever will your mother say if you get ill.'

'Here, Tricksy,' said Hamish, 'take this coat, I don't want it; and look, the steamer is not far from the pier; she is coming in at a rate. We'll have to run if we want to get in as soon as she does. Take my hand, and I'll help you along, and you'll be warm in half a jiff.'

Tricksy smiled in a consoled way as she put her hand into the big outstretched one of the boy; and the whole party set off to race along the top of the cliff and down to where the pier jutted out from a small village nestled in a low part of the shore.

Laddie gave an excited bark and scampered beside the others, wondering what was going to happen.

The steamer was coming in pretty fast, and the pier being encumbered with nets and with crans of newly caught fish, they reached the mooring-place just as the hawser was being thrown ashore.

A bright-looking boy of about fourteen years of age was standing on deck with his hands in his pockets and 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