It was on a bright spring morning that Mr. Mipps came trundling along by the churchyard wall with his worldly possessions in a sea-chest which he pushed on a squeaky barrow that he had stolen in Hythe from the yard of the 'Red Lion'.
Although for many years a stranger to Dymchurch, anyone could have told that this quizzical little man was a mariner. He smelt of tar. He was covered in it. Not only had he given his sea-chest a generous daubing but he had screwed his scanty hair into a sharp tarred queue, which stuck out beyond his broken three-cornered hat for all the world like a jigger-gaff. He wore a faded blue cloth coat with tails which hung too low behind his short thin legs, and his dirty striped cotton bell trousers were furled up to show an ancient pair of thick shoes with brass buckles.
Although presenting a sorry appearance, his perky bearing gave the impression that Mr. Mipps was in excellent spirits. His clay pipe, with stem broken off too close to the blackened bowl, puffed a continual smoke-stream into the nostrils of the long thin nose that roofed it. An economical pipe-man, Mr. Mipps, for the smoke that escaped from the bowl was sucked up through his nose to join the rest of it in his lungs.
He set down his borrowed barrow by the low wall of the churchyard and looked around. Having the most admirable opinion of himself, he was never above taking himself into his own confidence by the simple expedient of talking to himself aloud, which he then proceeded to do.
“Well, Mippsy, I never did see an anchorage so snug and trim as this 'ere village, all kept taut and Bristol fashion by that old sea-wall, and I raises my Blog to the 'ole collection.”
'Blog' was a word of his own orthography and referred no one quite knew why, to the black patch which covered his right eye, and which he now lifted in salutation to the place of his birth. It was significant to his character that the eye thus uncovered was perfectly sound; indeed, was more gimletty in its penetration that its fellow. He had a strange theory that an eye kept in the dark was readier for action when suddenly exposed to the light. He also found that its sudden lifting so surprised people that it took them at a disadvantage, and after much practice he found that he could finger his 'blog' with as much effect as any dandy who aided his affectation with a quizzing glass.
“There's the sluice-gates,” he continued. “How are you, sluice-gates? Quite well, thank you? And them gulls are the very spit of their great-great-grandfathers I knew as a boy. Them rooks, too, ain't done nothing for their sore throats. The 'Ship Inn', the Court House and the church same as ever 'and not moved a blessed inch', as the prodigal says in the fifth Act, but the 'Sea-Wall Tavern' has—she's grown and painted up too. And, bury me like a lubber in a coffin, if it ain't—”
Mr. Mipps suddenly broke off his meditations, for he saw standing on the sea-wall, the black-garbed figure of Dr. Syn. “That's him,” he muttered. “Trim and alert, peculiar and odd as when he faced the mutineers on the deck of the old Imogene off Anastasia, and spit the ringleader through the neck with his small-sword. He's a calm 'un, he is. Calm as hoil. And here he is, settled down to his old trade of preaching same as he told me he would.”
Dr. Syn had been watching ships in the Fairway through his brass telescope. The sea-wall was his favourite walk, and up on it, behind Grove House, the squire had given him permission to re-erect Josiah Wraight's hut, that had been made from the bulkhead of the wreck's fo'c'sle. So upon the sea-wall behind Grove House it now stood, railed around to make it the more private, and one of the spars was erected as a flag-staff. Its windows faced the sea, so that the doctor's privacy was further assured. In this hut, fitted up inside as a cabin, the doctor would as often as not write his sermons, and after a time Charlotte went so far as to accuse him of liking it better than the vicarage. Certainly, it was a snug retreat. On the wildest day he could sit there with the little stove alight and laugh at the spray lashing against the window panes.
Dr. Syn thrust his telescope under his arm and climbed down the steep grass bank of the sea-wall, and as he watched him, Mr. Mipps, becoming strangely nervous of a sudden, vaulted into the churchyard and took cover behind a tombstone. He heard the footsteps of his master crunching briskly over the gravel. Then they stopped abruptly. Dr. Syn was eyeing the sea-chest.
“Mipps—his chest,” he read quietly; then in sharp tones added: “Come out of that, and let's have a look at you.”
“All aboard, sir,” replied Mipps, jumping up and saluting.
“And what do you want with me?” The doctor's long, thin face was inscrutable.
“Well, sir,” faltered Mipps, “knowing as 'ow you wished to settle down at your first profession, which you give up through no fault of your own, and hearing as 'ow a gentleman answering your description was beneficed 'ere, in my birthplace, I thought, sir, with all respects to your 'oly cloth, that you might be glad of a grateful old ship's carpenter what wants to settle down too.”
“And what if I prefer to forget the past, eh?” A fierceness had flashed into Dr. Syn's eyes. “Suppose I deny ever having seen you before. What then?”
“What then, sir?” repeated Mipps, swallowing his disappointment with an effort. “Why, no offence took, sir, and I'll steer for an anchorage elsewhere. But I'd like you to 'ave this before I goes, sir, as it weighs a bit heavy in my coat-tail pocket.”
After executing a difficult contortion with the coat-tail in question, Mr. Mipps drew from the pocket something wrapped in a bandana kerchief.
“What's that?” demanded the doctor.
“Your Virgil, sir, what was stolen by that cross-eyed nigger at Panama, who thought it was a book o' magic. Remember? Well, I fetched up with him a year ago, and he won't steal no more Virgils, sir, he won't.”
Dr. Syn took the book and opened it. “My notes. I made them at Oxford. A long time ago, Mr. Mipps. A long time. I am glad to get this back.”
“Glad you're glad. Good morning, sir.” And vaulting into the road, he picked up the barrow-shafts, turned it round, and started back the way he had come.
As Dr. Syn watched the quaint back view of the little sea-dog thus setting off without a grumble, his eyes grew kind. “Come back, you rascal,” he called.
Round came the barrow and back came Mipps.
“As I said, I am glad to get this volume once more. Steer your chest to the vicarage there, and wait for me. And take no heed if Mrs. Fowey, the housekeeper, should be short-tempered, as she usually is with sailor-men. She'll no doubt send you to the right-about, but I trust you to be sufficiently insistent to gain an interview with the reverend gentleman, eh? Then, if we can come to a very definite understanding, I'll find you the means of settling down.”
“A job?” inquired Mipps hopefully.
Dr. Syn nodded. “Now off with you, for here comes the squire, and I want a word with him. But, remember this—I have never seen you before in my life. Got that?”
“Got it, sir.” And Mr. Mipps squeaked his barrow towards the vicarage.
