position as a parson, no doubt. Well, understand that I am not paying
compensation to any woman who has had the privilege of my attentions.”
“There is no question of attentions in this case, sir,” replied
Doctor Syn coldly. “You have not had the honour of meeting the lady in
question, and she will only extend you that honour in the presence of
myself and her English legal adviser, Mr. Antony Cobtree. She will
receive you at White Friars House, St. Giles’, tomorrow at noon, if you
desire to interview her concerning your nephew’s affairs in Spain.”
“Are you talking of the Almago women from Madrid?” asked Tappitt.
“I have the honour to be speaking on behalf of the Senora Almago,
sir.”
“Are they in Oxford, then?” he demanded.
“They are, sir,” went on Syn. “I myself have lodged them with the
good woman who lets the apartments I named.”
“But they were to come here. What the devil!” exploded the Squire.
“Why are they not here? I invited them.”
“Pardon me, sir. The invitation was null and void, and under the
circumstances demanded no reply.” Doctor Syn spoke quietly, but with a
cold disdain. “The letter did not come from you. It came, in fact, from
nobody, for, as I pointed out to my good friends at Lampne Castle, and
have since confirmed it, there is no such person as Elinor Tappitt, wife
to the Squire of Iffley. You are a bachelor.”
“And who are you to interfere with my schemes —” started the Squire.
“Schemes, eh?” repeated the Doctor. “I can well believe that. I
will tell you my authority. I am the prospective son-in-law to the
Senora. Yes, sir, her daughter, the Senorita, with her mother’s
consent, has promised to marry me.”
“Marry you?” retorted the Squ ire. “We’ll see about that. I rather
think she will marry my nephew.”
Doctor Syn shook his head. “She has already refused him, sir.”
“Then if he’s such a fool as I always suspected, she shall marry me,”
said the Squire. “Or I’ll marry the widow, and then refuse you the
daughter. Yes, sir, I’ll brook no interference from a hypocritical
young parson, who no doubt thinks to get the dead Spaniard’s money into
his own coffers.”
“There is no more to be said, I think, sir. Tomorrow at noon. Good
day.”
“Oh no,” replied the Squire. “Not good day yet. I have not finished
with you.”
“But I have with you till noon tomorrow,” replied Doctor Syn, turning
his horse’s head down the long drive and riding slowly away.
“I think not, till my grooms have done with you,” cried the Squire.
He then balwed out the words: “Stables, quick! All of you!”
- 18 -
Doctor Syn saw him run into the stable yard, and so put his own hose
to the canter.
The drive was a long one through an avenue of trees. Fortunately the
young parson knew the lie of the ground. He remembered that there was a
back lane from the stables which was a short cut to the Lodge gates. He
remembered that these gates were locked. Even at a gallop he could
hardly reach them and persuade the man to open before the arrival of the
half-dozen bullies that Bully Tappitt kept to do other and dirtier work
than grooming. Just as he was considering the possibility of attempting
a gallop, he heard the deep bell clanging from the stable tower, and
guessed that this must be a signal to the lodge-keeper to stop him. The
bell was followed by a banging of doors, cries from stablemen, cracking
of whips, and then the full-throated baying of hounds. Doctor Syn had
no intention of riding into such disadvantage. He knew well that Bully
Tappitt would not scruple to go to extremes. This at the best would be
a flogging, perhaps injury to his horse, and then as an excuse a
trumped-up accusation of libelous interference, which the Squire would
lodge against him to the College authorities. The odds were too heavy
to risk. It was then that a richer way out occurred to him.
Turning his hose sharp to the right, he rode through the woods, along
the mossy path that led to the river. The Isis ran there broad and
wide, but it would not be the first time that the young scholar and sum
his horse, and he considered that a wetting and a laugh against Tappitt
in the face of his bullies were preferable to a bad manhandling. He was
no coward, as he was to show by the different risk he was to take, but
as a lover he was not desirous to court any facial disfigurement.
So he galloped through the wood in the opposite direction taken by
his would-be assailants. Just as he approached the boathouse, a voice
cried out, “Now, then, sir, what do you want?”
“A heavily built waterman barred his way. He was armed with a short,
sharp boat-hook.
The Doctor reined his horse. “I have been talking to your master,
the Squire of Iffley,” he answered pleasantly, waving his ha nd towards
the river. “He thinks that this little ditch is unswimmable, on
horseback. You know how given he is to a wager. I am about to prove to
him that a good horse and rider find it easy. What do you think?”
“I think not,” growled the boatman. “The stable bell has been
clanging, and that means “close all ways out of the estate.”
“If you come here, I’ll give you good reason not to detain me,”
replied Doctor Syn, affably putting his hand into his breeches pocket.
He saw the covetous glint into the other’s eye. He read his though, “If
this fool cares to hand me a guinea to get out of here, I’ll take it,
stop him leaving and then deny his gift to my master.”
Doctor Syn sure enough held up the guinea invitingly with his right
hand. The man approached, and put out one hand for the coin, and with
the other tried to grasp the rein. The rider shortened rein to prevent
this, and at the same time distracted the other’s attention with a
sudden “Hallo! Is this a good one? I believe not. I’ve been done
brown. I should have rung them one by one. It looks to me—well,
dull.”
“I’ll ring it,” said the other eagerly. “Let’s see.”
“I’ll try it in my teeth,” answered Syn.
He suited the action to the word; put the coin between his teeth, and
made a face as though biting hard.
- 19 -
The man waited for his judgment, eyeing the guinea held so firmly in
the young man’s white teeth. Instead he should have kept his eye on the
young man’s right hand. The fist closed, and a terrific blow caught the
waterman under the jaw. Down the bank he rolled into the water, and
down the bank went horse and rider straight into the river, and by the
time the man scrambled for the bank and held his jaw, Doctor Syn was in
midstream heading for the bank. The current was stronger than he
thought, and swept his horse below the opposite landing-stage, but
Doctor Syn headed for a meadow belonging to a little farm, intending to
land there, despite a notice on a tree which said, “Trespassers will be
prosecuted.”
The owner of the farm happened to be out with a fowling-piece under
his arm, and, objecting to the swimming would-be
trespasser, cried out: “Now then, if, as I saw, you come from yonder
cursed place, you should know what to expect from me if you attempt to
touch my bank. I’ve suffered enough from the sins of the Tappitt crowd,
so my advice is, swim back as fast as you can, lest I drill holes in
you.”
“I’ve just escaped from there, my good friend,” Doctor Syn called