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 sound 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 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 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, “'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.
“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 happened if you'd been a-leadin' of us. If there's one man what can still save the parish necks, it's you, Captain Clegg.”
“How could I save 'em?” Mipps realized 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. God be praised you're the head of the parish. The captured men belongs to your flock, and 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.
Dr. Syn was marshalling all his faculties to think of a way out for his unfortunate parishioners.
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, 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 exciseman 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. 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—ay, 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.”
“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 righthand corner of my sea-chest.”
The sexton, 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 devilishly lonely and they say she's a witch. 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, slipped his pistol into his side pocket, and went down the stairs.
The pony was saddled, and with 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-barrelled blunderbuss under his arm, and the sharp knife which Dr. Syn had taken from Merry in his belt.
