heart, despite the sharpness of her ways.”
Mipps went away shaking his head in doubt, but as things transpired, Doctor Syn was in the right.
Now Captain Blain was not having a happy time. Each day brought him letters of protest from his superiors.
Admiral Chesham, who had taken the place of Troubridge at Dover, was determined to spite his predecessor by
smashing the Romney Marsh smuggling. Admiral Troubridge, at the Admiralty, was equally determined to get the
Scarecrow and pay off many an old score, and being in London he planned to catch him by discovering, if possible,
who was the Receiver in the city who paid such big money for the bulk of the Mash contraband. When his efforts
brought in no result he worked off his spleen by writing taunting letters to his colleague at Dover and insulting ones
to Captain Blain at Dymchurch.
In the ordinary way Blain would have retaliated, and possibly resigned; but the truth was Blain’s rage against his
failure was leveled at the Scarecrow, who has so outwitted him, and he dreaded being recalled from his post till he
had accomplished his purpose.
In this mood he did his best to conciliate Admiral Chesham’s constant reprimands and applied for more men so
that his net could be spread wider.
Burning for results which would stop him from being made a laughingstock, the Admiral doubled the party of
sailors billeted in the Tythe Barn.
These men were posted to watch every house and cottage in the village and the outlying farmsteads as well.
And it was from their observance that ‘Old Katie” was first brought under the suspicion of the Law.
They watched her trudging along the St. Mary’s road enormous with dropsy, and they watched her returning
home after calling at the back-doors of houses and cottages, visibly thinner than when she set out.
The old woman , not being used to browbeating from sailors, went to the Captain and complained that his saucy
devils were ever following her about, and that being a lone widow of attraction she objected.
Captain Blain retorted that his men were following every man, woman and child, in the hopes of getting some
clue against the Scarecrow. He then gave orders to his men to watch ‘Old Katie’ more carefully, knowing that even
the arrest of an old woman with proof against her would be better than no result at all.
The Bos’n, whose bulk had been the butt for Katie’s sharp arrows of wit, which he knew amused the men under
him, made life the more miserable for himself by playing the spy on his enemy.
After a deal of creepings and wrigglings and waitings he went to his officer and told him that if he had authority
to arrest the dangerous old hag, he would give the Captain full proof of her iniquities.
And so that very day a shouting and protesting old woman was hustled along the St. Mary’s road before she had
had time to make one call for a ‘sit-down’ and a gossip, and brought before the stern Captain in the Tythe Barn.
The poor old soul was more angry than frightened, and demanded that someone should inform Doctor Syn of the
indignity which she was enduring.
The Captain replied that it had nothing to do with the Parson at the moment, though no doubt he would want to
give her religious consolation before her end.
“Oh, so you’ve hanged me already, have you?” sneered Katie. “But only in your mind, that’s all, and I wouldn’t
exchange anything so black as your mind for all the dropsy in my poor body.”
“I dare say we’ll be able to cure you of the dropsy before we hang you,” laughed the Captain. “Now then hold
her tight, you men. Two more of you grip her legs, and don’t let her struggle while we examine her.”
With a hefty sailor on each arm and leg the unfortunate woman was forced to stand still, while the Captain
walked round to the Bos’n who was behind her.
“Ashamed to look an honest woman in the face, are you?” scoffed Katie.
The Captain did not reply to this taunt, because it was time to put to the proof his Bos’n suspicions.
With a spiker sharpened to a needle-point the Bos’n, who had been gingerly touching the back part of the heavy
skirt about the right hip, suddenly pressed it home.
“It ain’t her , sir,” he whispered, “ ‘cos she don’t cry out. Now let’s tap the dropsy and see what it’s made of.”
He pulled out the spiker as Katie tried to spring forward. But the sailors were ready and pressed her against the
Bos’n hand. The pressure released a stream of liquid which shot straight up into the Captain’s face, which for the
moment blinded him. Having lost one eye against the French, the other one gave him acute pain which made him
curse loudly. At the same time one of the sailors standing by seized a tankard and half filling it with the precious
stream took a gulp, and cried out, “Best Hollands, sweet and strong.”
“Don’t waste a drop, men,” ordered the Bos’n, “for we’ll need it for proof and tasting in the Court.”
As soon as the Captain was sufficiently recovered to take up the command, he ordered his men to rig an old sail
that they had been mending across a corner of the barn, and behind it the old woman was ordered to remove the
other bladder of Hollands, and to push it intact under this temporary curtain.
The Bos’n whispered to the Captain that she would most likely attempt to empty it.
“Oh no, I won’t,” replied Katie proudly, who had overheard. I ain’t one to squeal. I’m caught, and I may as well
be hung for the death of a parcel of miserable sailors as for a couple of sheepskins.”
“What do you mean by that?” demanded the Captain.
“Just this, you wretched fellow,” answered Katie in triumph. “You have been here a good while, you and your
sweepings from Chatham, and yet you ain’t done nothing till now. And what have you done? As far as you know,
arrested a poor old harmless woman for making an honest penny or two by retailing Hollands to poor folk what
can’t afford to buy it in duty tax in order to provide for the bloody-minded members of the dirty House of
Commons. Mind you I says nothing against His Blessed Majesty, King George, God bless him. I only rails against
them Commons, supposed to be elected by us, but who never stands by us. A lot of jumped-up puppets what orders
your precious Navy and Army about I’ll surprise you by handing over the undamaged sheepshskins full of good
liquor you have stolen form the poor I gives it to, just to prove in Court that I gave ‘em of the best. But I’ll surprise
you a good deal more in a minute or so, and that I will, but you first get paper and ink and pen so that you can write
down what I says in evidence, and if it don’t show you all up as a parcel of fools, well I’ve not been called ‘Old
Katie’ all these years.”
True to her word the full bladder was pushed under the screen of sail-cloth, and a few minutes later ‘Old Katie’
appeared in her tight figure. No semblance of dropsy about her. The only bulk she carried was hard muscle. The
real Katie was hard, slim and virile, and her face, though still colored like a russet apple, was set in the grimmest
expression. But her bright eyes still laughed as she walked proudly towards the Captain.
The Bos’n instinctively drew his cutlass and stood guard beside his chief. This seemed to amuse ‘Old Katie,’
“You’ve caught me red-handed with the goods on me, Captain,” she laughed, “and for that I am willing to take
consequence. But I am about to give you the surprise of your life. However, Mister Captain Boils and Blains, as
they say in the ‘Oly Scriptures when talking of them plagues in Egypt, which, if I may say so, you so closely