red. 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 Brues 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 o