resembles, there’s a little duty (and I knows how you values duty in the King’s Navy), a very little piece of duty,
what I owes to myself, and as it can’t be you, since I has some sort of respect to an officer of King George, though
only for his uniform, it just happens to be this dropsy-limbed Bos’n of yours whom I despises like this.”
Quick as lighting her left should er swung round. Quick as thunder in a close-reefed storm came up her old
gnarled fist right under the Bos’n’s jaw, and down he went, cutlass and all, unconscious on the wooden floor of the
vicarage barn. “and the blessed Lords of the Level will agree at my trial that I owed him that for his dirty sauce and
followings of me about. And now for the surprise, Captain Boils. Ask me my name. Oh yes, I has a better name
than ‘Old Katie’.”
“Yes, woman, I demand that,” cried the astounded Captain. “If you were ever married I demand your married
name so that I can charge you not only with the offense of smuggling, which can hang you, but with another
grievous offence of striking a servant of the King when in execution of his duty.”
“Well, Captain Boils or Blains or Blain, I’ll tell you,” replied the unruffled Katie. “My real name and the name I
glories in is not Missus So and So, but the name you longs to get. I am the Scarecrow.”
“Nonsense,” ejaculated the Captain.
“It ain’t nonsense,” replied ‘Old Katie.’ “And that you and you sweepings from the dirty dockyards will find to
your cost. You will try me as the Scarecrow, but my followers will rescue me, by popping your corpses one by one
upon the Dymchurch scaffold.”
“And what do you suppose is the good of a lie like that?” he demanded.
“You’re disappointed that I ain’t a man, eh?” jeered the old woman. “But it was I that outrode the Prince of
Wales when he hunted with the Romney foxhounds, and it was I who scored off you and a hundred better men than
you who served the dirty Government. Being an old woman was my salvation. No one suspected me. But you
must own that I’m powerful by the way I tapped out that fat old Bos’n of yours just now. I see the old bladder is
recovering. So you’d best attend to him and then send a messenger to the admiralty that you have succeeded where
so many have failed.”
“I don’t mind who the Scarecrow is so long as I hang him,” cried the Captain. “I’ll put you under guard and do
as you wish. I’ll call for Doctor Syn. You may confess to him, and on that evidence my work here is done. But
what is your legal name?”
“Haven’t one,” replied Katie. “Only what you calls an illegal one. My name is THE SCARECROW.”
And that was all that Captain Blain could get out of ‘Old Katie.’
An hour later she was brought under escort to the Vicarage, and the Vicar of Dymchurch received her full
confession that she was indeed the Scarecrow. She was then placed under Naval guard and locked in the cells of the
Court House, while Sir Antony Cobtree, as First Magistrate of Romney Marsh, ordered her to be held till he could
summon the Lords of the Level for her trial.
Doctor Syn seemed very upset that the Scarecrow should turn out to be one that he had always had some regard
for, and had viewed only as a dear, quaint, queer old character. He was more upset that he had been ordered to
attend the Archbishop of Canterbury at Lambeth, who wished him to bring his wisdom of Ecclesiastical Law to the
meetings of the House of Convocation. So after a long interview with Katie he departed by coach, but promised to
be back to support her at her trial at the Court House, and to do what he could to save her neck.
“I cannot believe she is the Scarecrow,” he declared to Captain Blain before taking his departure.
“She says she is, and as she is a remarkable old woman I take her word for it in thankfulness,” he answered. “I
want to catch the Scarecrow, and I have every reason to think I have. For my own credit I shall not be sorry to see
her condemned.”
Perhaps Doctor Syn’s hurried exodus to London was not understood by all at Dymchurch. Perhaps the silence of
the Scarecrow was misunderstood by his followers. ‘Old Katie’s’ trial was due, and the Vicar, usually the most
sympathetic of parsons, was not at hand to comfort the old soul in her trial. Also it seemed that since the Scarecrow,
whom so many knew to be a virile man beneath his mask, had found another to suffer in his stead, he had taken no
steps to effect her rescue.
And thus it was that for the first time in their history the Nightriders agreed to act without orders from their
chief. In the early hours of the morning before the first day of trial, the Beadle was seized by a party of the
Scarecrow’s men, and he was forced to open the cell and release the old woman. They carried her away in triumph
to the Oast House at Doubledyke, only to discover too late that Captain Blain had feared such a rescue and had
fooled them, for the woman was discovered to be none other than the Bos’n tricked out in Katie’s clothes. The
unfortunate sea-dog was dumped into a filled dyke from whence he fortunately escaped by a miracle in time to be in
Court as witness against Katie, whom the Captain has imprisoned at the Vicarage in Doctor Syn’s absence. In the
meantime the news of Captain Blain’s success had spread to London, and broadsheets were being sold in the streets
to tell of the Scarecrow being a woman of seventy.
Doctor Syn read them and laughed to himself, and then he busied himself, thinking with admiration of the
Scarecrow’s rival, ‘Old Katie’, the only retail smuggler on the Marshes. He reappeared in his parish upon the
morning of her trial, and sat at the back listening to her condemnation. Despite her age and sex, she had done too
many heinous crimes against the Realm to be pardoned, and much against his will and conscience Sir Antony had to
bring in the verdict of hanging.
It was then the old Vicar’s cue to stand up when asked by the clerk if there was anything anyone wished to say
further.
“My Lords of the Level,” he said quietly, “since this brave old lady has confessed her faults and told us
something of her daring, there would no more to be said by me, or anyone who wishes the poop distracted old
creature well. But I have had the honor to be received by the Prince of Wales, and have pointed out to His Royal
Highness a promise he made on behalf of the scarecrow when he received the fox’s brush after the Royal hunt
Dinner at Lympne Castle. I reminded His Highness that he had praised the Scarecrow for his spirit of sport in
giving praise where it should be, adding that he had stated publicly that if ever the Scarecrow were taken he would
use his influence to set him free. His Hig hness is so astounded that the Scarecrow is neither man nor ghost but
woman, that he has given me the signature of his Royal father the King, in pardon to ‘Old Katie’ known as the
Scarecrow, so long as she in my opinion keeps the peace of the realm in future. I am sure my old friend Katie will
give me that promise, and on this Royal authority I demand the release of one of my own misguided but brave flock.
I hope ‘Old Katie’s’ promise to keep the peace will stamp out the evils of smuggling. That is if they really exist
amongst my own parishioners.”
There was no answer to the Royal command, and the authorities feared the joy and triumph of the whole parish.
And while Captain Blain swore revenge, though he hardly knew how to get it, Doctor Syn whispered to Mipps as
they strolled with the released Katie to the Vicarage, “The ‘run’ goes forward next week as arranged, for ‘Old Katie’