Doctor Syn A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh (9 page)

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by violent means; that a foreign sailor was missing, and that this same sailor had stolen at a short period before the murder a certain harpoon from the house of Doctor Syn, and that from the nature and size of the wound upon the body sudden death was most certainly caused by this same weapon. To this false though obvious conclusion Doctor Syn, to Jerk’s intense surprise, unhesitatingly agreed. Why had he been called to the trial if the vicar had not believed his story? for he found on being summoned to the witness box that all he was required to state was whether or no he had seen the mulatto enter the vicarage on the previous night and leave it a few minutes later with the harpoon in question in his hand. Having sworn to this, he was on the point of taking matters into his own hands and exposing the schoolmaster, when he was peremptorily ordered to “stand down” and only answer what was required of him. Returning to his place, he plainly noted the relief on the face of the schoolmaster. A warmer time of it had Mr. Mipps. There was something about

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Mipps that would always be called in question. If a great crime had been committed within a fifty-mile radius of Mipps, he would most assuredly have been detained upon suspicion. His quizzical appearance of injured innocence was quite enough to label him a “likely one.” On this occasion he acted upon the attorneys like a red rag to a bull.

“If I’m to be kept standing through this examination,” he remarked on his way to the witness box, “I must beg of you to be more brisk and businesslike than you have shown yourselves already. Perhaps in your profession you are paid for wastin’ your time, but in mine you ain’t, so please remember it. As our worthy vicar knows, I has a lot of work to get through; so the sooner you get on with this here dismal business the better temper you’ll keep me in, see?”

“You keep your mouth shut, my man, till you’re questioned,” sang out one of the attorneys sharply.

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“I’ll keep my mouth shut for nobody but squire and Doctor Syn,” retorted the sexton, “and in your future remarks don’t ‘my man’ me, please. I ain’t your man, and it’s mighty pleased I am I ain’t.”

When ordered to give an account of what had happened on the previous night, he obstinately refused to open his mouth until they had removed to the other side of the room the two sailors who were guarding the witness box. “For,” said he, “I can’t abide the look or the smell of ’em; they fair turns me up.”

This caused much laughter among the villagers, and indeed the little sexton was so ready with his scathing remarks at the expense of the lawyers that in order to preserve their dignity they were obliged to stand him down.

“Have I now your permission to go back to my measuring,” said Mipps, producing his footrule, “or will any more advice from me be required?”

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The lawyers tartly observed that he had been little or no use at all, and turned to the next witness.

After the schoolmaster had been called upon to bear out certain points of evidence, the three hours’ useless palaver came to a conclusion, the attorneys agreeing with Doctor Syn that Sennacherib Pepper had been murdered by the mulatto, and that as soon as he was taken he would get swift trial and short shrift; meantime “any one found sheltering, feeding, or in any way abetting the said mulatto would be prosecuted.”

As it was now approaching dinner-time, further matters were left over until such time as the mulatto should be caught.

This, Doctor Syn vehemently urged, was of grave import to the Marsh folk, for so long as that maniac starved upon the Marsh, with a good weapon in his hand, they were open to the same fate as that which had befallen the inoffensive Pepper.

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The captain rose first, left the Court House, and set off for the Ship Inn without a word to the squire, the latter, accompanied by the attorneys and medical men, repairing to the dining-hall below. Doctor Syn, however, went from group to group, impressing the necessity for posses of men to scour the Marsh for the missing seaman.

This gave Rash an opportunity of approaching Jerk, who, being due to dine at the vicarage, was awaiting the parson’s pleasure.

“Well! And what do you think of Court House inquiries, Mr. Jerk?” he said affably. “Impressive, ain’t they?”

“Not to me,” replied Jerry. “I don’t think nothing at all of ’em. After all the messing of them lawyers, I shouldn’t be surprised if they hadn’t got hold of the wrong end of the stick, should you?”

“What do you mean—the wrong end?”

“What I say: the wrong end ain’t the right ’un, I believes.”

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“Then you don’t think the mulatto committed the murder?”

“From what that there sea captain said, I should say you ain’t got no right to put thoughts into my head any more than words into my mouth.”

“Come, Jerk,” said the schoolmaster suavely, “no offence.”

“Never said there was,” replied Jerry.

“Then come and have a bite with me at my house, as there’s no school today; I should be honoured, indeed I should,” and the schoolmaster beamed upon him.

“Would you, though? I wonders?” mused the boy. “Sorry to disappoint you,” he added airily, “but I’m a-dinin’ at the vicarage.”

“Oh, with the vicar?”

“No, with the Shah of Persia.” Then in a tone of supreme condescension he added: “I believe vicars lives in vicarages!”

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“Ah—so—so! quite right!” returned the schoolmaster. “Doctor Syn, then, has asked you to dine?”

“Well, I don’t see anything so very remarkable in that, do you?”

“Oh, not at all—all very right, proper, and pleasant.”

“Well, it’s right enough, you can lay to that, ’cos I tells you it is, and as to its being proper, well, I don’t see as how it’s improper, so I suppose it is; and as to its being pleasant, well, I’ll tell you when I knows what’s to eat there; and if you’ll excuse me I’ll be off now, ’cos I believe Doctor Syn is waiting for me.”

Indeed at that moment Doctor Syn approached and, putting his hand affectionately on Jerk’s should, with a friendly nod to the schoolmaster, he led the boy from the room of inquiry out of the Court House and so to the vicarage, where a cold dinner was already prepared.

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Now, although it was comparatively early in the afternoon, Doctor Syn did rather a curious thing, or so it seemed to Jerry, for he had the wooden shutters of the dining-room fastened, and they dined by the light of candles. This had quite an uncanny effect—to dine by candles in broad daylight—but Jerk thought perhaps this was always done when gentry entertained company. Doctor Syn was gloomy through the meal, and although he kept pressing Jerry to “take more” and to “help himself,” he made no effort at keeping up conversation; in fact, had not the food been good and plenteous, Jerry very

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much doubted whether he would have enjoyed himself at all, for Doctor Syn’s manner was so different. He seemed strained and excited, and not once or twice, but many times during the repast, he would get up and stride about the room, and once he broke out into singing that old sea song that Jerry had so often heard at the Ship Inn:

“Here’s to the feet wot have walked the plank,

Yo ho! for the dead man’s throttle.

And here’s to the corpses floating round in the tank,

And the dead man’s teeth in the bottle.”

Now to make conversation Jerry was bold enough to interrupt this song by inquiring what exactly was meant by the “dead man’s throttle.” Doctor Syn stopped in his walk and looked at him, filling two tots of rum, one of which he handed to Jerk, tossing off the other himself and saying:

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“Ah, you may well ask that, sonny. I don’t know exactly myself, but I suppose if poor Pepper was to come in here now and throttle us, man and boy— him being stone dead, as we both well know—well, we should be having the ‘dead man’s throttle’ served on us!”

“Oh, I see!” replied Jerk with interest. “Then I take it that the rest of the song has some shreds of meaning, too? What’s the ‘tank’ that the corpses float round in, sir?”

“The sea,” replied the Doctor, “the sea; that’s the great tank, my lad, and that there are corpses enough floating round in it, I don’t think you and I could doubt.”

“That’s plain and true enough,” said Jerk, “but I don’t see no sense about the ‘dead man’s teeth in the bottle.’”

“That’s plain enough,” said the Doctor, taking a stiff swig from the black bottle itself; “it was in England’s day that I wrote that. He cut a nigger’s head

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off with a cutlass because the rascal was drinking his best rum on the sly, and the shock, as he died, made the black brute bite through the glass neck of the bottle.”

“Did you see it, sir?” asked Jerk, carried away by the tale. “Who said I saw it?” demanded the cleric sharply. “Well, you said you wrote the song, sir, and at the time it happened.” “Nothing of the kind—I said nothing of the kind. The song’s an old one, an

ancient thing. God knows what rascal invented it, but you can depend upon it, a rascal he was. I don’t know why I should hum it—I don’t know what it means; can’t make head or tale of the jargon.”

“You explains it very sensible, I thinks,” replied Jerry. “I don’t—I don’t. I give you my word it’s Greek to me.” “But Greek’s easy for parsons, ain’t it?”

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“Yes, yes—well, Chinese, Fiji—what you will—what you will. Have some rum!” The Doctor’s manner was really very strange indeed. Add to this the shuttered room, the candlelight, and the strong spirits in his head, and it was small wonder that Jerry felt none too comfortable, especially as at the conclusion of the meal the door opened and Mr. Rash entered the room.

“Well, my lad,” said the vicar, “now you know where I feed, drop in again. Parochial matters to attend to with the schoolmaster: must choose the hymns, you know, for Sunday, or the choir will have nothing to sing.” And in this vein he led the boy into the hall. He then dropped his voice to a whisper: “You were wrong about the schoolmaster last night, sonny, I’ll explain things to you some day. Meanwhile, here’s a crown piece. You’re a smart lad, ain’t you? Well, keep a weather eye open for that mulatto rascal. There’s more in this ugly business than we imagine. I’ll tell you all about it when I know more myself, but you made a mistake last night, and I begin to see how you made it, but I

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can’t tell you just yet, because I’m not quite sure of my ground; and it’s dangerous ground we’re treading, Jerry, you and I. Now here’s another crown— that one’s for keeping your eye open—do you know what the other’s for?”

“What?”

“Keeping your mouth shut. Don’t you remember anything about last night till I tell you—you wouldn’t understand if I was to explain. You’re very young, you know, Jerry lad, but smart’s the word that describes you, and no mistaking. You’re smart and bright—as bright as the buttons on that sea captain’s coat— as bright as a thousand new guinea bits just served from the mint—that’s what you are, and no mistake!”

“I hope so,” replied Jerk, stepping out of the front door. “I thinks I am!”

“God bless you!” said the Doctor, shutting the door and returning to Rash, who was waiting in the shuttered room by the light of the guttering candles.

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Back at the Ship and to duty went “Hangman Jerk,” with much to think over in his bullet head, and much to digest in his tight little stomach. To make head or tail of the Doctor’s remarkable manner was beyond him, so he dismissed it from his mind and instead fell to contemplating the two silver crowns: one payment for keeping his weather eye open—easily earned; the other—the schoolmaster’s safety—directly against his highest hopes; yes, a crown was poor payment for that, especially as it was now possible for himself to be the direct means of hanging his enemy.

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Approaching the bar door, he paused, for he heard voices within, voices that he knew released him from work, the voices of Mrs. Waggetts and the pride of her life—the sexton Mipps.

Jerk knew exactly how the land lay with Mrs. Waggetts, and he was always wondering when (if ever) she would succeed in folding that queer little man within the safe bonds of matrimony. Now whatever Jerk’s failings may have been, he was loyal to his friends, and Mrs. Waggetts was not only his friend but his employer, and she had done him one or two very good turns. For one thing, she had given him a money box in which to save a portion of his weekly wage. That doesn’t sound a great deal on the surface, it is true, but her kindness had not ended there, as you shall see. Jerk’s teeth were not sweet, like those of most boys of his age; he never bought sweetmeats, barley sugar, and such child’s trash. No, when he wanted a pick-me-up it was a grown man’s pick-meup that he indulged in—a pannikin of rum, a whiff of tobacco, and a long-shot

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spit at the china spittoon that stood in the front of the bar. These indulgences had no effect on his purse, for the cravings of the first two were easily satisfied from the bar store when nobody was looking, and the third he was at liberty to practise whenever he felt so disposed. And thus it was that, although but approaching thirteen years of age, he had through the good offices of the landlady and a systematic use of her money box already become a landed proprietor. When the landlady heard that Jerk wanted to spend his savings on such a very strange thing as land she had exclaimed in some surprise:

“Lord bless the boy! Land? What can a boy of that age want with a plot of land?”

“The money’s good enough, ain’t it, ma’am? Very well, then, I wants land. A nice little bit of snug mudbank where I can hide and learn about the Marsh. If I’ve a bit of mud wot’s all mine on Romney Marsh—well, I’ll be a Marshman, I’ll be, and it’s a Marshman proper I wants to be.”