Part 29 (2/2)
”Are they good, or is there false ones among them too?”
”Many are good,” she said, pa.s.sing them rapidly and somewhat distastefully under her delicate fingers, ”but not by any means all....
You have laboured hard to acc.u.mulate so much.”
”Harder than ever I worked in my life before, but it suits me fine.”
”But what good is it all unless you can get away from here and turn it to some good use?”
”We'll talk of that when I've got all I want, mebbe.”
”You are like a miser then, ever acc.u.mulating and loth to spend.”
”Just that! Ye see I never had siccan a chance before,--nor many others either. Ye wouldna care for a ring or two, or mebbe a bracelet or a brooch?”
”Oh, I could not. It is good of you to offer, but ... no, I thank you.
They would always make me think of the skeletons out there. Poor things!”
”They don't hurt, and they're aye laughing as if 'twas all a rare joke,” which made her s.h.i.+ver with discomfort and draw her blanket closer round her neck at the back.
”Well, well!” said he, with a hoa.r.s.e laugh, as he made up his bundle again. ”Folks has queer notions. Ef 't 'adn't been for me----”
”And the Doctor,” she interposed quickly.
”Ay--and the Doctor there----”
”I know,” she cut him short, ”and it is very much nicer to be sitting here by a warm fire than tumbling about on a mast out there. I appreciate it, I a.s.sure you.”
Perhaps it was to restore the balance of his spirits, which had suffered somewhat from the discovery that his treasure was not all he had thought it, that made him apply himself more heartily than usual to the rum cask that night. By the Doctor's advice any water they drank from the brackish pools was mixed with a few drops of rum. Macro always saw to it that a cask was at hand, and he himself took but small risks as far as the water was concerned. But he could stand a heavy load, and as a rule it only made him sluggish and uncompanionable.
This night, however, as he sat dourly smoking, and taking every now and again a long pull at his handy pannikin, it seemed to set him brooding over things and at times he grew disputatious.
Miss Drummond had turned with obvious relief to the Doctor and said, ”These things do not interest you?”
”As curiosities only, not intrinsically. I never had any craving for jewelry!”
”It is a feminine weakness, I suppose, though I have known men who outvied even the women in their display.”
”We have simpler ways in the country, and more robust.”
”Mebbe you're right, and mebbe you're wrong,” growled Macro, as the result of his cogitations. ”I d'n know, an' you d'n know, an' Doctor, he d'n know, an' none of us knows.... They're mebbe all right... What the deil wud folks want mixing bad stuff wi' good like that?”
”It is done sometimes to make a larger show, and sometimes as a matter of precaution,” said Miss Drummond quietly. ”Those who have valuable jewels are always in fear of having them stolen. They have imitations made, and wear them, and people believe they are the real ones. It is commonly done.”
”An' is it a thief you wud call me for taking these?”
”These are dead men's goods and dead women's, and you do not know whose they were, so it is not stealing. But, for me, I do not like them.”
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