Doctor Syn A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh (7 page)

“Then,” said the physician, “you do know something about it, do you?”

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“I know just what I was asked to say,” returned the schoolmaster irritably. “It’s not my business to tell you what’s the matter with your patients. If you don’t know, I’m sure I don’t. You’re a doctor, ain’t you?”

No doubt old Pepper would have pulled the schoolmaster up with a good round turn for his boorishness and extraordinary manner had he not at that instant caught the sound of the galloping horses. “Look there!” he cried.

At full gallop across the Marsh were going a score or so of horsemen, lit by a light that shone from their faces and from the heads of their mad horses. Jerk could see Rash shaking as if with the ague, but for some reason he pretended not to see the hideous sight.

“What are you looking at?” he said, “for I see nothing.”

“There, there!” screamed old Pepper. “You must see something there!”

“Nothing but dyke, marsh, and the highroad,” faltered the schoolmaster.

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“No! There—look—riders—men on horses. Marsh fiends!” yelled the terrified physician.

“What in hell’s name are you trying to scare me for?” cursed the trembling Rash. “Don’t I tell you I see nothing? Ain’t that enough for you?”

“Then God forgive me!” cried poor Sennacherib, “for I can see ’em and you can’t; there’s something wrong with my soul.”

“Then God have mercy on it!” The words came somehow through the schoolmaster’s set teeth; the silver steel leapt from the pocket of his overcoat, and Sennacherib was savagely struck twice under the arm as he pointed at the riders. He gave one great cry and fell forward, while the schoolmaster, entirely gone to pieces, with quaking limbs and chattering teeth, stooped down and cleaned the knife by stabbing it swiftly up to the hilt in a clump of short grass that grew in the soil by the roadside.

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The sudden horror of the thing was too much even for the callous Jerk, for his senses failed him and he slid back into the dyke among the rushes, and when he came to himself the first shreds of dawn were rising over Romney Marsh.

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That he was still dreaming was Jerry’s first thought, but he was so bitterly cold—for his clothes were wet with mud and dyke water—that he quickly realized his mistake; however, it took him a power of time and energy, and not a little courage, before he dared creep forth from his hiding-place. When he did the Marsh looked empty. The sheets of mist had rolled away, and it looked as innocent a piece of land as God had ever made. There was no sound save the tickling bubbles that rose from their mud-bed to burst amid the rushes, no one in sight but the old gentleman lying outstretched upon the road. Jerry crept up

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to him and looked. He was lying face downward, just as he had fallen, and the white road was stained with a dark bloody smudge.

“Well,” he said to himself, “here’s another job for old Mipps, and a trip to the ropemaker’s,” and shivering with cold and horror he set off as fast as he could go toward the village.

Now, when he was within sight of his own house, he began to consider what it was he duty to do. He had his own eyesight to prove the schoolmaster’s guilt; but would he be believed? Could the schoolmaster somehow turn the tables upon him? If he breathed a word to his grandparents he would at once be hauled before that brutal captain; and the captain he felt sure would not believe him. The squire might, but the captain would, of course, take the side of authority, and back up the schoolmaster. Denis Cobtree was not old enough to give him counsel, and, besides that, the captain was staying at the Court House.

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No: Doctor Syn was the man to go to. He was kindly and patient, and would anyhow give one leave to speak without interruption. So, crossing the fields, so as not to pass by his grandparents’ windows, he struck out for the vicarage.

Just as he was skirting the churchyard he heard the tramp of feet, and the captain passed along the road, followed by the King’s men. Two of them were bearing a shutter. Then the murder was known already. They were going to get Sennacherib’s body. Yes, it most certainly was, for there was affixed to the church door a new notice. Jerry approached and read the large glaring letters:

A hundred guineas will be paid to any person, or persons, who shall directly cause the arrest of a mulatto, a seaman. White hair; yellow face; no ears; six feet high; when last seen wearing royal navy cook’s uniform. Necklace of sharks’ teeth around neck. Tattoo marks of a gibbet on right forearm; a cockatoo on left wrist; and a brig in full sail executed in two dyes of tattoo work upon his chest.

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This man wanted by the crown for the murder of Sennacherib Pepper, Doctor of Physics and of Romney Marsh.

[Signed] ANTHONY COBTREE, Leveller of the Marsh Scotts, Court House, Dymchurch, and

HOWARD COLLYER, Captain of his Majesty’s Navy, and Coast Agent and Commissioner, Court House, Dymchurch

The writing on this notice was executed in most scholarly style, and Jerk knew the familiar lettering to be the handiwork of the murderous schoolmaster himself. This colossal audacity was quite terrifying to him. It looked as if it had been written in the blood of the victim; for the black ink was still wet.

As he gazed the church door opened and Doctor Syn came out. He looked pale and worried, as well he might, for indeed this shocking affair had already caused a most shaking sensation in the village.

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“This is a bad business, boy,” he said to Jerk, who was still gazing at the notice.

“You may well say that, sir,” replied the boy.

“Poor old Sennacherib,” sighed the cleric. “To think that you went from my friend’s house to meet your death. Well,” he added hotly, shaking his fist across at the Marsh, “let’s hope they catch the rascal, for we will give him short shrift for you, Sennacherib.”

“Aye, indeed, sir,” replied young Jerk, “and let’s hope as how it’ll be the right ’un when they does.”

“The right what?” asked Doctor Syn.

“The right rascal,” said young Jerk, “for that ain’t him.”

“What do you know about it, my lad?” said the Doctor.

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“The whole thing,” replied Jerk, “for I seed the whole of the ugly business. I seed the man with the yellow face last night. I seed him a-comin’ out of your front door with a weapon in his hand.”

“You saw that?” cried the cleric, his eyes shining with excitement. “You could swear that in the Court House?”

“I could do it anywhere,” replied Jerk, “let alone the Court House, and what’s more, I could swear that he never killed Doctor Pepper.”

“How can you possibly say such a thing?” said Doctor Syn.

“Because I seed the whole thing done, as I keep tellin’ you,” answered Jerk, “and it wasn’t him as did it.”

“How do you know?” asked the Doctor hastily. “Where were you?”

“Out on the Marsh,” said Jerk, “all night.”

“What!” ejaculated the vicar, looking at the boy doubtfully. “Are you speaking the truth, my lad?”

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“The solemn truth,” replied young Jerk.

“You were out on the Marsh all night?” repeated the astonished cleric. “And pray, what were you doing there?”

“Dogging that schoolmaster,” replied Jerk with conviction.

“Come into the vicarage,” said Doctor Syn, “and tell me all about it.” And he led the boy into the house.

When he had finished his tale Doctor Syn took him into the kitchen and lit the fire, bidding him dry his wet clothes, for Jerk was still shivering with the cold of the dyke water. Then he boiled some milk in a saucepan and set it before him, with a cold game pie and a loaf of bread. Jerk made a hearty meal and felt better, his opinion of clergymen going up at a bound when he discovered that a strong dose of excellent ship’s rum had been mixed with the milk. “Rum’s good stuff, my lad, on occasions,” he said cheerily, “and I’ve a

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notion that it’ll drive the cold out of you,” and Jerry thought it a very sensible notion, too.

“And now look here, my lad,” the Doctor went on, when Jerry could eat no more, “what you’ve seen may be true enough, though I tell you I can hardly credit it. It’s a good deal for a thinking man to swallow, you’ll allow, what with the devil riders and all that. Besides which I can see no earthly reason for the schoolmaster committing the crime. As yet I really don’t know what to say, my boy. I’m beat, I confess it. I must think things over for an hour or so. In the meantime I must strongly urge you to keep this adventure to yourself. It is very dangerous to make accusations that you have no means of proving, and certainly you can prove nothing, for there is nothing to go on but what you thought you saw. Well, a nightmare has upset better men than you before now, Jerry, and it is possible that your rich imagination may have supplied the whole thing. Go back then, to your house, and get a couple of hours’ sleep, and then go to school

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as if nothing had happened. Then I’ll tell you what we’ll do, my lad: you come round here and we’ll have a bit of dinner together and talk of this again.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Jerk, very flattered at being asked to dine with the vicar. “I consider that you’ve behaved very sensibly over this horrible affair, though where you get wrong, sir, is over my ‘rich imagination’. That part ain’t true, sir. I knows what i seed, and I sees Rash stick Pepper twice under the arm with his pencil sharpener.”

But Doctor Syn dismissed him with further adjurations to hold his tongue, adding that the whole thing seemed most odd.

On the way back from the vicarage Jerk met the sailors returning to the Court House bearing the remains of Sennacherib Pepper upon the shutter. After his conversation with Doctor Syn he thought it best to keep out of sight, as he was not desirous of being questioned by the captain, and so, when they had passed, he slipped home and managed to get into bed before his grandparents

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were astir. After his goodly feast at the vicarage he found it difficult to eat his usual hearty breakfast, but he did his best, saying that the news of this horrible murder and the thought of the man with the yellow face who was wanted by the King’s men must have put him off his feed. And so his night’s adventure passed unheeded, for everybody was too busy discussing the murder and setting forth their individual opinions upon it to trouble themselves about any suspicious behaviour of “Hangman Jerk.”

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Jerry Jerk made it a golden rule to be always late for school, but on this particular morning he intended to be there before the schoolmaster, for he wanted to watch him, and if he saw an opening, make him nervous, without in any way betraying his secret. In the comfort of daylight he had lost all those terrors that had oppressed his spirit; indeed, ever since he had unburdened his mind to Doctor Syn he had entirely recovered his usual confidence. So with jaunty assurance he approached the schoolhouse, determined to be there before the murderer. But this same determination had evidently occurred to the

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schoolmaster, for when Jerry arrived at the schoolhouse he could see Mr. Rash already bending over his desk. Jerry, imagining that he had miscalculated the time, felt highly annoyed, fearing that he may have missed something worth seeing; but on entering the schoolroom he found that not one of his schoolfellows had arrived; consequently his entrance was the more marked. As a matter of fact, Jerk’s young colleagues were hanging about outside the Court House until the last possible moment, for there was much ado going forward, sailors on guard outside the door, people going in and coming out, and the gossips of the village discussing the foul murder of the unfortunate Sennacherib Pepper. Jerk went to his desk, sat down and waited, narrowly watching the schoolmaster, who was writing, keeping his face low to the desk. The boy thought that he would never look up, but after some ten minutes he did, and Jerk stared the murderer straight in the face.

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The schoolmaster bravely tried to return the stare, but failed, and then Jerk knew that he had in a measure failed also, failed in his trust to Doctor Syn, for in that glance Jerry has unconsciously told the malefactor what he knew. Presently Rash spoke without looking up: “Where have those other rascals got to?”

Promptly Jerk answered: “If you’re addressing yourself to a rascal, you ain’t addressing yourself to me, and I scorns to reply; but if I’m mistook—well, I think you knows where they are as well as I do who ain’t no rascal, but a respectable potboy, and no scholard, thank God!”

“I don’t know where they are,” replied the schoolmaster, looking up. “Be so good as to tell me, please, Jerk, and I’ll take this birch,” (and his voice rose high) “and beat ’em all up to the schoolhouse, like a herd of pigs, I will!” Then conquering his emotion, he added: “Please, Jerk, where are they?”

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But Jerk was in no way softened, so placing his forefinger to the side of his nose and solemnly winking one eye, he said: “I don’t know no more than you do, Mister, but if you does want me to guess I don’t mind putting six and six together and saying as how you’ll find ’em hanging about to get a glimpse of old Pepper’s grizzly corpse, wot was brought from the Marsh on a shutter.”

“I’ll teach them!” shrieked the schoolmaster, flourishing the birch and flying out of the door.

“That’s it!” added Jerk. “You do, and I’ll teach you, too, my fine fellow, who rapped my head once, I’ll teach you and teach you till I teaches your head to wriggle snug inside a good rope’s noose.” And having thus given vent to his feelings, Jerk followed the schoolmaster to see the fun.

The crowd outside the Court House was quite large for Dymchurch. Everybody was there, and right in front enjoying the excitement gaped and peered the scholars of the school. But Rash elbowed his way through the throng