Tuckamore Bay

golden mountains

"Well bes gittin' on wit da story old man. Youse worst den dem soap operas dey shows on dat silly TV ting over dere. Just goin' on and on and on."

Issac stared at Bill and Matty.

"As I have asked before and I have to ask again, is she always this cantankerous?"

"Actually she is being rather polite," Matty laughed.

"She is usually a lot more cantankerous."

"Ise don't needs to be takin' all dis bullshit, youse knows."

"Then feel free to leave at any time," Bill offered, a huge smile on his face.

Nanny Dove grunted.

"Dis bes my 'ouse."

She grunted again.

"No mainlander bes kickin' mes out be my 'ouse."

"Its my house," Bill reminded her.

"Okay you two. Do we really need to go through all this shit again? Especially right now?"

Matty looked toward Issac.

"Please ignore these two. This is an every day occurrence here," Matty informed him.

"Please, finish your story Poppy Dove."

Issac once again took out his pipe and hung it from the corner of his mouth.

"The ten families of Tuckamore County were very prosperous. Among the most prosperous of any in any of the counties, in England.

Unlike many of the other counties, we were truly family and as such, it was more or less, all for one and one for all. We prospered together and worked together as one family. We did not hold a lot of trust for those outside our family.

And the Merchant Banks of London were certainly among those that we did not trust. Other counties deposited their wealth into the banks, but they had a tendency to, as you would say, fuck things up, causing money to mysteriously disappear. And it was too easily accessed to unscrupulous magistrates, such as Campbell, who could access the money to pay back taxes. Whether these taxes were real or not.

The riches of Tuckamore County were kept a secret. Their location only known to the Elders of the ten families. Even the wives did not know the location of the coins.

We traded in gold only and we would transfer our earnings to gold and then mint our own gold coins. Each coin was two ounces and was imprinted with the Tuckamore County shield."

"I wonder if there are any in existence now?"

"I doubt that very much, young William. We heard many years later that all of our lands were confiscated by Magistrate Campbell and the name Tuckamore was stricken from all records. 

We did get the occasional merchant ship that would show here and we did manage to salvage a couple bags of gold coins, although the majority of the coins were lost at sea when the Rose was destroyed."

"So they are probably at the bottom of the sea covered in hundreds of years of sand and whatever."