taken across the river by boat, and sent back the next morning with
money stitched into her clothing. At the end of this sad story the man
chuckled grimly:
“But my revenge is coming, and little do they know how I am going to
strike. I have planned with some cunning.”
- 20 -
“It seems to me, then,” said Doctor Syn, “that it were a good thing for
the neighbourhood if this scoundrel should be removed to the place in
which he rightly belongs.”
“Aye, sir,” replied the farme r. “And that is where I wish him, and
I’ll help him there too. The deepest Hell.”
“The same place to which I was referring,” nodding the parson dryly.
“Well, keep your ears open for immediate gossip concerning him, and you
may find that I have taken the responsibility of sending him there from
your shoulders.”
“Don’t rob me of revenge. I live for it,” pleaded the man. “Let me
be some help to you.”
“The time is not yet ripe. But soon I may ask your help,” and with a
wave of his hand and still dripping wet, Doctor Syn cantered out through
the farmyard and galloped up the road to the bridge.
The farmer was right. He reached the gates in less than three
minutes, but drew rein ere he came abreast of them, walking his horse
along the grass footpath to avoid the noise.
But so much noise was the Squire of Iffley making with his curses and
his riding-crop upon backs of hounds and stablemen that no one heard
the rider approach or saw him peer through the gates with a grin. In the
centre of the dr ive stood Tappitt, lashing out freely with his whip.
Some half-dozen stablemen armed with cudgels and whips were staring up
the drive.
“I tell you,” cried the Squire, “that he can only get out this way.
The coward is hiding in the trees somewhere. Loose those mastiffs and
let ‘em rout him out. He can’t get out of locked gates, or jump the
wall.”
“I’m afraid he has got out all the same,” laughed Doctor Syn.
The Squire swung around with an oath, and stared at the rider through
the gates.
“How the devil—” he began.
But Doctor Syn cut him short.
“I may be a parson, but I am also a good judge of horseflesh. I
never ride a horse who cannot jump. But, my faith, the Isis is a broad
ditch. However, a good horse is a good horse. Tomorrow? At noon? The
attorney, the ladies and myself will await you at St. Giles’. Good day.
I’m sorry I cannot stay longer to enjoy your sport and hospitality, but
we tutors are hard-worked.”
And digging his heels in hard, Doctor Syn let his horse out into a
full gallop towards Oxford.
- 21 -
Iffley.
White Friars, in which Doctor Syn had taken lodging for the ladies,
was a pleasantly situated house with windows overlooking St. Giles’
market. The Annual Fair was in full swing. Hundreds of merry-makers
jostled each other good-humouredly to get to the various booths of
entertainment and the gaily decorated stalls. From every street people
were hurrying to swell the crowd.
With one arm encircling Imogene’s waist, Doctor Syn leaned from the
open window enjoying the scene.
“Our visitor from Iffley will be hard put to it in making his way
through this lot,” he laughed.
Antony Cobtree, who was seated at a table with the Senora, looked up
from the legal papers he had been arranging.
“You seem very sanguine that he’ll come,” he answered. “For my part,
I think he will not dare to show his face. The rascal has too many
enemies amongst the townsfolk. When you made the appointment, you
forgot the Fair, Christopher, and I am willing to lay you a guinea that
he will not have the courage to swagger his way through that crowd.”
“The bully is not without courage,” replied Syn. “And I still think
he will come.”
“Are you willing, then, to lose your guinea?” asked the young lawyer.
“I rather fear you would lose yours,” laughed the Doctor. “There’s a
coach just turning into the Market, and I can see the Iffley arms on the
panel. The coachman seems to have as little regard for the crowd as his
master has, for he’s lashing out freely with his long whip, while our
bully is poking his cane at them through the window. Come and see.
There will be trouble, I think.”
Although the plunging horses had cleared a space with their hoofs,
the crowd was so densely packed that those nearest to the coach could
not press back out of reach from the lashings of the long whip, and the
coachman standing up on his box fiercely struck at all within reach.
Angry men were rushing the coach doors, but right and left the heavy
knob of the Squire’s long cane kept striking, and the oaths that
followed each sickening thud proclaimed the fact that he had scored a
hit.
“You idle dogs!” shouted the Squire. “Must I teach you to give way
for your betters? If you want a lesson, I will give you one.”
At this there was a growling protest from the crowd, and a woman’s
voice rang out with, “What happened to Betty Dale, the girl at Iffley
Mill?”
“Aye, and a score of other poor lasses like Esther Sommers,” cried
another.
“And he dares drive his cattle into St. Giles!” sang out a man.
The Squire flung open the door of the coach and shouted to the
footman to get down and lead the near horse, which was still plunging.
Leaving his cane to the coach, he then drew his sword and faced his
assailants. They shrank back before the naked steel. They well knew
his reputation, and feared the determined fury in his eyes. conscious
of his own power, he laughed and walked slowly to the horses’ heads.
The footman, who feared his master more than the angry crowd, climbed
down from the high ledge at the back of the coach on which he stood, and
followed the Squire to the front, where he grasped the bearing-reins and
steadied the frightened animals.
- 22 -
“The times are bad indeed,” said the Squire in a loud voice, “when a
gentleman must needs cut a passage for his own coach through such scum.
Follow on my hee ls, you” (this over his shoulder to the terrified
footman), “and we’ll reach White Friars over dead bodies if any of these
clodpoles oppose us.”
Thereupon he advanced so suddenly that those of the crowd immediately
threatened by the Bully’s weapon fell head over heels against their
fellows behind them, who were so tightly packed before that they were
seized with panic, and it was amidst groans from the fallen, shrieks
from the women and children and cruses from all, that the Squire of
Iffley’s equipage swept on towards White Friars.
Doctor Syn, still learning from the parlour window which was on the
first floor, saw that a lot of women and children were wedged in the
crowd directly in front of the entrance to the house, so, leaving his
companions, he r an down the white-paneled stairway, and, flinging open
the front door, dragged those nearest into the safety of the hall, at
the same time ordering others to follow their example. Thus a clearing
was effected in front of the Squire’s sword and the oncoming horses.
In this manner it did not take long to reach the house, where the
Squire called a halt.
“Await me here,” he cried to his servants. “and should any of this
rabble annoy you further, do not scruple to use strong measures.” He
then addressed h is stalwart coachman. “Get your artillery out of the
boot, you fool, and if your whip don’t do your business try flintflashing.”
Whereupon the coachman stood up, put the whip in its socket, opened
the locker beneath the box seat, and produced two horse-pistols and a
blunderbuss, which he lay on the roof of the vehicle.
It was then that the Squire saw, to his further annoyance, that the
way to the house was barred by the huddled women and children whom
Doctor Syn was shepherding.
“Faith, must I cu t my way through this lot, to keep an appointment?”
At this, and the sight of his yet drawn sword, the children cried and
whimpered, while some of the women set up a screaming. In a few
moments, however, Doctor Syn managed to calm their fears, assuring them
that he would see to their protection, and as soon as all was quiet he
confronted the Squire, and spoke clearly enough for all to hear.
“I believe, sir, that you take great pride in your title of “Bully’.
It is an epithet after your own heart, and no doubt you consider ‘Bully’
Tappitt to be something of a fine fellow. In that I suggest you are
wrong. If you look at a dictionary, providing, of course, that you
can read—you will find that a bully is a coward. And the
dictionary is right, sir, for what is more cowardly than a
strong man oppressing those he thinks weaker than himself?”
At this there was a mummur of approbation from the angry men
who were grouped around the coach.
“Hold your tongues, you rascals, when you hear your betters
speak.”
But more than his words, it was the sunlight gleaming on the
naked blade that silenced them. At which the Squire, with a
scornful laugh, turned his back on them and answered Doctor Syn.
“I think it takes more than a coward to have faced this mass
of dangerous discontents alone, sir.”
- 23 -
“I rather think that Bully Tappitt, in his vast conceit, saw no
danger in it,” replied the parson, with a sneer. “For your own safety,
however, let me tell you that your situation is very dangerous; for,
were I to use a little oratory against you, those stout fellows of
Oxford Town would duck you in the horse-trough younder. But I choose to
do no such thing. My cloth forbids it. I am man of peace. And I
recommend these good people to ignore your brutalities, and to continue
their merry-makings.”
At this some of the bolder spirits raised a cheer, but the Squire
took no heed, but continued:
“Merry-makings?” he repeated. “This Fair is a scandal to the
neighbourhood. What is it but an annual excuse for cheating,
quarreling, idle lewdness and drinking to excess?”
“Are you claiming a monopoly upon your own pet habits, sir?” asked
the Doctor scornfully.
This the Squire ignored, as well as the laughter the remark caused
amongst the crowd. He merely continued:
“I should have thought that the University, of which you are such a
bright ornament, would have used what influence it has to stop this
annual inconvenience.”
“The University, sir, agrees with the God in Heaven Whom it tries to
serve, in that the lives and happiness of these good people are vastly
more important than the trifling inconvenience that may trouble
gentlemen of your kidney.”
The Squire’s sword twitched angrily, but on hearing a chorus of
applause behind him, he had sufficient wisdom not to run his blade
through the body of a defenseless man before the eyes of so many hostile
witnesses.
“Have done with your incivilities, sir!” he cried angrily. “You
take advantage of your cloth, and think yourself secure by toadying to
peasants. I did not come here, at some inconvenience, to bandy words
with you, but to transact a piece of business with some ladies. Lead
the way.
“The sooner it’s over the better,” replied the Doctor.
He turned to lead the way, and saw that Tony Cobtree was standing in
the porch. The young attorney was dressed in the height of fashion as
became one of his station who had journeyed so far to woo his lady. The
Squire saw him too, and noted that his fingers were playing a dangerous
tattoo upon the beautifully chased gold hilt of his small-sword.
“Another security you had, eh, Doctor?” he sneered. “Your cloth and
popularity amongst the commoners were not sufficient. You must have an
armed coxcomb behind you.”
“You would find but little of the coxcomb in either of us, sir, if it
came to sword-play,” replied Syn haughtily. “But we are not
sufficiently interested to indulge you. Perhaps we set as much store
upon the rules of duelling as you do, and just as you value your station
in life—such as it is—why, so do we; and no man of breeding is
considered dishonoured by declining to meet one whom he knows to be
beneath him.”
“Have done with your glib talk, Mister Parson!” rapped out the
Squire, “and let us transact our business with these for eign women.
Where are they? And where is this Kentish lawyer that you spoke about?”
“Let me introduce myself, sir,” retored young Cobtree, coming
forward. “You, I understand, are this Iffley Squire, of whom we have
heard small good. I am Antony Cobtree, Attorney at Law, and here for
the convenience and protection of two respected Spanish ladies. I have
been recommended for this
- 24 -
office by my friend here, Doctor Syn of this University, and by two very
distinguished Justices of the Peace in the County of Kent, one of them
being Sir Henry Pembury of Lympne Castle, and the other my own father
and his friend, Sir Charles Cobtree, Leveller of the Marsh Scots of
Romney, in the Court -House of Dymchurch-under-the-Wall. Let me add that
my recommend ation has been approved by the two honoured ladies who await
you above. And let me add again that they are only willing to receive
you as representing your ward and nephew, Mister Nicholas Tappitt, now
absent in Spain, who was involved in generous business ties with the
late Senor Almago. These ladies now await you: the widow and the
daughter of the said Spanish gentleman. Doctor Syn and myself are both
busy men; and so if you will follow us to the parlour above, you shall
hear the instructions regarding your ward.”
Saying which, young Cobtree led the way through the crowd of women
and children in the hall.
Now, on the mention of the parlour above, the Squire of Iffley lifted
his quizzing -glass and, surveying the window indicated, beheld the
beautiful Imogene anxiously peering over the ledge.
The Squire, seeming not to have listened to the purport of the
lawyer’s speech, called upon Doctor Syn to wait.
“Is that young filly above there the wench whom my nephew has let
slip through his purse-strings?”
Doctor Syn did not reply, but with an angry gesture pointed to the
porch.
The Squire, however, did not immediately obey the invitation to enter
the house. He continued to gaze at the Spanish girl, who, feeling the
embarrassment, retired from the open window.
“I have always thought my nephew a fool,” continued the Squire. “I
am now so sure of it that if I do not marry the girl myself I shall at
least cut him out of my testament. She is as beautiful as she is rich,
and shall such a morsel be thrown away upon such a rapacious young
parson as yourself? We’ll soon see to that, sir. Lead me to this
charmer, at once.”
Doctor Syn, who had kindly set the children aside to make a passageway, now turned with an expression of suppressed fury upon the Squire of