A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh

While she had been dressing the girl the old lady had with great tact got all of Imogene’s history out of her, at least as much of it as she knew, and just before they stepped from the room, as she surveyed her protégée with admiration, she held up her quaint little face and requested Imogene to kiss her, which she did.

“And now, my dear, we will go down to dinner, and the while we are eating I will tell you exactly what we are to do, and,” she added with enthusiasm, “if

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that squire’s son, whom I regard as a fortunate young fellow, does not marry you—well, I’ll horsewhip him myself, aye, both him and his father, and adopt you as my own daughter, for what a relief it would be to have you in the house to look at, for you know, my dear, you are vastly prettier than my foolish Mister Whyllie,” saying which she tripped lightly down the stairs followed by the dazzling Imogene.

Had Imogene been in reality the old lady’s daughter, returned to her from the dim side of the veil, she could not have been shown more kindly love and attention. Even Mr. Whyllie got a happy time of it, for the little old lady was in the best of tempers, entirely at peace and light-hearted. Indeed at the conclusion of the meal the lawyer found himself pushed into a comfortable chair with a small table at his side upon which stood a fine old bottle of port, and to his utter astonishment his wife standing near with a churchwarden pipe filled with tobacco and a lighted paper spill all ready for him. So he also began to bless the

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coming of his niece from India, wishing that she had been invented sooner and that she was going to remain in the house to the end of the proverbial chapter.

Then Mrs. Whyllie, over a dish of tea with Imogene, unfolded her plan of campaign for the rescue of young Denis, and the manner in which this plan was carried out is set forth in a following chapter.

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Chapter 34

A Military Lady-killer Prepares for Battle

That insufferable coxcomb Captain Tuffton was in the act of sprinkling his lace handkerchief with the scent that old Mrs. Whyllie found so atrociously obnoxious when his valet entered the room with a note. The insufferable one went on with his sprinkling and languidly inquired who the note was from. “I really cannot say, sir,” returned the valet. “Cannot say?” repeated the insufferable, lifting his pencilled eyebrows into the higher regions of astonishment. “Indeed, my good Transome—and you call

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yourself a valet, don’t you now? It is not a bill, I trust, strayed in upon the Sabbath out of cunning, for I have not seen a bill these many years now, and the sight, I feel convinced, might upset my stomach.”

“I think, sir, that there is no valet in Europe so quick to smell out a bill or so nimble at tearing them up as your humble servant.” Transome could be tremendous upon occasions and he certainly was when he added: “And under your livery, sir, I venture to suggest that my practice of bill nosing has been unlimited.”

“Now, come, my good Transome, you disrespectful dog, I’ll not have you chiding me, upon my soul I won’t, for I have a most damned head on me this forenoon. I generally do get a damned bad head on me o’ Sundays. All a-buzz, I declare, and it’s those damned exasperating church bells. I never met anything so persistent in my life. They go on, they go on, and there’s no stopping them, now is there? As plentiful as bills are church bells and just as taxing to the

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nerves. If ever I have to oblige the blasted Parliament by sleeping in it, I shall endeavour to keep awake to vote for the abolishment of church bells.”

“And you might, sir, at the same time do away with bills. It would be most convenient, wouldn’t it, sir?”

“Well, I suppose it would. If I ever do get in, which I think extremely unlikely, for which I most heartily thank my Maker, knowing how unutterably bored I should become, but if ever I do get in, I will most certainly abolish bills and bells, and if there should be any other little thing that you think might sensibly be abolished, why, you must jog my memory, Transome, and jog it hard, won’t you, my dear fellow, for you know what a memory I have? Damned bad, upon my soul it is!”

“Ah, sir,” sighed the valet, “you will become a great orator, a very great orator.”

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“I might, my dear fellow, I really might, although I am positive that I shan’t, because, you see, I know that I shall go most damnably to sleep. I shan’t be able to help myself.”

“You must really make an effort, sir, to keep awake, for the sake of your country, you really must, sir, for you will make as great a statesman as you have a soldier. You cannot help it, sir. Talent such as your, genius such as yours, is like murder, sir—it will out.”

“No, I am a lazy good-for-nought, upon my soul I am, and a statesman I shall never become, for even if I do get pushed into a seat, what shall I lay on my sleeping in it all the time? A pack o’ dogs, sixteen fighting cocks, and a blasted nag? Will you take me?”

“Against what, sir?”

“Against nothing, you damned, disrespectful dog! Upon my honour, against nothing but my sleeping. What are you flashing that deuced silver tray about

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for? It catches the light in a most exasperating manner and causes the most acute suffering to my wretched eyesight. Have you no feeling at all, my good Transome, or have you lost it as well as your respect? Have you never suffered the spasms of the damned? I declare that my poor wretched head is executing positive manoeuvres this morning. Musket drill and cavalry charges are going on inside it the whole time. Oh, dear, oh, dear! How I wish you would open that note, instead of flourishing it about again. You surely don’t expect me to open it, do you?”

Accordingly, the valet opened the letter and announced to his master that it was a lady’s handwriting.

“Then you had better give it to me,” drawled the captain with a resigned air, “for if you pry into the contents of the poor thing’s soul, it will be all over the town in an hour or so, and another woman’s reputation will have disappeared. Why, Lord love us,” he added as he glanced at the note in question, “if it isn’t

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from that she-dragon herself, that most terrible and alarming Missus What’shername, Missus—Missus—oh, what the devil is her name, eh?”

The valet suggested humbly that the lady in question would most probably have signed her name at the end of the letter.

“Oh, yes, of course, what a downright sane fellow you are, to be sure. Now with all my brain power I should never have thought of that. Perfectly ridiculous of me, I know, but I really shouldn’t have, you know. Ah! I remember who the woman is now, without looking. She’s the wife of that perfectly idiotic lawyer fellow who always fastens up his fat stomach in a white waistcoat a cut or two too small, but I’m blamed if I can remember even his name, so you see we are not much nearer to it, are we now?”

Again the valet repeated the brilliant suggestion of looking to the end of the letter, and the master, having graciously accepted his suggestion, announced to