Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/114

 Mrs. Waggetts was not only his friend but his employer, and she had done him one or two very good turns. For one thing, she had given him a money box in which to save a portion of his weekly wage. That doesn't sound a great deal on the surface, it is true, but her kindness had not ended there, as you shall see. Jerk's teeth were not sweet, like those of most boys of his age; he never bought sweetmeats, barley sugar, and such child's trash. No, when he wanted a pick-me-up it was a grown man's pick-me-up that he indulged in—a pannikin of rum, a whiff of tobacco, and a long-shot spit at the china spittoon that stood in the front of the bar. These indulgences had no effect on his purse, for the cravings of the first two were easily satisfied from the bar store when nobody was looking, and the third he was at liberty to practise whenever he felt so disposed. And thus it was that, although but approaching thirteen years of age, he had through the good offices of the landlady and a systematic use of her money box already become a landed proprietor. When the landlady heard that Jerk wanted to spend his savings on such a very strange thing as land she had exclaimed in some surprise:

"Lord bless the boy! Land? What can a boy of that age want with a plot of land?"

"The money's good enough, ain't it, ma'am"? Very well, then, I wants land. A nice little bit of snug mud-bank where I can hide and learn about the Marsh. If I've a bit of mud wot's all mine on Romney