The Runaway's Gold (32 page)

“Mrs. Livingston wants you to have this,” Edgar said, handing me the shilling.

I looked up, all hope of ever returning to Shetland drained from me heart. “No,” I said, pushing it back. “I've no need for it now.”

“Ah, but she asked that you take it, boy,” Edgar said, pressing it back into me hand. “And she asked me to tell you—how did she put it? Ah, yes! To put the secrets that it holds to good use.” I looked at him, bewildered, as Edgar shrugged. “After all these years, I know better than to deny Mrs. Livingston her wishes.” Then he slowly closed the door.

“Well?” Malcolm asked, reappearing from down the street and taking a seat on the steps.

“He was dead all along!” I managed, through clenched teeth. “All this time—wasted—searching for a man who's been dead for sixty years!”

Malcolm stared, motionless, but it was as if every bit of anger inside me suddenly exploded. The feel of the Peterson ewe's breath at me hand, John's letter to Daa, George Marwick and his threats, Keeper Mann, Knut Blackbeard, Mr. Plimpton, Billy Tweed, Daa's cursed pouch of hoarded coins—no matter how I tried to right a wrong, another sprang up in its place!

“Curse Sam Livingston!” I shouted. “And everything he stood for! And curse his blasted ducats!” Then I stormed down the steps to Greenwich Street and hurled the Pine Tree Shilling onto the cobblestones before me so hard that it broke in two.

“Now what'd ya go and do that for?” Malcolm said, stooping down to pick it up.

And that's when we discovered that Sam Livingston's coin wasn't a coin after all. It was a case disguised as a coin, held together with a spring that burst open when it hit the stone.

And something was inside.

I gingerly tugged at a thin, yellowed scrap of parchment pressed into one of the halves and unfolded its brittle edges. It was a sketch—a crude one at best—of what appeared to be an island. And on a small rock formation just above the northern shoreline was a very large X.

“Bressay Island?” I whispered, almost afraid to say the words. And then Malcolm let out a wild hoot.

Over his shoulder I noticed Mrs. Livingston watching me through the window. She smiled, knowingly, as our eyes met.
Then she nodded deeply as she held out her hand before her as Sam Livingston did in his portrait.

“The secret of the coin,” I breathed. “She knew!” And then it finally came to me what it was about Mrs. Livingston that seemed so familiar. Her eyes were like Mary's eyes—with all the warmth and confidence that had dazzled me the first day we met.

“Like I always say,” Malcolm cried, slapping his arm across me shoulders. “Opportunities, lad, opportunities!”

And suddenly, at that moment, amid the drunken shouts from the saloon across the street, piles of filth at our feet, and the rush of carriages passing us by, the chaos of New York faded before me. Suddenly, at that moment, everything seemed possible.

Glossary

bairn
—child

ben
—back room of croft house where the family sleeps

bere
—a variety of barley

breeks
—trousers

broch
—round, drystone, Iron Age fortress found in Scotland

burn
—river or stream

byre
—building attached to croft house where cows are stabled

caaing whales
—pilot whales, known to follow one leader

croft
—a tenant farm

crofter
—a tenant farmer

Daa
—father

dreep
—jerk

drittling
—dawdling

faa
—afterbirth

flan
—squall or sudden gust of wind

fourareen
—four-oared fishing boat

fowling
—the dangerous activity of collecting eggs from cliff-nesting seafowl

gansey
—sweater

General Assembly
—Surpreme Court of the Church of Scotland

gold ducats
—gold coins commonly used in trade, sometimes known as Trade Ducats

guano
—seafowl refuse used as fertilizer

Gutcher
—grandfather

haf-krak
—person of little intelligence

half-deckers
—fishing boats unique to Shetland, with partially sheltered decks

hap
—shawl

Kirk
—general term for the Church of Scotland (Presbyterian)

kishie
—woven reed basket carried on back, commonly used to haul peat and other goods

kist
—wooden chest

lime-harled
—masonry walls sealed with a weatherproof coating of lime plaster and pebbles

linksten
—rock weight used to hold down roof thatch

lodberry
—warehouse/dock built out over the water

lug mark
—unique cut in sheep's ear identifying owner

lüm
—shiny slick of oil on water

Martinmas
—November 11; one of the four Scottish “term days” when rents were due

Midder
—mother

midder wit
—mother's intuition

muckle
—big

patronymics
—old Scandinavian practice of passing down a father's given name to his offspring as a surname

peat
—partially decayed organic matter, often cut into bricks, dried, and burned for fuel

peerie
—little

planticrub
—a stone enclosure offering protection from the wind for growing cabbages

quartering
—system in Shetland overseen by the Kirk of rotating paupers from croft to croft for food and shelter

Revenue Men
—officers of the Queen entrusted with the collection of import duties; a smuggler's worst enemy

rivlins
—traditional sealskin shoes laced below the ankle

scattald
—land held in common for grazing

Sheriff Court
—local court of law

sixareen
—six-oared fishing boat

smoorikin
—kiss

Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge
—religious organization founded in eighteenth century with mission to bring “virtuous” education to “uncivilized” areas of Scotland

Sola Fide
—Latin: “by faith alone”

Sola Gratia
—Latin: “by grace alone”

Soli Deo Gloria
—Latin: “glory to God alone”

Solus Christus
—Latin: “through Christ alone”

stap
—stew of white fish and livers

stauf
—staff or walking stick

Tammany
—short for Tammany Hall, New York City's powerful Democratic Party organization

the Transportation
—sentence of imprisonment outside the United Kingdom in places such as Australia, Tasmania, and Norfolk Island

truck system
—oppressive economic system in which workers are paid in goods rather than cash

tuskhar
—tool used for cutting peat

voe
—narrow sea inlet

wadmal
—homespun woven cloth often used to pay rent

Watchmen
—men hired prior to the 1845 establishment of the New York Police Department to wander the streets at night and keep watch for fires and crime

wee
—small

Whitsunday
—May 15; one of the four Scottish “term days,” when rents were due

yoal
—wooden boat used in the Shetland Islands

Appendix

Where are the Shetland Islands?

The Shetland Islands, also called just Shetland, are an archipelago of nearly three hundred islands, including a large main one where this story takes place, in the northernmost reaches of Great Britain. Originally colonized by the Vikings in the ninth century, they became part of Scotland in 1469 when the cashless King Christian I of Denmark and Norway pawned the Orkney and Shetland Islands for his thirteen-year-old daughter Margaret's dowry when she married King James III of Scotland. Before that time the inhabitants spoke Norn, a language derived from Old Norse and spoken by Shetland's early Scandinavian settlers. It wasn't until the 1700s that Scots English became the common language of the people.

Why is Shetland treeless?

No one knows for sure, but roots and branches of hazel and birch have long been uncovered under deep layers of peat, giving credence to the notion that the islands were at one time a much different place. When Daa and Gutcher set out during the gale at the beginning of the book, they are scavenging for
anything of value that might have washed up on shore. Because wood was not available, islanders would use driftwood for things such as tools and, as was the case with Christopher's croft, doors and rafters to hold up the thatched roof. Shipwrecks were especially prized not just for the cargo but also for the wood and other supplies that could be salvaged.

What are brochs?

If you travel to Shetland you can see the ruins of more than one hundred round, drystone fortresses scattered along the coast. Sadly, their builders left few clues behind about how and why they were made, although some attribute their construction to the Iron Age people known as the Picts. Culswick Broch is a real place. It is made of stunning, pinkish-red stone and has an unusual, triangular lintel stone over its only entrance. It sits near spectacular sea cliffs on a hill not far from where my crofter-fishermen ancestors were born, and where I imagined the Robertson croft to be. There are historical descriptions from the late 1700s noting that it stood thirty feet tall. Although Culswick Broch is now partially collapsed, much of its once ten-foot-wide, double-walled perimeter still stands. The Shetland island of Mousa has a broch that is still intact, its towering structure more than forty feet high. The intricate drystone construction is truly an engineering marvel, and I have had the pleasure of climbing to the top on the perfectly designed staircase that winds within its double-walled perimeter.

Were the merchants that terrible?

At the time of the story, many communities in Britain were operated under what is called a “truck system,” in which the working class (crofter-fishermen) received payment in goods from a merchant's store and/or credit toward their rent rather than cash. Although there didn't appear to be written contracts between the merchant-landowners and their crofter tenants, it was widely understood that the fish caught by the crofters would be sold to and cured by the merchant-landowner at the price that he set. If a tenant went elsewhere for a better price, he risked eviction from his home. It was an oppressive arrangement that went on for generations and kept crofters forever in debt to the merchant or landlord. In the late 1800s, Parliament passed a series of legislative reforms known as the Truck Acts, which prohibited such arrangements, and the crofters of Shetland were finally able to gain access to cash.

Was Wallace Marwick a real person?

No. But his character was greatly influenced by stories of the powerful merchants William Hay and Charles Ogilvy, who employed much of the island population in the early 1800s. They owned Shetland's only bank, had a substantial import-export trade and fish-curing stations, and were also shipbuilders employing carpenters, coopers, sailmakers, and chandlers. In 1842, after several years of depleted fishing and crop failures due to what people say was a climatic cooling on the European side of the Atlantic Ocean and other weather-related disasters,
Hay and Ogilvy went into bankruptcy, forcing the sale of their fleet, a liquidation of the bank, and massive job loss across much of the main island. The results were devastating to the Shetland economy and had lasting effects.

Did islanders really steal eggs from puffins?

Yes. Gathering eggs from cliff-dwelling seafowl, referred to as
fowling
, was an important food source for the often starving islanders. I decided to include the scene of John and Chris and the puffins after reading a 1777 account of a young Shetland boy slipping to his death while fowling on the southern tip of the island.

Was there smuggling in Shetland?

Yes. It was a hot spot for ships coming across the North Sea from large ports such as Rotterdam and Bergen. At the time of the novel, as at many other times in history, the British government relied on high duties on imported goods to cover its large war debt. Because of Shetland's many narrow harbors (voes) and caves, it was a natural place to run goods ashore “duty free” without being seen by the Crown's Revenue Men. Crofters were known to be hired by merchants like my fictional Wallace Marwick to haul casks of gin ashore on their backs to earn extra income for their families. A large, powerful man like Knut Blackbeard would be called to stand watch. As is the case in the story, many of the smugglers incarcerated in Lerwick Prison were considered heroes rather than criminals by their fellow islanders for attempting to outsmart the Crown.