Doctor Syn

I

Dymchurch-Under-the-Wall

To those who have small knowledge of Kent let me say that the fishing village of Dymchurch-under-the-wall lies on the south coast midway between two of the ancient Cinque ports, Romney and Hythe.

In the days of George III, with Trafalgar still unfought, our coast watchmen swept with keen glasses this broad bend of the Channel; watched not for smugglers (for there was little in Dymchurch to attract the smuggler, with its flat coastline open all the way from Dover cliffs around Dungeness to Beachy Head), but for the French men-o’-war.

In spite of being perilously open to the dangers of the French coast, Dymchurch was a happy little village in those days—aye, and prosperous, too, for the Squire, Sir Antony Cobtree, though in his younger days a wild and reckless adventurer, a gambler and a duellist, had, of late years, resolved himself into a pattern Kentish squire, generous to the village, and so vastly popular. Equally popular was Doctor Syn, the vicar of Dymchurch: a pious and broad-minded cleric, with as great a taste for good Virginia tobacco and a glass of something hot as for the penning of long sermons which sent everyone to sleep on Sundays. Still, it was clearly his duty to deliver these sermons, for, as I have said, he was a pious man, and although his congregation for the most part went to sleep, they were at great pains not to snore, because to offend the old Doctor would have been a lasting shame.

The little church was old and homely, within easy cry of the sea; and it was pleasant on Sunday evenings, during the Doctor’s long extempore prayers, to hear the swish and the lapping and continual grinding of the waves upon the sand.

But church would come to an end at last, as most good things will, although there was a large proportion of the congregation—especially among the younger members—who considered that they could have even too much of a good thing.

The heavy drag of the long sermon and never-ending prayers was lifted, however, when the hymns began. There was something about the Dymchurch hymns that made them worth singing. True, there was no organ to lead them, but that didn’t matter, for Mr. Rash, the schoolmaster—a sallow, lantern-jawed young man with a leaning toward music—would play over the tune on a fiddle, when led by the Doctor’s sonorous voice, and seconded by the soul-splitting notes of Mipps, the sexton, the choir, recruited entirely from seamen whose voices had been cracked these many years at the tiller, would roll out some sturdy old tune like a giant paean, shaking the very church with its fury, and sounding more like a rum-backed capstan song than a respectable, God-fearing hymn. They felt it was worth while kneeling through those long, long prayers to have a go at the hymns. The Doctor never chose solemn ones, or, if he did, it made no odds, for just the same were they bellowed like a chanty, and it was with a long-drawn note of regret that the seafaring choir drawled out the final Amen.

Very often when a hymn had gone with more spirit than usual the Doctor would thump on the desk of the three-decker, addressing the choir with a hearty, “Now, boys, that last verse once again,” and then, turning to the congregation, he would add: “Brethren, for the glory of God and for our own salvation we will sing the—er—the last two verses once again.” Whereat Mr. Rash would scrape anew upon the fiddle, Doctor Syn would pound out the rhythm with a flat banging on the pulpit side, and after him would thunder the sea salts from the choir with an enthusiasm that bade fair to frighten hell itself.

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 buy anything, from a bottle of pickles to a marlinspike in that dirty little store, and get a horrible anecdote thrown in with your bargain from the ready lips of the old fellow, who would continue to hammer away at an unfinished coffin as he talked to you.

But the burning passion that smouldered in the breast of the Ship landlady was in no way shared by the little sexton.

“Missus Waggetts,” he would say, “folk in the death trade should keep single; they gets their fair share of misery, Lord above knows, in these parts with the deaths so uncommon few.”

“Well,” Mrs. Waggetts would sigh, “I often wish as how it had been me that had been took instead of Waggetts. I fair envy him lying up there all so peaceful like, just a-rottin’ slowly along in his coffin.”

But the sexton would immediately fly into a rage with: “Waggetts’ coffin rottin’, did you say, Missus Waggetts? Not mine. I undertook Waggetts, I’d have you remember, and I don’t undertake to rot. I loses money on my coffins, Missus Waggetts. I undertakes, ma’am, undertakes to provide a suitable affair wot’ll keep out damp and water, and cheat worm, grub, slug, and slush.”

“Nobody would deny, Mister Mipps,” the landlady would answer in a conciliatory tone, “as to how you’re a good undertaker. Anyone with half an eye could see as how you knocks ’em up solid.”

But Mipps didn’t encourage Mrs. Waggetts when she was pleased to flatter, so he would take himself off in high dudgeon to avoid her further attentions.

This actual conversation took place one November afternoon, and the sexton, after slamming the inn door to give vent to his irritation, hurried along the seawall toward his shop, comforting himself that he could sit snug inside a coffin and cheer himself up with hammering it.

On the way he met Doctor Syn, who was standing silhouetted against the skyline with his telescope focused upon some large vessel that was standing in off Dungeness.

“Ah, Mr. Mipps,” said the cleric, handing his telescope to the sexton, “tell me what you make of that?”

Mipps adjusted the lens and looked. “The Devil!” he ejaculated.

“I beg your pardon?” said the Doctor. “What did you say?” One of the King’s preventer men had come out of his cottage and was approaching them.

“I don’t make no head nor tale of it,” replied the sexton. “Perhaps you do, sir?”

“Well, it looks to me,” continued the parson, “it—looks—to—me—uncommonly like a King’s frigate. Can’t you make out her guns on the port side?”

“Yes!” cried the sexton; “I’ll be hanged if you’re not right, sir; it’s a damned King’s ship as ever was.”

“Mr. Mipps,” corrected the parson, “again I must ask you to repeat your remark.”

“I said, sir,” replied the sexton, meekly handing back the glass, “that you’re quite right: it’s a King’s ship, a nice King’s ship!”

“And she’s standing in, too,” went on the parson. “I can make her out plainly now, and, good gracious! she’s lowering a longboat!”