Текст книги "A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh"

Автор книги: Russell Thorndike

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Chapter 7

Clegg the Buccaneer

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.”

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“My dear Captain,” said Doctor Syn, who was warming himself at the fireplace, “our good friend Pepper is repeatedly coming into contact with the old gentleman himself upon the Marsh. Why, only last year he informed us that he met at least a score of his bodyguard riding in perfect style and most approved manner across from Ivychurch on fire-snorting steeds. And how many witches is it now that you have seen? A good round dozen, I’ll be sworn; and they were riding straddle-legs, a thing that we could hardly credit.”

“Well, let us hope,” said the physician, “that the presence of the King’s men will frighten the devils away. I’ve seen ’em, and I’ve no wish to see ’em again.”

“You can set your mind quite at rest, sir,” returned the captain, “for if as you say their horses breathe fire, they will afford excellent targets on the flat Marsh. We’ll hail the King’s ship and see what ninety good guns can do for the devils.”

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All through supper was this vein of humorous conversation kept up, until when the meal was finished and pipes alight, and Denis had retired to his room with a glum face to steer most sorely against his will upon a course of literature, the conversation gradually drifted into the Southern Seas, and the captain began telling stirring tales of Clegg the pirate, who had been hanged at Rye.

“I should like to have been at that hanging,” he cried, finishing a tale of horror, “for that fellow, as you have just heard, was a bloodthirsty scoundrel.”

“So we have always heard,” said Doctor Syn; “but don’t you think that some of his exploits may have been exaggerated?”

“Not a bit of it,” exclaimed the captain; “I believe everything I hear about that man, except that last blunder that put his neck into the noose at Rye.”

“That is his only exploit about which there is any certainty,” said the physician.

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“It was a mistake murdering that revenue man,” agreed Doctor Syn, “but Clegg was drunk, and threw all caution to the devil.”

“Clegg had been drunk enough before,” said the captain, “and yet he had never made a mistake. No, he was too clever to be caught in the meshes of a tavern brawl. Besides, from all we know of his former life, he would surely have put up a better defence at his trial; of course he would. You don’t tell me that a man who could terrorize the high seas all that time was going to let himself swing for a vulgar murder in a Rye tavern.”

“But it is a noticeable thing,” put in the cleric, “that all great criminals have made one stupid blunder that has caused their downfall.”

“Which generally means,” went on the captain, “that up to that moment it was luck and not genius that kept them safe. But we know that Clegg was a genius. I’ve had it first hand form high Admiralty men; from men who have lived in the colonies and traded in Clegg’s seas. The more I hear about that

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rascally pirate the more it make me wonder; and some day I mean to give the

time to clearing up the mystery.”

“What mystery?” said the cleric.

“The mystery of how Clegg could persuade another man to commit wilful murder in order to take his name upon the scaffold,” said the captain. “It takes some powers of persuasion to accomplish that, you’ll agree.”

“What on earth do you mean?” said the cleric.

“Simply this,” ejaculated the captain, beating the table with his fist, “that Clegg was never hanged at Rye.”

There was a pause, and the gentlemen looked at him with grave faces. Presently the squire laughed. “Upon my soul, Captain,” he said, “you run our friend Sennacherib here uncommon close with staggering statements. I wonder which of you will tell us first that Queen Anne is not dead.”

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“Queen Anne is dead,” exclaimed the captain, “because she was not fortunate enough to persuade somebody else to die for her. Now I maintain that this is exactly what Clegg did do.”

“Can you let us have the reasons that led you to this theory?” said the cleric, interested.

“I don’t see why not,” replied the captain. “In the first place, the man hanged at Rye was a short, thickset man, tattooed from head to foot, wearing enormous brass earrings, and his black hair cropped short as a Roundhead’s.”

“That’s an exact description of him,” said the parson, “for, as everybody knows, I visited the poor wretch in his prison cell at Rye, and at his desire wrote out his final and horrible confession.”

“Is that so?” said the captain. “Oh, yes, I remember hearing of how he was visited by a parson. I thought it a bit incongruous at the time.”

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“And so it was,” agreed the parson, “for I have never seen a more unrepentant man go to meet his Maker.”

“Well, now,” went on the captain, his eyes glistening with excitement, “I have it on very good authority that the real Clegg in no way answered this description: he was a weird-looking fellow; thin faced, thin legs, long arms, and, what’s more to the point, was never tattooed in his life save once by some unskilled artist who had tried to portray a man walking the plank with a shark waiting below. This picture was executed so poorly that the pirate would never let any one try again. Then I also have it on the very best evidence that Clegg’s hair was gray, and had been gray since quite a young man; so that does away with your black, close-cropped hair. And again I have it that Clegg would never permit his ears to be pierced for brass rings, affirming that they were useless lumber for a seaman to carry.”

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“Don’t you think,” said the squire, “that all this was a clever dodge to avoid discovery?”

“A disguise?” queried the captain. “Yes, I confess that the same thing occurred to me.”

“And might I ask how you managed to obtain your real description of Clegg?” asked the vicar.

“At first,” said the captain, “from second or third sources; but the other day I got first-hand evidence from a man who had served aboard Clegg’s ship, the Imogene. That ugly-looking rascal who was helping Bill Spiker carry the rum barrel. The bo’sun questioned him for upward of three hours in his queer lingo, and managed to arrive, by the nodding and shaking of the man’s head, at an exact description of him tallying with mine and yours” (glancing at Doctor Syn).

“He was one of Clegg’s men?” said the vicar, amazed.

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“Then pray, sir, what is he doing in the royal navy?”

“I use him as a tracker,” replied the captain. “You know, some of these half-caste mongrels, mixtures of all the bad blood in the Southern Seas, have remarkable gifts of tracking. It’s positively uncanny the way this rascal can smell out a trapdoor or a hiding-place. He’s invaluable to me on these smuggling trips. I suppose you’ve nothing of the sort in this house?”

“There’s a staircase leading to a priest’s hole in this very chimney corner, though you would never guess at it,” returned the squire. “And, what’s more, I bet a guinea that nobody would discover it.”

“I’ll lay you ten to one that the mulatto will; aye, and within a quarter of an hour!”

“Done!” cried the squire. “That will be sport; we’ll have him round,” and he summoned the butler.

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“There’s one condition I should have made,” said the captain when the butler opened the door. “The rascal is dumb and cannot speak a word of English; but my bo’sun can speak his lingo and will make him understand what we require of him.”

“Fetch ’em both round,” cried the squire. “Gadzooks! it’s a new sport this.”

The butler was accordingly dispatched with the captain’s orders to the bo’sun that he should step round at once to the Court House with the mulatto. Meantime, Denis was summoned from the paths of learning, and the terms of the wager having been explained to him, he awaited in high excitement the coming of the seamen.

“How is it that the fellow’s dumb?” asked the physician.

“Tongue cut out at the roots, sir,” replied the captain. “He might well be deaf, too, for his ears are also gone, probably along with his tongue, but he’s not deaf, he understands the bo’sun all right.”

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“Did you ever find out how he lost them?” asked the squire.

“It was Clegg,” replied the captain; “for after having been tortured in this pleasant fashion he was marooned upon a coral reef.”

“Good God!” said the vicar, going pale with the thought of it.

“How did he get off?” asked the squire.

“God alone knows,” returned the captain.

“Can’t you get it out of him in some way?” said the squire.

“Job Mallet, the bo’sun, can’t make him understand some things,” said the captain, “but he located the reef upon which he’d been marooned in the Admiralty chart, and it’s as Godforsaken a piece of rock as you could wish. No vegetation; far from the beat of ships; not even registered upon the mercantile maps. As well be the man in the moon as a man on that reef for all the chance you’d have to get off.”

“But he got off,” said the squire. “How?”

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“That’s just it,” said the captain, “how? If you can find that out you’re smarter than Job Mallet, who seems the only man who can get things out of him.”

“By Gad! I’m quite eager to look at the poor devil!” cried the squire. “So am I,” agreed the physician. “And I’d give a lot to know how he got off that reef,” said Doctor Syn. But at that instant the butler opened the door, and Job Mallet shuffled into

the room, looking troubled. “Where’s the mulatto?” said the captain sharply, for the bo’sun was alone. “I don’t know, sir,” answered the bo’sun sheepishly; “he’s gone!” “Gone? Where to?” said the captain. “Don’t know, sir,” answered the bo’sun. “I see him curled up in the barn

along of the others just afore I stepped outside to stand watch, and when I went to wake him to bring him along of me, why, blest if he hadn’t disappeared.”

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“Did you look for him?” said the captain.

“Well, sir, I was alookin’ for him as far down as to the end of the field where one of them ditches run,” said the bo’sun, “when I see something wot fair beat anything I ever seed afore: it was a regiment of horse, some twenty of ’em maybe, but if them riders weren’t devils, well, I ain’t a seaman.”

“What were they like?” screamed Sennacherib.

“Wild-looking fellows on horses wot seemed to snort out fire, and the faces of the riders and horses were all moonlight sort of colour, but before I’d shouted, ‘Belay there!’ they’d all disappeared in the mist.”

“How far away were these riders?” said the captain.

“Why, right on top of me, as it seemed,” stammered the bo’sun.

“Job Mallet,” said the captain, shaking his large finger at him, “I’ll tell you what it is, my man: you’ve been drinking rum.”

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“Well, sir,” admitted the seaman, “it did seem extra good to-night, and perhaps I did take more than I could manage; though come to think of it, sir, I’ve often drunk more than I’ve swallowed to-night and not seen a thing, sir.”

“You get back to the barn and go to sleep,” said the captain, “and lock the door from the inside; there’s no need to stand watches to-night, and it won’t do that foreign rascal any harm to find himself on the wrong side of the door for once.” Job Mallet saluted and left the room.

“You see what it comes to, Sennacherib,” laughed the squire: “drink too much and you’re bound to see devils!”

“I don’t believe that fellow has drunk too much,” said the physician, getting up. “But I’m walking home, and it’s late; time I made a start.”

“Mind the devils!” laughed the vicar as he shook hands.

“They’ll mind me, sir,” said Sennacherib as he grasped his thick stick. And so the supper party broke up: the squire lighting the captain to his room; Doctor

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Syn returning to the vicarage; and Sennacherib Pepper setting out for his lonely walk across the devil-ridden Marsh.

The window of the captain’s room looked out upon the courtyard; he could see nothing of the sea, nothing of the Marsh. Now, as these were the two things he intended to see—aye, and on that very night—he waited patiently till the house was still; for he considered that there was more truth in Sennacherib Pepper’s stories than the squire allowed. Indeed, it was more than likely that the squire disallowed them for reasons of his own. This he determined to find out. So half an hour after the squire had bade him good-night he softly crossed the room to open the door.

But the door was locked on the outside!

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Chapter 8

Dogging the Schoolmaster

Now Jerry lived with his grandparents, and they were always early to bed. Indeed, by ten o’clock they were both snoring loudly, while Jerry would be tucked up in the little attic dreaming of the gallows and hanging Mr. Rash. Jerry was troubled a good deal by dreams; but upon this particular night they were more than usually violent; whether owing to the great excitement caused by the coming of the King’s men, or due to the extra doses of rum that the youngster had indulged in, who can say. He dreamt that he was out on the Marsh chasing the schoolmaster: that was all very well, quite a pleasant dream

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to young Jerk and not at all a nightmare, but unfortunately there were things chasing Jerry as well, and the nearer he seemed to get to the flying schoolmaster the nearer got the things behind him. There was no doubt at all in the dreamer’s mind as to what they were, for they were the Marsh devils that he had heard about from infancy, the very demon riders that old Sennacherib Pepper was credited with having seen. He glanced over his shoulder and saw them pounding after him, grim riders on most ghastly steeds. The noise of the hoofs got nearer and nearer, and run as he would, he felt that he would never reach the schoolmaster before he himself was caught by the demons. Then in the dream the schoolmaster turned round, and Jerk with a scream saw that what he had been chasing was no longer the schoolmaster but the devil himself. So there he was between the demon riders and the very old gentleman that Doctor Syn preached about on Sundays. Now, although Jerry was no coward, he was not quite proof against such a shock as this, so he just uttered the most

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appalling scream and fell into a ditch that had suddenly appeared before him. The fall into the ditch was very hard, so hard, indeed, that the sleeper awoke to find that he was sitting on the floor with the bedclothes on top of him. But he was still uncertain whether or no he was awake, for although he rubbed his eyes exceedingly hard he could still hear the pounding hoofs of the demon horses, and they were coming nearer. He rubbed his eyes again, twisted his fingers into his ears, and listened. Yes, there was really no mistaking it, there were horses coming along the road before the house, and he was certain in his mind that they were the phantoms of his dream. So he went to the casement and looked out. Prepared for a surprise he certainly was, but not such a terrible one as he got. Along the road at a gallop went a score or so of horsemen: that they were not of this world was very easy to see, for there was moonlight shining from their faces and from the faces of the horses as well.

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The riders were fantastically dressed in black, and wore queer tall hats the like of which Jerry had only seen in ghost books. They were fine riders, too, for they seemed to the terrified boy actually to grow out of their horses. Jerry noticed, too, that there were long streamers of black flying from the harness. The curious light that shone upon the riders made it possible for Jerry to see their faces, which were entirely diabolical, for one and all were laughing as they rode. They were going at a good pace, so that as soon as they appeared, just so sudden did they go, and although Jerk opened the casement and hung out of the window, the mist had entirely swallowed the riders up, although he could still hear the distant noise of their horses. It sounded as if one of them was coming back. Yes, he was sure of it! So he very quickly shut the window again. The clatter of hoofs got louder, and presently Jerk, through the pane, caught sight of a rider trotting out of the mist. Now there seemed something familiar about this figure and the peculiar jogging of the steed; but the rider

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was well under the window before Jerk discovered that this was no demon, but the hated schoolmaster. What was he doing riding out at this hour, thought the youngster? Was he in league with the spirits of the Marsh, and could he pass through them without being scared? For there was no other turning along the road, and the schoolmaster, although very repulsive to behold, was not looking in any way concerned; so Jerry came to the rapid conclusion that his deadly enemy was in some way or other connected with that mysterious band of horse. “So,” he thought, “if he’s up to mischief, I must find out what that mischief is, and if it’s a hanging business, all the better.” So quickly and silently Jerk pulled on his breeches and coat, and with his boots in his hand crept out upon the stairs. Everything was very still, and the creaks and cracks of the old oak were horrible, and then his grandfather did snore so very loud, and once just as he was entering the kitchen he heard his grandmother cry out: “Jerry, come here!” That nearly made him jump out of his skin, but he heard immediately

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afterward her wheezing snore mingled with those of her better half, so he concluded that she had only cried out in her sleep. In the kitchen he put on his boots, and just as he was opening the back door he heard the tall clock in the front room striking eleven. He left the door on the latch and, climbing through a hedge, struck out across the Marsh. He knew well enough that by running he could pick up the road again so as to be ahead of the rider; but it was difficult going at night, and by the time he had scrambled through the hedge again he saw the schoolmaster passing round at the back of Mipps’s shop. There was still a light burning in the front window, and after tying up his bonny horse the schoolmaster entered the shop. “What’s he wanting at a coffin shop at this hour?” thought Jerk. “I wish he was ordering his own, I do!” And with this uncharitable thought he crept along the road and approached the house. A coffin shop isn’t a pleasant thing to behold at night. Rows of coffin planks leaned up against the provision shelves, for Mipps supplied the village with

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bread and small eatables. A half-finished coffin reposed on trestles in the centre of the floor, and around the room hung every conceivable article that had to do with coffins. The atmosphere of coffins spread over everything in the store, and whether young jerk looked at the bottles of preserves on this shelf or the loaves of dark bread on that, to him they meant but one thing: Death! And he was quite satisfied that any one bold enough to eat of the food in that grizzly shop well deserved to be knocked up solid in one of Mipps’s boxes. of the floor, and around the room hung every conceivable article that had to do with coffins. The atmosphere of coffins spread over everything in the store, and whether young jerk looked at the bottles of preserves on this shelf or the loaves of dark bread on that, to him they meant but one thing: Death! And he was quite satisfied that any one bold enough to eat of the food in that grizzly shop well deserved to be knocked up solid in one of Mipps’s boxes.

The sexton himself was examining with great care a mixture that he was stirring inside a small cauldron. Mr. Rash approached him and asked him if there was enough. “Of course there is,” answered the sexton. “Ain’t the others all had theirs? And there’s only you left; last again, as usual. Hang the pot on to your saddle and come along.” Jerk fell to wondering what on earth could be inside that pot. He could smell it through the broken casement, and a right nasty smell it was. Mipps led the way through the back of the shop, and Jerk,

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by changing his position, could see him fixing the pot to the saddle, as he had suggested, then springing on to the horse’s back with marvellous agility for so ancient a man, he went off through the village with the schoolmaster trotting at the side, and the wary Jerk following in the shadows.

They led him right through the village to the vicarage, and tied the horse behind a tree at the back. Then Mipps, producing a key, opened the front door, and a minute later Jerk from a point of vantage behind the low churchyard wall saw the sexton throw a log on to the low, smouldering fire in the old grate of the front room that was the Doctor’s study. Mipps also lighted a candle that stood upon the chimney-board. Jerry could see into the room quite distinctly now: he could see the old sexton curled up in the oak settle by the fireplace, and the schoolmaster’s shadow flickering upon the wall. He also had a good view of the Court House, where there were candles still burning in the library, and the hearty voice of the squire would keep sounding out loud and clear.

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Presently the door opened and a figure came out, going off in the direction of the vicarage barn, and Jerk had no difficulty in recognizing the bo’sun of the King’s men.

As soon as he had disappeared Jerk got another surprise, for there came across the churchyard, dodging in and out among the tombstones, a truly terrible thing. Its face seemed to the boy like the face of a dead man, for it looked quite yellow, and its white hair gave it a further corpselike expression. Jerk was terrified that the thing would see him, but it didn’t, for the shining black eyes, unlike anything he had ever seen before, were directed entirely upon the lighted window of the vicarage, and up to it he crawled, and peeped into the room. The schoolmaster was standing with his back to the window, but he presently turned and went to the door. The weird figure crouched in the flower-bed under the sill, for Mr. Rash opened the front door and went round to the back of the house to the tree where he had tied the horse.

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As soon as he had gone the yellow-faced man entered the house. Now Jerry fell to wondering what this was all about, and what the little sexton would do if he caught sight of the apparition.

But the sexton’s eyes were closed and his mouth wide open, and Jerry could hear him beginning to snore. When the door of the room was opened the figure cautiously crossed toward the fire, but the sexton didn’t move; he was asleep.

Now above the chimney-piece hung a harpoon; it belonged to Doctor Syn, who was a collector of nautical curiosities; and this harpoon had once been Clegg’s. It was a curious shape, and it was supposed that only one man in the Southern Seas besides the pirate had ever succeeded in throwing it.

The figure was now between Mipps and the firelight, and it began examining the curios upon the mantel-board. Suddenly it perceived the harpoon and, with a cry, unhooked it from its nail. The sexton opened his eyes, and the figure swung the dangerous weapon above his head, and Jerk thought that the

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sexton’s last moment had come, but Mipps, uttering a piercing cry, kicked out most lustily against the chimney-piece, and backward he went along with the settle.

Perhaps it was the horrible cry that frightened the thing, because it came running out of the front door with the harpoon still in its hand, and leaping the churchyard wall disappeared among the tombstones in the direction of the Marsh.

Mipps got up and ran to the door, crying out for Rash, and at the same time the door of the Court House opened and Doctor Syn came striding toward the vicarage.

“No more parochial work, I trust to-night, Mr. Sexton?” he said cheerily, but then noticing Mipps’s terrified demeanour he added: “What’s the matter, Mr. Mipps? You look as grave as a tombstone.”

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“So would you, sir, if you seen wot I seed. It was standin’ over me lookin’ straight down at me, as yellow as a guinea.”

“What was?” said the Doctor.

“A thing!” said the sexton.

“Come, come, what sort of thing?” demanded the vicar.

“The likes of a man,” replied the sexton, thinking, “but not a livin’ man—a sort of shape—a dead ’un—and yet I can’t help fancying I’ve seed it somewheres before. By thunder!” he cried suddenly. “I know. That’s why it took Clegg’s harpoon. For God’s sake, come inside, sir.” And in they went hurriedly, followed by Rash, who had just arrived back on the scene. Inside the room Mr. Mipps again narrated in a horrified whisper what he had just seen, pointing now out of the window in the direction taken by the thing and now at the empty nail where Clegg’s harpoon had hung.

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Doctor Syn went to the window to close the shutters and saw Sennacherib Pepper crossing the far side of the churchyard.

“Good-night, Sennacherib,” he cried out, and shut the shutters. A minute later out came the schoolmaster, but instead of going round for his horse, as Jerry expected, he walked quickly after Sennacherib Pepper. “How long is this going on for, I wonder?” thought young Jerk, as he picked himself up and set off after the schoolmaster.

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