frightening folk from the Marsh yonder, while he runs his contraband, first applied to General Troubridge at Dover
for some Dragoons, and then, since the Scarecrow still worsted these, they further approached the General’s brother,
Admiral Troubridge, who handed me the commission, for it seems that the Admiral is anxious to beat his brother at
the game of Scarecrow-scaring. I presume that most people here realize the vast sums that are involved. Yes sir,
vast sums, of money that never find their way to the Revenue coffers. It’s money that never find their way to the
Revenue coffers. It’s my duty to see that this state of things comes to an end, and you can lay to it I’ll do that duty
to the best of my powers, by thunder, and take no interferences neither. As for you, reverend Sir, I can promise you
this. Aboard your quarters I’m your guest, and will not worry you about my business outside. You will find me
courteous, and ready to join you in any general conversation, or in a game of chess or backgammon if you’ve the
fancy. Whatever I think of folk in your parish, I’ll keep to myself and not put you in an awkward position. That’s
fair, I take it?”
“Perfectly fair,’ assented the Doctor. He then turned to Mipps who had naturally heard the whole conversation.
“Mister Mipps, you will about-ships with your donkey, and give Mrs. Fowey the necessary orders from me for
the Captain’s accommodation in the panelled room overlooking the Marsh. You will then trot after me, across the
Marsh. You will easily catch me up, as I must do little more than a walk, or I shall be breaking the eggs.”
“Aye, aye, Vicar,” exclaimed Mipps, once more perching himself upon Lightnings’s hindquarters, and
manipulating the reins as though pulling round the rudder of a boat.
“Queer fellow that Sexton of yours,” remarked the Captain. “More like a seaman than a sexton, what with his
tarred pigtail sticking out like a jigger-gaff, and the way he steers that animal.”
The Vicar laughed. “Mipps has been a ship’s carpenter in his day, and aboard a man-of-war, too. As good an old
rascal as you’ll find upon acquaintance. Aye, Captain, you’ll come to like Mipps well enough.”
“I dare say. He seems a bit of an oddity to me though,” returned the Captain.
“A character certainly allowed the Vicar. “But take it from me, who have known him these many years under
trials and blessings, a good one. In spite of whimsicalities he is at heart a good and kind little fellow.”
“I know the type well,” nodded the Captain. “He is a one-man’s servant, and as such would be faithful to the
last, no doubt.”
Doctor Syn perhaps perceived that the Captain was attempting somehow to drive him into some toil, so he
answered quickly: “No, he is faithful and kind to the whole parish, young and old. That water-carrier, for instance,
is blessing him at the mo ment, since Mipps fashioned that yoke for him, to make his work the easier. And he did it
too, out of his own leisure time. Even new-born babies take to Mipps.”
“Well, if the Scarecrow gets me on the Marsh one of these dark nights,” laughed the Captain, “I’ll be glad if you
will not only read the prayers over my coffin, but write my epitaph, too. If you give me such a character as you give
to this sexton behind his back, I think I shall have a better chance in the next world.”
“And as Mipps will tell you shortly, Captain,” laughed the Doctor, “no one can knock up a coffin better than he,
so you see your corpse would be in the best of hands. But joking aside, I trust that your presence means an end to
Death stalking the Marsh at night.”
“I’ll take the first step in that direction then,” said the Captain, dismounting and handing the reins to one of his
men.
“And that is?” asked Doctor Syn.
“Billeting my men,” replied the Captain.
The Vicar responded to his salute with a benedictory gesture, and then walked his pony out upon the Marsh road.
A quarter of an hour later he was overhauled by Mipps who had put Lightning to the nearest point of a hand
gallop which that animal could be persuaded to accomplish.
“Very neat, Vicar, the way you manoeurvred the Captain’s lodging,” he remarked. “it’ll be a close eye on him,
eh, sir?”
“That’s so, my good Mipps. From tonight it will be watch and watch about between us two. If we know his
moves beforehand we can the better check ‘em, and I fancy even then that he will give us a good run for our
barrels.”
In and out the winding dyke-bordered lanes they walked their mounts till old Mother Handaway’s hovel appeared
in sight, and then Doctor Syn broke a silence that had lasted some quarter of an hour.
“By his suspicion of your coffins, Mister Sexton, I gather that this Captain is too well-informed. We may have to
employ new methods, and here is one for passing the word to all concerned that has only just occurred to me. Yo u
remember those two bits of wood I floated in Percy’s buckets? He likes them. They are useful since they prevent
the splashing. Make him a present of some well-shaped floats that will appeal to him as a toy appeals to a child. I’ll
suggest that you make them like the four suits in a pack of cards. Two aces of each. Chisel and polish them well.
On his rounds, see that he makes your Coffin Shop the first port of call, in order that you may tell him which pieces
to float. We will arrange a code together before I return to dine with the Captain. After dark we will meet those
concerned at Doubledyke. Before they leave the Oast House, where our meeting is to be, they will all have been
instructed in the code, and in future the innocent lad, Percy, can carry the Scarecrow’s orders to every cottage in the
parish.”
“That’s a pretty notion,” chuckled Mipps, “and I marvel that we never thought on it before.”
Doctor Syn certainly did not read the Scriptures to old Mother Handaway, for there was much to don on the
Scarecrow’s business. Not that the old hag would have profited had he read to her, for she was a mad old thing
whom the distant villages upon the Marsh held to be a witch. Perhaps she had every reason to think she was, for did
not the Devil himself visit her, sometimes in the shape of the good Vicar of Dymchurch, and sometimes riding past
her cottage as the dread Scarecrow? And had he not given her many golden guineas for service rendered? She had
had little to do for such high payment, since it was Jimmie Bone, the Highwayman, who groomed the Scarecrow’s
horse which she guarded in her underground stable, the entrance of which was so cunningly hidden by the stack of
dried bulrushes in the side of the deep dry dyke that ran before her cottage. This was deep enough to conceal a
mounted man form the Marsh around.
Unless anyone happened to be in the dyke itself, the opening of the secret door could never be seen, but the three
men who used it always took the greatest precautions to ensure that no one was about
The dry dyke, some said, had been made by the Romans at their first landing, but the stable had been built
probably by some independent smuggler years back. Mother Handaway’s grandfather had told her the secret of its
entrance, and she had kept it to herself till she first hid the Highwayman there, at a time when hard pressed and
wounded he had otherwise been caught and hanged.
A good hiding-place and none better, hidden also by the cowshed, and with grass growing from good soil on its
roof. Inside, the roof was groin-spanned, made by masons who knew their business and who were aware that it had