Doctor Syn on the High Seas - Thorndike Russell (читать лучшие читаемые книги TXT) 📗

“I have not the least fear of your rabble, gentlemen, but I shall

welcome your company to the door, since I have that to say to you which

I should prefer the ladies not to hear. Madame, I am your humble

servant.” (This is the Senora.) “And as to your daughter’s rejection of

my nephew in favour of this young scholar—well, I shall have a good

deal to say to my nephew on the subject which will not be to his liking,

for I could never tolerate a failure. But for Heaven’s sake, Madame,

see that your daughter contemplates well what she is doing before

condemning her whole life to a dull English parsonage. I shall be happy

to welcome you both at Iffley whenever you care to honour me. Now,

gentlemen, at your service.”

The Squire’s attitude, his insults and his reputation prepared

Doctor Syn for what was to follow, and as he led the way down the stairs

he decided what course he would take in retaliation. Tony Cobtree

followed with his hand on his sword.

What both the young men suspected would happen came quickly enough.

They knew the initiative was in the Squire’s hands, and he took it highhandedly. Ignoring the growl of protest against him from the crowd, he

turned and faced the two young Marshmen. A step below them on the porch

he looked up at young Cobtree.

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“Do I owe you any small fee for your service?” he asked, with on hand

in his breeches pocket. “I find I have plenty of small change about

me.”

“You owe me nothing,” replied Cobtree coldly. “In my professional

capacity I was acting for the ladies, not for you.”

“As for you, sir,” went on the Squire, turning fiercely upon Doctor

Syn, “since you have taken it upon yourself to interfere with my

business, I shall make a point of interfering with yours.”

“Since I have no interest in you at all,” replied Doctor Syn, “I fail

to see in what way I could have interfered.”

“I call it the grossest interference,” went on the Squire, “the way

you have crept in behind my nephew’s back, knowing him to be safe away

at sea, and then with your smooth tongue to have seduced the mind of a

rich, beautiful, but ignorant girl who should have been his wife. Well,

marry her if you can, but you will first answer this”—and with the back

of his hand he struck the parson in the mouth.

Although the blood tricked down from his lip where the Squire’s ring

had cut it, Doctor Syn appeared deadly calm. Raising his right hand to

check the angry murmur of the crowd behind the Squire, he said:

“I will answer you at once, though no t in the way you expect. You

have just struck a cowardly blow, knowing full well that it would not be

seemly for me to meet you with either barrel or blade. But I have a

man’s heart beneath my black coat, and I take a blow from no one as

despicable as yo u. So down with you into the gutter, where you belong.”

Very deliberately, Doctor Syn began to remove his clerical coat. But

ere he could accomplish this, the Squire had drawn his sword, and with

the flat of the blade struck the parson with all his force upon his

shoulder. In a second Tony Cobtree’s sword was drawn, and with a

“Coward, en garde”, he engaged the Squire.

While hoots of “Shame!” and “Tear him!” arose from the crowd, Doctor

Syn’s voice rang above all, crying, “This is my quarrel, Tony.” At the

same time he leapt, dropping his coat upon the steps, and as he turned

the blades with the impact of his body, he struck up with his left fist

and caught the Squire with all his force upon the jaw. The sudden

impact seemed to lift the heavy bull y off his feet, and down he went

backwards with a sickening thud as his head struck the cobble-stones.

It was then that the crowd pounced, like encouraged terriers upon a

rat. The Squire’s sword was wrested from his grasp, and sent crashing

through the windows of his coach. At the same time the wretched footman

had been dragged from the horses’ heads and thrown to the mob, while

others seized the reins. The armed coachman, assailed from back and

front, fired his blunderbuss into the air, and then gave in for very

fear. He was dragged from his box. His wrists were lasted behind him

with the corded frogs that they ripped from his gorgeous uniformed coat.

His wig was torn off and stuffed into his mouth as a gag, tied with its

own ribbon.

Despite the e fforts of both Doctor Syn and Cobtree to save him, the

Squire of Iffley was lifted up by the infuriated townsmen and bundled

into his coach. The coachman and footman were pushed in after him, and

then, amidst wild yells of derision, they led the horses through the

Market, and into solemn procession as far as Magdalen Bridge. Here, as

the young men were afterwards to learn, the frightened animals were left

to their own devices. A strong flick from the long whip which someone

stole, and the coach went off in made career, swaying and ungoverned.

The wretched inmates of the vehicle must have thanks their stars that

the horses knew the way, for they pulled up panting and kicking at the

closed iron gates, until the gate-keeper came out and

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led them through. The thanks this fellow received at the hands of his

master for having rescued him and the servants was a stroke over the

mouth, so that his lip was cut similarly to Doctor Syn’s. He then

threatened him with dismissal, but then, remembering that the rascal

knew Doctor Syn and might yet be useful in trapping him, he gave him a

guinea, and bade him visit the house after dinner in order to plan the

winning of further guineas. And behind them in Oxford the Giles’ Fair

went on, and in the upper parlour of White Friars it was Tony who said:

“We have not heard the last of our Squire of Iffley, I fear.”

“The rascal is going to be undone for this affair,” replied Syn, “and

I rather think that I shall have most hand in it.”

“What do you intend to do? Imogene noted the grave anxiety on the

lawyer’s face, and it frightened her.

Doctor Syn paused to think and then continued. “I propose that you

and I shall pay a call upon the Chancellor, and over a bottle of his

excellent port shall give him our various of today’s affair. What do

you say?”

“Why, that we could no nothing better,” cried Tony, much relieved.

“That is settled, then,” said Syn, “and I propose also that till then

we dismiss the Squire of Iffley from our minds, and think on happier

things.”

Chapter 5

The Abduction

Although his jaw ached prodigiously from the result of the blow

inflicted upon it by Doctor Syn, and although he ached from head to foot

from his fall and manhandling he had afterwards received, the Squire of

Iffley lost no time in planning his revenge. He decided that this could

best be served by first striking at Doctor Syn through the beautiful

Spanish girl. If he could kidnap both the mother and daughter from the

house in St. Giles’, and get them spirited away to his own mansion at

Iffley, he felt that he could hold them prisoners until they consented

to all his wishes.

He summoned the gate-keeper to whom he had given the blow and the

guinea.

“I presume, Mister Cragg,” he whispered, as the gate-keeper s tood

before him at the dining -room table, “that you have had a full account

of what happened this morning at St. Giles’? No doubt my carriage

servants have given you the most graphic and, I dare swear, exaggerated

version of the disadvantage I was put to, and in which they shared. Is