The Shadow of Dr Syn - Thorndike Russell - Страница 17

An hour or so later Doctor Syn was busily engaged upon parochial accounts in the library, when Mr. Mipps disturbed him again with, ‘Beg pardon, sir, he’s ’ere again. That there Will-Jill. Looking a bit subdued like — not that I don’t wonder — but he’s ever so pleasant — and asked most polite to see you. The fright you give him must have done him good. Oh, beg your pardon, sir,’ this upon noticing the Vicar’s warning look. ‘Shall I show him in, sir?’

1 Lively.

‘Yes, indeed, Mr. Mipps. I shall be delighted to make his acquaintance. I somehow thought that he might pay me a visit.’

And so Lord Cullingford, tired, yet with a new look of determination, entered the library and introduced himself to the Vicar.

‘I must ask your pardon, sir,’ he said, ‘for thrusting myself upon you like this, uninvited, but I did not wish to return to London without fulfilling the idea with which I set out. The reason of my visit this morning, however, differs from my original intention. I came now, sir, simply to pay my respect. Happening to be at Crockford’s on the night when you confronted a certain gentleman of my acquaintance, I vowed that I would come to you for assistance, for I had set myself what I now know to be a herculean task — to catch or kill the Scarecrow. Oh, pray do not laugh at me, sir,’ for Doctor Syn was regarding him with a kindly quizzical air, ‘for I was in dire distress and most damnably in need of the Government reward.’ He plunged into a full description of allthat had happened to him since he left the Ship Inn with the Dragoons, ending up with the strange appeal that Doctor Syn should not judge the Scarecrow too harshly, ‘for, reverend sir, he must be a good man at heart. True, I saw him condemn a man to death as I told you, but it was justifiable according to the code — why, the Forces of the Crown would do the same. Yet what officer of the Crown would take the pains to show a foolish young man how best to prove himself, and become a tolerable good citizen?’ He then explained in the simplest manner that he was going to take the Scarecrow’s advice by avoiding his extravagant friends, and joining up with men who had to earn a living — in short, the Army. ‘For though I have but a few guineas left in my pocket,’ he said, ‘I have at least gained something of great value — my self-respect, and I shall ever be grateful to this strange, incalculable being that people call the Scarecrow.’

Doctor Syn had listened to this frank confession with mixed feelings — sympathy for the misguided but engaging lad who might indeed have been his own son, and admiration for the purpose he displayed, and was thankful that he had indeed been able to effect this transformation. Humbled a little by the knowledge of his own secret life, he determined to help this youngster further. So with the greatest tact he persuaded Lord Cullingham to accept a loan of some few hundred guineas, laughingly telling him that there was life in the old Vicar yet, and as he was liable to be here for a number of years, would be delighted to see him whenever his lordship cared to call.

So half an hour later Aunt Agatha, having taken Lisette to see the wonders of the sea-wall of Marsh, passed a young man coming from the direction of the Vicarage, who raised his hat with a flourish and gave them a sweeping bow. She remarked to her maid that he must be in very good spirits for she never did see such a well-set-up young man, adding however that as men went, she still had a penchant for that naughty highwayman. She was further reminded of the said gentleman when, upon walking slowly back through the village, MisterPitt making almost as complete an investigation of it as Mrs. Honeyballs, the local coach went by in great style, horn blowing gaily. But Aunt Agatha’s musical ear was slightly confused, for though the tune it played was undoubtedly ‘those same dratted Grenadiers’, it somehow merged into one of her own Scottish songs — a popular Jacobite air.

Descending the grand staircase on her way down to luncheon, she remarked to Lady Caroline that she was in good appetite, having thoroughly enjoyed her morning perambulation, but it amazed her to observe that, though having such bracing air, Dymchurch seemed a very sleepy place in the daytime, and she hoped that Sir Antony’s tenants were not keeping late hours.

Then, strangely enough, as she passed into the dining-room, she found herself humming, quite loudly, that lively tune, ‘The Girl I Left Behind Me’.

Chapter 8

The Squire Sums Up

Sir Antony’s worst fears were justified. His day was ‘decidedly aggravatin’.’ To begin with, no sooner had he finished his breakfast when old Doctor Sennacherib Pepper was announced, and he was forced to go and watch the inquest. ‘Most unhealthy, probin’ about a corpse just after a meal — enough to make a feller’s cold grouse freeze inside him’; which it did later, having eaten so quickly, thereby giving him a bad attack of his usuals. But on leaving the mortuary to be rid of the nauseating sight, he had bumped into a fat constable, and ‘the great clumpin’ creature’ had trodden clumsily upon his throbbing toe, which so pained him for the rest of the morning that he was compelled to loosen the buckle of his shoe, surreptitiously easing it off beneath his robes, so that when the court rose for the luncheon recess, and he pompously led the procession down the stairs, it was not until he trod upon a coffin-nail that he realized he was without it; and so, in a most undignified manner, he had to scamper back up the stairs. Retrieving the offending shoe with difficulty, he bumped his head against the reading-desk, which knocked his judge’s wig askew, and since, by this time, things had gone too far and he had not bothered to put it straight, he knew, by the ‘disapprovin’’ look on her ladyship’s face, that she thought he had been at it again. Stifling a desier to do naturally what he had done that morning with the aid of a hunting-horn, he tried to enjoy his food, but Sennacherib Pepper, whom he had purposely placed at the far end of the table, kept shouting details of his grisly trade, which ‘me wife’s Aunt Agatha’, who sat beside him, kept ‘hummin’’ that maddenin’ tune, that all the village seemed to have been at that mornin’. Indeed, upon whistling it himself that afternoon, he had not been able to understand why he was looked at by several in the Court in such a peculiar manner. The fact was that they did not understand why the Chief Magistrate was in truth passing the smugglers’ signal for that very night. Blissfully innocent of this, however, he continued with the proceedings. After lengthy weighing of the pros and cons, during which he became painfully aware that his seat of jurisdiction had been badly bruised beneath that confounded bell-pull, the jury at last managed to agree upon one point, that the corpse in question was the remains of one Gabriel Creach which everyone had known in the beginning. Indeed, everyone having known him for years, the whole thing was, therefore, a shocking waste of time.

Well — there it was. He had been hanged by the neck until he was dead, by some person or persons unknown — to wit — the Scarecrow, which the jury found on one was able to do anything about, since the Army, the Navy, the Revernue and Bow Street Runners, to say nothing of private enterprise, had all been after him for years and failed to catch this notorious malefactor.

Sir Anthony Cobtree, in his summing-up, found there was so little to say upon the subject, that he had to try and spin things out, to make it sound better, and becoming thus gravelled for lack of matter, he discovered that in order to make some sort of impression, he had, after a lengthy, pompous oration, involved himself most damnably. In order to get out of this difficulty with what little dignity he had left, he had, therefore, quite without meaning it, pledged himself to a further thousand guineas, out of his own purse, over and above the Government’s proclaimed reward, ‘to any who shall rid us of this