The COURAGEOUS EXPLOITS OF DOCTOR SYN - Thorndike Russell - Страница 45
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be winning your security ashore all right. You seem to have done the Government good service already. Believe
me, I have no wish for it to be otherwise. And the casks are to go out empty, eh? Well, I shall take no steps to
prevent their shipment, I assure you. But I shall be awaiting their return most anxiously, I assure you. What a
situation when I order them to be split open, and we take a look at those cavities! Now listen to me. You will hold
no communication with your good friend, the Sexton, until such time as the Plough and the Strawberry return with
their cargo of bones. Neither will you say a word of this matter to the Vicar here. It is a good thing that your work
will keep you from Dymchurch. You must keep your ears and eyes wide open, Master Cooper, and your mouth as
tight as a sealed keg.”
“Yes, sir,” assented the cooper. “I should not wish to come over to Dymchurch in any case.”
“Not even to see the Dymchurch lass you are hoping to marry?” asked the Captain roguishly.
“She is also working at Hythe, sir,” explained the cooper. “At the ‘Red Lion’, sir. She is in the kitchen there.”
“Very convenient, too,” replied the Captain, “and for your sake I am glad to hear it. Tell me, when will you be
going to see her, on Thursday, which is the day before the casks are taken aboard?”
“I shall call there at six in the evening, sir. If she is busy and cannot get out, which is often the case, the landlady
there lets me spend half an hour with her in the kitchen.”
“Then go into the bar at a quarter to six,” ordered the Captain, “and my Bos’n will be there. Anything further
you may have learned, which you think I should know, tell him. Also he can give you any further orders that I may
consider necessary.”
This conversation was interrupted by the return of Doctor Syn from church. If he was surprised at finding them
still there, he did not show it. But as both the Captain and the cooper stood up at his entrance, he apologized for his
disturbance. “Forgive me, Captain,” he said, “I have not come to turn you out of my study, which you are both
heartily welcome to, but I know you will not mind my changing my gown for my jacket, before leaving you again.”
“Indeed no, Parson,” answered the Captain. “My business with this good fellow has been finished some time,
concerning that cask of ours that had sprung a leak. But our friend here has been interesting me. He has let me into
some of the mysteries of his craft. I thought I knew something of it, but when confronted by a master cooper, young
though he is. Well, Master Lee, I must not detain you further. But I am your debtor for all that you have explained
to me, and shall be able to be a lot more critical with my coopers when I get back to my ship.”
“Poor fellows,” laughed the Doctor.
“I suppose now, Parson,” went on the Captain, “that you have never had the love for barrels and kegs, eh? Your
profession hardly warrants it. But to one who loves ships as I do, well, a good cask is a fair thing.”
“I agree with you, Captain,” laughed the Doctor again, as he pulled his gown over his head and hung it up in the
alcove, adding, as he took his jacket from the peg behind the door: “I love anything that is well fashioned. I can
even admire a well-made coffin in my Sexton’s shop. He’s a good carpenter, is Mipps, but he cannot make a barrel
like young George here. He told me only the other day that coopering is outside the scope of the carpenter, though I
think it is the only thing made of wood that he could not make a good job of.”
“Aye, Vicar,” put in the cooper, “there’s little else that Mipps cannot make, and I sometimes think that he could
turn out a good cask too, if he had a mind to it.”
“Well, a ship’s carpenter no doubt has to lend a hand with the barrels should they go wrong, doesn’t he,
Captain?” asked the Vicar innocently.
“Aye, and they sometimes combine the two professions, though I have always carried a sea-cooper as well as a
ship’s carpenter and sail-maker. They pick up a good deal from one another, and can lend a hand, as you say. But I
have no doubt that you wish to dismiss the subject of barrels in order to think of sermons, eh?”
“I fear I have to devote the rest of the morning to parochial accounts, Captain,” said the Doctor, making a wry
face. “A parson is exp ected to have a smattering of all professions. But I never could learn a love for figures
myself. At Oxford I took classical languages and, my faith I begin to think that mathematics would have been more
useful. Well not, I see that your glasses are emp ty, and that you left the bottle in the hall. Now that service is over I
can take another glass myself, for a glass of good wine hurts nobody, I think.”
Doctor Syn went out and brought back the bottle and his own glass, when once more the health of George Lee
was drunk.
This time it was the Captain who proposed it with” “A word of advice, my young cooper. If you want to marry
soon, and settle down to your craft, avoid walking out late in such a town as Hythe, for though I say it against a
section of my own calling, the Press Gang have had orders to be active, and they are a rough lot of rascals, without a
shred of sentiment. They possess no conscience at all, when they have to make up a complement of likely fellows.”
“I have always felt the same, sir,” replied the Vicar. “Take the Captain’s advice, George, and if they should lay
hands on you have no scruples at claiming protection from my guest here. I warrant he could free you quicker than
most.”
“And that’s true enough,” agreed the Captain. “But unfortunately I might never get the word sent to me, so I still
warn the youngster not to give the Press gang an opportunity. We know this about their ways, and that is that they
know their own unpopularity. Consequently they work mostly at night when nobody is about, and a chance of
rescue less likely.”
“I will remember your warning, sir, thank you for it,” replied the cooper, who then finished his wine and went
towards the door. He knew full well that the Captain’s warning was a threat which Doctor Syn could not appreciate.
To prevent any words passing between his victim and the Vicar, the Captain took up his hat and followed the
cooper, but no sooner had they passed the Vicarage gate than Doctor Syn had begun to be made master of the whole
situation by Mipps, and he then fully appreciated as much as the cooper did, that the Captain’s warning was a threat
indeed, and not only levelled at the cooper, but at his whole organization across the Channel and upon the Marsh.
13
CONCERNING A CARGO OF BONES
Mipps was glad enough to be released after so long a spell of being cooped up behind the Vicar’s garments, and he
took the excuse to point out that though his limbs were not so stiff, his throat was uncommonly dry with stifling a
continuous desire to cough, which would have ruined all.
This was soon remedied by accepting the Vicar’s offer to take a good pull at a half-finished bottle of brandy
which the Vicar produced from behind a row of large tomes in the bookshelf.
The Sexton was then in trim to recount all that he had overheard.
“Well, it is a pity that the tobacco will not be able to be packed, s we had planned it for this voyage,” whispered
Doctor Syn. “Although the Scarecrow naturally depends upon the big landing, guarded by the Nightriders, these
little runs upon this side keep our wits sharp and certainly increase the annual turnover of profit for the men. But I
warrant I’ll find a way to get the Plough and the Strawberry safely into port with the same weight of tobacco, for I
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