It was now Mipps’s turn to look quizzical. ‘Oh! In case someone wants to ride it tomorrow?’
‘Yes, Mr. Mipps,’ replied the Vicar. ‘In case someone wants to ride it tomorrow.’
‘I see.’ The only thing Mr. Mipps really did see at the moment was that he was thirsty, and knowing that their thirsts were usually simultaneous, he asked the Vicar hopefully if there was anything he wanted, adding as an extra hint that laughing was thirsty work. But this time, however, their thirsts did not coincide — for Mipps had certainly no taste for what the Vicar wanted.
‘Water?’ Mr. Mipps could hardly believe his ears.
‘Yes, Mr. Mipps. Water. I asked you to fetch me a ewer of water.’
‘Oh, water.’ His tone conveyed that he had never heard of it, and although he went upstairs to find some, he continued to mutter question and answers during his search. ‘“Water?” I says. “Yes, Mr. Mipps. Water”, he says. “Water?” says I. “I asked you to fetch me a ewer of water.”’ Mr. Mipps shuddered. ‘Ernful stuff.’ He was extremely glad that he had had the foresight to refill his flask with brandy. He felt in his pocket for comfort, then remembered that he had left it in the kitchen, so with a fervent hope that Mrs. Honeyballs hadn’t been at it, he decided that the only thing to do in this emergency was to go and find out if she had. By this time he had forgotten what he was looking for, so having wandered aimlessly into the Vicar’s bedroom — wondering why he was upstairs and not downstairs, he looked wildly about him for assistance. ‘Come up for something,’ he muttered. ‘Come up for wot? I dunno — brandy?’ No. No. Downstairs — hope she hasn’t been at it…. Now what am I ’ere for?’ He had asked himself this question several times before his weather eye decided to befriend him. It came to rest upon the Vicar’s washstand, where, reposing innocently in its basin, was the object of his mutual stress. Water. So before it could elude him again he seized it and hurried downstairs, with a twofold prayer that it would not finish the Vicar, and that Mrs. Honeyballs hadn’t finished his brandy.
The first part of his prayer was answered when, upon handing over the bedroom ewer, Doctor Syn did not drink it. Instead, after a polite, ‘Thank you, Mr. Mipps, I began to fear that perhaps my well had run dry,’ he did a stranger thing. Lifting a corner of the heavy cloth that covered the refectory table, he threw the ernful contents under it. Upon the instant, Mipps understood. With a long-drawn sigh of relief he said to the Vicar: ‘You did give me a fright, sir. I thought you wanted water. Silly of me. I see. Better go. Your well ain’t dry, but mine is. Least, I ’ope it ain’t.’ And hurrying off, he discovered that Bacchus was on his side and that the second part of his prayer had been fulfilled. Mrs. Honeyballs’s weather eye had let her down.
From beneath the refectory table came the protests of a disturbed sleeper. Oaths, yawns and splutterings, and in a short while there appeared the rubicund face of the Squire, his bald head bereft of wig and folds of the tablecloth draped about him like a toga. Doctor Syn regarded him with affectionate amusement. ‘Not Caesar’s wife, Tony. Egad, you’re more like Nero himself.’
Not having heard him mixing his metaphors to the Revenue man, Sir Antony did not appreciate the allusion. Instead, he expressed his customary surprise at finding himself in this position and began as usual to find the reason, before exerting himself to get up. With the assurance of one who has just discovered a great truth, he announced: ‘D’you know, I have an idea. The second bin is stronger than the first.’ The excuse found and not contradicted, he crawled back under the table, found his wig and reappeared again with: ‘What’s the time?’
‘You’ve had your usual hour’s nap, Tony,’ said Doctor Syn.
Again this appeared to surprise Sir Tony. ‘The devil I have. Did I snore? D’you know I had a most remarkable dream. Dreamt I was at one of her ladyship’s putting parties — on the lawn. I was partnering the Bishop’s wife and she kept fouling my ball. So I tu-quo-qued her and she turned into the Scarecrow, and I found I’d got no clothes on. Damned silly when you come to think of it.’
‘Well, Tony,’ replied the Vicar, still regarding him with amusement, ‘while you were — er, partnering the Bishop’s wife, the new Revenue man paid me a social call.’
‘The devil he did,’ said Sir Antony, putting on his wig and slowly getting to his feet. ‘Thought I heard voices. Thought it was Lady Cobtree agitatin’ me to put me breeches on.’ Then the full truth of what Christopher had said dawned upon him.
‘What?’ he shouted. ‘Revenue Officer at this time of night? What did he want? Why didn’t he come to me? New man, eh? Doesn’t know the ropes. Should have come to me. Suppose he thinks I can’t keep order. Suppose he was criticizing my jurisdiction. Damned unfair. Mean advantage. Me, standin’ there shiverin’ with nothin’ on.’ His dream had evidently been so vivid that he was still in it, and Doctor Syn, knowing of old that his friend was like to become quarrelsome if not placated, said in all sincerity: ‘Now really, Tony; you should have heard the things he said about you.’
The Squire was mollified, having taken this to mean that the Revenue man had paid him compliments, which was indeed Doctor Syn’s intent; and so, after saying that no doubt the Revenue man was a damned decent fellow, he sat down comfortably in the chair from which he had so ignominiously fallen, and good-naturedly resumed the conversation with: ‘What was I sayin’ when I slid off?’
Doctor Syn explained that his last words before disappearing under the table had been to ask for another drink. The Squire received this news with as much interest as though he had delivered a pearl of wisdom, adding that he might as well have it now. Then in an attempt to pick up the threads of their interrupted discussion, said that as far as he could recollect, he was being annoyed about something.
‘Now what was I being annoyed about?’ he asked himself. Again, the bruises of the morning reminded him of his misfortunes, and after a lengthy grumble, in which there figured prominently the faulty bell-pull, the remains of Gabriel Creach, her ladyship’s bad temper, the waste of a good day’s sport, that confounded doormat bitin’ his toe; and then making that ridiculous offer of a thousand guineas for the Scarecrow who won’t be caught, this gave him another hint and he remembered what he was being annoyed about, and said triumphantly: ‘I know. Those fumblin’ old Lords of the Level askin’ the Dragoons to come and catch our Scarecrow. Read it in the papers. Lots of elephants tryin’ to catch an eel. Damned silly. Know perfectly well, no smugglin’ in this part of the country.’ Even that did not satisfy him as being the real cause; so he started again: ‘No, what was I bein’ annoyed about?’ Another ray of hope: ‘Oh, I know. That confounded highwayman, stoppin’ the Dover coach with me wife’s Aunt Agatha. Must have been Gentleman James because of his good manners. Damned bad manners, I call it, takin’ the diamonds old girl plannin’ to leave Cicely.’ Cicely. At last he had found the real cause of his annoyance, as is often the case, the chief worry having been obliterated by the trifling ones, and his voice now took on a sincerely worried tone. ‘That’s what I was annoyed about, Christopher — Cicely and Maria. Bad enough to have a daughter in France; all those upstarts cuttin’ people’s heads off all over the place — then Cicely goin’ off and not sayin’ where she was goin’. Said she was goin’ off to stay with the Pemburys, but she didn’t go there. And just when I want you most you go off preachin’ in London, and only return yesterday. No, I’m worried, Christopher.’
Doctor Syn urged that there was really no cause for anxiety, pointing out that Cicely was well able to take care of herself; that she had probably changed her mind about the Pemburys and had gone to stay with other friends; that probably she had written, but that the mails were unreliable.