When they had hardly a note left in their bodies, the service would be rounded off by Doctor Syn, and the congregation would gather in little groups outside the church to bid him a good night. But Doctor Syn would take some minutes changing his black gown for his cloth surcoat; besides, there was the collection to be counted and entered into the book, and a few words of parochial business with the sexton, but at last it would be all finished and he would come forth to receive the homage of the parish. He would be accompanied by Sir Antony, who was warden as well as squire and a regular churchgoer, as the well-thumbed pages of a large prayerbook in the family pew could prove. Bestowing a cheery word here and a kindly nod there, the gentleman would pass on to the courthouse, where, after a hearty supper, Doctor Syn would metaphorically lay aside his robes of righteousness, and over a long pipe of his favourite tobacco and a smoking bowl of bishop, with many an anecdote of land and sea, make the jolly squire laugh till his sides ached, for he possessed to a lively extent that happy knack of spinning a good yarn, having travelled far and read much, albeit he was a parson.
And while the vicar entertained his patron at the courthouse, Mr. Mipps in a like manner held court behind the closed doors of the old Ship Inn. Here, with his broken clay pipe asmoke like a burning chimney and with eminent peril of singeing the tip of his nose, he would recount many a tale of wild horror and adventure, thoroughly encouraged by Mrs. Waggetts, the landlady, who had perceived the sexton’s presence to be good for trade; and thus it was that by working his imagination to good effect Doctor Syn’s parochial factotum was plied with many a free drink at the expense of the Ship. The little sexton was further encouraged into yarning because it gratified his vanity to see that they all believed in him. It was exhilarating to know that he really made their flesh creep. He felt a power and chuckled in his heart when he saw his audience swallowing his exaggerations for gospel as easily as he himself could swallow rum, for Mipps liked rum—he had served for a great part of his life as a ship’s carpenter and had got the taste for it—and so as a seasoned traveller they respected him, for what he hadn’t seen of horrors in the far-off lands—well, the whole village would have readily staked their wigs was not worth seeing.
II
The Coming of the King’s Frigate
Now Doctor Syn was very fond of the sea, and he was never far away from it. Even in winter time he would walk upon the seawall with a formidable telescope under his arm, his hands thrust deep into the pockets of a long sea-coat, and his old black three-cornered parson’s hat cocked well forward and pulled down over his eyes. And although the simple old fellow would be mentally working out his dry-as-dust sermons, he would be striding along at a most furious speed, presenting to those who did not know him an altogether alarming appearance, for in tune to his brisk step he would be humming the first verse of an old-time sea chanty that he had picked up from some ruffianly seadog of a parishioner; and as he strode along, with his weather eye ever on the lookout for big ships coming up the Channel, the rough words would roll from his gentle lips with the most perfect incongruity:
“Oh, here’s to the feet that have walked the plank,
Yo ho! for the dead man’s throttle,
And here’s to the corpses floating round in the tank,
And the dead man’s teeth in the bottle.”
He was as proud of this song as if he had written it himself, and it was a continual source of amusement to the fishermen to hear him sing it, which he frequently did of an evening in the parlour of the old Ship Inn when he went there for a chat and a friendly pipe; for Doctor Syn was, as I have said, broad-minded, and held views that would certainly have been beyond those of the diocesan dignitaries. The very daring of a parson drinking with the men in a public inn had a good effect, he declared, upon the parish, for a good parson, as a good sailor, should know when he has had enough. The squire would back him up in this, and there they would both sit every evening laughing and talking with the fishermen, very often accompanying some crew down to the beach to help them launch their boat—and of course all this added to their popularity. But on Sunday nights they dined at the courthouse, leaving the field open for the redoubtable Mipps, who, as has been said, took full advantage of it.
Now the ungainly little sexton had a great admirer in the person of Mrs. Waggetts, the landlady of the Ship. Her husband had been dead for a number of years, and she was ever on the lookout for another. She perceived in the person of Mipps her true lord and master. He was enterprising, he had also money of his own, for he was parish undertaker as well as sexton, and ran from his small shop in the village every trade imaginable. You could
