would be no marrying with a Dymchurch lass then, for many a long year, and all the time you would be haunted
with the thought that in your very prolonged absence the girl might have married another. So kindly answer my
questions truthfully, and whatever I say keep strictly to yourself.”
“I have every wish to be of service to the Government, sir,” replied George Lee, is a voice which disgusted the
listening Mipps because of its timidity. In truth the young cooper felt strangely nervous now that Doctor Syn had
gone. He went on speaking slowly and humbly. “You heard our good Doctor Syn advise me so to do always, and I
have tried to follow his advice. When I have succeeded in doing so only good has come of it, I assure you, sir.”
The Captain grunted his approval to this sentiment, and continued: “Well, to begin with, perhaps you have been
wondering why I watched you the other day at your work in the coopers’ shop. It was chance that I happened to
pick on you. I was determined to pick on whoever seemed most to wish to stick to his work in Hythe. A few
questions about you, and I knew that you were happy and in love, and I recognized that you were the youngster who
fitted in best with my plan. That has been, perhaps, an ill-chance for you. But my reason for going to the coopers’
shop in the first place was not chance. I went there because I had had it brought to my notice that the Sexton of
Dymchurch had visited the shop several times recently.
“Now, between ourselves, as all this conversation must be, please, I had kept a weather eye on him for some
time, and he struck me as being a little man who could not keep that long, sharp nose of his out of any business. So,
thought I, why should he not have poked it into this smuggling business? The moment I suspected him I set one of
my men to watch him, and so checked up upon his goings and comings.”
“Amongst other things I learnt that he had entered the coopers’ shop several times, and I wondered whether he
was carrying orders from the Scarecrow. No sooner had this idea occurred to me than I determined to pay a
personal visit to the brewery, vowing that I would select an ally there to work for me: someone whom I could
persuade to discover for me the purpose of the Sexton’s visits. You were my selection. And now all you have to do
is to tell me just what you know.”
“Nothing, sir,” replied George Lee timidly.
“That is very unfortunate,” said the Captain slowly, adding the significant words, “for you.”
“I wish to get no one into trouble, sir,” faltered the cooper. “And least of all Mr. Mipps, who has always been
good to me. It would be a dreadful thing to feel that one had sent an innocent man to the ordeal of a trial, and all
that sort of torture, just because one may have thought things.”
“Ah, and so you have ‘thought things’, eh? Rapped out the Captain with great emphasis upon the repetition. “I
should like to know exactly what things you have thought, in order to save me from doing such a ‘dreadful thing’ as
punishing you, an innocent lad, because I must take all possible steps to put down the enemies of the Crown. Now,
come along. Be sensible, and speak up.”
“Well, I think, sir,” stammered the unfortunate cooper, “that it is permissible for my masters to make casks to an
order without asking the purchaser for what purpose those casks are needed. That would surely be, sir, an
inquisitive sort of trading?”
“You are prevaricating, my young friend,” said the Captain gravely. “My business is to stamp out smuggling.
Others have failed to do so. I am going to succeed. And with that end in view, I shall not hesitate to be, and to
make others, inquisitive to a degree. It is only by the inquisitiveness of every good citizen concerned that my object
can be obtained. If I had my will not a barrel should be sold by firms like yours, unless that barrel had a clear port
of call, as it were. I am confident that if the Scarecrow has placed an order with your firm, through the medium of
Mipps, that your firm will know what Mipps wants them for.
“Now just to show you that once I have made up my mind to a thing, nobody will swerve me from attaining it,
I’ll tell you how I found the means to interview your head cooper. I ordered my Bos’n to spring a leak in one of our
water-casks, and then told him to carry it to your shop for mending. This gave me the excuse for visiting your
people. I called in to inquire if they could hurry with the job and what price my Bos’n had agreed on, saying I had
to watch the leakages of money as sharply as leaky water-casks.
“I then expressed a lively interest in the mystery of cooperage, a craft that runs close along the art of ships-andboat-building, which I have studied since I first took to the sea. Many a seafaring man sees no romance in the
history of ships. To me a ship or boat is a romantic creation, and I have interested myself in each part of every craft
I have sailed. And all the accessories of a vessel, too, such as ropes, casks, barrels and kegs. Sails, too. There’s
little I cannot tell about canvas. The carrying of cooper upon every ship under my command made me wish to learn
something of his trade, so that I could judge of his work and any difficulties that might arise. And that there were
many difficulties upon a fighting ship I very soon did appreciate.”
“I am not boasting that I could make a cask, for I could not, because, unlike you, I have not the advantage of five
years’ concentration upon it. But I know as much as you do about the job in theory. Perhaps a little more. Can you,
for instance, tell me anything of the history of cooperage?”
Glad enough to talk of anything that did not necessitate telling tales, the cooper answered cheerfully: “Yes, sir,
as little. It wan an honoured calling in the City of London as far back as the thirteenth century, and according to old
Acts of Parliament, coopers were called ‘good men of the mystery of coopers’, and in the fifteenth century every
cooper had to have his own mark, same as the stonemasons did.”
The Captain nodded. “And that raises an important point. It is the custom still to put your mark upon a cask you
make. Now suppose the tub, barrel, keg or cask is designed for some illegal work, such as smuggling, is the mark
still put upon it by the good man cooper?”
“Well, sir,” replied the cooper, becoming uneasy again, “if I make a cask I put my mark upon it in the ordinary
way, and, at our shop, the head master-cooper puts his too, which shows that it has been passed with tests as the best
our shop can turn out.”
“I see,” nodded the Captain. “And suppose I find tubs containing smuggled goods with your mark upon them,
can I discover from any cooper that you were the maker? For I should wish to question you.”
“Most likely, sir, since all our marks are registered in the trade,” replied the cooper, wondering where the Captain
was leading him. “No doubt, sir,’ he added, “if you were to find smuggled goods in a cask I made, I could tell you
to whom that cask had been sold, and would be justified in doing so, but that would surly, sir, be the end of my
responsibility, except that it would have been guaranteed as a good cask, carrying with it an endurance test from the
shop.”
“Very well, then,” cried the Captain. “Call your mind back to my visit. You remember that I sat in your part of
the shop and watched you for some time at work, while my guide had gone to inquire about my cask? Well, now,
what did I tell you?”
“You hinted, sit,” replied the cooper with a fresh show of fear in his voice, “that if I wanted to escape the penalty