A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh

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when he was working with anybody, he seemed, in spite of himself, to become singularly useless.”

“You call yourself dense, Captain, and you affirm that I am not; but you seem to have a keener perception of the abstruse and vague than I have, or can even follow.”

“You will be able to follow me in a moment,” said the captain humbly. “I fear it is the poor way in which I am getting to the point; but I have to tell things in my own way, not being given to talk much.”

“Go on, then, in your own way,” said the cleric.

“I then recollected that in my short acquaintance with this mulatto I never remember to have seen him in actual contact with any one, or any thing. And I also recollect a strong tendency among the men to avoid him—in fact, to keep out of any personal contact with him.”

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“Natural enough,” explained the cleric. “It is the white man’s antipathy toward a native. Perfectly natural.”

“Perfectly,” agreed Captain Collyer. “And I think we may add the Englishman’s antipathy toward the unca

“I dare say,” said Doctor Syn.

“I am sure of it,” went on the captain. “Indeed, I went so far as to ask the bo’sun, who has had most dealings with the fellow, whether he had ever touched him.”

“Touched him? What do you mean?” asked the parson, who began dimly to see what the other was driving at.

“Touched, touched him,” repeated the captain with emphasis. “The bo’sun told me ‘No’ and that he wouldn’t care about it, for he considered that ‘a weird-looking cove’—I’ll use his precise way of expressing it—that ‘a weird-looking cove with a face like a dead ’un, what never took food nor drink to his

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knowledge, weren’t the sort of cove that a respectable seaman wanted to touch.’”

Jerry looked at the Doctor. He was as white as the snowy tablecloth before him. Yet he still feigned not to quite follow the captain’s reasoning.

“And now,” asked the captain, “mad as it sounds, do you see any co

Doctor Syn’s had was trembling, so much so that the long clay pipe stem snapped between his finger and thumb. Neither seemed to notice this, though the lighted ashes had fallen out of the bowl upon the tablecloth and had burned i

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“Do you see any co

Doctor Syn did not answer.

The captain repeated the sentence once more—with all the emphasis and force that he could put into his compelling voice:

“Any co

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Then Doctor Syn did a surprising thing: He slowly raised his face to the level of the captain’s, then brought his eyes to meet the captain’s gaze, and then, drawing his lips apart, laying his white teeth bare, he slowly drew over his face, from the very depths of his soul, it seemed, a smile—a fixed smile that steadily beamed all over him for at least a quarter of a minute before he said:

“You most remarkable man! A King’s captain, eh? I vow you have mistaken your calling.” And he deliberately and with the flat of his white hand patted the captain’s rough cheek, patted it as though the captain were a child being petted or a puppy being teased.

“What the thunder do you mean?” roared the infuriated officer, “by calling? Mistake my calling?”

“Your profession,” said Doctor Syn, calmly putting on his cloak and hat.

“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 di

The captain was so taken aback with the extraordinary ma

“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.