shall then hand him his credentials for the command of the Crocodile . And I hope for his own sake that he’ll make a
better job of it than he has over this Scarecrow business, which the Navy had far better have left alone.”
When the Squire’s coach rolled up before the Court House door in the evening of the twenty-second, Captain
Blain was pacing the front garden of the Vicarage, as though he were on his quarterdeck. The Squire, who had just
returned from a run with the hounds, was chatting with Major Faunce who had accompanied him. Both men were in
the saddle as Doctor Syn, neat and trim despite his long journey, stepped out of the vehicle.
“Welcome back from London, my good Christopher,” cried the Squire. “And I hope my cattle behaved well?”
“A most comfortable journey, Squire,” returned the Doctor. “And your good fellows did not have to use pistols
or blunderbuss upon the road. I had the happiest time meeting many of my good colleagues. I also had the extreme
honour of being entertained most graciously by the Heir Apparent, who received me before a brace of bishops, who
were told to wait. So you see our Romney Marsh is of some importance in the Capital.”
He spoke loud enough for the Captain to overhear, who out of politeness was forced to come forward to greet his
host, though it was obvious he would have liked to have avoided meeting the Major of Dragoons. Doctor Syn noted
this out of the tail of his eye. Neither has he missed the look of extreme surprise, and something of relief, when he
had seen him step out of the coach.
The Squire invited them into the Court House, and they accepted his hospitality to the extent of a glass of wine,
but declined to stay to supper. Doctor Syn pleading fatigue from his journey and the Captain saying that he had
planned a long day with his men on the morrow and wished to turn in as early as possible.
So host and guest returned after a while together to the Vicarage, where over an early supper the Captain
remarked that he had not expected to see doctor Syn so soon.
“I told you that I should be back for the twenty-third,” replied the Vicar.
“I thought you might wish to avoid the arrest of the Scarecrow,” said the Captain, “since you expressed such an
aversion to the gallows.”
“I did not allow myself to think of things unpleasant,” replied the Doctor. “But I did not forget that tomorrow is
your fiftieth birthday. And do you know, I thought I ought to be here to see that my housekeeper puts the usual
candles round a cake.”
The Captain laughed at that, and as soon as politeness would allow, excused himself for bed.
Doctor Syn said that he would not be long behind him in seeking his own four posts, though he had to hear the
parochial news first from his henchman, Mipps.
In the locked study by the candlelight, Mipps had to cram a corner of his handkerchief into his mouth to prevent
his laughter becoming audible to the sleeping Captain. He owned, after many a good drop of brandy that had never
paid its dues, that his master had surpassed himself, and only hoped that all would work out to the clock-work
pattern set by him.
The next morning his doubts were dispersed, because the clock-work worked.
The Doctor was awakened by a violent hammering upon the front door. At least the Captain thought it had
awakened him as it had himself. In reality the Vicar had not been without anxiety, and was lying awake to hear it.
But he let the Captain rise first, and when he appeared in a flowered dressing gown and night-cap, he looked
down from the head of the stairs and saw his guest talking to a mud-bespattered courier. The front door was open,
and there he saw a mounted naval officer holding the courier’s horse. The Captain was holding an official
document, and reading it by the lig ht of dawn which illumined the hall window by the door.
“So as far as I’m concerned,” the Captain was saying, “it means boot and saddle for Whitehall, and at once, eh?
And the officer outside is to take my men back to Dover. Well, orders are orders. I hope it means that they are
sending me to fight the enemy on the high seas.”
“What is all the trouble?” asked the Doctor innocently. The matter was explained rapidly by the Captain. Doctor
Syn roused his housekeeper and ordered breakfast to be prepared while the Captain got into uniform.
At breakfast he not only wished his departing guest a very many happy returns of the day, but hoped that this
change of front from the Whitehall spelt good fortune for him.
“It speaks of promotion,” said the Captain during breakfast, as an explanation to his host. A coincidence that
such an unlooked-for event should have occurred on my birthday, when I might well have expected to be shelved. I
could have wished perhaps for one more day, which the courier tells me is impossible as the matter is of the greatest
urgency. But I would sooner gain my laurels from my naval work that gain notoriety through the capture of a
criminal. But it’s a lucky happening for the Scarecrow. Any by the way, Vicar, it is also something of a
coincidence that this should follow upon the heels of your visit to the Prince. I more than half suspect that I have
you to thank for it, eh?”
“As to any conversations I had with His Royal Highness,” returned the Vicar, “I can assure you of one thing. I
took your advice and did not ask the Prince a second time to save the Scarecrow’s life. On the other hand, though
what I said to him and he to me I must think of as confidential, concerning his high rank. I will tell you that he
seemed especially interested in your career. I told him that you had been born on H.M.S. Crocodile , and that today
made your fifty years upon the waters complete. He really seemed most interested. But it does seem a pity that
your work here should be so quickly terminated when you had apparently nearly completed it with the success for
which you had worked.”
“Aye, Parson,” replied the Captain grimly. “I swear to you that I should have had him tonight. But will I pass on
my information to that insufferable Dragoon? A thousand times, no. I would prefer to drink the good health of the
Scarecrow, like the Prince commanded up at Lymphe. And what is more, that I shall do tonight as soon as I have
left the purlieus of Whitehall. Good luck to him now. And good luck to you, too, Parson. Both clever fellows, on
my soul. Perhaps one day we shall dine together, and perhaps then I might feel inclined to tell you all I have found
out about your rascally parishioner. On the other hand, promotion may increase that habit I have ever had of
knowing when to keep my ugly mouth shut tight.”
So the Captain galloped off with the Whitehall courier, and soon after the sailors marched off behind the
mounted officer to the tune of the drum and fife.
And to the tune of another song the Vicar of Dymchurch lifted a glass of brandy and toasted his Sexton across the
study table. “The most dangerous situation of our long careers, eh, Master Carpenter?” he whispered. “And got
over in such a simple fashion. We can now relieve poor Jimmie Bone and tell him that the run goes forward this
night. And so I drink to you, old faithful sea-dog, in the well-remembered words of Clegg:
‘ Here’s to the feet wot have walked the plank;
Yo-ho for the dead man’s throttle:’”
Which in a piping whisper, was responded to by Mipps with:
“ ‘ Here’s to the corpses afloat in the tank:
And the dead man’s teeth in the bottle’.”