Neither Captain Faunce nor the Dymchurch Preventive Officer were the men to ignore the information they had gleaned about the Scarecrow's proposed 'run' on the night of the full moon, and three days before, the village looked on with secret misgivings at the arrival of Colonel Troubridge, who had personally led a full squadron of Dragoons from Dover Castle, to augment the little force already commanded by Captain Faunce.
They commandeered the big field that lay between the sea-wall and the 'Ship Inn', and here they set up camp. Although outwardly declaring that their presence was but due to a summer manoeuvring, it was plainly evident to the village that they had deliberately come to war against the mysterious Scarecrow and his men.
Both colonel and captain elected to sleep under canvas and to share camp discomforts with their men, and the tents had hardly been pitched and the horse lines laid down before such of the villagers who were in trade called upon the officers to offer their services and goods.
Of these, Mr. Mipps was the first to come. Followed by a vast crowd of school children who were attracted by so much pageantry of brass and scarlet, he entered the colonel's tent, and after saluting that gentleman in true Royal Naval style, he banged on to the table a broadsheet advertising the goods he had to dispose of from his little shop adjoining Old Tree Cottage.
The colonel glared at the paper and then glared at Mipps.
“Who are you and what's this?” he demanded.
“Bit o' paper and Mr. Mipps,” replied the sexton.
Not quite knowing what to say in answer to this, the colonel shouted: “What?”
Mipps took a deep breath and then shouted at the top of his voice:
“And who the hell is Mr. Mipps?” thundered the colonel.
“Undertaker,” answered Mipps sadly, and quickly: “I just called to say that if so be that any of your gallant Dragoons or you yourself should find Dymchurch unhealthy and die of it, why, I can fix you up with a very good coffin and bury you quite pleasant with brass knobs or not, as you desire. I also sells at a reasonable price, as you will observe from that there paper, other things besides coffins. Here, give it me and let me read it to you.”
“Get out of here,” yelled the colonel.
“Good morning, Colonel,” replied Mipps. “And I hopes as how the sea air will do you good after being cooped up so long in that 'orrible Dover Castle. Don't it remind you of being in prison? It would me, but you see, I've never been in prison myself.”
“If you don't get out, you will be,” shouted the colonel. “Or in one of your own coffins.”
“Now that's an idea, Colonel, that never fails to depress me,” said Mipps solemnly. “I don't suppose I shall ever take the trouble to knock up a coffin for myself. Whereas for you now I'd take a lot of trouble.”
“Will you get out, sir, or shall I have you thrown out?” cried the colonel.
“I'm a-going, sir,” replied Mipps. “And don't forget, if anything should happen to you, come to me to knock you up solid in pine, elm or oak. Good morning, Colonel, and thank you kindly.”
And with a grave salute, Mr. Mipps backed out of the presence.
The colonel was speechless with indignation, but on the disappearance of the facetious sexton, he could not resist picking up the paper which that worthy had left behind. And this is what he read:
And if so be as you wants a good coffin.
You'll own it's a box to knock solid a toff in'.
“And did you ever read such a piece of gross impertinence?” asked the colonel, when he was joined by Captain Faunce.
Captain Faunce nodded and permitted himself to smile. “I know this man Mipps. I have had my eye on him for some time, sir. I believe he could tell us who this Scarecrow is, but he never would. I sometimes wish that the fellow had been built bigger.”
“Because then he might have qualified for a Dragoon, sir,” explained the captain. “And believe me, sir, there's something about that little man that makes me covet his loyalty for the regiment. If he serves this Scarecrow, why then, sir, I envy the Scarecrow his lieutenant.”
“Ah,” said the colonel, “then keep an eye on the little rat.”
And while Colonel Troubridge and Captain Faunce were discussing the Scarecrow and Mr. Mipps in the tent, Dr. Syn was inspecting Charlotte Cobtree's new black hunter in the squire's stables.
“And will you tell me, Charlotte, why you have not only bought this glorious animal when I know you were more than satisfied with Sirius, but also why you purchased for two guineas that old suit of poor Mipps? For I believe I see the semblance of a connection between the two purchases.”
“And that semblance is?” she asked.
“Why, the Scarecrow,” he replied. “The ragged black suit, and the magnificent black horse.”
“How clever you are, Doctor,” she answered. “Yes, you are quite right, but I trust you will keep my confession and your guess to yourself. If this Scarecrow will not tell me who he is, I am curious enough to take the pains of finding him out. You remember he is one of my heroes. He, and Clegg and yourself. Perhaps I may even have the privilege of helping the smugglers as the Scarecrow did. At all events, I'll satisfy my woman's curiosity. There is, at least, one who can ride safely on the Marsh at night—the Scarecrow. Well, I have the horse and I have the clothes, too. If the Scarecrow cannot trust me and say 'I am the Scarecrow', why, I can ride out as he does until I can say: 'Ah, so you are the Scarecrow.'“
“I beg of you, Charlotte, not to undertake any such mad adventure,” said Dr. Syn sternly. You don't realise your danger.”
“My dear doctor, when you ask me to marry you, why then I promise you I will mend my ways, but till then I must do as I think best.”
“If I could ask you, you know that I would,” he answered. “But for you and your future, I can still be unselfish, I pray God.”
“Honourable men are so often most selfish in their very unselfishness,” she answered.
He might then and there have demanded an explanation. He might even have made the confession that had been in his heart to make to her for some time, but the squire joined them, full of indignation that the Dragoons had been so greatly increased in numbers.
“I'll not brook this interference from the Dover military while I am magistrate upon the Marsh,” he cried. “Captain Faunce is a nice enough fellow, I admit. His behaviour has always been most respectful towards me as Lord of the Level, but this colonel is as red in his temper as his face. I could find in my heart to wish that this Scarecrow fellow would give him a good fooling.”
“I shouldn't be at all surprised if he does, Father,” said Charlotte, with a mischievous glance at Dr. Syn.
“I shouldn't be at all surprised either, my dear,” replied the doctor solemnly.
The worthy squire would have been very much surprised had he read what was passing in his vicar's brain. And sure enough, the 'fooling' that the squire wished for took place that very night.
Since there were three nights before the full moon, and the proposed 'run', Colonel Troubridge thought it highly strategic on his part to allow most of the men village leave till eleven o'clock, and they were all instructed to keep their ears open for any information that might be dropped from garrulous villagers in the bars. But Mr. Mipps was equally strategic, and he trotted from bar to bar and back again, the picture of injured innocence in the eyes of the troopers, but seeing to it very ably that the villagers kept their mouths shut.
Certain hints about the full moon 'run' he allowed to get about, but no one gave away the important fact that thousands of barrels were only awaiting the signal from Aldington to be landed on Jesson Beach and carried to the hills for hiding.
The Upton brothers had been instructed to stand by their beacon after 'lanterns out' had been sounded by the Dragoon trumpeters. They then were to wait two hours by Monty Upton's great turnip watch, which could be relied upon, and then the beacon was to be fired.
An hour and a half of this allotted time had gone. The Marsh lay black and ominous; a vast stretch of mystery and dark horror to the Dragoon sentry who stood guard upon the sea-wall. He did not feel comfortable. He recalled a conversation he had had that evening with the queer little sexton of Dymchurch. “The Marsh? It's an 'orrible place, my lad. 'Bout this time of year every dyke flowin' in her seems full of dead men floatin' and waitin' for the moon to rise. And when it does rise, you sort of see it reflected in their starin' eyes.” Yes, it had all been very laughable recounted in the crowded bar of the 'Ship Inn', but now that he was alone on the sea-wall, the Marsh did strike him as an ''orrible place'. What if the line guards below him in the field were all asleep? What if he were the only one awake in the whole camp? He wished that damned sexton had not told him about those corpses. He wished he were not on foot. He missed the companionship of his horse. The words of the sexton came back to him. “Once on much such a night as this will be when the moon gets up, I was diggin' a grave in the churchyard 'ere. Very still it was. No noise but me old pick and spade a-workin' fit to kill themselves. Suddenly I sort of feels there's someone behind me lookin' down at me. I didn't hear no one, you understand. I just felt someone, and so there was. I turns and sees a thin, tall old man dressed in black and his face was chalky and his eyes was glassy. He beckoned me, he did, and I gets out of the grave and follows him. He glides along to the tythe field and makes straight for the old brick bridge. When he gets there, he sits on the parapet and pats it, meaning me to do ditto. I tells him to move up. He did. There we sits with our legs dangling over the water of the dyke. Then he begins in a sepulchral voice, sayin' 'Eena, deena, dinah'—you know, and pointin' down. He was playin' 'eena deena' with corpses floatin' under our bridge.”
“Where did the corpses come from?” the sentry had laughed.
“Churchyard, of course. Very 'orrible it was, too,” the sexton had said. “They was all men till he come to the end, you know, where it says 'Out goes he', and blime! it weren't a he. It was the fattest old woman corpse I ever see—floatin' beneath us and starin' up.”
The story had been received with howls of laughter. The sentry had laughed himself—but now it was not so funny. The sight of that Marsh seemed to make the yarn ring true.
And then suddenly the Marsh changed. With a suddenness he had not expected, the moon came up over the Channel. It flooded the Marsh with its eerie light. He could see the black shadows of the dyke hollows. Were there corpses there? It was easy to imagine so in that still silence. He did not know that those dykes were filled with crouching waiting men. It spoke well for the Scarecrow's preparation that the sentry thought he had never seen a vast track of land so desolate. So destitute of life. If only he could see just one living man. He did not know that his eyes were travelling over hundreds of hidden heads.
“There's only corpses floatin' in the dykes. Blast that there sexton,” he said to himself.
He turned to the sea for comfort. He looked first in the direction of Folkestone and the increasing moonlight showed him a sight that made him gasp. A lugger had been run ashore some two hundred yards away. There were men sitting upon barrels. They had their backs to him, for they were facing the lugger and a man who leaned against the mast with one hand steadying himself in the rigging.
What were the orders for the Regiment? “And any rank meeting with a man dressed as a scarecrow may shoot to kill. Death to the Scarecrow.”
The sentry forgot his terror of the sexton's yarn as he dropped down behind the sand-hill that crowned the sea-wall. He was shaking with excitement. The man standing on the lugger was obviously dressed as a scarecrow. He sighted his carbine upon the Scarecrow's chest. He must wait till he could keep his sight steadier. Damn that sexton whose story had made him jumpy.
As he dropped, the sexton whom he had already damned, slithered upon his stomach immediately behind him and wriggled down the slope of the sea-wall. With the silence and skill of a Red Indian from whom he had learned much, Mr. Mipps, a sharp knife in his teeth, crawled towards the horse lines guarded by the two drunken and sleepy Dragoons.
Along the lines he crawled, noiselessly severing the picketing ropes.
The sentry took his time, steadying his aim. 'Death to the Scarecrow.' Well, he must not, would not miss; and behind him crouched two fantastically dressed men with their faces smeared with tar, waiting for him to shoot. But the sentry took his time. It was not pleasant to kill a man in cold blood. And yet orders protected him. The blame would not be his. He wished to kill and yet he wavered, and in the interim he slowly steadied his aim.
Behind him, under the shadow of the sea-wall, Mipps crawled silently and went on with his cutting. To two horses out of every three he gave unconscious freedom.
Suddenly one horse stampeded down the lines.
“'Ware horse,” cried an awakened guard.
The noise acted upon the nerves of the sentry's slowly squeezing finger. With a sharp crack his carbine fired.
Immediately there arose pandemonium from the sleeping camp. The sentry heard it for a few seconds only, for a heavy weight seemed to drop upon him from the sky. He was bound round the legs and arms with cord. He was lifted by two strong and dreadful-looking men. They swung him backwards and forwards and then he was flung out from the sea-wall down upon the sand beneath. As he went through the air he remembered that the man who had been his target had fallen forward over the bulwarks of the lugger. He had fired and hit. Had he killed the Scarecrow, and would the smugglers now seek full retribution? Heavy in cuirass and helmet, he fell hard, and for a time remembered no more.
In the awakening camp everything was in wild disorder. The majority of the horses which had been freed by Mipps stampeded past the 'Ship Inn' and out upon the highroad, where they were goaded into a full stretch gallop by a dozen or so of wildly caparisoned horsemen, who, in fantastic costume and waving lighted jack-o'-lanterns above their heads, encouraged the frightened horses to make their escape, with wild yells and howlings.
The remaining horses added even more to the camp's discomfiture, for dragging the damaged lines and pegs behind them they galloped this way and that, became entangled in tent ropes and upset the piled stacks of carbines. Men awoke into a cursing confusion. The colonel, in night attire, shrieked and swore and shouted for Captain Faunce to turn out the guard.
“Stand to your horses, you fools,” he roared.
But there were no horses that his men could stand to. They were a struggling mass of entangled rage—those that were left, and already two-thirds of the fine animals were heading in wild stampede towards Hythe.
Swearing, as became a colonel of Dragoons, he pulled on breeches and boots, jammed his brass helmet on the top of his tasseled night-cap and buckled on his sabre over his white flapping shirt.
In this incongruous costume he dashed out of his tent.
The sight which now met his infuriated gaze would have been enough to irritate a saint, much less a roaring Dragoon. Tents were collapsing on all sides, smothering men in a writhing mass. The canvas of his own tent was being ripped by the lashing hoofs of an entangled charger, while such of his men who were in the open were rushing this way and that, some to save their own skins, and others more dutifully trying to catch the maddened animals.
It was then that a strange apparition galloped at full speed through the camp. A snorting black horse on whose back sat the fearsome figure of a man dressed as a scarecrow.
