The Pilots of Pomona: A Story of the Orkney IslandsLeighton, Robert
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The Pilots of Pomona: A Story of the Orkney Islands
Leighton, Robert
Orkney (Scotland) -- Fiction
"'Deed I canna say what way that could be there. I'm thinking we
must e'en refer it to the dominie. He kens all about these things,"
said Hercus; and then he turned to Kinlay, who hitherto had
expressed no conjecture.
"But what think you of it all, Tom?"
"What do I think!" said Kinlay in a tone of indifference. "I care
not what way the silver came there. What does it matter? I'm only
thinking what I'll do with my own share of it."
Now I confess that I had not before thought anything at all about
what we should do with the silver. I was so much interested in the
circumstance of our curious discovery of the hidden treasure that
the thought of its market value, or of our means of disposing of
it, had never entered my head; and I believe Hercus and Rosson were
totally ignorant of the fact that our find was really worth more
than the mere interest we naturally attached to the articles as
curious antiquities. Had I been asked as to the disposal of them, I
believe I would have proposed that the whole treasure should be
handed over to the care of our schoolmaster, who would doubtless
see that we did not lose by any sale he might effect.
Tom Kinlay was the first to suggest the sharing of the silver
pieces. We could offer no reasonable objection to a plan which
seemed so fair to all of us, and we agreed that before we parted an
equal division should be made.
Walking along a stretch of bleak moorland bordering the sea, taking
always the nearest cuts across the jutting points of rocky
headland, we at length approached the quaint graveyard of Bigging.
The night was clear, and light almost as day; but Robbie and Willie
would, I believe, rather have gone many miles out of our direct way
than go near that awesome place.
The ruined chapel and the long, flat tombstones surrounding it,
seemed to have an eerie influence upon our imagination, and we
could but whistle some merry tune to keep up our hearts. Willie
Hercus, though naturally daring, was now especially timid, the
remembrance of that skull he had handled having taken such hold of
his mind that the simple mention of it by one of us was enough to
make his voice sink to a trembling whisper, as though he feared the
dead man might come to life again and appear in our midst to accuse
us of having disturbed his bones.
I think Tom Kinlay was the only one of us who did not look with
superstitious awe into the dark shadows that hung about those
ruined walls and silent tombstones; but he was so tall and strong
that nothing seemed to daunt him, and soon he made a proposal that
went far towards assuring me that he was absolutely fearless.
"Now, lads," said he, when we were passing the low wall of the
burying ground, "let us get in here and spread out our things on
one of those flat stones, and then we can share them out. Come
along; nobody can disturb us in that quiet burying ground."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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