determined to prove it in his own defense, and if possible do something more to save the village from disaster, and
so, since he had not met Mipps anywhere during the evening, and therefore had to continue to work on his own
initiative, such as it was, he informed his mother at supper that since the Sexton had been so kind to him he was
going to give him a surprise by digging him some lug.
He set out with his spade and tin, digging along just above the water line. He took no lantern, for the moon was
full, and he worked his way towards Littlestone. He met no one on the way, and no one could see him from any
distance, as the flat sands were swept by lowlying wreaths of mist. This made it an ideal night for the King’s men,
who lay in ambush behind one of the great wooden breakwaters.
Percy first sensed their presence by hearing a horse neigh, and as he crept towards the shadow of the sea-wall, the
moon caught the glint of a Dragoon’s helmet on the beach beyond.
As he crouched listening, the only sound that reached him above the continual swish and grinding of the waves,
was an occasional creak of leather, or the champing of a bit.
He wondered whether the sailors were on the same section of beach, or somewhere hidden on the Marsh behind
the sea-wall. He realized that any Dymchurch man who had not received his warning would walk into a trap here,
and so he retraced his steps and on the smooth sand drew with his spade two large hearts side by side.
He then made his way back to the village and went to bed. He was fast asleep long before the scarecrow and his
lieutenant, Hellspite, galloped along the sands towards Littlestone.
Suddenly the Scarecrow pulled up his fierce black horse and pointed. The moon shone upon Percy’s hearts.
The Scarecrow’s companion had pulled up as suddenly as his master, and from behind the hideous mask of
Hellspite came Mipp’s whisper: “Dungeness, Sou’west. Someone has altered our plan.”
“Hold Gehenna,” ordered doctor Syn from behind the Scarecrow’s mask.
Hellspite took the bridle while his master dismounted and crawled forward toward the breakwater, listening.
He returned with the news that the Navy men were entrenched behind the breakwater and the squadron of
Dragoons were beneath the sea-wall.
“So the rival forces are working together against us after all,” he whispered, as he silently remounted. “Someone
has betrayed us, and someone has altered our plans, as you say. I would sooner have risked a brush with the enemy
than that anyone should dare to cancel the Scarecrow’s orders. On to Dungeness, by way of the Marsh.”
The mist concealed them as they rode up a sandy path that ran from the beach over the high sea-wall, and down
again upon the other side to the Marsh.
On reaching the far side of the Ness, after a wild gallop, they found everything ready for the landing, just as it
had been arranged for Littlestone. The gangs were set in parties of eight to a boat, and only waited the Scarecrow’s
arrival to begin operations. The beach was guarded by a cordon of thirty mounted Nightriders, and as Doctor Syn
rode down the beach, their leader rode up to meet him.
“In contact with the ships yet?” asked the Scarecrow.
“Aye, aye, Scarecrow,” replied the leader, whom Doctor Syn and Mipps knew to be the Highwayman, “and the
boats are ready loaded and waiting to pull in.”
The Scarecrow raised his right arm above his head, and immediately the thirty wheeled their horses and galloped
down to the water-line. The signal was given: three hoots of an owl, three cries of a curlew, and four screams of a
gull.
With muffled oars some twenty boats pulled in out of the mist and the waiting gangs waded into the water to
unload.
Doctor Syn watched the tubs coming ashore to be lifted upon the pack-ponies. Not only were the boats well
loaded, but great rafts of lashed barrels were floated in their wake and dragged ashore by ropes.
“A good landing,” whispered the Scarecrow.
“Aye, and thanks to the new code, every man got the warning of your changed plan.” Replied the Highwayman.
“They guessed you had some good reason for the change, and worked with a will to get here in time.”
“Aye, we would have had a rougher landing on Littlestone Beach, with a full ambush of soldiers and sailors to
contend with,” said the Scarecrow. “We must find out how they got information.”
“The two hearts in Percy’s buckets did the trick,” went on the Highwayman, “and we gave Littlestone a wide
berth.”
The Scarecrow looked at Mipps and whispered, “So that was it.”
“Aye,” replied the Highwayman, “and the boys have done nothing but whisper admiration for the Scarecrow’s
cleverness. Them signs in the buckets is certainly a master-stroke.”
“I marvel that I never thought of it before,” said the Scarecrow.
When the last barrel was ashore, and the pack-ponies loaded, the carriers slung tubs on their shoulders, and
guided by the thirty riders, the long trek across the March began. Doctor Syn waited till the last boat had pulled
back to the ships that were hidden in the mist. He heard the anchors shipped, and then across the water came the
same signal as had been given from the beach.
“All’s well and away,” he chuckled to Mipps, “ and the worth of some three thousand pounds crossing the Marsh
already. I think our lads will all be a-bed before the King’s men realize they have been fooled. I fancy my guest
will not be in the best of tempers in the morning.”
“And not a smell of powder from the revenue cutter, neither,” replied Mipps. ‘And to think it were all through
that looney Percy disobeying my orders. But you know, sir,” he added, “although the idiot has saved us from a
pitched battle on Littlestone Beach, and without knowing it kept many a tough skull uncracked, I’ll have to belt him
for all that.”
“For my part,” said Doctor Syn, “I am glad to find that it was but the work of an idiot, and not the clever
officiousness of one of our o wn men. I should deal gently with him and not give him the chance to do such a thing
again. I would be highly dangerous. You must keep that set of signs away from his fingers in future.”
“You mean I’m not to belt him?” asked Mipps.
“You can discover if you can what induced him to do it,” went on Syn. “But I doubt whether he’ll know by
tomorrow. We must bear in mind that the poor lad is simple.”
As they galloped after the cavalcade across the Marsh, Syn instructed Mipps to find out whether any of the
Nightriders had heard news of the missing fisherman, Hart. “We must remember, Mipps, that he is not only one of
my parishioners, but also a Scarecrow’s man, and the more I think of that stove boat, the more I suspect foul play.
Now Fred had no enemies. He was a good companion to all. But the Scarecrow has plenty, and there is always the
possibility that one or more of them, unable to get at the scarecrow, are trying to do so through one of his followers.
It is significant that it should happen immediately upon the arrival of Captain Blain. If my guest knows anything of
the matter he’ll be hard put to it to conceal his knowledge from me. That is the advantage of having him at the
vicarage.
“We’ll get Jimmie Bone to keep his ears open,” returned Mipps. “He has a rare knack of picking up information.
His ‘orrid trade of a robber has taught him that.”
“Aye, tell him we must know what has happened to Fred Hart,” said Syn. “Until we can question him alive, or
examine his dead body, we shall not know who has done this thing, and we have enough dangers to cope with,
without the greatest one, which is Uncertainty. Find out what you can.”
In spite of the added forces against them, with the coming of the Navy men, all concerned congratulated
themselves that there had never been a landing run to the hills more smoothly, for by the time the goods had been
dispersed amongst the ‘hides,’ and horses and pack-ponies had been returned to their various stables there was not a
sore head that sought its pillow, two hours before the dawn. Not a blow had been struck, except a mighty one
against the pride of Captain Blain, who did not reach his bed without an unpleasant storm of derision from the
soldiery.
“I think in future, sir,” Major Faunce had remarked icily, “that we had better work separately, or with a fuller
confidence together. How you got your information of a landing upon Littlestone Beach I do not know. Had you
thought fit to tell me I might have been able to see that it was but a red herring drawn across the trail by the
Scarecrow’s order. You forget, sir, that I have had a pretty good experience of his cleverness, and as you can now
see for yourself, the clue that lured you to Littlestone was just to ensure that you were there, wasting your time.
Until we realize that the Scarecrow is a good deal cleverer than we are, we shall get nowhere.”
“It will not be very long, Major Faunce,” retorted the captain, “before I invite you to attend the Scarecrow’s
hanging. I have never been the man to give up a fight because my opponent has the advantage of me in the first
round, and I have not yet begun to fight the Scarecrow. I promise you that he will not fool the senior service while I
represent it, as he has fooled the junior o ne.”
“Your manner, Captain Blain,” retorted the Major, “suggests a challenge, which I am perfectly willing to take up.
You say that you will invite me to the scarecrow’s hanging. Personally I confess that I have no great faith that either
of us will catch him, much less hang him. You forget that we are dealing with a person who was once imprisoned in
a cell at the top of Dover Castle, and yet managed to fly out of the window and float through the air like a witch on a
broomstick. At least this was vouched for by members of the Castle staff and the sentries. However, hopeless as I
take our task to be, I’ll yet wager you a hundred guineas that I will catch this criminal before you do. Let it be a
rivalry between us. If one of us succeeds, well, it will be all the better for the Marsh.”
“I doubt that indeed,” responded the Captain. “The prosperity of this little village is not due to the munificence
of the Squire, with whom you lodge, but to the good money which is slipping through the fingers of the Revenue.”
When the village woke to work the following morning, everybody seemed to know that there was open friction
between the two camps ranged against the scarecrow.
But the same capacity for gleaning information which Dymchurch seemed to possess, had as yet no news
concerning the missing Fred Hart, for Percy was late at the Coffin Shop, fearing to tell Mipps that he had changed
the signs, and when he eventually did so, Mipps kept the information for only the ears of Doctor Syn.
When Percy sheepishly entered the Coffin Shop with the two hearts in his buckets, he saw to his horror that Judy
was standing upon the coffin lid, and as he blinked guiltily at the idol he was aware that the Sexton was unstrapping
the thick belt that held his breeches. He shuddered as he saw the great brass buckle, and imagined it cutting into his
flesh, especially as Mipps was demanding sharply what he meant by changing the floats without permission.
Fear made him drawl out a lie which his simple brain told him might be a good excuse.
“I asked her about it,” he stammered. “You was out, or I’d have asked you, Mister Mipps. I wanted to.”
“But why did you do it?” demanded the angry Sexton.
“I done it out of respect to the old Harts,” he drawled. “They was always good to me, same as you, and I thought
s how it would please ‘em what with their Golden Wedding, and them not having lost poor Fred after all, as yet”
“What’s that?” snapped Mipps. “As yet? What do you mean by, ‘As yet’?”
Thereupon Percy recounted what he had overheard outside the barn, and all he had done after it, adding as a great
confession of guilt: “And I stole a pinch of snuff from your tin up yonder. I done that to cure myself of the snivels,
what come when I heard about the Hart boat, I come back here as I told you to get the two hearts, I did. I was wrong
about the snuff. I didn’t mean to be a thief, but you can belt me for that if you please.”
“You keep your mouth shut, now,” replied Mipps, “and don’t tell no one what you’ve told me, and then no one
won’t be the wiser. I don’t think I’ll have to belt you, seeing as how you did what you thought best, but I’ll have to
go and ask the Vicar what he thinks.”
Doctor Syn had an amusing breakfast watching the disgruntled Captain, who was in the worst of tempers, and
could not be led into conversation.
It was while preparing to read Matins that he met Mipps in the vestry, and heard the news dragged out of Percy.
He took a serious view of the fact that Fred Hart had betrayed them and was still a prisoner.
“He’ll get no mercy now from Captain Blain,” he said. “But we cannot see him hang, for the sake of his wife and
him, and then deal with his case. As to Percy, I agree with you, Mipps, that your belt would be a scurvy thanks, and
it occurs to me that anyone who can look such a fool and yet act so promptly should be enrolled on the scarecrow’s
pay list. I’ll leave you to deal with him, while I devise a scheme for snatching Fred Hart from the Captain’s guard.”
with tears, for despite the fact of the comforting presence of the Vicar, whom all the parish of Dymchurch knew as
the holiest of men, she had black despair in her heart. For three days she had received no news of her husband, alive
or dead. The boat in which he had been fishing had been washed into Dymchurch Bay, capsized and badly holed.
Mrs. Hart could not believe that her Fred had been picked up by some ship outward bound, which was the only
comfort held out to her by sympathetic villagers. Four Dymchurch men, however, knew that he was alive and near
at hand: the Vicar, the Sexton, the Highwayman and the water-carrier. Captain Blain from the guard Ship at Dover
knew it too, and so did his sea-dogs who were billeted for the time being in the Tythe Barn during their search for
smugglers. But Blain saw to it that his men kept the knowledge to themselves when talking to the villagers.
He had kept Fred Hart a close prisoner in the barn and had by mental and physical torture compelled him to
confess that he had not only worked for the scarecrow and his gang of smugglers, but had made him betray the place
of landing for the next cargo. Unfortunately for the traitor, the scarecrow had been warned in time by Percy, the
half-witted water-carrier, and so it appeared to the Captain that Hart had deliberately lied, and he determined to
show him no mercy. Neither had he any intention of putting his young wife out of her misery.
Doctor Syn was more merciful, and although he could not impart knowledge that he had gained as the Scarecrow,
he resolved to drop a hint to the wife that she was not yet a widow.
With this end in view, he selected for his reading such passages from Holy Writ, that dealt with God visiting