A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh

When they had gone about half a mile Jerk looked back and called to the sexton to do the same. Darkness was already creeping over the Marsh, but sharp and black against the skyline—no toy, but real, weird, and convincing— stood Jerk’s gibbet.

158

“What do you think of Lookout Mountain now?” sang out the boy.

“That you can better the name of it, Hangman Jerk. Why not call it Gallows Tree Hill?”

“Why, so I will!” cried the singular youngster. “It’s a good name, and so I will—and let’s hope as how the tree’ll bear fruit.”

“As how it won’t,” muttered the sexton.

“But it will, you can lay to that.” Jerk could already picture the schoolmaster hanging there.

As they neared the village, with sudden fear Jerk said to the sexton:

“I suppose the smugglers won’t take my gibbet as a personal offence and knock it down?” But the wary Mipps disarmed his fears with:

“There ain’t no smugglers, for one thing; ’sides, if there was, how could they knock down wot’s knocked up so solid?”

159

“Well, dig it up, p’raps,” suggested Jerk, “’cos, Mister Sexton, it do catch the eye somewot, don’t it? Look, you can see it even from here, and it don’t look exactly pleasant, do it?”

“Pleasant ain’t exactly the word, I agrees, but you needn’t worry yourself on that score. If them damned King’s men had put it up now, I don’t say as how it mightn’t get mobbed and knocked about a bit, ’cos them damned King’s men ain’t wot you might term popular favourites in the village, but as it weren’t, don’t you worry, for I’ll soon pass the word, young Jerry, as how it’s you wot owns it.”

“Thank you,” said Jerry. “They wouldn’t knock it over if you asked ’em not to, I’ll be bound.”

“Asked who not to?” demanded the sexton quickly.

160

“Why, any of ’em,” replied Jerk i

But Sexton Mipps was not going to be caught by such dangerous flattery, and he replied:

“There ain’t no such things as smugglers hereabouts, as I thinks I’ve already remarked; and as for demon riders, why, unca

“Bein’ such a very good and respectable Christian? Oh, no!” said Jerk winking.

“Why, certainly,” answered the sexton, “and might I ask wot you’re awinkin’ about?”

“Nothin’—I was only thinkin’!”

161

“Wot about?”

“A dream—a nightmare I had last night, that’s all.”

“Wot about?” asked the sexton again.

“Nothin’ particular,” returned the boy casually.

They had now reached the coffin shop, so, thanking the sexton for his assistance, Jerk bade him good-night.

“Where are you bound for now?” Mr. Mipps called after him.

“The vicarage.”

“Wot for?”

“To tell the vicar as how I’ve borrowed a crown off of him, that’s all!”

“Wot’s that?” cried the sexton, making as if to follow, but the boy waved him back with a fierce gesture.

“’Tain’t nothin’ to do with you. You’re paid, ain’t you? And it didn’t get stole from the poor-box, neither, so don’t you start a-worritin’.”

162

And thrusting his hands deep into his breeches pocket, Jerk set off for the vicarage to tell Doctor Syn that although he couldn’t accept the silver crown for holding his tongue, he had taken the liberty of borrowing it off him.

And in this way was the gibbet set up on Lookout Mountain, and the name changed to Gallows Tree Hill.

163

Chapter 16

The Schoolmaster’s Suit

It was now dark. Jerk passed through the cluster of quaint little houses that make up the one street of Dymchurch-under-the-wall, and so on to the vicarage. Just at the corner where the Court House stands amid the great trees he heard singing, and recognized the voice and figure of Imogene. She was carrying a basket from the direction of the Ship and was probably bound, like himself, for the vicarage. Bus as she passed the Court House she paused, and to Jerk’s astonishment felt among the ivy that grew around the old front door. There in a certain branch was a piece of paper, which she took from its hiding

164

place as if she had expected to find it. The message it contained she read by the light of the lantern that hung above the door, and then, thrusting it into the bosom of her rough dress, she went on toward the vicarage gate. But out from the shadows of the trees stepped a man, whom Jerk perceived to be the schoolmaster. Imogene hesitated when she saw him, for he was standing directly in her path, but when she tried to hurry past, Rash stopped her and spoke.

“So, Mistress, now that you have got your lover’s written promise from the ivy there, you think you can afford to pass by such a humble one as the schoolmaster, but you’re mistaken, and I’ll trouble you to show me that letter.”

The girl’s hand went involuntarily to her bosom, where the note in question was securely tucked away, and she answered back clear and straight: “No, Mister Rash, you’ve no right.”

165

“Right is might, Mistress, as you’ll find, and I think we shall be able to come to terms now. I want you to come along with me to the vicarage; Doctor Syn is there, and I’ve something to say before you both.”

“Let us go, then,” said Imogene, trying to pass.

“All in good time,” returned the schoolmaster, stopping her. “There’s no immediate hurry, I think, for the Doctor won’t come out of that shuttered room of his till morning, so we can afford to keep him waiting, and I’ve something to say to you first—alone.”

The girl tossed her head impatiently as if she knew what was coming, but Rash continued:

“A few weeks back I asked you to marry me—I, the esteemed schoolmaster, asked you, the daughter of a criminal; you, whose father was a proved murderer, a dirty pirate hanged publicly at Rye for a filthy tavern crime; you who were born in a Raratonga drinking hell, some half-caste native girl’s brat!

166

Ecod! it’s laughable! I offered to make you respectable and put your ba

“Beast!” cried the girl, and she struck him sideways across the mouth with her clenched hand.

“Hello!” thought Jerk, crouching in the bushes, “here’s another one having a ‘go’ at him; well, the more the merrier, so long as I’m the last.”

The schoolmaster recoiled, trying to look as if the stinging blow had not hurt, but the blood was flowing from his lip and from the hand of the girl as well.