The Unknown Ajax

Chapter 11

The Major received this suggestion without any visible signs of surprise or disapproval; but after turning it over in his mind, he said: “I don’t know much about smuggling, but I should have thought the Dower House would have been too far from the coast to be of use.”

“No, why? It’s not much more than ten miles, and you may be sure that those who carry the run goods inland know the Marsh so well that they can find their way on the darkest of nights. They must wish to store the goods as far from the shore as they may, because the land-guard keep their strictest watch on the dwellings nearest to the coast, but they can’t go very far, on account of the darkness. The goods are landed on moonless nights, you see: the darks is what they call them.”

“Ay, they’d have to be. Do the smuggling vessels sail close in to the shore, of do the landsmen row out to them?”

“Well, I don’t know precisely. I think they very often land their cargoes in creeks, and gaps, but sometimes, I believe, they cast the goods overboard at high tide. I remember once, when I was a child, that the tide-waiters captured a cargo of tea which had been thrown overboard. It was packed in oilskin bags, made to look like mackerel pots, my nurse told me. She knew a great deal about the trade: I expect her brothers had to do with it.”

He could not help grinning at her cheerful unconcern, but he was somewhat startled, and said incredulously: “You nurse’s brothers were smugglers?”

“Not master-smugglers, but hired to help carry the goods up from the shore,” she explained. “They worked on their father’s farm, and were perfectly respectable, I assure you!”

“Nay!” he protested.

She smiled. “Well, quite as respectable as their fellows at all events. You don’t understand, Hugo! In Kent and Sussex almost everyone has to do with smuggling in some way or another. The farm labourers hire themselves out as porters, and the farmers themselves sometimes lend their horses, and nearly always allow their barns to be used as hiding-places. We, of course, don’t have any dealings with smugglers, but if we found ankers in one of our outhouses we shouldn’t say a word about it. No one would! Why, Grandpapa told us once how a cargo of brandy was stored in Guldeford Church, with the Vicar knowing all about it, and saying from the pulpit that there would be no service on the following Sunday because the roof needed repair! Grandpapa could tell you hundreds of stories about smuggling: he used to do so when we were children, and he was in a good humour: we thought it a high treat!”

“I’ll be bound you did,” Hugo said.

She detected a little dryness in his voice, and said, with a touch of impatience: “I collect you think it very shocking! I daresay it may be, but it is not so regarded in Kent. When Grandpapa was a young man, he says there was scarcely a magistrate to be found who would commit a man charged with smuggling.”

“So that made all right,” he nodded.

“No, of course it didn’t! I only meant—well, to show you why we don’t think it such a dreadful crime as you do!”

“Nay, you don’t know what I think,” he said, smiling down at her.

“You will not be much liked here if you show yourself to be at enmity with the Gentlemen,” she warned him.

“That’s bad,” he said, gravely shaking his head.

She said no more then, but the subject came up again later in the day, when Richmond asked Hugo how he had fared at the Dower House. It was Anthea who answered, exclaiming: “Richmond, do you think that odious old man is trying to keep everyone away from the house?”

“Yes, of course he is!” he replied, laughing. “You know he hates visitors! Besides, if we took to paying him visits, he’d be obliged to bestir himself, and scrub the floors. Was he crusty?”

“Yes, and worse! He made my blood run cold, with his talk of footsteps, and moaning, and paying no heed to the things he hears! I began to have that horrid feeling that there was something behind me. If Hugo hadn’t been there, I should have picked up my skirts and fled!”

“Humdudgeon!” scoffed Richmond. “In broad daylight?”

“Well, it ain’t humdudgeon,” intervened Claud. “I know just what she means, and a dashed nasty feeling it is! It happened to me once, walking up the lane here. Couldn’t get it out of my head there was something following me. Made my flesh creep, because it was getting dark, and not a soul about.”

“Did you run?” asked Anthea, quizzing him.

“I should dashed well think I did run!” he replied. “It was a devilish great black boar that had got loose. Never had such a fright in my life! Yes, it’s all very well for you to laugh, but they’re dangerous things, boars.”

“I’d prefer to have a boar behind me than a ghost,” said Anthea. “At, least it would be a live thing!”

“Well, if you think a live boar behind you would be better than a dead one, it’s easy to see you’ve never been chased by one!” said Claud, with some feeling. “And as for ghosts, you ought to know better than to believe in ’em! They don’t exist.”

“Oh, don’t they?” struck in Richmond. “Would you be willing to spend the night in the grounds of Dower House?”

“You know, Richmond, you’ve got the most uncomfortable notions of anyone I ever met,” said Claud. “Dashed if I don’t think you’re a trifle queer in your attic! A nice cake I’d make of myself, prowling round the Dower House all night!”

“But wouldn’t you be afraid to, Claud?” Anthea asked. “Truly, wouldn’t you?”

“Of course I’d be afraid to! I’d be bound to catch a chill, for it stands to reason I couldn’t keep on walking for ever, and I’d be lucky if it didn’t turn to an inflammation of the lung. I’m not afraid of seeing a ghost, if that’s what you mean. I know dashed well I shouldn’t.”

“Don’t be too sure of that!”

Claud bent a sapient eye upon his young cousin. “Well, I am sure of it. And don’t you take a notion into your head that I ain’t up to slum, my boy, because I am! What I should see, if I was such a nodcock as to spend the night at the Dower House, would be you, capering about in your nightshirt, with a pillowcase over your head. I don’t doubt I’d see that!”

Richmond laughed, but said emphatically: “Not I! Anywhere else I’d be happy to try if I couldn’t hoax you, but not at the Dower House! Once is enough, thank you!”

Hugo, who had been glancing through the latest edition of the Morning Post to reach Darracott Place, lowered the journal at this, and looked at Richmond with a twinkle in his eye. “Seemingly you’re the only person who ever saw the poor lady plainly,” he remarked. “What did she look like, lad?”

“I didn’t see her plainly enough to be able to answer that,” Richmond returned. “Besides, she was gone in a flash.”

“But you did see a female form, didn’t you?” Anthea asked.

“Yes, I thought it was someone from the village, when I first caught sight of it, but there wasn’t much light, of course, and—”

“A misty form?” interrupted Claud.

“Yes. That is—”

“Did it shimmer?”

“Lord, I don’t know! There was no time to see whether it did or not: one moment it was there, and the next it had melted into the shrubbery.”

“Thought as much!” said Claud, with a satisfied air. “I get it myself. In fact, it runs in the family. There’s only one thing for it, and that’s mercury. You take my advice, young Richmond, and the next time you see things slipping away when you look at them ask my Aunt Elvira for a Blue Pill! Surprised she doesn’t give ’em to you, because it’s as plain as a pikestaff you’re as liverish as Vincent!”

Vincent, entering the room in time to hear his comparison, interrupted Richmond’s indignant refutal, saying, as he shut the door: “Am I liverish? I wonder if you could be right? I thought it was boredom. What have you been doing to earn this stigma, bantam?”

The matter was explained to him by Richmond and Anthea in chorus. Hugo had returned to the Morning Post, and Claud had lost interest, his mind being occupied suddenly by a more important matter. As Vincent strolled forward, Claud’s gaze was dragged irresistibly to his gleaming Hessians, and he fell into a brown study, wondering if their magical gloss could have been produced by a mixture of brandy and beeswax, and if it had ever occurred to Polyphant to experiment with this entirely original recipe. He tore his eyes away from the Hessians, and found that Vincent was looking mockingly down at him.

“Even I do not know, brother,” Vincent said gently. “I hope you haven’t wasted any blunt on champagne? It isn’t that.”

Claud was pardonably annoyed. “If you want to know what I was thinking—”

“I do know,” interpolated Vincent. “I beg your pardon, Anthea! You were saying?”

“I was saying—no, Claud, don’t answer him! it’s precisely what he wants you to do!—I was saying that whatever Richmond may, or may not, have seen, I think the Dower House is haunted,” stated Anthea. “I had the horridest feeling, all the time I was there!”

Hugo, who was seated sideways on the window seat, with the Morning Post spread before him, raised his head, and said, with a grin: “No wonder, if you let that old humbug bamboozle you into believing him!”

“You’re not going to tell me that Spurstow said the place was haunted?” demanded Richmond. “Because I’ll swear he never did so! He doesn’t give a rush for any ghost! I happen to know, too, that when they ask him questions about it, down at the Blue Lion, he turns surly, and won’t answer. Why should he take it into his head to start talking about it to you?”

“Hugo thought he was trying to frighten him. And I must say, Hugo, it does seem as though you might be right!”

“Fiddle!” said Richmond. “Why should he want to frighten Hugo?”

“Happen he thought I’d too much interest in the place,” suggested Hugo, turning a sheet of his journal.

“Hugo said that he would like to strip all the ivy off, and clear away those thick shrubs,” explained Anthea.

“I wonder? You know, it’s perfectly true that he tries to keep everyone away. It hadn’t previously occurred to me that he might be hiding something, because Aunt Matty never would see visitors either, but when Hugo put it into my head—Richmond, could he be using the Dower House as a hiding-place for run cargoes?”

“He could be,” Richmond replied, “but I don’t advise you to accuse him of it. He’ll take it very unkind, and start prosing about having been thirty years in service and never a stain on his reputation. Ash told me he went right up in the bows when that clunch, Ottershaw, set a watch on the Dower House.”

“Good God, did he do so?” exclaimed Anthea. “I never knew that! When was it?”

“Oh,, soon after Ottershaw was sent here! Just after Christmas, wasn’t it?”

“Dear me, what stirring events seem to take place when I am not here to be beguiled by them!” remarked Vincent. “What made Ottershaw suspect Spurstow?”

“His face, I should think,” said Claud. “Anyone would!”

“The Preventives always suspect haunted houses,” said Richmond, ignoring the interruption. “Ottershaw’s a bigger sapskull than the man we had before! He came up to see my grandfather about it!” He grinned at Vincent, his eyes alight with mischief. “You ask Chollacombe how Grandpapa liked it!”

“I am sure he disliked it very much,” said Vincent, flicking open his snuff-box. “I have every sympathy with him. A gross impertinence: Spurstow has been in Grandpapa’s service all his life.”

“But was that all the reason Ottershaw had?” demanded Anthea. “Merely that the Dower House is haunted?”

Richmond shrugged. “No use asking me: I’m not in the fellow’s confidence. All I know is that he had the place watched. Spurstow discovered it, of course, and nabbed the rust. He went off to Rye, ran Ottershaw to earth in the Ship, and asked him what the devil he meant by it. I wasn’t there myself, but I’m told there was a rare kick-up. Ottershaw lost his temper, because Spurstow challenged him to go back with him and search the Dower house, and of course, he dared not do it without a warrant, unless he had Grandpapa’s permission, which he most certainly had not!”

“And did Spurstow’s display of righteous indignation allay suspicion?” enquired Vincent, restoring his snuffbox to his pocket, and dusting his sleeve with his handkerchief.

“Well, it wouldn’t allay my suspicion!” said Claud. “If any such gallows-faced cove came and talked to me about his spotless reputation, I’d give him in charge! Too smoky by half! Depend upon it, he’s got run goods hidden all over the house!”

“If that’s so, how did he get them there?” retorted Richmond. “Each time the Preventives have got wind of a big run, Ottershaw has posted dragoons in the lane, and they’ve never seen or heard a thing! There’s no other way of getting to the house, except by the gate that leads out of the shrubbery into our grounds, and that couldn’t possibly be used. For one thing, it squeaks loud enough to be heard half-a-mile away, and, for another, a man posted outside the main-gate, in the lane, couldn’t help but see if anyone came out of the shrubbery.”

“True,” agreed Vincent. “Assuming, of course, that he was a stout-hearted fellow, and maintained his post—which I doubt. From what I know of the inhabitants of this unregenerate locality, I should suppose that they could be counted on to fortify the dragoon for his vigil with some pretty choice ghost-stories.”

“Yes, of course they do,” grinned Richmond. “Ash—he’s the buffer at the Blue Lion, you know—says the men hate that duty like the devil. According to him, they’ve seen more ghosts at the Dower House than we ever dreamed of! I don’t suppose they do stay too close to the gate, but it makes no odds as long as they keep the lane covered: any pack-train would have to come that way. The best of it is that while Ottershaw concentrated his forces there, the night of a big run, the train was miles to the west, and got through without catching so much as a whiff of a Preventive!”

Vincent looked rather amused. “You are remarkably well-informed! Where do you come by all this information, little cousin?”

Richmond laughed. “My boatman, of course! Lord, you don’t imagine anything happens along the coast that Jem Hordle doesn’t know about, do you?”

“I had forgotten your boatman. Is he one of the fraternity?”

“I haven’t asked him. You should know better than to think one puts that sort of a question to one’s boatman!”

“To be sure I do! How could I be so stupid?”

“I’ll tell you something, young Richmond!” said Claud suddenly. “You’re a dashed sight too caper-witted! If you don’t take care you’ll be made to look no-how. Ought to be sure of your boatman! What’s more, you oughtn’t to beach that yawl of yours where anyone could launch her, and not a soul the wiser. A rare mess you’d find yourself in if she was caught bringing in run goods, and it’s all the world to a handsaw that that’s just what will happen one of these nights!”

“I fail to see why Richmond should find himself in a rare mess because his boat was stolen and put to improper purposes, even though I’m spell-bound by your eloquence,” said Vincent. “Have you undertaken to bear-lead him as well as Hugo, by the way?”

“You needn’t be anxious, Claud!” Richmond interposed, a confident little smile playing about his mouth. “Jem would no more take my boat out without my leave than he’d rob me of my watch, and he wouldn’t let anyone else do so either.”

Claud, an expression of deep scepticism on his face, looked as though he had more to say, but as his father came into the room at that moment, the subject was allowed to drop.

Matthew, on the eve of his departure from Darracott Place, made another attempt to persuade Vincent to follow his example. He failed, for the very simple reason that Vincent’s financial embarrassments made it desirable not only that he should oblige his grandfather, but that he should be put to no living-expenditure until quarter-day came to relieve his situation. But as Vincent was well aware that Matthew strongly resented Lord Darracott’s capricious custom of bestowing on his grandsons handsome sums which he grudged to his own son, he did not present Matthew with this explanation to remain where he was plainly bored to death. In fact, he presented him with no explanation at all, a circumstance which sent Matthew back to London in a mood of anxious foreboding only partially allayed by his dependence on his lady’s ability to control what he felt to be an increasingly dangerous situation. “My dear sir,” Vincent said, “it would be so unkind—really quite barbarous!—to leave my grandfather without support in this hour of trial. I could not think of it! But do, I beg of you, remove Claud!”

But Matthew very properly ignored this request, and Claud too remained at Darracott Place. He received no encouragement from his host, nor could anyone feel that a rural existence held the slightest charm for him. Still less was it felt that he entertained any very real hope of reforming his large cousin, for his first enthusiasm had not survived the several checks he had received, and although he frequently censured Hugo’s dialectical lapses, and occasionally made an attempt to coax him into a more fashionable mode, it was certainly not to educate him that he remained in Kent. The truth was that his grandfather’s summons had made it necessary for him to refuse an invitation to make one of a very agreeable house party in quite another part of the country, so that he found himself in the position of having nowhere to go for several weeks, a return to his lodgings in Duke Street at this season being clearly ineligible. He would not have chosen to stay for any length of time at Darracott Place, but he was not bored, as was his more energetic and very much more dashing brother. Notwithstanding his sartorial ambition, Claud’s tastes were simple, and since the self-imposed strain of cutting a notable figure in the world of fashion was extremely exhausting he was really quite glad to spend a few weeks in the country, on what he referred to as a repairing lease. He was able to try the effect of various daring new quirks of fashion without having his pleasure marred by the dread of being thought by the high sticklers to have gone a little too far, for although he met with much adverse criticism in the bosom of his family, this was so ill-informed as to have no power to discompose him. His grandfather’s notions were Gothic; his father had never aspired to a place amongst the smarts; Richmond was a callow youth, knowing nothing whatsoever about matters of taste and ton; and Vincent’s contempt sprang so obviously from jealousy that he was able to ignore it. Criticism from Hugo would naturally have been beneath contempt, but Hugo never criticized his appearance: he regarded each new extravagance with awe and admiration, only once being betrayed into the expression of something in the nature of a protest. “Eh, lad, you’re never going to Rye in that rig?” he exclaimed involuntarily, when Claud came down the stairs wonderfully attired for this projected expedition.

“Certainly he is,” said Vincent, who had unfortunately come out of the library at that moment. “Claud, my dear coz, likes nothing better than to preen himself under the admiring gaze of the local population. Don’t try to deter him! So much endeavour deserves some recognition, after all, and when he goes on the strut in London he can never be perfectly sure that the attention he attracts is as admiring as he hoped it would be.”

Since he had, with his usual acumen, stated the exact truth, Claud was roused to fury, and would have favoured him with some pithy criticisms of the style he had chosen to affect that morning had not Hugo intervened, saying, as he gently but irresistibly thrust him out of the house: “Nay, if you start a flight we shan’t get to Rye at all!”

Fuming, Claud climbed up into the waiting curricle, the reins gathered in one elegantly gloved hand; Hugo got up beside him; Claud told the groom to stand away from the heads of the staid pair of horses borrowed from his grandfather’s stable, and drove off, sped on his way by an earnest entreaty from Vincent, who had strolled out of the house to watch his departure, not to put his cousin in the ditch. This shaft, however, fell wide of the target, for Claud, though by no means a Nonesuch, was well able to handle the reins in form. He instantly proved this by taking the first bend in the avenue in style, a feat which quite restored him to good-humour, since he knew Vincent to be watching him.

The road to Rye was rough, the post-road being in almost as bad a state of repair as the lane which led to it, but the journey was accomplished without mishap; and in rather less than an hour the curricle-and-pair had passed through the massive Land gate, climbed the East Cliff, and was proceeding circumspectly along the narrow, cobbled High Street to the George Inn. Here Claud gave the equipage into the charge of an ostler, for although Vincent would have unerringly negotiated the difficult turn into the yard, he wisely preferred to run no risk either of scraping his grandfather’s curricle or of creating a bad impression on those inhabitants of the town who happened to be passing at the time.

Having bespoken a luncheon at the George, he led Hugo off to show him the town, but it rapidly became apparent to Hugo that his chief object was to give the town every opportunity to see him. It was also apparent that his was a known and welcome figure in Rye, for his dawdling progress down the High Street was attended by much doffing of hats, many bobbed curtsies, and as many awed stares as would have been bent upon the Prince Regent. He responded with great affability to greetings, acknowledged respectful bows graciously, magnificently ignored a following of less respectful small boys, and ogled every passable female through his quizzing-glass. It was evident that the citizens of Rye regarded him in the light of a raree-show, but if broad grins decorated male countenances, it was seldom that the female population failed to gratify him by taking in every detail of his attire with rapt eyes of admiration. Long before the bottom of The Mint had been reached, Hugo was moved to protest, which he did in blunt terms, informing Claud that he was not one who liked to be stared at, and would part company with his cousin unless he stopped behaving as though he were the chief exhibit in a procession.

“Why, I thought you wanted to see the town!” said Claud, rather hurt.

“Ay, so I do, but at this rate it will be time to have the horses put to before we’ve seen aught but one street. Nay then, lad, stop making an April-gowk of yourself, or we’ll have all the boys in the town at our heels!”

Claud, perceiving that the Major had every intention of propelling him along the street, averted the danger of having his coat-sleeve crushed by the grip of that large hand by quickening his pace. He complained, in an injured tone, that he would never have come down The Mint at all if he had not thought it his duty to show his cousin the Strand Gate; but when they reached the bottom of The Mint there was no gate to be seen, and, after a surprised moment, he suddenly remembered that it had been demolished a couple of years previously.

“Pity, because I daresay you’d have liked it,” he said. “Don’t come down here often myself, which accounts for my having forgotten they’d pulled it down. However, it don’t signify! We’ll stroll up Mermaid Street, and I’ll show you the old coaching-house. Shouldn’t think they’ve pulled that down, though it ain’t used any longer. Do you remember what we were saying t’other night, about the Hawkhurst Gang? Well, they’ll tell you here it was one of their kens. Used to stamp in, as bold as Beauchamp, and sit there, boozing and sluicing, with their pistols and cutlasses on the table in front of them. Enough to put up the shutters then and there, you’d think, but I rather fancy it went on being an inn for a good few years. Yes, and I’ll tell you another interesting thing about Mermaid Street,” he added, after a moment’s mental research. “At least, I think it was in Mermaid Street. House at the top, anyway. Fellow had a knife stuck into him. Seems to have made the devil of a stir at the time.” He paused, frowning. “Now I come to think of it, I fancy it happened in the churchyard, but I’m pretty sure they found the poor fellow in the house. Bled to death.”

“Who was it? Did they discover the murderer?”

“Yes, they did all right and tight. I rather fancy he was a butcher, or some such thing, who had a grudge against the Mayor.”

“No wonder it made a stir!” remarked—Hugo.

“Yes, but I’ve a notion it wasn’t the Mayor who was stabbed, but some other fellow. I’ve forgotten just how it was, but I do know they hanged the butcher on Gibbet Marsh, above the Tillingham Sluice. Kept his body in an iron cage there for a matter of fifty years. I never saw it myself, because they took it down before I was born, but m’father says it used to be quite a landmark.”

This engaging anecdote ended his account of Rye’s history, the rest of his conversation, as he picked his way between the ruts and channels of Mermaid Street, being confined to bitter animadversions on the shocking condition of the road. None of the streets that led up to the top of the hill were paved, and as they were very steep, every heavy fall of rain played havoc with their surfaces. By the time he had reached the Mermaid Inn, Claud, whose beautiful Hessians were not meant for rough walking, was a good deal ruffled; and when he discovered a serious scratch on the shining leather he came near to losing his temper. “It’s no use asking me how old the place is, because I don’t know, and what’s more I dashed well don’t care!” he said testily. “Don’t stand there gaping at it! Just look at this boot of mine! Do you realize I’ve only had this pair a couple of months? Now they’re ruined, all because nothing will do for you but to go prowling about this ramshackle town!”

“I shouldn’t worry,” said Hugo, with only the most cursory glance at the damaged boot. “I daresay Polyphant will know what to do. Can we get into this place?”

“No, we can’t, and as for not worrying, anyone can see you wouldn’t, but I’ll have you to know—” He stopped, suddenly, and, as Hugo turned his head to look enquiringly at him, ejaculated in an altered tone: “By Jupiter, I believe that’s—No, it ain’t, though!—Yes, by Jupiter, it is!”

With this disjointed utterance he made his way across the street, sweeping off his hat, and executing a superb bow to a blushing damsel in a print dress, and a straw bonnet tied over a mop of yellow curls, who was coming down the street with a basket over one mittened arm. “La, Mr. Darracott, to think of meeting you!” she said coyly, dropping him a curtsy. “And me on my way to the chandler’s, never dreaming you was in the town! Well, I do declare!”

“Allow me to carry your basket!” begged Claud gallantly.

“How can you, Mr. Darracott? As though I’d think of such a thing!”

“At least you won’t refuse me the pleasure of escorting you!” said Claud.

Perceiving that the lady had no intention of refusing him this pleasure, the Major seized the opportunity to make good his escape, tolerably confident that Claud would be happily engaged in flirtation for some time to come. The yellow-haired charmer spoke in far from refined accents, but the Major felt no surprise at his elegant cousin’s effusive behaviour, for he had discovered Claud two days previously, trysting with the blacksmith’s pretty daughter. Claud’s disposition was mildly amorous, but as he was terrified of falling a victim to a matchmaking mama, he rarely attempted to flirt with girls of his own order, indulging instead in a form of innocuous dalliance (which made his more robust brother feel very unwell) with chambermaids, milliners’ apprentices, village maidens, or, in fact, any personable young female of humble origin who was ready to encourage his attentions without for a moment imagining that those were serious.

So the Major deserted him with a clear conscience, and explored the town by himself. At the end of Watchbell Street he fell into conversation with a venerable citizen, who gave him much interesting information about Rye’s history, not all of which was apocryphal, and directed him to the Flushing Inn, which was the scene of the murderous butcher’s last drink before his execution. The Major thanked him, but preferred to visit the church, after which he wandered on until he found himself at the end of the town, in front of the ancient Ypres Tower, which provided Rye with its jail. Close by it the town-wall had been breached to allow those wishing to reach the quay below to do so by way of the Baddyng Steps. The Major walked towards the steps, and reached them just as Lieutenant Ottershaw arrived, somewhat out of breath, at the top of them.

The Lieutenant stared for a moment, and then saluted the Major, who greeted him pleasantly, and said, looking over the low wall at the precipitous slope of the hill: “A stiff climb!”

The Lieutenant agreed to this monosyllabically, and hesitated, as though he were in two minds whether to continue on his way, or to linger. Hugo settled the matter for him by nodding towards the rugged jail, and saying: “I take it that must have been a mediaeval Martello Tower. I’ve been talking to one of the inhabitants of the town, and from what I could gather—but my ear’s not used yet to the Sussex tongue!—the Frogs made a habit of raiding Rye.”

“Yes, sir, I believe they did land here on more than one occasion. Is it your first visit?”

“Ay, it is. I was never in Sussex, think on, before I came to stay with my grandfather. I don’t know Kent either, beyond what I saw when I was at Shorncliffe, and that wasn’t much. Are you a native of these parts?”

“No, sir. I was born in London, but my father’s people were from Yorkshire,” disclosed the Lieutenant.

“No, is that so? Ee, lad, that’s gradely! Is ta from t’West Riding?” exclaimed Hugo broadly.

The Lieutenant’s severe countenance relaxed into a reluctant grin. “No, sir—North Riding, not far from York. I was never in Yorkshire myself, though.”

Hugo shook his head over this, and by dint of a few friendly questions succeeded in thawing some of the ice in which the Riding officer seemed to wish to encase himself. Ottershaw ventured, in his turn, to enquire after Hugo’s military service; and in a very short while had relaxed sufficiently to perch beside him on the wall, listening with keen interest to what he had to say about the war in the Peninsula, and allowing himself to be beguiled into talking a little about his own career. It was evident that he had chosen his profession as the next best to joining the army; he spoke of it in a defensive manner, as though he suspected Hugo of despising it; whereupon Hugo said, with his slow smile: “From all I can discover, yours is a harder job than any I ever met with, and a thankless one, too.”

Ottershaw gave a short laugh. “It’s thankless enough! I don’t care for that, but these people—in Kent and Sussex both: there’s nothing to choose between ’em!—well, sir, they say Cornish folk are double-faced, but I’ll swear they’re nothing to what I’ve met with here! You saw that barrel-bellied fellow who doffed his hat to me a minute ago, and smiled all over his oily face? To hear him talk you’d think he ought to have been a Preventive himself, while as for the way he begs me to come and take my pot-luck at his house whenever I choose—” He broke off, his jaw hardening. “One of these days that’s what I will do—when I’m sure I’ll find pot-luck there!” he said. He jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “There’s a tavern down there, on the quay—the Ypres: I was coming away from it when I met you. I know it’s a smugglers’ haunt, and I’ll take my affidavit there’s no one they want to see inside it less than me, but I’ve never been there yet but what the rascally ale-draper that owns it is all smiles and welcome! He thinks he’s tipping me a rise, but I’ll catch him redhanded if it’s the last thing I do! I’ll tell you this, sir: the whole town’s abandoned to smuggling! Ay, and the Mayor, and the jurat, winking at what goes on under their noses!”

“Where does the stuff come from?” asked the Major.

Ottershaw shrugged. “Most of it from Guernsey: that’s the biggest entrepôt; but some of it is run straight over from roundabout Calais.”

“Don’t they get intercepted at sea?”

“Sometimes, but, to make the naval patrol effective, double—three times!—the number of vessels is needed. Even then—with the whole coast to be watched, and the tricks that are employed being past counting—I doubt if it could be done. It’s not only a matter of false bulkheads, and suchlike, sir. There’s no question but that the smuggling craft slip through time and again because they get signals warning them where there’s a Revenue cruiser or a sloop lurking, from vessels no one would suspect.” He nodded to where a fishing smack was drawing clear of the harbour. “That craft, for instance. She may be innocent, but the chances are that if she sights a patrol-boat some damned hoverer will have her bearings before nightfall.” He paused, as though deliberating, and then said: “You can’t signal every craft you see to heave-to, sir, let alone board them. People don’t like it—very naturally, if they’re going about an honest business, such as that smack out there may be, or perhaps cruising for pleasure, as Mr. Richmond Darracott does.”

“They wouldn’t, of course,” agreed the Major.

“However, there’s one thing you can be sure of,” said Ottershaw. “The blockade’s in charge of a man who means to stamp out smuggling, no matter how many people he offends. Ay, and so does the Government! Time was when they were pretty lukewarm in London, but since the war ended there’s been so much smuggling done that if it isn’t stopped things will get to be as bad as ever they were when the Hawkhurst Gang was ruling Sussex. That’s something that those who protect the Gentlemen, as they call them, maybe don’t realize, but it’ll be as well for them—and I name no names!—if they—”

His voice died in mid-sentence, and the Major saw his jaw drop, and his gaze become fixed, a sort of fascinated awe in his eyes. Considerably surprised, the Major looked round to discover what he had seen to strike him to sudden silence, and beheld his cousin Claud advancing towards him.