water worse than ever.”
“That’s it,” said the Vicar. “Now let’s see you walk down the shed.”
With wonder and ecstasy written all over his face, and his mouth wide open, Percy started on his walk down the
shop. When he reached the end he turned slowly, and grinned at his own cleverness. On the way back to his
benefactor he walked quicker, and began to call out his long-drawn wail, “Water.”
“Still slops a bit,” said Mipps critically. “But it don’t splash his breeches like it used to.”
“Just a minute, Mipps,” replied the vicar. “Something has come back to me from the old days. Do you
remember a native water-carrier, who used to fill up our ship’s barrels from the quay of San Diego? I have just
recollected a clever dodge he employed.”
“A thin-looking, half-nigger in stripe-cotton breeches?” queried Mipps. “I’ve got him. And I remember a dodge
he had, which was nothing less than highway robbery, saying he’d filled the barrels when he’d only drained ‘em out,
and tilted the same water back again. I remember catching him at it and drawing my claspknife across his throat,
saying that if pork was in season I’d have him for it. Was it that dodge you was thinking of, Vicar? You was
preaching at the Red Injun Ch ristian church at the time.
“No, my good Mipps, though I remember the fellow as a rascal,” laughed Doctor Syn. “I’ll show you what his
dodge was. Saw me this bit of wood in half.”
He handed Mipps a scrap of wood which he picked up from the carp enters’ bench. Mipps sawed it through.
Doctor Syn took the two pieces and placed one in each of the buckets of water.
“Floating islands,” he explained. “Now with these on the surface of the water, Percy will find that the ripples of
water will break upon their edges instead of against the rims of the buckets. It will avoid the splashings. I wonder,
when I have seen poor Percy’s breeches so splashed, that I have not thought of this dodge to save him from catching
cold before. Doctor Pepper will be spared a good deal of physic in the future.”
When Percy repeated his walk down the shop, he received no splashes from the contents of the buckets, which
caused him to utter a succession of admiration gurgles at the new miracle.
Mipps picked the two pieces of wood from the water and threw them aside, and taking another section, sawed it
in half, chislled them round, planed and polished them, and dropped them, into buckets.
“Never spoil a good ship for a bit o’ tar,” he said. “Now then, Percy, get a quick step into you, and see if Doctor
Syn don’t deserve to have free delivery of well-water same as me.”
The miracle worked, and Mipps added tactfully, “This is the reward of our missionary efforts amongst the bloody
heathen, Vicar.”
“Water, water,” cried Percy, as he walked the shop once more in rehearsal for his daily rounds in the future.
“Oh, and that reminds me too,” added Mipps. “Your voice, my good lad, gets on my nerves same as it do the
Squire and the Vicar. No more of that horrible gloomy cry of yours, because I’ve whittled you a whistle what you’ll
blow instead of howling. It shrills sweeter than a Bos’n’s pipe, and I’ve fixed a lanyard for your neck, so as if you
blows it out of them noisy lips of yours it won’t drop overboard as the saying is. Here it be, so put it on and tell you
clients that the cry of water will be no more heard in the land of Israel as ‘Oly Bible says.”
Over Percy’s neck he hung a whitened cord attached to a large wooden whistle, which he thrust into Percy’s
loose mouth.
“Now then, blow, and blow hard to make it heard by the housewives,” he ordered. “And no more horrible
howlings when you’re rounding the Horn with your craft.
Once more Percy walked proudly down the shop, blowing hard upon his instrument, which sounded shrill and
clear.
“Learnt to make whistles, I did,” he explained, “from an Injun, when I and the Vicar was preaching ‘em the
Blessed gospels.
Suddenly Doctor Syn held up his hand for silence.
“I can hear another pipe,” he said.
Mipps went to the back casement and opened it, cocking his head sideways. “You’re right, Vicar. And a drum
tapping, too. It will be them Navy men marching towards us along the Hythe road.”
“They are to be billeted in my Tythe Barn,” said Doctor Syn. “You, Percy, had better get along there to be in
readiness, if you want to get their order for water. You can tell them that you have already got the job with the
Dragoons. I think, Mipps, we will ride along to welcome them.”
The waiting crowd of gossipers were disappointed when they saw Doctor Syn mount his pony and wait for Mipps
who was whistling to an aged donkey that was browsing lazily in a meadow behind the shop.
This animal, who rejoiced in the name of Lightining, because he never hurried, was officially the churchyard
donkey, where he would pull the roller over the grass between the grave stones.
Mipps ran to meet him as he slowly walked across the meadow in answer to his master’s call.
Slipping an old bridle over his head, Mipps clambered up on to the animal’s hind quarters, and grasping a rein in
each hand he manipulated his course as though he were steering with rudder strings.
Indeed there was never any doubt as to Mipp’s old vocation, even without his continual boasting on the subject,
for whatever he did smacked somehow of the sea.
Meantime the sound of the drum and fife grew nearer, and although Percy was anxious to take his first proud
walk with his yoke along the village street, he thought it wisest to go the short cut across the fields in order to reach
the Tythe Barn before the arrival of the Navy men.
He had made a good contract with the Dragoons. He could not carry all the squadron buckets for horses and
men, but he had insisted on his right to work the windlass on the well, and for each ten pailfuls he was paid one
penny by the Quartermaster. He hoped to secure an even better bargain from the naval men, and as he swung along
over the fields behind the village, he rehearsed what he would say.
While Doctor Syn waited for Mipps to steer his mount on to the road, he exchanged morning greetings with his
parishioners, apologizing for having immediate need of his Sexton, and urging them, as they appeared to be at a
loose end, to hurry along the street to the other end of the village and to give the strangers a hearty welcome within
their gates.
“What with those gallant Dragoons cantering over there,” he said, “and these jolly sea-dogs arriving from Dover,
we hope that soon o ur village will be free of this wretched smuggling business, and that the mysterious Scarecrow
will trouble the March no more.
“If they catch him, sir,” replied one of them, “it will be a great occasion when he comes to be hanged. Would
they try him at the Court Houses, sir?”
“Of course,” nodded Doctor Syn. “As Leveller of Marsh Scotts, our good Squire would preside, and he would be
judged by the Lords of the Level. As you say it will be a great occasion. He has given our good Marsh an evil
reputation for too long. They talk about the Scarecrow even in busy London, where you would think they had
enough criminals of their own, without concerning themselves with ours.”
“But he does concern ‘em, sir,” went on the fisherman. “They say he not only lands the goods hereabouts and
takes it to the ‘hides,’ but looks after their disposal with the receivers in London. All I can say is that if that’s true