"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."
"What!" exclaimed Robbie, betraying his terror at the proposal. "Over there among the graves! Not I. I'm not going into such a place after the sun has gone down. Why, we canna be sure that the ghosts of the dead will not spring out upon us!"
"No, I'm not going in there either," chimed in Hercus. "We can divide the siller here on the moor just as well as in that fearsome place. Come back, Hal, dinna you gang either."
"Well, well, what a pack of frightened bairns ye are!" said Kinlay, preparing to enter by the open gate. "Come along. What on earth can ye be feared at?"