THE SCARECROW RIDES (26 page)

It was during one of these wild whirlings of the mist that the
sergeant broke the silence with: “See that, sir?”

“What?” asked Captain Faunce.

“Why, a ship, a boat. There again, sir. See over there.”

Faunce nodded. “No doubt it's the Sandgate Revenue cutter.”

“Or a smuggling lugger from France,” suggested the sergeant.

“From France, eh? And near in shore. See, there's a boat putting
off. Damn this mist. It's covered again. Sergeant, what if our man is
in hiding on the Marsh after all, in spite of the Dymchurch squire's
incredulity? What better way of escape would the rascal get, eh? He's
no doubt got many friends across the water with whom he has traded.
It's worth trying, anyway, and it will do the village of Dymchurch no
harm to hear our horses ride through their street. We'll gallop down
through Newchurch and have a look at the boat, if she hasn't gone when
we get there.”

“If it's Grinsley,” said the sergeant, “you may be sure we'll be in
time, for he'd let the boat wait for him rather than him wait for the
boat.”

“Yes, there's something in that, Sergeant. Come along and let's get
to horse.”

And thus it was that the full regiment of Dragoons rode hell for
leather across the Marsh upon this misty, windy night.

In the meantime, Mr. Mipps, now knee-deep in the waves, encouraging
the unloading of the kegs, now up on the windswept beach superintending
the loading of the horses, saw his dreams of yet another run being
successfully terminated.

And back in the vicarage Dr. Syn slept peacefully, dreaming of
Charlotte Cobtree and pearls.

Now Dr. Syn always slept with his four-poster curtains drawn back
and the lead-rimmed casement set wide open, for he liked to hear the
sea grinding up the beach and slapping against the sea-wall. He was a
light sleeper, though, when it came to other sounds than the waves to
which he was so used.

On this particular night he awoke hearing a noise of someone
clambering up the old ivy roots beneath his window.

He raised himself on one elbow and from beneath the bolster he drew
out a loaded pistol.

Mr. Mipps climbed the ivy easily and leaned across the window-sill
into the bedroom. From this point of vantage he intended to awake and
arrest the vicar's attention without alarm. But the vicar was awake,
and perceiving only a shadow silhouetted against the driving white
clouds, was determined to keep his visitor at that point of
disadvantage and to arrest either his escape or advance, for at the
moment he afforded him a very sure target.

“If you move, I'll fire,” whispered Dr. Syn. “I have you covered.”

“Don't shoot, Captain,” whispered the intruder in answer. “No, for
the love of heaven, don't shoot, 'cos there'll be death enough on the
Marsh this night without it.”

“Ah, Mipps, is it?” said Dr. Syn. “Now what are you doing here? Why
do you talk of death on the Marsh? And why do you call me 'captain'?”

“May I come in and tell you for at the moment my back view is an
excellent target for any fool's blunderbuss.”

“You may come in,” replied Dr. Syn.

“Right, sir, then I'll tell you all about it. An 'orrible affair is
takin' place.”

“I can guess it, sir,” hissed Syn, as Mipps clambered over the sill
and slid into the room.

“Oh, then that'll save time,” he answered in a tone of relief.

“You've disobeyed orders, eh? Is it smuggling you've been
trafficking with?”

“Someone had to look after the fools,” pleaded Mipps, “and you know,
Captain, you likes a drop o' brandy yourself just as I likes a bit of
excitement. Well, we was landing kegs on the beach as calm as you
please, when down gallops them damned Dragoons looking for Grinsley and
collars the lot of us.”

“You too?” demanded the vicar angrily.

“Yes, but I had my face muffled, slipped my cables in no time,
slithered off in a passing puff of mist and come 'ere for 'elp. Now,
Vicar, I take it, you ain't never goin' to stand by and see the pick o'
the parish strung up like mutineers, I knows. Mind you, it wouldn't
have 'appened if you'd been a-leadin' of us. You 'as a way with you,
you 'as. You'd soon outdo them Dragoons, even now. If there's one man
what can still save the parish necks, it's you, Captain Clegg.”

The answer to this flattery came from the dark, and in such tones of
finality that the sexton did not relish. “Master Carpenter, you are now
sexton. In other words, Mipps, the past is past. I made that very clear
to you. Leave me.”

Desperately the sexton replied, “Then the pick o' the parish goes to
the scaffold, and to think it's my old commander that is sending 'em.”

“What do you mean?” demanded the vicar savagely.

“Well, since you could save 'em, and won't, stands to reason, don't
it?” argued Mipps.

“How could I save 'em?”

Mipps realised that Dr. Syn was already searching his mind for a
possible way out.

“Blest if I knows,” he answered honestly, “but you knows or will if
you thinks. Fancy being hung for a bit of a game like a cargo run.
Makes one lose faith in a Divine Providence. But God be praised, you're
the head of the parish. The captured men belongs to your flock, and
God's blessed you with brains. The sheep are bleating for the shepherd,
and you ain't the one to fail 'em, I knows that.”

There was a long pause, during which the vicar, still grasping the
pistol, drew his knees up to his chin and clasped them with both hands.
As he cudgelled his brain, he allowed the weapon to slide down the
tented coverlet beyond his drawn-up toes. He then drew off his nightcap
and twisted it convulsively in his fingers.

Mipps, whose eyes were now turned to the darkness of the room, could
see quite plainly his master's face lighted up by the window, and he
knew, by the deep concentration which he read from that white mask,
that although greatly agitated, as indeed he must have been, Dr. Syn
was marshalling all his faculties to think of a way out for his
unfortunate parishioners and thinking, as he had been accustomed to do
in days gone by, of the very longest chances which after careful
weighing might promise a possible success.

So the sexton wisely held his peace.

At the time it seemed ages before anything happened, although later
Mipps realised that the vicar must have reached his decision in a few
minutes. But while standing there like a sentinel waiting for orders,
Mipps lived through the many adventures he had taken part in with his
old captain. The sinking of this ship and that. The taking of
prisoners. The destruction of harbours and towns. The wild feasts and
drinkings. The quelling of mutinies. The marooning of a dangerous
mulatto upon a coral reef. And, above all, the relentless, unsuccessful
search for this man's enemy, who used the seven seas as his hunting
ground. And through all these wild doings Dr. Syn coldly and silently
thinking out the best means of success as he devoutly hoped he was
doing, as he sat so still upon the bed, with the loaded pistol lying
just beyond his toes. The only movement, the convulsive twisting of the
nightcap in those long, sensitive fingers. Mipps continued to live
again in old times. Things happened quickly enough then. Captain Clegg
did not take long to make up his mind in a crisis. Had that quick brain
lost its cunning? How long would he sit there and do nothing? When
would something happen?

Then it happened.

Mipps received the vicar's screwed-up nightcap full in his face. The
bedclothes were hurled up and away in an enveloping wave, and with an
emphatic “Damn you” Dr. Syn leapt across the room, upset a row of
calf-bound volumes from their shelf to the floor, and from behind this
ambush grasped a bottle of French brandy.

After taking a long pull, he turned on Mipps with the face of a
fiend, the more terrible to the sexton since he could see it so plainly
in the darkness. It seemed that the long white face attracted all the
light from the window. Then it was that the well-remembered and
oft-dreaded voice of Clegg spoke sharply:

“From now on, Mister Sexton, your damned-fool sheep shall have a
shepherd who will keep his crook about their silly necks, and the
excise-man shall dance to the scarecrow's tune.”

“The scarecrow?” echoed Mipps.

“That's what I said, you little fool—the scarecrow. He stands in
the Tythe field. You can see him from the casement there. Put your head
out and look. He won't bite you—but he'll bite soon and he'll bite
hard. Saddle my white pony, which you and your smugglers can thank God
you left behind. And put the panniers aboard. In the larboard basket
pack me up eggs, butter and any other nourishment for the sick you can
lay hands on in the larder, and in the starboard you will put the
scarecrow's rags—aye, hat and all and tarred tow wig, and lash 'em
down under a white napkin. Where are those fools captured?”

“Knockholt Beach. Tied hand and foot. Sitting on our kegs and
guarded by half of those damned Dragoons.”

“Where's the captain?”

“Waiting for the other half of his men, who've ridden to Sandgate
for the Revenue cutter.”

“Take this key and unlock a bag of guineas that you'll find in the
top right-hand corner of my sea-chest.”

Mipps felt vastly relieved. However angry his master might be, he
still trusted him, for none knew better than Mipps how many secrets of
their past, their mutual past, that sea-chest contained.

The sexton, however, with the key in his hand, hesitated. “You can't
never bribe that captain of Dragoons. He's a gentleman.”

“Don't argue—obey—” ordered the vicar. “Has Mother Handaway rented
her stables to anyone yet?”

The sexton shook his head. “There's no farmer what would take it.
It's cut off from the road by four wide dykes, it's devilish lonely and
they say she's a witch. They shun the place by day, let alone night.
They say creepy things goes on there. Things that don't bear thinkin'
on. The devil has queer taste in women if he visits her, which they all
say he does.”

“Saddle my pony, and get me the guineas.”

Dr. Syn dressed hurriedly without lighting a candle, took another
tilt of the brandy which seemed to empty the bottle, slipping the
pistol in his side pocket and went down the stairs.

The pony was saddled, and with the guineas in his pocket, and the
pony's baskets packed as he had directed, the doctor mounted.

Then turning to the sexton, he whispered: “Now I'm in this against
my will, but I would sooner help the parish than the outside
authorities. You must get as near to the prisoners as you can with
safety, and then if I can draw off the Dragoons, you must free them and
get those tell-tale kegs into safety. But, remember, if I get through
alive, I have had no share in this night's adventure. I am now going to
visit old Mother Handaway. She is sick. Remember that, will you? She is
sick and has sent for the vicar.”

Saying which, he started off the fat white pony along the coast
road.

Mipps followed leisurely, and called in at his cottage. When he came
out, he had a pair of loaded horse pistols in his great-coat pocket, a
brass-barreled blunderbuss under his arm, and the sharp knife which Dr.
Syn had taken from Merry in his belt.

A quarter of an hour later Dr. Syn was challenged by to Dragoons who
were watching the road that led to Jesson Farm. He checked his pony.

“But I am Dr. Syn, vicar of Dymchurch,” he protested, “and am on my
way to visit a dying old woman on the Marsh.”

“Sorry, sir,” replied one of the soldiers respectfully, “but we've
orders to let no one pass. You'll have to ride with us to the beach and
report to the captain. Stay here, Tom, while I conduct the reverend
gentleman.”

There seemed nothing for it but to obey, so Dr. Syn trotted
alongside the Dragoon, rode up the sea-wall slope and down a sandslide
to the beach.

Here, around a fire of driftwood, the Dragoons mounted guard over
their prisoners.

“I'm sorry this has happened, sir,” explained Captain Faunce, “We
were hunting for Grinsley when we surprised these wretched men
unloading a French lugger. I'd rather by far have captured Grinsley,
whom we suspected of being the cause of the lugger in the bay, but I
must do my duty.”

“And where is this lugger?”

The Dragoon smiled. “We could not ride our horses across the
Channel, and the Revenue cutter is some miles away.”

“And do you think that Grinsley was on board?” asked Dr. Syn.

“Oh, good gracious, no,” exclaimed the officer. “These poor fellows
have all taken oath against such a thing, and I know they are honest,
except in this unfortunate business of the kegs.”

“You, too, are an honest man, Captain Faunce,” replied Syn. “You
show your sympathy and your sentiment without shame, and I thank you.
Therefore on the strength of your generosity, if I pledge you my word
that this shall never happen again, will you free these unfortunate
fellows. Indeed, I urge you to do so. Though admitting their fault
against the Government, I assure you that in the event of war, these
friends of mine would be the first to carry arms for His Majesty.”

The Dragoon shook his head sadly. “I'm sorry, sir. It is too late. I
have sent half my men for the Sandgate cutter to arrest them. I sent so
many as I feared that the news of my capture would arouse hostility on
the way. I would to God I could release these poor fools, but having
failed to catch Grinsley, it's as much as my rank is worth to let them
go. But if you are, as I understand, sir, visiting a sick woman upon
the Marsh, let me not be further blamed for having detained you.”

Dr. Syn looked at the prisoners. Needless to say, he recognised them
all and was astonished to find so many respectable parishioners amongst
them.