Page:The Days Work (1899).djvu/344

 "'Dod,' he said betwix' his teeth, sittin' back in the boat, 'I 've waited fourteen year to break that Jew-firm, an' God be thankit I 'll do it now.'

"The Kite was in the Baltic while the auld man was warkin' his warks, but I know the assessors valued the Grotkau, all told, at over three hunder and sixty thousand—her manifest was a treat o' richness—an' McRimmon got a third for salvin' an abandoned ship. Ye see, there 's vast deeference between towin' a ship wi' men on her an' pickin' up a derelict—a vast deeference—in pounds sterlin'. Moreover, twa three o' the Grotkau’s crew were burnin' to testify about food, an' there was a note o' Calder to the Board, in regard to the tail-shaft, that would ha' been vara damagin' if it had come into court. They knew better than to fight.

"Syne the Kite came back, an' McRimmon paid off me an' Bell personally, an' the rest of the crew pro rata, I believe it 's ca'ed. My share—oor share, I should say—was just twenty -five thousand pound sterlin'."

At this point Janet jumped up and kissed him.

"Five-and-twenty thousand pound sterlin'. Noo, I 'm fra the North, and I 'm not the like to fling money awa' rashly, but I 'd gie six months' pay—one hunder an' twenty pounds—to know who flooded the engine-room of the Grotkau. I 'm fairly well acquaint wi' McRimmon's eediosyncrasies, and he 'd no hand in it. It was not Calder, for I 've asked him, an' he wanted to fight me. It would be in the highest degree unprofessional o' Calder—not fightin', but openin' bilge-cocks—but for a while I thought it was him. Ay, I judged it might be him—under temptation."