“You remarked just now, sir,” cried the squire, “that you preferred to leave the business of lawyers to the lawyers. Please do so, and remember that while I am head of this jurisdiction on Romney Marsh I’ll brook no dictation from Admiralty men—no, sir, not from the First Lord downward.”
“Come, come, gentlemen,” said Doctor Syn, drumming with his fingers on the table, “I think that this is an ill-fitting time and place for wrangling. The captain has got a bee in his bonnet somehow, and the sooner we get it out for him the better. Let us please hear, sir, what he has to say.”
The squire nodded his head roughly and sat silent, while the rest of the company waited for the captain to continue, which he presently did, still pulling vigorously at his long clay pipe.
“The next thing I don’t like,” he went on, “is Dymchurch itself. I don’t like the Marsh behind it, and I don’t like the flat, open coastline; it looks a deal too innocent for me on the surface, and, not being a strategist, I don’t like it.”
The squire was on edge with irritation.
“I am sure, sir,” he said sarcastically, “that had the Almighty been notified of your objection during the process of the creation he would have extended Dover Cliffs round Dungeness.” The captain didn’t seem to notice the interruption.
“Next, I don’t like the people here, leaving Doctor Syn out of it—for he’s a parson and I never could make head or tail of parsons. I say that, from the squire down, you’re none of you swimming the surface. Sir Antony Cobtree went to great pains to lavishly entertain me yesterday, in order that he might politely imprison me last night. I enjoy good entertainment and the conversation of witty, clever men, but not at the price of a locked door.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about!” said the squire, livid with rage.
“Don’t you, sir?” retorted Captain Collyer. “Well, I do, as I had to risk breaking my neck when I climbed down the ivy from your top window.”
“You had only to tell me of your eccentric habits,” said the squire, “and I would have set a ladder against your window in case the door stuck.”
“The door was locked, and well you know it, sir,” cried the captain, suddenly turning on the squire, “for half an hour after I had climbed back through the window—to be exact, at half-past four—I heard stealthy feet come along the passage and unlock it, by which I know that for a period of the night you wanted to make sure of me inside my room, and when on inquiring from your servants I discover that I am the first guest who has ever slept in that particular room, and that the furniture was put into it for the occasion from one of the spare rooms, I begin to see your wisdom, for that room contained no view of the high road, no view of the Marsh or sea.”
“Gad! sir, you are the first man who has dared to question my hospitality. Perhaps you expected me to give up my room for your accommodation.”
“Nothing of the kind,” answered the captain, “but I expected to be dealt straight with. And this brings me to the end of my complaints, and let me tell you this: I saw enough last night on the Marsh to keep Jack Ketch busy for an hour or so. Gentlemen, I am warning you. You’ll not be the first I’ve sent from the coast to the sessions, nor will you be the last. I warn you, one and all, that I’m going to strike soon. I’m not afraid of your tales of Marsh devils and demon riders. I’ll rout ’em out and see how they look by daylight. I’ve men behind me that I can trust, and they’re pretty hardy fighters. If your demon riders are not of this world, then they’ll do our good steel no harm; but if they are just men playing hanky-panky tricks to frighten fools from the Marsh, well, all I’ve got to say to them is, if they relish British cutlasses in their bowels, let them continue with such pranks as they played upon poor Pepper, and they’ll get Pepper back and be damned to them, for it’s Jack Ketch or the cold steel and nothing else.” And having thus hurled his challenge at the assembly the captain put his pipe upon the table and sat down.
You can imagine that a speech of so staggering a nature had a strange effect upon the company. So sudden was it, so ferocious, so uncalled for, that nearly a minute elapsed before anyone moved. At last the squire rose, speaking quietly but in that clear voice that everybody in Dymchurch knew so well and respected:
“Gentlemen, Doctor Syn spoke very wisely, as it is ever his wont to do, when he rebuked us for wrangling, for, as he said, both time and place are ill fitting. This is the first time that I have been insulted during my long sojourn in Romney Marsh, and I am glad that it has been in the presence of my friends and tenants of Dymchurch, who know me well and will do me right in their own minds, never allowing themselves to be warped for a single instant by the scathing and unjust remarks of a stranger upon whom I have, to the best of my ability, bestowed hospitality and every mark of friendship. On the other hand, I most honestly affirm that Captain Howard Collyer has given me insult in a straightforward way. In his defence I must say that the Admiralty have chosen a bad man to do their spying for them; when I say bad, I mean, of course, the ‘wrong’ man. I know the captain to be a brave and a good sailor. The splendid though tactless drubbing that he gave
