The COURAGEOUS EXPLOITS OF DOCTOR SYN - Thorndike Russell - Страница 18

Royal highness of the honour he so richly deserved, but I am forced to take the brush in order to settle scores with

Sir Henry Pembury. If you ride some five hundred yards to9 your right, you will come out upon the main road

leading you direct to the Lympne hills and the castle, where no doubt the Reverend Doctor Syn is awaiting your

arrival to say the dinner grace. Since he has met the scarecrow in the past, and to his cost, you will have an

opportunity of comparing notes upon the Leader of the Marsh. I bid you farewell again, and a most Royal appetite.”

With a leap which the heavy Prince envied, the figure mounted and waving the brush above his head, dashed

down the knoll into the mist.

On reaching the main road indicated by the Scarecrow, the Prince encountered a search-party headed by Sir

Antony Cobtree, who escorted him to the castle, where most of the disgruntled huntsmen had been congregated for

hours. While the Prince dres sed for dinner, doctor Syn jogged unobtrusively into the courtyard upon his white pony,

explaining to the grooms that he had been unsuccessfully seeking for the missing Prince.

During dinner the Prince was full of his adventure, and he found that his encounter with the Scarecrow gave him

more credit with the ladies than had be brought back the brush. The gentlemen, however, secretly discredited the

story, whispering that the Prince had no doubt spent the evening in some inn, ogling the barmaids. Doctor Syn

seemed the only one who was convinced by the account, till something happened which showed the whole company

that the Prince was not boasting.

The old butler whispered to Sir Henry that one of the footmen opening the castle doors to a ring, had found a

wooden box marked ‘urgent’ and addressed to His Royal Highness. At the Prince’s command it was brought in. A

narrow oblong box, well made and hinged. No one knew that it had been fashioned for the purpose in Mipps’

Coffin Shop. Throwing back the lid his Royal Highness lifted out a fox’s brush with the following message attached

to it:

The Scarecrow presents his compliments to the Prince of Wales, and returns the accompanying brush which he

unfairly robbed from him at the last moment of a splendid run. If any man deserved this brush it is Your Royal

Highness.

“By heavens!” cried the Prince, “but the rascal’s a sportsman after all, and should he ever be taken I shall ask my

royal father to pardon him.. What do you say, Doctor Syn?”

“That the Scarecrow would appreciate your sentiment, sir,” replied the Vicar, “though I think it is a wasted one,

for in spite of the vigorous drive against him by the authorities, I fancy the rascal will never be laid by the heels.”

“Then I give him a toast,” cried the Prince. “Ladies and gentlemen, you will drink with me to the scarecrow.”

After dinner His Royal Highness remarked slyly to Doctor Syn that he feared he had shocked not only his host

but many of the gentry by his toast, adding, “I hope my good Doctor, that you who have so vigorously opposed this

rascal from the pulpit will not condemn me for being too unorthodox?”

“Your Royal Highness places me in a difficult position.” Replied Doctor Syn, with a smile. “I had every excuse

to drink the toast, since it was a Royal command, just as it is my bounden duty to condemn him from the pulpit,

while I hold Orders under your Royal Father as Defender of the Faith. But I will confess that I drank the toast

willingly enough because I admire the rascally Scarecrow prodigiously.”

“And so do I, Parson,” laughed the Prince. “I can take a beating with the best, and the fellow outrode me at the

kill.”

“Your Royal Highness is perhaps too modest,” said the Doctor. “No doubt he outrode you because he and his

horse were fresh.”

“And what a horse,” exclaimed the Prince. “I should like to know where the devil he got it from.”

“Men say that he got it from the Devil at the price of his soul,” explained the Doctor. “there are many who can

vouch that he calls it Gehenna, which certainly suggests hell’s stables.”

“I’d give him a thousand guineas for it tomorrow,” laughed the Prince. “It beats anything in my stables, and in

the King’s too. If you sermons are half as good as those humorous stories that you told us over the port, I’ll make

you my spiritual adviser when I become Defender of the Faith.”

“As I believe your Royal Highness has expressed his willingness to attend Divine Service at the Castle Church on

Sunday,” remarked the Doctor, “Your Royal Highness will be able to judge, since I have been ordered to preach.”

“Well, if you keep me awake, Doctor, I’ll get you a pair of lawn sleeves,” laughed the Prince.

The sermon in question pleased the Prince so well that the Doctor was summoned to bid His Royal Highness

farewell

“And see here, Doctor,” he said. “ I have made two promises in this neighbourhood. One concerns you and the

other the Scarecrow. I have told that human bloodhound, Blain, that if he catches the Scarecrow I shall see to it that

the rascal does not hang. The other is what I said about your lawn sleeves. You say you are content to stay on

Romney Marsh for the rest of your ministry. If you should at any time change your mind, come to me in London,

and ask for what promotion you like, and I’ll see that you get it at once.”

Although Doctor Syn thought little of these promises at the time, the day came when he claimed them both.

5

THE SCARECROW FACES MUTINY

Although the revenue authorities were perfectly aware that the Romney Marsh Nightriders owed their continued

success to the amazing audacity of their leader, the Scarecrow, they did not know that this Phantom horseman, as

many supposed him to be, owed his safety to the extreme caution he displayed when moving amongst his

parishioners as Doctor Syn. The Vicar of Dymchurch could go out upon the Marsh by night as well as by day

without suspicion.

It was generally accepted that this Parson was a man who took his cure of souls very seriously, and to be seen

riding slowly back to his Vicarage in the early hours of the morning, was to him but an occasion for having further

blessings poured upon his head. A good man who claimed the sorrows of the humblest cottager as his own, and

regarded the lowest hovel with the same importance as he did the Court House where the Squire resided. His

genuine affection for young and old, his geniality, wisdom and uprightness, had created in the minds of all a saint

who has as great an influence upon the Marsh for good as the scarecrow had, in the same district, for evil. Even

those secret ones who were made rich by the dark activities of the Nightriders were fearful that their mysterious

leader might one day seek revenge upon their good old vicar, who considered it his duty to attack the crime

smuggling from the pulpit. But for all the Parson’s exhortations, greed, fear, and amongst the younger a love of

adventure, prevented any of the contraband runners from betraying their leader to the fearless old Doctor of Divinity

they loved.

Little did they know that all these admirable qualities in Doctor Syn ensured the safety of the Scarecrow. Only

the Sexton and the Highwayman, his close lieutenants, knew with what careful foresight the Parson proceeded to

keep his double identity secure.

His strictest rule was a complete separation of his two personalities, both so strong in their own way. And to this

end it was only in a state of great emergency that he allowed the figure of the Scarecrow to darken even secretly the

closeness of the Vicarage. As Doctor Syn he would leave his home, and as Doctor Syn he would return. What