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No one was louder with ‘Amen’ than Mr. Mipps, who was able to appreciate the humour of the situation, though
his face showed nothing but righteous zeal for the destruction of the Scarecrow.
Since the Captain never referred to what he was himself pla
pla
Perhaps the Captain underestimated the Vicar’s quick instinct for reading men’s minds. He did not know that the
Vicar was studying him all the time.
The Captain, pretending to be beaten by the Scarecrow, which he would not acknowledge in his mind, was under
the impression that Doctor Syn was tricked into the belief that he could think of no plan of campaign, and was
therefore content to mark time with carrying on the ordinary routine of a ship’s company ashore. And yet as the
days passed and they faced each other over the port, an occasion when conversation was demanded between host
and guest, the Vicar could have staked his wig that Captain Blain was working secretly on lines that gave him
inward satisfaction, but which he was not willing to divulge even to his supposed ally. The closer the Captain
became, so did Doctor Syn become more communicative as to his own ideas on the subject.
Although many of these suggestions were sound and practical against the Scarecrow, the Vicar was well aware
that the Captain, although politely pretending to consider them, merely discussed them in order to dismiss them in
his own mind in favour of whatever scheme he was working upon, a scheme which he had decided not to impart to
his host.
But if he was close about his own plans, he tried hard to draw Doctor Syn into conversing about his past travels
in the Americas, which the Doctor at first thought was but politeness, until he began to wonder whether his guest
was not trying to trip him up about his past. This amused the good Doctor, for he knew that the sea-dog would have
to prove himself a lot cleverer to do that.
Doctor Syn knew how to deal with the past, but the Captain’s campaign against the Scarecrow was a vital
question of the immediate future, and it was very necessary that he should know beforehand which way the cat was
going to jump when the Captain opened the bag.
As he confessed to Mipps: “I can of course take an opportunity of accusing the Captain that he is not keeping to
his side of our bargain. If he persistently keeps me in the dark I have every excuse to do so. On the other hand, I
would prefer not to show such a curiosity. I mean, I should like to discover his scheme, whatever it may be, without
his knowledge.”
An opportunity presented itself from an unexpected quarter. It was young George Lee, the cooper, who brought
things to a head in the Vicarage, and enabled the vicar to discover and thwart the Captain’s plan.
George Lee had been one of the Doctor’s young parishioners, till he had left Dymchurch for Hythe in order to be
apprenticed to the master cooper of the brewery.
He had been most solemnly initiated according to this ancient rights known as ‘trussing the Cooper’. This
consists of squaring up a cask with the help of his master, and then laying a cresset or iron bucket, wh ich when
alight, warms the cask, and makes the staves pliable for shaping, which are then bound with the hoops and beaten
with heavy hammers. The apprentice is then ‘rung in’. This part of the ceremony is performed by hammering upon
sheet iron. At the close of this pandemonium the willing, though nervous, apprentice, allows himself to become the
victim to the masters of the craft, who bundle him, feet first, into the cask which he had helped to fashion. Gathered
around him, as he crouches in the cask, the masters hammer upon the hoops, while the ‘christening’ ceremony is
performed with sawdust, shavings and water.
The cask, still warm from the cresset, is then turned upon its side, and with the victim still inside it is rolled up
and down the length of the shop.
The apprentice is then dragged out by his ankles and tossed into the air, when, to show that there is no personal
animosity towards him, his particular master is tossed up by the same tormentors. His health is then drunk by all,
and the apprentice has become a fully-fledged cooper.
Now George Lee had recently passed though this ordeal, and was justly proud in being a real member of his
trade.
Meeting him outside the Brewery Cooperage in Hythe, Doctor Syn asked him whether he found his working
hours too long, to which the lad had replied that he only wished he could be allowed to work longer, adding that he
could forgo all recreation for the sake of his job. Therefore Doctor Syn was the more surprised to find him entering
the Vicarage gate during the morning following his meeting with him in Hythe.
“Have you then an enforced holiday, my lad?” he asked. “From what you told me yesterday, I did not expect to
see you so far from the cooper’s shop upon a working day. You want to see me, eh?” And without waiting for an
answer he added, with a smile: “I can guess at your purpose, I think. You are come to ask me to put up the ba
for you and Polly Henley, eh? You find that you are prepared to face matrimony now that you are a cooper indeed.”
The lad blushed and shook his head. “No, sir. Though in that respect I am only waiting Polly’s permission to do
so. But I did not come for that reason, though I wish I had. I am here, sir, under orders to see the naval gentleman,
called Captain Blain, who I think is staying with you, sir.”
“So you come to see my guest and not me, eh?” replied the Vicar, with another smile. “Well, I fancy you will
find him inspecting his men in the old barn. This is his usual hour for that ceremony.”
The lad thanked the Vicar, and was for passing on towards the large Tythe Barn, when the Vicar, wondering what
business could be afoot between these two, stopped him with, “Has the Captain been commissioning you to make
him a barrel, then?”
“No, sir,” replied the cooper. For a moment he paused, as though uncertain what to say next. Then he added: “It
is a business meeting, sir, which I am obliged to keep to myself, according to the Captain’s express orders. Though
to keep any secret from you, sir, seems all wrong, I admit.”
“Nonsense,” laughed the Vicar. “A promise is a promise, and a good man knows when to keep his mouth shut.
No doubt the good Captain has his reasons for secrecy, and you do quite right to respect them.”
Just then the Captain came striding out from the darkness of the barn’s great doors into the sunlight, and seeing
the Vicar talking to the lad, whom he had been expecting, he came towards them with: “Ah, so you have intercepted
my messenger from the cooperage, eh? A purely technical matter, Vicar. A contract for a sprung water-cask that
they are to put right, that’s all.”
“And you have to worry about little things like that, Captain?” asked the Doctor i
matters were arranged for you from the Supplies Office.”
“And sink me, Parson, so they should be,” responded the Captain with some warmth. “I fear they are not,
however. At least not with any satisfaction. For any immediate service I find it better to put out a job direct, and
send in the account to the Admiralty after.”
Doctor Syn made a mental note of this, and later came to the conclusion that in reality Captain Blain would do no
such thing. He knew enough of ships and shipping to be quite sure that such artic les as casks, when faulty, would be
supplied fresh from the dockyard coopers, and not from such a place as the brewery in Hythe.