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“I have no wish to dine with gentlemen,” growled Handgrove.
“You will change your song when mine host brings in our covers,” laughed the Doctor. “Now while we wait for
the Admiral we will count these guineas.” He drew a Bible and the bag of guineas from his pocket. “Here is the
good Book ready for your oath, and here the guineas.” He laid the Bible on the table, and then poured out the
money on to the white cloth. “I have counted them at the Admiralty, but had better satisfy yourself. I will go and
see if the Admiral is in the common-room below.”
Closing the door behind him Doctor Syn beckoned to the waiting host of the ‘Mitre.’ You are sure you can do
it?” whispered the Doctor. “Remember I want him alive. You must strike carefully.”
Mine host nodded. “I have a heavy, lead-loaded, brass candlestick upon the sideboard behind his chair. I’ll not
kill him.”
“I took him from under their noses without suspicion,” chuckled Syn. “And good for us all that I did. If he had
reached the Admiral you and I and some hundred others would have had our necks stretched. The cellar is ready?
And the cellarmen?”
“Trust me, sir,” whispered the landlord.
“Then bring up the tree covers as soon as you will,” said Syn, “for if I have to look at that traitorous dog much
longer it will spoil my appetite. Mipps will be here by coach tonight, when we can shift the rogue from your celler
aboard the lugger in London Pool. Drunk sailors are a common enough sight upon the quays. We shall have no
trouble. But once again let me remind you not to kill. I wish him to take his last voyage alive.”
Doctor Syn re -entered his private sitting-room briskly. “The Admiral will join us in a moment, Handgrove. He
has ordered di
correct?”
“Aye. Ten piles of ten as you see,” replied Handgrove.
“And here is mine host with the covers. Master Bubukle, the Admiral has ordered us to start. I will ask a
blessing. ‘May we who eat this food be faithful unto Thee, loyal to the King, and steadfast to our fellows. Amen.’
Now, Handgrove, fall to with good appetite.”
Mine host lifted the cover in front of Doctor Syn, as he saw the steam mount up into Handgrove’s face. Then a
sickening thud, and Handgroves’s head was on the table.
“Took it beautiful,” chuckled the landlord. “Now a boozer’s hoist to the dellars, and my cellarmen will look to
him.”
Five minutes later Doctor Syn and mine host were doing full justice to the sucking-pig.
During that afternoon the Vicar of Dymchurch visited Lambeth Palace and took a dish of tea with the
Archbishop.
At five minutes to nine the same Vicar was awaiting the arrival of Admiral Troubridge at the Ship I
Whitehall.
During those five minutes, for the Admiral was punctual at nine, Doctor Syn found occasion to leave a sealed
letter addressed to the Admiral on the hall table reserved for patron’s messages. That the Admiral was in a rage was
apparent, but it was not till the waiter had left them to their soup that he explained.
“The rascal never turned up, Doctor Syn. Do you know, I think the Scarecrow’s got him.”
The Parson lo oked incredulous. “Come, come, Admiral. That is surely impossible.”
The waiter brought the fish, and laid a letter by the Admiral’s plate. As he read the contents the old sea-dog
nearly had apoplexy. “It’s true,” he gasped. “I’m right! Read, read.”
Doctor Syn adjusted his spectacles and read quietly: “Handgrove ca
fate be a warning to you and that meddlesome Parson of Dymchurch. I will not brook your interference.”
It was signed by a rough sketch of a scarecrow.
Later that night, at the Mitre I
amongst our prisoners in France. I have a means of making Handgrove see to that. You will enjoy our next
adventure, little Mipps, I promise you.”
7
THE SCARECROW’S EXECUTION
The news spread like wildfire, and lost nothing in the telling. The bare facts of the case were that Admiral
Troubridge, jubilant at finding an opportunity to smash the Scarecrow’s brandy-ru
valuable informer snatched from under his nose. One Handgrove, a desperate rascal, who had suffered eleven years’
slavery for treachery against the Scarecrow’s men, had escaped from the secret French harbour where the
contraband was loaded, and had made appointment at the Admiralty to tell all he knew. There was no doubt as to
the reason why he had failed to present himself, for instead of his man, the Admiral received a threatening letter
from the scarecrow, stating that Handgrove’s fate should be a warning to him, and to that ‘meddlesome Parson’,
Doctor Syn of Dymchurch, who had for years been daring enough to attack the crime of smuggling from every
pulpit of Romney Marsh. It was obvious, therefore, that the Scarecrow had retaken his prisoner on the way to
Admiralty House.
By this time the Scarecrow and the doings of his Nightriders had captured the public’s imagination. No longer a
mere local celebrity, his adventures were the chief topic of conversation throughout the i
London roads, the jokes and jibes of the coffee-houses, as well as the romantic gossips of the fashionable drawingroom. Not a man who did not envy him, neither maid nor mother who did not feel drawn towards his masculine
effrontery. And yet was he masculine? Was he human? Was he not rather the Devil himself? When Doctor Syn
first created the Scarecrow as the leader of the Romney Marsh smugglers, he had striven hard to give him a spiritual
significance, and he was not disappointed in his creation. The Scarecrow was accounted unca
Captain Blain, lodging temporarily at the Vicarage, with his score of sea-dogs billeted in the Tythe barn adjacent,
thought otherwise. Although he had seen the fearful apparition of the Scarecrow, he did not share the superstitions
of his men. He respected the Scarecrow as a dangerous and ingenious enemy whose clever head was joined to an
agile body by a human neck round which he determined to place a hempen collar.
The news of Handgrove’s disappearance came to him in a letter from Admiral Troubridge. The Captain was
given authority to search every house and cottage in the Marsh and ordered to watch the shore, the dykes and the
sluicegates for the body of the missing Handgrove. He was to apply to Admiral Chesham at Dover if he needed
more men, and could inform those immediately under his command that extra pay was scheduled from the
Admiralty, for every encounter with which they might engage the Nightriders of the Marsh. The Admiral also
urged him to work in close cooperation with the Reverend Doctor Syn, whom he described as ‘the bravest
gentleman on Romney Marsh, in that at the risk of his own life he had never ceased to attack the nefarious
smugglers’. He added that in his opinion the only trouble with the vicar of Dymchurch was that he took his
parochial duties too conscientiously. Why could not the fellow find it in his heart to betray what he learned as a
priest under the seal of confession? Not being Roman Catholic the Admiral could not understand why Doctor Syn
was so very scrupulous about keeping secrets heard by him through the confessional comfort of the Church.
To his Bos’n, Captain Blain exclaimed: “Wish the Parson would come back, for I have a suggestion to make to
him. Doctor Pepper tells me that one of his patients is dying. A hard-drinking old rascal of eighty, who seems to be