A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh

“What would you have me then?” cried the seaman.

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“I wouldn’t have you any other than what you are, sir,” replied Doctor Syn, with his hand on the door latch—“a thoroughly entertaining and vastly amusing old seadog, mahogany as a dinner wagon, and loaded with so many fancies as to be creaking near the breaking point.”

The captain was so taken aback with the extraordinary manner of the Doctor that he could only look and gasp. Doctor Syn, perfectly at ease, opened the door.

“I wonder?” he said in a low voice, almost tenderly, Jerry thought.

The captain, with a great effort, managed to ejaculate, “What?”

“Why your mother sent you to sea, for as an apothecary—an apothecary— aye, yes, indeed, what a magnificent analyzing apothecary the world has missed in you, sir.” And to the captain’s amazement and Jerry’s astonishment the vicar went out, closing the door behind him.

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The captain could do nothing but stare at the closed door, while Jerry, perceiving nothing entertaining in that, stared at the captain, who suddenly exploded out in his great sea voice:

“An apothecary, an analyzing apothecary! What in the devil’s name does he mean by that?”

Jerry still looked at the captain. Certainly he had never beheld any one more unlike an apothecary. By the widest stretch of his imagination he could not picture the captain mixing drugs or making experiments.

“It’s my opinion—” he said, and then hesitated.

“Yes?” thundered the captain, with an eagerness that seemed to welcome any opinion.

“—well, it’s my opinion, sir, that Doctor Syn is off his head—mad, sir.” “And it’s my opinion, potboy,” said the captain, as if he valued his own opinion as highly as Jerry Jerk’s, “it’s my opinion that he’s nothing of the kind.

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He’s feigning madness. He had to do something that he knew would take my breath away for the moment, knowing me to be dense, and he succeeded, for if any man was unqualified to be an apothecary, I’m the fellow. An analyzing apothecary!”

Then the captain sat down in the armchair and laughed till the tears rolled down his cheeks, and Jerry was obliged to join in, though he didn’t know what he was laughing at. At length he stopped and became most suddenly grave. Getting up, he placed his hands on Jerry’s shoulders.

“Look here, potboy,” he said, “you and I have common secrets that I know. What the devil you were doing out on the Marsh the night before last I don’t know, but that you saw the schoolmaster kill Pepper I do know.”

“You know?” cried Jerk, utterly astonished. “Then Doctor Syn must have told you, for I never breathed a word.”

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“I know all about it, my boy, because I was hiding in the same dyke as you. Now see here, from what I’ve seen of you, I imagine you can be relied upon. We’ll pluck a leaf out of that parson’s book. We’ll find out his mystery. We’ll find out the whole mystery of this damned Marsh, and as to being apothecaries, why, damme, so we will. We’ll take him at his word.”

“And be apothecaries, sir?” asked Jerry, more puzzled now than ever.

“Yes,” cried the captain, slapping his great hands up and down upon Jerry’s shoulders. “Apothecaries make experiments, don’t they?”

“I dare say they do, sir,” replied Jerk.

“Well, so will we, my lad,” went on the captain, as happy as a sand boy. “We’ll set a trap for all this mystery to walk into. We’ll set a big trap, my lad— big enough to hold all the murderers and mulattoes on the Marsh, the demon riders as well, and certainly not forgetting the coffins in Mipps’s shop nor the bottles of Alsace Lorraine beneath this floor. We’ll catch the lot, my boy, and

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analyze ’em. Yes, damn ’em! we’ll analyze ’em, inside and outside, by night and by day, give ’em to Jack Ketch—to old Jack Ketch, who’ll hang ’em up to dry. Not a word, my boy, to any one; not a word. Here’s a guinea bit to hold your tongue; and look to hear from me before the day’s out, for I shall want your help to-morrow night.”

And the captain was gone. Literally rushed out of the door he had, leaving Jerk alone in a whirl.

“Well,” he said to himself, “if a man ever deserved a third breakfast, I’m the one, and here goes; for both of these fellows is stark, staring mad, though it’s wonderful the way they all seems to take to me.”

And thrusting the precious guinea bit into his pocket, Jerk again vigorously attacked the victuals.

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Chapter 23

A Young Recruit

Talk about an ’ealthy child, and there he is,” said Mrs. Waggetts, entering the sanded parlour with Sexton Mipps. “And eat; nothing like eating to increase your fat, is there, Mister Mipps? But, there, I suppose you never had no fat on you to speak of, ’cos if ever a man was one of Pharaoh’s lean kine, you was.” “It’s hard work wot’s kept me thin, Missus Waggetts,” replied the sinister sexton; “hard work and scheming; and a little of both would do our young Jerry here no harm.”

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“As to work,” replied Jerry, gulping down more food, “there ain’t been no complaints against me, I believes, Missus Waggetts?”

“Certainly not, Jerry, my boy,” responded that lady affably.

“That’s good,” said Jerk, and then turning to the sexton he added: “And as to scheming, Mister Sexton, how do you know I don’t scheme? Some folks are so took up with their own schemes that p’raps they don’t get time to notice wot others are a-doin’. I has lots of schemes, I has. I thinks about ’em by day, I does, and dreams of ’em at night.”

“And they gives you a rare knack of puttin’ away Missus Waggetts’ victuals, I’m a-noticin’,” dryly remarked the sexton.

“Lor’, I’m sure he’s heartily welcome to anything I’ve got,” returned the landlady. “It fair cheers me up to see him eat well, and it’ll be a fine man he’ll be making in a year or so.”

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“Aye, that I will,” cried young Jerk; “and when I’m a hangman I ain’t agoin’ to forget my old friend. I’ll come along from the town every Sunday, I will, and we’ll go and hear Parson Syn preach just the same as we does now, and Mister Mipps will show us into the pew, and everybody will turn round and stare at us and say: ‘Why, there goes hangman Jerk’! Then we’ll come back and have a bite of supper together, that is providing I don’t have to sup with the squire at the Court House.”

“That ’ud be likely,” interrupted Mipps.

“And, after we’ve had supper, I’ll tell you stories about horrible sights I’ve seen in the week, and terrible things I’ve done, and it’ll go hard with Sexton Mipps to keep even with me with weird yarnin’, I tells you.”

“Ha! ha!” chuckled Mipps. “Strike me dead and knock me up slipshod in a buckrum coffin, if the man Jerry Jerk don’t please me. Look at him, Missus Waggetts. Will you please do me the favour of lookin’ at him hard, though

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don’t let it put you off your feed, Jerry. Why, at your age I had just such notions as you’ve got, but then I never had your advantages. Why, at thirteen years of age I was as growed up in my fancies as this Jerk. Sweetmeats to devil, eh, Jerry? for it’s some who grows above such garbage from their first rocking in the cradle. This Jerry Jerk is a man; why, bless you, he’s more a man than lots of ’em what thinks they be. Aye, more a man than some of ’em wot’s a-doin’ man’s work.”