I thought for a moment. I had never seen the sea, but had always wanted to! 'It's a grand,' I said. It was a morning's walk to Queensferry, which was West of Edinburgh, but we did not say a word to each other on the way. Suddenly, at the top of a hill, we could see the Firth of Forth below us, blue and calm, with white sails on it.
‘Ye see that public house?’ asked my uncle. ‘Captain Hoseason’s there, to do business with me. There’s the ship’s boat on the beach, waiting to take him to the ship. And there’s the ship itself! A grand ship!’
I had to agree with him. The sailors were getting the ship ready for sailing, and I thought what an exciting adventure that would be – to sail away to a foreign country.
We walked down the hill to the public house and met the captain there. He was a tall, dark, serious-looking man, who shook hands politely with me. Stupidly, I left these two men to their business, and ran down to the beach, to talk to the sailors and look at the boats. It was all new and very interesting to me.
As I was coming back, I met the owner of the public house.
‘Good morning,’ he said. ‘Did ye come with Ebenezer?’
‘ I did,’ I replied. ‘He isn’t well liked, I understand.’
‘That’ s true,’ he answered. ‘Nobody speaks well of him. It all started with that story about Mr Alexander, his brother.’
‘What story?’ I asked.
‘Oh, just that Ebenezer had killed him. Did ye never hear that?’
‘And why would he kill my f-, I mean, Alexander?’
‘To get the house, of course, the house of Shaws.’