The night began to pale, though the land gale continued to howl round the Castle and out to the sea below. In the grey dawn Mipps entered the Main Guard gates behind a string of vegetable carts. But he did not follow them to the cook-house. He walked straight across to the Castle door, which was open. A cavalry sentry was talking to an infantry sentry in low tones. Mipps walked on by them bold as brass with a cheery “Here we are again.” The cavalry man thought the infantryman knew him. The infantryman thought the same of the cavalryman. So Mipps passed unchallenged and was in the Castle.
It would have taken more than a sentry or two to keep him out. He knew the Castle well, and made straight for the Tower stairway. Up he went to the top and approached the wretched sentry, who had been shuddering at the prisoner's blasphemy.
“Who are you?” demanded the sentry with a start.
“Servant to the parson what has come to urge the prisoner to 'oly repentance. Doctor Syn, you know. He's down with the General. Look, here's the warrant for you to unlock the door. He'll be up here soon. My word, what awful language he's a-usin' in there!”
“Aye, what with that and the cold of these stone walls and the howling gale, it's the worst guard I ever mounted in my life.” The sentry nodded at the signature of General Troubridge. It was all in order.
“Well, mate, for all I'm a parson's servant, I ain't narrer-minded, and I have something here to keep out the cold. Halves, mate,” and Mipps, drawing a bottle of brandy from his pocket and tilting half of the raw spirit down his own throat, passed it over to the sentry.
Nothing loth, the sentry gulped it down with thanks. “Good stuff. I could do with a cask of that,” he said.
“Ain't got a cask on me, but I've another bottle,” replied Mipps. “You have first go.” The soldier had hardly taken his share when his eyes glazed and he staggered. Mipps caught him and lowered him gently to the ground.
“Aye, that was opium, that was,” he chuckled. He bent over the knocked-out soldier and poured the rest through his teeth. He then drew out a third bottle, and poured good brandy all over the soldier's tunic. “Now you won't 'alf smell like an Abstainers' Outin',” he said. Then he tapped at the cell door and whispered, “Ready?”
“Ready,” came the whispered answer.
Then there came such a piercing yell that it awakened the whole Castle.
Mipps fled down the stairs, shouting for Major Faunce. A sentry far below on the ramparts looked up to the Tower, and to his unspeakable horror he saw a black shape crawling through the bars. Then the Thing leaped outwards above his head. The gale caught It and blew out Its black garments, and then right over the Castle walls and out to sea whirled the wild rags of the Scarecrow.
With a scream of terror the sentry bolted for the Guard-room.
“What is it?” demanded the Major.
“What ain't it,” retorted Mipps. “Oh, your drunken guard! Oh, your inebriated sentry! Oh, what a brute! You know me, sir. Mr. Mipps of Dymchurch. Oh, rescue my master. The Scarecrow's killin' him. Oh, poor Doctor Syn visitin' the prisoner on the General's orders too, and then that drunken rogue of a guard lockin' him in, because he was afraid to go in hisself.
And you should have heard the insults as he uttered to the man of God.”
It seemed that the sexton was crying out the awful truth. The sentry was drunk. Not a doubt about that. He lay insensible with three empty bottles under him and he reeked of spirit. Also in one hand he clutched the warrant giving Doctor Syn access to the prisoner.
It was therefore with some apprehension that Major Faunce unlocked the door of the cell.
His worst fears were justified. There groaning on the floor lay Doctor Syn.
His neat clerical wig and neat parson's clothes looked pathetic as he lay there on his face, tied around with rope.
“Undo these cords. They're killing me,” he moaned.
Major Faunce saw the great knot on his back, and kneeling down tried to unloose it, while the Doctor kept on struggling as though to free his arms and moaning.
“Let me try, sir,” pleaded Mipps. “I was a sailor in His Majesty's Navy afore I took up with sextonin'. I knows knots.” Between them they unravelled the cruel knot, and while Major Faunce raised the Doctor, Mipps secreted the ropes in his capacious pocket. He had no wish for the Major to examine those loose ends.
“But where's the prisoner?” demanded the General, who had been summoned by the noise.
“He couldn't have got through the door, because it was locked, sir,” said the Major.
“I can tell you, I can tell you,” gasped Doctor Syn pathetically. “The moment your sentry locked me in here—for he was afraid to come in himself—the prisoner attacked me, secured me with these ropes, which he ripped from the lining of his cloak, and then—O God, I can hardly believe what I saw—he wriggled through the bars there and leapt. Unless he is the devil, you will find him crushed on the cobblestones below.” But instead of any report of a mangled body came the disquieting version of what the sentry had seen, namely a flying black figure with a great winged cloak that few far out to sea.
“Are all the sentries drunk?” roared the General.
But that sentry was more lucky than his fellow outside the cell, for other soldiers came forward, and Dover townsmen too, who swore that they had also seen the strange phenomenon of a black figure, arms, legs, and all, soaring out to sea.
The General, after venting his rage and disappointment upon the drunkard, whom he ordered into solitary confinement pending the rope's end on his recovery, at least showed some humanity towards Doctor Syn, who appeared to be suffering from shock, mental and physical.
“Upon my soul, Faunce,” he said, “but I am sorry for the parson. He gets our property back from that damned highwayman, he shows us how to catch the Scarecrow, he rides all the way to Dover the moment he hears of the arrest, and then gets woefully treated for his pains. But he don't bear me any grudge. He said so when I put him in my coach, and sent him back to Dymchurch. He's a good man. A kind, forgiving, charitable old fellow, and I like him.” Mipps did not accompany his master in the coach, for, as he told the General, he had to take back the Vicar's pony and his own donkey which had carried them to Dover. The presence of these beasts, which Mipps had seen to, confirmed the truth of their story. But Mipps made the most of the journey, for on a lonely strip of beach beyond Sandgate he retrieved the Scarecrow's clothes that floated in with the tide. While congratulating himself that they had all come ashore together, he noticed that they were roughly stitched together by pack-thread.
“Well, he's a marvel,” he said. “Thinks of everything. Fancy threadin' a needle and sewing with all that danger round him. No wonder it looked like a man, and it's an ill gale that blows no one no good as they say.” When he reached Dymchurch, the Vicar was reported ill in bed, but Mipps was allowed to see him. The sexton closed the bedroom door, tiptoed to the four-poster and solemnly winked at the night-capped Vicar.
“I hear you have been to Dover, my good Mipps,” said Doctor Syn. “Very historic place, too. Fine old Castle, I believe. They tell me there's a window high up in the Tower there called 'The Scarecrow's Leap'. Nice things, legends, I like 'em. And while I think of it, find out that sentry's name. We owe him compensation. A bag of guineas with the Scarecrow's compliments, I think.”
“Yessir. Any more orders, Vicar?”
