The Adventure League Part 36

Laddie, after looking puzzled for a moment, burst into a joyous barking and leaped up three times and turned round in the air; then ran to Neil and jumped up again, trying to lick his face. An indescribable tumult reigned, and Neil extricated himself with difficulty.

'Excuse me,' he said; 'you are all ferry kind, but I must pe going and telling my mother.'

'Wait a bit, Neil,' said the doctor, laying a detaining hand upon the lad's shoulder; 'not so suddenly, if you please; I will go with you and prepare her,' and the two left the house together.

'But Mrs. Macdonnell, Mummie,' said Tricksy, with a quivering lip, 'do you--do you think she'll die?'

'Not she,' said the laird, coming forward; 'happiness has never killed any one yet, and a little of that is what Mrs. Macdonnell was wanting.

But where is the hero of the day; the one who found out what no one else has been able to discover! We have not congratulated him yet.'

'We do, we do,' they all cried; and they laid forcible hands upon Hamish, who had retired into the background with a very red face, carried him out of doors and chaired him triumphantly round the courtyard.

'But _Hamish_,' said Harry later in the day, his eyes bright with astonishment; 'to think that after all it was Hamish who did it!'

'Why not?' inquired Allan gruffly.

'Why, he's such a quiet fellow, one never thinks of his doing anything.

If it had been you or me now, or Reggie, or even Marjorie (although Marjorie's far too conceited for a girl); but Hamis.h.!.+'

Marjorie had caught some of the last words, and she turned upon the boy like lightning.

'Ever heard the fable of the Hare and the Tortoise?' she queried. 'If not you'll find it in the Third Reading Book. Perhaps you're not as far as that yet though.'

Still Harry found the matter hard to understand, and during several days, he was frequently to be observed sitting on d.y.k.es and contemplating Hamish, who shared the honours of the time with Neil.

'Only a few days now,' observed Tricksy regretfully, 'and there will be an end of all the fun. Every one's going to school except me, and there will be no boating or fis.h.i.+ng or playing at pirates any more.'

'What about next year, Tricksy?' said Marjorie.

'Next year! Why, you'll be grown-up by then. Your mother said you must be sent to school to learn to be less of a tomboy.'

'I won't be less of a tomboy,' declared Marjorie. 'I'm going to fish, and climb rocks and ride ponies bare-backed, and do all those kinds of things until I'm ever so old. We'll have better fun than ever, now we have Neil back again. I vote we make a Compact----'

'We've made one already,' interposed Tricksy.

'Well, a new one then. We'll call it a League;--the Adventure League--and we'll promise to come back every year. Harry and Gerald too, and we'll have the Pirates' Den for our house; and we'll never bother about being grown-up until we're too old to get any fun out of being tomboys any more.'

'Agreed,' said the others. 'Neil, you shall be Captain of our League.'