A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh - Thorndike Russell (книги серии онлайн .txt) 📗

The captain received him at the door of the inn and conducted him to the privacy of his own bedchamber.

There he unburdened his mind to the lawyer, stating all his suspicions and clearly showing how he had arrived at them. By the end of the morning they

318

thoroughly understood each other, the lawyer returning by coach to Rye with orders to the governor of the castle to prepare accommodation for a large number of prisoners and to see to it that there were chains enough to hang ?em to. But, strange to relate, that lawyer in bottle green never reached the little town of Rye, for his coach stopped at a certain farmhouse beyond Romney. Here he alighted to make room for another lawyer, a real lawyer, a man of sixty-five, who had left Rye that very morning to consult with a certain Captain Collyer residing at the Ship Inn, Dymchurch. For at a lonely spot on the road outside Romney a strong body of men had awaited the arrival of his coach. While two or three of them removed the driver from his box to the farmhouse, where they speedily made him drunk, two or three others had entered the coach, securely gagged and blindfolded the occupant, and conveyed him also to the house, the coach immediately proceeding to Dymchurch with another coachman and another lawyer, a man in a bottle-green coat.

319

The blindfolded lawyer had been scared out of all knowledge, especially by the sound of the voice of a certain man known as the Scarecrow. This terrible ruffian had told the lawyer that if on returning to Rye he breathed a word of what had happened they would most certainly catch him again and do away with him, adding that there was no place more convenient than Romney Marsh for the hiding of a body. So with the exception of telling his awful experience to his wife, whom he feared nearly as greatly as he feared the Scarecrow, Antony Whyllie, attorney-at-law, held his tongue, being only thankful that the rascals had let him off so easily. The coachman, who was so muddled with drink and with falling off his box at least a dozen times on the way back, never even remembered what had happened or to whose kind offices he was indebted for the privilege of becoming so gloriously drunk. So the affair passed unheeded by the public, and the gentleman in bottle green, having changed his clothes, might that very afternoon have been seen going toward the church of

320

Dymchurch. Down into the crypt he went, and there, at a dirty table lighted by a candle set in a bottle?s neck, he aided two other men to work out certain accounts that were spread before them in a book marked ?Parish Register of Deaths.? But there were no deaths registered in that book. It was full of figures accounting for cargoes of wool, full of receipts for coffins loaded with spirits. candle set in a bottle?s neck, he aided two other men to work out certain accounts that were spread before them in a book marked ?Parish Register of Deaths.? But there were no deaths registered in that book. It was full of figures accounting for cargoes of wool, full of receipts for coffins loaded with spirits.

Sexton Mipps and the gentleman who had worn the bottle-green coat then unlocked an old chest and took out certain money bags which they emptied on the table. The third gentleman, whom they addressed as the Scarecrow, helped them to sort the coin, French in one pile, English in another, and then referring to a list of names in the register, the three managers of the secret bank proportioned out their servants? wages. When this was accomplished the gentleman who had worn the bottle-green coat presented his little account, which was promptly paid in golden guineas, and he left them, saying that he

321

was very sorry that it was the last time that he could draw so many Georges from the bank.

?Yes, the bank closes accounts to-day,? said the Scarecrow, striking his name off the list, ?though perhaps some day we shall open it again. Who knows??

?Let?s hope so,? said the other, shaking hands with the Scarecrow and the sexton, ?and let?s hope we meet again. Good-bye.? And he was gone, Mipps locking the door behind him.

?It?s all right to a penny,? said the Scarecrow.

?Hooray! I calls it,? chuckled Sexton Mipps, rubbing his hands together. ?I?ll get this little lot of coinage nailed up in a coffin and sent to Calais, and old What?s-his-name wot?s just gone up the stairs has arranged with the Calais people to get it transferred to the Bank of Lyons, so you can get at it yourself from Marseilles, can?t you??

322

?Yes, we?re all square now. Everything shipshape. Mother Waggetts I?ve settled with, and Imogene gets the iron-bound casket. I?ve seen to it all. But it?s time I was off. I?ve a certain gentleman to see before nightfall.?

?Who?s that?? asked Mipps.

?The squire,? replied the Scarecrow, laughing as he tied up the money bags.

?And I have a gentleman to visit, too,? said Mipps.

?Who?s that?? asked the Scarecrow.

?Parson Syn, Doctor Syn, the worthy vicar,? replied Mipps, winking, at which the Scarecrow laughed and went out of the crypt.

Mipps, after locking up the money in the chest, followed leisurely, and as he crossed the churchyard he saw Doctor Syn ringing the front door bell of the Court House.

?Well,? murmured Mipps to himself, ?I?ve met one or two of ?em in my time, but he?s a blinkin? marvel.?

323

Chapter 30

Doctor Syn Has a ?Call?

Do you mean to say that you?re going to leave Dymchurch?? The squire was positively angry, a thing he had never been with Doctor Syn in all the years that he had known him. ?You are undoubtedly pulling my leg?that?s what you?re doing. God bless my soul, sir, there?s precious few fellows can do that, and precious few that dare try; but that?s what you?re doing, isn?t it?? ?I?m afraid not, Sir Antony. My dear squire, my good friend, I am afraid that for once in my life I am most dreadfully in earnest.?

324

?But what don?t you like about the place? Is it something I?ve done? Do you want your stipend raised? Damme, I?ll treble the blessed thing, if it?s that. Oh, it?s that rascally son of mine that?s been putting you out. It?s that Denis scamp, who never took to his books and never will. But I?ll make him. I?ll take my riding whip to the young whelp if he causes you pain. It is he! He?s at the bottom of it. My soul and body, I?ll give the young puppy a shaking up. He doesn?t know a good tutor when he sees one. The impertinent young popinjay! Doesn?t appreciate anything. No! God bless my soul, why he?s no more respect for me than a five-barred gate. He?s always doing something to jar me. Why, do you know, that the cool-faced malefactor announced the other day in the most insolent manner that he was going to marry a barmaid? Yes, I assure you he did. He announced to me, sir, in the most condescending tones, as if he were conferring an inestimable favour upon my head, that he thought I ran a very good chance of having that girl Imogene for my daughter-in-law. You know

325

Imogene, that serves and waits and does innumerable dirty jobs at the Ship Inn; and when I expostulated in fatherly tones, why, bless me, if the young spitfire didn?t fly into a passion, crying out that it was high time one of the Cobtrees introduced some good looks into the family. Said that to me, mind you?his natural father that brought him into the world. I told him that, used those very words, and what does he do but begin to bow and scrape and praise and thank me for bringing him into the world at the same period as that black-haired bargirl, just as if his mother and I had timed the thing to a nicety! Why, when I come to think of it, she?s the daughter of a common pirate, that rascally, scoundrelly Clegg, who was hanged at Rye. Isn?t she now? And she?s to be my daughter-in-law! Now, Doctor Syn, in the name of Romney Marsh, what the devil?I say, what the devil would you do if you had a son like that to deal with??