“Now, then, Mr. Squire’s son, listen to me,” he said.
“My name is Denis Cobtree,” returned the young man. “The name Cobtree is well enough known upon the Marsh to be remembered by a sea captain.”
“Look here, young fellow,” said the officer warningly, “I am here representing the law, commissioned by King George.”
“I have heard that the King’s taste may be called in question,” Denis replied.
“I can prove to you otherwise,” returned the captain, “for it so happens that Captain Collyer holds the majority for stringing up smugglers. I have sent more from the coast to the sessions than any of his Majesty’s agents. And stap my vitals, I believe I have landed on a perfect hornets’ nest here. Now tell me, sir,” he went on with that tone of authority that Denis found so utterly aggressive, “what do you know of the smuggling business in these parts? I have small doubt but that your father finds the business a pretty valuable asset to his land revenues, eh? I warrant me half goes to your own pockets and the rest to the lost cause of the Jacobites.”
The captain was becoming insulting, so Denis took great pains to hold his temper in check. “Let me tell you, sir,” he said, “in the first place, my father is no Jacobite, no, nor yet his father before him. My people were instrumental in bringing across William of Orange. Although my father has withdrawn from political strife, he is still a profound Whig; and on that score he and I have but little sympathy together; for I stoutly affirm that the Dutchman had no right whatever in England, and I never lose an opportunity of drinking to our King over the water, and praying for a speedy restoration.”
“You just bear in mind, young man,” said the captain, “that the ’45 was not so very long ago. I am here to look for smugglers, not royalists, but there’s still a price on their heads, so you should keep whatever opinions you may hold to yourself.”
“If you are really here to look for smugglers,” said Denis, scorning his threat, “you must first take pains to curry favour with my father, for he is the head of our jurisdiction. The Marsh has its own laws, sir; and you will find to your inconvenience, I fear, that the ‘Leveller of the Marsh Scotts’1 is a big power.”
“I hold my commission from the King’s Admiralty, and that’s enough for me,” laughed the captain, “and for Marshmen, too, as you’ll find.”
But Denis replied: “Possibly, sir, you have not heard of the old saying, that ‘The world is divided into five parts—Europe, Asia, Africa, America, and Romney Marsh.’ We are independent on the Marshes.”
“The Act of Parliament,” retorted the captain largely, “brought in by the late King William against all smugglers will cook that goose, young sir.”
“Ah, well,” said Denis finally, “it’s no odds to me; but let me tell you this: Your King George may rule Whitehall, but my father rules Romney Marsh,” and humming an old royalist tune, much to the annoyance of the captain, the young man sauntered out of the inn.
V
A Bottle of Alsace Lorraine
Left to himself, the captain rapidly examined the kitchen; then going to the door that led to the bar-parlour, he called out: “Bo’sun, come in here, and bring that mulatto with you.”
The bo’sun answered with alacrity, pushing before him into the kitchen an altogether horrible apparition: a thin mulatto in the dress of a navy cook. His skin was cracked like parchment and drawn tightly over the prominent cheekbones. His black eyes shone brightly, and the lids turned up at the corners like those of a Chinaman. The unusual brilliance of these eyes may have been accounted for by the scrags of pure white hair that grew from the skull. These were bound at the back into a thin pigtail, leaving the sides of the head bare, and it must have been this that gave him that curiously revolting look, for the foreigner had no ears. Another terrible thing about him was that he could not speak, for his tongue had been cut out by the roots. He had evidently suffered much, this cook.
“Job Mallet,” said the captain, when the door was shut, “we have now got this room to ourselves, and as there is no time like the present, turn that white-haired old spider of yours on to the floor and walls. This panelling seems likely.”
The bo’sun approached the mulatto, and jabbered some weird lingo into his ear-hole, which immediately made the uncouth figure hop about the room, spreading his lean arms along the panels, which he kept tapping with his fingers, at the same time executing a curious tattoo with his bare feet upon the floor. In this fashion he encircled the room twice, apparently without achieving any result. In the corner of the room was fixed a wooden table with a heavy flap which reached nearly to the ground. Upon this table was a large assortment of cooking utensils, while underneath, almost entirely hidden by the flap, there reposed a like collection of buckets, pails, and old saucepans.
The mulatto, after his double journey round the room, turned his attention to this table. He struck the flap up and, pushing aside the pots and pans, uttered a strange, excited gurgle.
“Ha! ha!” said the captain to the bo’sun, “your spider has caught a fly, eh?”
Job Mallet looked under the table and saw the mulatto pulling desperately at a brass ring that was fixed to the floor. Pushing him aside, the bo’sun had pulled up a trap and was descending a flight of steps before the captain had even locked both the doors.
“What is it?” he whispered; for the bo’sun had entirely disappeared.
“Here you are, sir,” said the sailor, reappearing with a bottle in his hand. “There’s a wine-cellar down there the size of an admiral’s cabin.”
“Oh!” replied the captain.
