Delphi Complete Works of Arthur Morrison

by Arthur Morrison

  And so things went for months till a winter’s night when the moon was ringed and the clouds swarmed fast across her face. All Rochford Hundred, Foulness, and Canvey lay wetter and marshier than ever; and Lapwater Hall was barred, bolted, and shuttered. Mrs. Fidler and Nan Tricker sat in the kitchen, sewing little bags in which to stuff chips from the gibbet at Hadleigh Cross: a very useful remedy for ague. Mrs. Fidler’s spirits were low, for a dog had been howling wofully since nightfall, and now a huge winding-sheet was visible in the candle. But a howling dog must rest sometimes, and a fresh draught will always cure a winding-sheet.

  For these reasons the troubles were lessening, when Nan’s ear caught the sound of a horse’s feet — feet that went with a regular break and fall that told a plain tale. The sound neared, and came in at the stableyard.

  “’Tis the master,” said Nan, “and the mare’s lamed.” She began to draw the bolts, and had scarce drawn the last when the door flew open from a kick, and Mr.

  Gil Craddock stood before them, haggard and miry. “Law, sir!” said the women.

  “Shut your mouths,” he answered hoarsely. “Tear that apron and tie this arm.”

  Then they saw that his right arm hung loose at his side, and blood dripped from his fingers to the floor. Mrs. Fidler, terrified, scissored the sleeve away as he directed, and wound her torn apron tightly over a wound by the elbow joint.

  Mr. Craddock took a jug of water and emptied it at one pull. “Any more lights?” he asked, pointing to the candle.

  “No, sir.”

  “Dowse it. Bolt and bar, and neither stir nor breathe, or I’ll come back and twist your two necks. Say nothing, whoever comes.” And with that he went out.

  The two women sat in the dark and trembled, neither daring to speak. They heard him go toward the fence at the roadside. In a few moments more they could hear him returning, this time with a quiet and stealthy step; and they clung together in a terror. Was he creeping back to murder them? No, he passed round by the back.

  And now there came the noise of many horses, pounding through the mire of the road and nearing fast, till they stopped before the house with tramplings and shouts.

  “House there! Hullo, hullo!” The gate slammed, and they were within the fence.

  “Hullo there! Hullo!” And with that there came a great thumping at the front door. The women sat and quaked.

  Many voices called without.

  “Come on, come on! Why stand here?”

  “Maybe they’ve seen him.”

  “Get away ahead!”

  “Where?”

  “He’s doubled.”

  “Knock again, or go round. They’ll lend us fresh horses.”

  The thumps on the door began afresh, and some turned into the stable-yard, shouting. Nan Tricker wept, biting hard on a thick fold of Mrs. Fidler’s gown to keep back a scream.

  In the midst of all the hubbub arose a cry of “Here’s the nag! He’s close about!” And then a shower of blows fell on the door behind which the women cowered. “Open the door! Open, open! In the King’s name! King’s officers!”

  Some heavy thing was driven thrice against the door, and then with a fourth blow it crashed in, and Nan Tricker and Mrs. Fidler fell together into a corner with a dismal howl. They were dragged out, limp and hysterical, among half a dozen muddy men with steaming horses, and they wept and gasped unintelligibly.

  Then the men took lights and searched high and low, in the house, the yard, and the outbuildings. For two of them were officers, and the man they sought they described as a powerfully-built fellow with a squint — Cutter Lynch, the highwayman.

  So large and so daring had been his work on the great Essex Road and some others, that he had long “weighed enough,” in the matter of rewards, to make it worth while to raise a party to run him down. There was no other way of getting him. He worked alone and confided in nobody; he never drank while on the game; and in all things he was the most businesslike and watchful high-tobyman unhanged. The party had had the luck to flush him near Shenfield, and he had shot one man dead in the saddle before he got away across country with a bullet in his own arm. By Ingrave, Horndon, Laindon and Pitsea they had hunted him, and the brown mare must have been already well spent, or they could never have kept within hail of Cutter Lynch, who knew every dyke and fence. Down in the marshes, this side of Bemfleet, he had bogged them cleverly, and walked his nag slowly up the hill before their faces, toward a farther stretch of the road they had lately crossed, leaving them to come out as they got in; and so they followed the road and came to Lapwater Hall.

  All that night lanterns flashed about the house and the land near it. In the grey of the morning the brown mare was seen shivering and whickering piteously by the pond, and in the pond floated a hat. They took one of those great rakes called cromes, and dragged from under the culvert at the end the staring corpse of Mr. Gil Craddock.

  It was there he must have hidden himself, hanging on by the broken ragstone till he fainted from the drain of blood and fell; so the officers judged, and so it was told about. As the day came and the news flew the Leigh people gathered about the pond and stared and whispered. Here was a judgment! The man was drowned in the water he had offered thirsty men when he owed them ale.

  Staring thus, they found another thing floating on the water and clinging near the edge. They fished it out and turned it over in amazement, for it was a pair of horses’ ears joined by a strap and fitted with a catch to hold to the headstall. They were the false ears that Brown Meg wore when Mr. Gil Craddock was Cutter Lynch, the high-tobyman!

  There was the end of Mr. Gil Craddock in the body. A few mouths afterward, at Nan Tricker’s wedding, there was a deal of rejoicing, and whatever was drunk did not come from a pond. For it was drink of a quality so good as to give Amos Tricker an idea. He would descend into the cellars of Lapwater Hall, which stood tenantless, and would make definite investigation into the contents. But he got no farther than the cellar steps, for there, in a gloomy corner, stood the ghost of Mr. Gil Craddock, mug in hand, squinting on him and beckoning him to drink his fill of the old ale. And nothing could be juster or more likely, when it is remembered what deadly sin the highwayman had to purge, in the denial of good drink owing his fellow-man; though Amos would have none of the invitation, but ran till he fell headlong, and there slept.

  And of the many witnesses, illustrious drinkers, who have seen old Gil since that time, it is said that not one has accepted his offer of drink, and so helped him to redeem his otherwise unpardonable fault. Though it is not easy to believe Essex men so implacable as that.

  THE BLACK BADGER

  ROBOSHOBERY DOVE had unstrapped his wooden leg, as was his way when he sat in this place to smoke his pipe and tell me the tales of his youth. He stuck the peg into a convenient cleft on the hillside, so that the socket made a comfortable rest for his elbow, and looked out from under the brim of his glazed hat at the scene that was most familiar and grateful to his eye: the scene wherein he read the news of the outer world more readily than he could have done in any newspaper in Essex. There below lay the vast space of soft and sunny water where the Thames and the sea were one; at our feet the marshes, green like a billiard table, mapped over with the geometric lines of dikes and ditches, and seamed along the middle with that thin brown line that had wrought such little change as the countryside had known since Charles the First: the railway.

  Roboshobery Dove was always an old man, in my memory, though a sturdy old fellow to the last. As I write it is some way short of twenty years since he died, yet he fought the French in a King’s ship as a boy, and was never tired of saying so. He was an old man, very, when he taught me the cutlass drill and told me tales in half-holidays; and he lived to tell me many more tales in years when I was a schoolboy no longer: tales of smuggling on the Essex coast, of fights with Dutch fishermen in the lowland seas; and of Cunning Murrell, the witch-finder, he told me all that I have written and much that I can never write. And now, at the time
when he told me the story that I am to tell again, he still stumped his way near and far without a totter, square and upright in his green smock, brown and hard in his face, and no more than iron-grey in the hair that curled over his earrings, though he was nearer ninety than eighty.

  “Aye, aye, sir,” said the old man, “I often wish I was young again myself, an’ knew all about everything. I don’t remember ever bein’ particular new-fashioned, but I was young once, an’ I knowed a deal. I dunno a quarter so much now.” He sucked hard at his pipe, and his eyes twinkled. But, indeed, I had done no more than hint a trifle of doubt as to the value of a curious charm against rheumatism, long used by a wise woman of Foulness.

  “No,” he repeated, “not a quarter. An’ I ha’n’t forgot much neither.” His glance moved about the great expanse of air, land, and water before and below him, over villages, marshes, hill-slope, and copses, and I foresaw a story. For here, spread before us, were the scenes of a hundred, told and untold, and Roboshobery Dove was but looking for an excuse or a reminder. Presently he took his pipe from his mouth and pointed. “See there, sir,” he said; “d’ye know the cottage down there with the roof new-tiled? Black clap-boarded cottage, onny one floor: just lookin’ over that spit o’ the hill, on towards Leigh.”

  I saw the cottage, but knew it only because I had seen it before.

  “Well, this is the second time I’ve seen it new-tiled; ‘twere thatch when I were a lad. ‘Twere there as one o’ the things happened, I ha’n’t forgot — an’ sha’n’t, neither. An’ a fine young man — aye, two of ‘em — lamed summat fresh, young as they were; an’ that were the end on ‘em.” The old man stopped, and smoked in silence, waiting to be asked for the story.

  So I said, “What was it they learned?”

  “They larned, sir, they larned — well you’ve heard tell o’ Mother Lay, th’ oad witch?”

  “Didn’t she give Cunning Murrell work a long time ago?”

  “Aye, she did, sir— ‘fore you were born or your father either. He puzzled her once or twice, sarten to say, when he were a young man, in a comparin’ way o’ speakin’. But he den’t hey nothen to do with this consarn. Why, oad Mother Lay — oad Nanny Lay, as most called her — she were the badger witch, as you may ha’ heard. You don’t chance to ha’ heard o’ the black badger, up at the Crown? No, there aren’t many alive to tell ye, an’ if they were ‘haps they wouldn’t, some oad parties bein’ feared o’ raisin’ a laugh. But I’ll tell ‘ee, an’ ye may laugh, if ye like; I can stand it. Well, oad Dave Cloyse kep’ the Crown at that time — Sim Cloyse’s elder brother he were, an’ dead long enough ago. Dave Cloyse, he trapped a badger, or somebody else trapped it for him, an’ he putt it in a barr’l in the yard, for to be drawed. Now there were cur’ous things about this badger, an’ the fust cur’ous thing it were arl black, every bit. Never saw a black badger, did ye? No, nor nobody else as I know. Well, this badger were no sooner safe putt in the yard than a chap — Sam Prentice it was; he were young then, like me — sets his dog to draw it. It were a tough oad dog, an’ had drawed many a badger; an’ it were a noisy oad dog. But this time it rushes in — an’ drops dead in the barr’l, without a sound. Sam, he pulled it out by the hindquarters, but ‘twere dead enough — bit hard over the neck an’ dropped like you never see a badger do afore. Sam takes the oad dog round to the pump an’ pumps on him, but ‘twere arl for nothen — neck broke. An’ when he an’ Dave gets back to the barr’l the badger were gone, clean, in broad daylight! Now, sir, you know well enough no nat’ral badger ‘ud leave his hole in open day, barrio’ he were dragged out with main force. An’ more, you’d ha’ thought somebody ‘d ‘a’ noticed such a thing as a black badger, in the open street, in broad daylight, wouldn’t ye? But nobody did. No. But what they did see — two on ‘em — were oad Nanny Lay. Oad Nanny Lay, in her big bonnet, coming out o’ the Crown yard at a trot! Out o’ the Crown yard she came, an’ up the street, an’ away!

  “That were the first seen o’ the black badger, but the next time meant more ‘n killin’ a dog. Now, at the time I’m tellin’ of— ‘twere ‘fore I lost my leg — two brothers lived in the cottage down there we were speakin’ of, with their mother. Eli Drake an’ Robin Drake were their names, an’ they were twins; an’ twins an’ all as they were, one was a preventive man — what you’d call a coastguardsman now — an’ t’ other a smuggler. That sound queer in these days, but ‘twere all right then, an’ a very convenient arrangement when George Fourth were king. Why, the revenue cutter Swallow ran a cargo of its own into Wakering now an’ then — aye, an’ more than now an’ then! Ah, them were great times — plenty o’ good money an’ plenty o’ good drink about then! Well, Eli Drake were a preventive boatman on the Leigh station, as I’ve said, an’ his brother Robin were as desprit a young rip as ever handled the tubs along this here shore; and we’ve had some desprit rips, too, in my time! The chief officer had been a sleepy oad chap, doin’ nothing but waiting for his sup’rannivation, an’ lettin’ the station go as it liked — same as most o’ the preventive officers at that time. So Eli an’ Robin, bedmate brothers, gives each other the fair tip when a cargo’s to be run; where the tubs ‘11 be, an’ where the guard ‘11 be, an’ all convenient an’ comfortable; an’ the chief officer, he snores asleep all night, and the guard-boatmen they pulls off the other way, and the cargo comes in fair an’ easy, and goes inland on the carriers’ backs, or on the pack-horses, comfortable an’ straightforward as if ‘twere crops off a field. As for poor oad Stagg, the ridin’ officer, we den’t care a stick for him. Everybody just laughed at poor oad Stagg. O’ course, the preventive men, they den’t lose by it; every man had his little complimentary tub, so to say, just for his own use, an’ here an’ there other folks had their little complimentary tub — parson had his reg’lar — an’ so everybody was happy an’ agreeable, which were a great deal better than rows an’ disagreements among neighbours, an’ fights on the marshes an’ sich.

  “So it all went fair an’ soft, sir, as you may guess, till the oad officer got his pension and a new ‘un came. He were very busy an’ zealousy, were this new officer, an’ people got displeased with him. He were out at all onseasonable times o’ night, dodging up an’ down the shore, an’ dropping unexpected on any boat’s crew as were layin’ up quiet for a smoke or a snooze. An’ he went nosing an’ sniffing up an’ down the place, most onneighbourly suspicious, routing about for tubs o’ brandy an’ gin, an’ trying to make troubles an’ misunderstandin’s among folks as were quite agreeable to let things go on pleasant an’ comfortable, just in the reg’lar oad way. So things had to be done a bit more cautious; an’ the chaps took care o’ their pistols an’ what not when there were a run, an’ young Robin Drake, he swore if the chief officer run up Agin him when there were a job goin’, he’d get a charge o’ lead — an’ two if one weren’t enough. Desprit young rip he were.

  “Now, ‘fore the new officer came, most o’ the stuff was took in on the straight run — just brought direct inshore an’ walked off. But this wouldn’t do with the new officer about; so the next crop was sunk. You see the Marsh End Sand?”

  The tide was out, and the sand lay, a brown streak, out in the winking blue water two miles from where we sat.

  “Well, a shade beyond that there’s the Oad Joe, a sand you onny see at bottom o’ spring tides. The tubs were sunk ‘twixt the two, double-anchored, on four drift-ropes, an’ they were to be brote in on two seprit nights, two boatloads a night. So far settled, Eli Drake gives his brother Robin the straight tip about the guard-boat orders, an’ the first night half the crop’s landed neat an’ handy. ‘Twere along there they landed ‘em, just round that spit o’ the hill, where there’s a fair sheltered depth for a run in. ‘Twere a pretty proper night, no moon, but not so dark as could be wished— ’tis mighty odd how one moonless night’s a deal lighter’n another. Everything were ready — carriers waitin’ handy in a copse on the hill — an’ the two boats pulls in arl they can go, loaded up.
You see we never wasted no time over the dash in; soft an’ cautious in the offing, if you like, but once arl’s clear an’ you put your nose inshore, bang you go in, whip your tubs onto the carriers, an’ shove away smart; an’ the carriers they went off smart too, ‘fore any trouble could come along.

  “Well, this time the carriers was lyin’ low in the copse, as I’ve told you. You know the copse — the farthest out bit o’ copsewood anywhere along these parts. ‘Umf!’ says one chap, sniffin’ hard. ‘I shouldn’t ha’ made count there’d ha’ bin a badger-earth this far out by the marshes!’

  “‘Umf! Umf!’ sniffs his mate, ‘I shoon’t ha’ thote it, nayther! Plain enough to smell, though,’ says he.

  “This were just as the boats were puffin’ in. Robin Drake were in the first boat, an’ he jumps out a’most afore she touches. But afore a soul moves in the copse, afore one o’ the carriers has time as much as to straighten his legs, up jumps oad Nanny Lay in the very midst of ‘em! Up she jumps, an’ goes a-mincin’ an’ a-skippin’ down to the boat, hoppin’ an’ dancin’ with her gown held wide in her hands. The carriers arl stands fair gastered, knowin’ as not a soul but ‘emselves had a-laid down in that copse — a score of ‘em, close as carrots.

  “‘Good t’ ye arl,’ says Mother Lay, bobbin’ an’ caperin’. ‘Good t’ ye arl, if yell remember a poor oad woman, an’ buy good luck with one little tub! One little tub o’ the right liquor to warm my poor oad belly in my oad age! An’ woundy good luck shall go with every man o’ ye, an’ wither an’ blight on the King’s men — for one little tub, such as ye never gave me yet, though passin’ my door run arter run! One little tub for good luck!’ An’ she capers agen, an’ jines her thumbs overhead.