Doctor Syn A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh (4 page)

Then the captain unlocked the door and quietly opened it.

Coming up quickly from a stooping position near the keyhole was Mr. Mipps, the sexton.

“You’re a fine fellow,” he said, not at all put out of countenance by the captain having found him eavesdropping, “a very fine fellow to come lookin’

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for smuggling, with a gang o’ blasphemous scoundrels wot kick up more to-do than the Tower of Babel. Look here, sir, are you coming in to keep order or not? I only want a word, Yes or No, for I shall go straight round to the Court House and report you to the squire. And then p’raps he won’t put you and your crew into the cells there; p’raps he won’t—only p’raps, ’cos I’m dead sure he will.” than the Tower of Babel. Look here, sir, are you coming in to keep order or not? I only want a word, Yes or No, for I shall go straight round to the Court House and report you to the squire. And then p’raps he won’t put you and your crew into the cells there; p’raps he won’t—only p’raps, ’cos I’m dead sure he will.”

“What are my boys doing?” laughed the captain.

“What are the little dears not doing?” answered the sexton, thoroughly angry. “Oh, nothing, I assure you! Only upsetting the barrels, throwin’ about the tankards, stealin’ the drinks, and makin’ fun of Missus Waggetts.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” said the captain. “Tell Mrs. Waggetts to come here.”

“You tell worse men than yourself to do your dirty work,” replied the sexton. “Do you think I’m a powder monkey that I should fetch and carry Missus Waggetts for you? Fetch her yourself, or send old fat-sides there,” he added, jerking his thumb at the bo’sun, “or that dear old white-haired admiral

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wot’s lost his yellow ear-flaps. As for me, I’m a-goin’ to the Court House, and if you don’t know what for, you’ll soon learn—you and old fat-sides.” The bo’sun made a grab at him, but Mipps slipped through the crowded bar and was running up the highroad. bo’sun made a grab at him, but Mipps slipped through the crowded bar and was running up the highroad.

The captain now stepped into the bar. Order was at once restored. “Now, ma’am,” he said to Mrs. Waggetts, “while the bo’sun is seeing that your score is paid, give me a bottle of wine.”

“Port or claret, sir?” said the landlady.

“Neither,” said the captain. “I have a fancy to try a bottle of Alsatian. Yes, a white wine from Alsace Lorraine.”

But before the captain had time to smack his lips Mrs. Waggetts replied: “Oh, we don’t keep that, sir.”

“No?” queried the captain.

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“No, indeed, sir,” said the landlady. “You see there’s no call for it in these parts. And then the customs are so high we couldn’t afford to stock it for the few and far betweens as might ask for it. Why, for my own part, sir, though I’ve been in the business these—well, many years now, I’ve never even heard of it.”

“Really!” said the captain. “Well, it’s a good wine, ma’am. Now, bo’sun, pipe the men outside.”

“Won’t you try a bottle of claret, sir?” asked the landlady with persuasion.

“No,” said the captain, “later on, perhaps. I’ll see. By the way, is there any old barn about where I could quarter my men? I’m loath to billet them on the village.”

“No, I don’t know anywhere,” returned the landlady. “Do you, Mr. Rash? Perhaps you’ll loan the schoolhouse to the captain?”

“Yes, and give us a holiday for once in a way!” chimed in the potboy.

“It’s not to be thought of,” said the schoolmaster, walking out of the inn.

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“No one uses the church on weekdays, I suppose,” said the captain. “I daresay there’s room for them there, in the vestry or the tower perhaps, or even in the crypt.”

“Them drunken ruffians in the church!” cried out young Jerk, pulling a horrified face, and indicating the rough sailors who were now outside the inn. “You’d better watch out what you’re up to, or you’ll have the vicar on your track.”

“I’ll tell you where you’ll end, my lad,” said the captain, turning on him sharply.

“Where, sir?” said young Jerk, looking really interested.

“If not upon the scaffold, uncommon near it, I’ll be bound,” the captain replied.

“I hope so indeed,” thought Hangman Jerk, “and I hopes it’ll be a-fixing the noose around your bull neck.” But he kept this thought to himself, for he

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suddenly remembered that the captain could be rather too playful for his liking; so he watched the sailors shouldering their bundles, falling into line, and eventually swinging out of the old Ship Inn, followed by the captain.

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You can imagine that the coming of the King’s men caused some stir in Dymchurch; for after leaving the Ship Inn they were marched round the village and drawn up in from of the Court House. Here they waited while the captain knocked upon the front door and asked for the squire. “Sir Anthony Cobtree is out riding,” said the butler. But at that instant a clattering of hoofs was heard upon the highway and the squire himself came along at an easy trot and drew rein before the house. “My faith!” he cried,

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looking from the butler to the captain, and then at the line of naked cutlasses. “Have the French landed at last?”

“Captain Howard Collyer of the King’s Admiralty, sir,” said the captain, saluting, “and if you are the squire, very much at your service.”

The jolly squire returned the salute, touching his hat with his riding whip. “Indeed, Captain?” he said, dismounting. “And I would prefer to be your friend than your foe so long as you have these sturdy fellows at your back. Is it the renewed activity of the French navy that we have to thank for your presence here, or the coast defence?”

“I should like a word with you alone,” said the captain.

“Certainly,” returned the squire, throwing the reins to a groom and leading the way to the house.

They crossed the large hall, and the squire, opening a door at the far end, invited the captain to enter the library.

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There in the recess of the old mullioned window sat Doctor Syn, deep in a dusty tome that he had taken from the bookcase.

“Ah, Doctor,” said the squire, “they didn’t tell me you were here. No further need to fear the French fleet. The King’s Admiralty has had the kind grace to furnish us with an officer’s complement. Captain Collyer—Doctor Syn, our vicar.”

“Not the Collyer who sank the Lion d’Or at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River, I suppose?” he said, shaking hands.

“The same,” returned the captain, highly delighted that the achievement of his life had been heard of by the parson. “Captain Howard Collyer then, commanding the Resistance, a brigantine of twenty-two guns. Indeed, sir, the French Government kicked up such a devil of a row over that little affair that I lost my command. So now, instead of sinking battleships, the Admiralty keeps

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me busy nosing out smugglers; a poor enough game for a man who has done big

things at sea, but it has its excitements.”

“So I should imagine,” said the cleric.

“And what have you come here for?” asked the squire.

“To hang every smuggler on Romney Marsh,” said the captain.

“Do you believe in ghosts?” said the squire.

“What do you mean?” retorted the captain.

“What I say,” returned the squire. “Do you believe in ghost?”

“Well, I can’t say I do,” laughed the captain, “for I have never yet met one.”

“No more have I,” returned the squire. “But they say the Marsh is haunted at night. They’ve said so so long that people believe it. Whenever a traveller loses his way on the Marsh and disappears, folk say that the Marsh witches have taken him. When the harvests are bad, when the wool is poor, when the cattle are sickly, oh, it’s always the Marsh witches that are blamed. They set

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fire to haystacks, they kill the chickens, they blast the trees, they curdle the milk, and hold up travellers and rob them of their purses. If fact all the vices of the Marsh, really performed by Master Fox, or Master Careless, or Master Footpad, are all put down to the poor Marsh witches, who don’t exist except in the minds of the people. I know the Marshes as well as any man ever will, and I’ve never seen a witch, and it’s the very same with smugglers. The whole thing’s a fallacy. I’ve never caught ’em at it; and I keep a stern enough eye on my farms, I can tell you. Why, I’m a positive king, sir. Do you know that if a man working in the neighbourhood doesn’t please me, that I can shut every door of the Marsh against him? Why, these farmers are all scared stiff of me, sir. I’d like to see the man who went against the laws of Romney Marsh. I can tell you, sir, that I’d soon mark him down.”

“You are perhaps too confident, sir,” suggested the captain.

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“Not a bit of it, sir,” exclaimed the squire. “Mind you I don’t trust ’em, oh, Lord, no; I just know ’em to be honest, because I don’t give ’em the chance to be otherwise. Why, I have a groom in my stables awake all night in case I want to surprise a farm ten miles away. Smugglers? Pooh! Rubbish!”

“Then you consider that I am here on a wildgoose chase?” said the captain.

“Not even that,” said the squire; “for you will find no wild geese to chase. However, I don’t think that you need regret having been sent here, for we can give you really good entertainment; and I’ll bet my head that after you have stayed with us a week or so you’ll be sending in your papers to the Admiralty, and settling down on the Marsh as a good Kentish farmer.”

“I’m afraid not, sir,” laughed the captain.

“Oh, yes, you will,” went on the squire. “And I’ll be bound that we’ll have you bothering Doctor Syn to put the banns up for you and some country beauty. What do you say, Doctor?”

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“Well,” chuckled the cleric, entering into the joke, “if a man wants to marry and settle down, and live happily ever after, as the saying goes, why, then, Kent’s the place for him. It’s a great country, sir, especially south and east of the Medway; famous for everything that goes to make life worth living.”

“Yes, take him on the whole,” said the squire, “the King can boast of no greater jewel in the crown of England than the average man of Kent.”

“Well,” agreed the captain, “I’ve heard say that Kent has fine clover fields, and it’s evident to me that I’m a lucky devil and have fallen into one. But I must see to the billeting of my men. Perhaps you can advise me?” But the squire wouldn’t hear of business until the captain had cracked a bottle of wine with them and promised to lodge himself at the Court House, Doctor Syn readily placing the large brick-built vicarage barn at the disposal of the men.

So having settled all amicably, and promising to return within the hour for supper, the captain, piloted by Doctor Syn, and followed by the seamen,

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proceeded to inspect the barn; and it was not long before the sailors had converted it into as jolly an old hall as one could wish to see, with a great log-fire ablaze in the stone grate, and a pot of steaming victuals swinging from a hook above the flames.

“Are you all here?” said the captain to the bo’sun, before rejoining the Doctor outside the door.

“All except Bill Spiker and the mulatto, sir,” returned Job Mallet. “I sent ’em for rum. Here they are, if I mistake not.” And indeed up to the barn came two seamen carrying a barrel.

“Now,” said the captain to Doctor Syn, “I am ready to return to the Court House.”

But the cleric’s eyes were fixed on the men carrying the barrel, who were passing him. “Who’s that man?” he said to the captain, shivering violently, for a cold fog had risen with the night.

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“That’s Bill Spiker, the gunner,” said the captain. “Do you know him?”

“No—the other, the other,” exclaimed the Doctor, still watching the retreating figures who were now being received with shouts of welcome from the barn.

“Oh, that fellow’s a mulatto,” returned the captain; “useful for investigation work. An ugly enough looking rascal, isn’t he?”

“A very ugly rascal,” muttered the Doctor, walking rapidly from the barn in the direction of the Court House.

“You look cold,” remarked the captain as they stood outside the Court House door.

“Yes. It’s a cold night,” returned the Doctor. “Why, I declare my teeth are chattering.”

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There was one man who knew Romney Marsh as well as the squire. This was Sennacherib Pepper, and, what’s more, he knew the Marsh by night as well as by day, for he was the visiting physician to the Marsh farms, and his work called him to patients sometimes at night. He had seen curious things upon the Marsh from his own account, hinting darkly about the witches and devils that rode on fiery steeds through the mists. The villagers, of course, believed his yarns, but the squire poohpoohed them, and, as it was well known that Sennacherib Pepper was a hard drinker, some people put his stories down

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to the effects of wine. But although he gave no credence to his tales, Sir Antony rather enjoyed the physician, and he was a frequent visitor to the Court House. He had prevailed upon him to stay to supper this very night, introducing him to the captain as his dear friend Sennacherib Pepper, the worst master of physics and the most atrocious liar on Romney Marsh, for although Sennacherib was a very touchy old customer and was ever on the brink of losing his temper, Sir Antony could never resist a joke at his expense.

“Zounds, sir!” he retorted, “if I were presenting you to Sir Antony I should most certainly style him the worst business man upon the Marsh.”

“How do you make that out?” cried the squire.

“My dear sir,” went on Sennacherib to the captain, “his tenants rob him at every turn. Everybody but himself knows that half the wool from his farms finds its way over to Calais.”