At half-past ten on Sunday morning a little procession came out from the front gates of Popinsay House and went down the road towards the parish church, which stood on a small hill nearly two miles away. Leading the procession were Captain Spens and Mrs. Spens, then came Sam Sturgeon and Mrs. Matches, and in the rear walked Timothy and Hew. Mrs. Spens, who was now quite well again, was wearing one of the new hats which she had made in South Africa, and Mrs. Matches was wearing another that Mrs. Spens had given her as a present. Captain Spens and Sam Sturgeon were very embarrassed at having to walk beside them, for the hats, they thought, were quite horrible to look at, and already a pair of terns, three lapwings, and a couple of black-headed gulls were flying above them, swooping and screaming and diving at what they evidently thought were strange and perilous foreign birds.
Before they reached the church there was a whole flock of lapwings and crows and terns and starlings and rooks and black-headed gulls crying angrily above them, darting at the dreadful hats, and now and then plucking a feather from them; but Mrs. Spens and Mrs. Matches paid no attention at all and walked proudly on, feeling very pleased with themselves. Sam Sturgeon, however, was by no means happy, for he felt like a scarecrow and thought the birds were attacking him. He had discovered, when he was about to dress himself, that someone had stolen his Sunday suit, and he was wearing clothes he had borrowed from the farmer who lived beside them. They belonged to the farmer’s youngest son who was in the army, and the trousers were a good deal too short for Sam, and the sleeves of the coat did not come within six inches of his wrists. Timothy and Hew had told him that he looked exactly like a scarecrow, and they enjoyed their walk very much because they were hoping all the time that the birds would carry off either Mrs. Matches’ hat or their mother’s.
When they were half-way to church the bell began to ring, and the Captain looked at his watch and said they were in good time and there was no need to hurry. But the ringing of the bell had a very different effect on Dan Scumbril and Inky Poops, who were sleeping in the pulpit. It woke them up, and they looked at each other in the greatest consternation.
‘What does that mean?’ asked Scumbril.
‘I’m afraid to tell you, Dan, I’m afraid to tell you,’ said Inky with his hands over his ears.
‘I thought,’ said Scumbril, ‘that they only rang the bell on Sunday morning.’
‘That’s right,’ said Inky. ‘They ring it to tell the people it’s time to come to church.’
‘But to-day’s not Sunday,’ said Scumbril. ‘This is only Thursday—unless Pott was lying to us!’
‘Perhaps he made a mistake,’ said Inky. ‘Oh dear, oh dear! Perhaps the newspaper he saw was quite an old one!’
‘Why didn’t you think of that to begin with?’
‘I don’t know, Dan, my dear, I don’t know, I’m sure.’
The fact was that although Sam Sturgeon had been kind enough to give Pott and Kettle something to read while they were prisoners in Popinsay House, he had not thought that it mattered very much whether they read the day’s newspaper or a paper that was a week or two old. Sometimes they had had one and sometimes the other, and the last one they saw had been three days old. This little accident had completely upset Inky’s calculations, and now, instead of lying quiet and undisturbed in the pulpit, as they would have done had it been Thursday, they were to be surprised and surrounded by a congregation consisting of almost everybody who lived in the northern part of Popinsay. When they stood up in the pulpit, and looked through the diamond-shaped panes of the long church windows, they could see people coming towards them from all sides. Here was a man by himself, and there a family group; on the one side a cluster of girls, on the other a batch of children. Here were two ploughmen on their bicycles, there the minister and his wife, and there—in bowler hats and smart blue suits—Old Mattoo and James William Cordiall.
“Well, what are we going to do?’ cried Scumbril. ‘You brought us here! It was your fine idea that we could lie-up in a pulpit, and hide safely for a whole week, and what’s the result? You’ve landed us in a trap!’
‘It’s not my fault, Dan; it’s all the fault of the newspaper that gave us the wrong day of the week. You can’t blame me for a mistake like that!’
‘Blame or no blame, what are we going to do? We’re in a trap, and how do we get out of it? You’re the man with the brains, Inky, and if you don’t use them—and use them quickly! —I’ll beat them out upon the floor!’
‘Give me time, Dan, give me time, and I’ll think of something. I’ve never failed to think of something yet.’
‘Time’s short and getting shorter,’ said Scumbril, and the bell cried,’ Ding-dong, ding-dong!’
The two pirates crouched in the pulpit and now Scumbril, despite his bravery, was as frightened as Inky Poops. Inky’s fingers were trembling and he was nervously licking his lips; but Dan Scumbril was beginning to hiccup. Then, quite suddenly, Inky looked a little happier and exclaimed, ‘I’ve got it, Dan! I’ve thought of something. Oh, what a brain I’ve got! You can always depend on me, Dan, always!’
‘Tell me,’ said Scumbril. ‘What is it you’ve thought of?’
‘We’re disguised, do you see? And they’re good disguises, they couldn’t be better! That’s a fine suit of clothes you’re wearing—if only you’d a pair of boots to complete it—and this dress of mine is just the sort of thing for a woman to put on when she’s going to church on a Sunday morning!’
‘And how does that help us?’
‘Why, it helps us right out of our difficulty, Dan! Here we are, all dressed for church like respectable people, and here we are in church. There’s only one mistake we’ve made, and that’s to be in the pulpit where the minister ought to be. But if we go and sit in one of those pews, Dan, and if we choose that nice-looking one in the shadow there at the end of the church, and sit down like ordinary people, then nobody won’t pay any attention to us! We’ll just be two good, kind members of the congregation, Dan, and if we keep our feet tucked under the seat, there’s nobody going to see that we haven’t got any boots on. But you’ll have to stop hiccuping, Dan, because that’s not the way that people behave in church. You’ve got to sit nice and quiet until you start singing hymns and such-like, and then you’ve got to sing like thunder.’
Inky Poops had been living for a long time on the bottom of the sea, where he had seen no one but old sailors in their bathing-suits. He really believed that he and Dan Scumbril were well disguised and looked thoroughly respectable. But the truth of the matter was, of course, that in all Popinsay there was only one sight more horrible than Dan Scumbril in Sam Sturgeon’s blue suit, and that was Inky Poops in Mrs. Matches’ tartan skirt and her old black bonnet. There was no one to tell them this, however, and Inky felt very pleased with himself, and quite confident, as he led Dan Scumbril out of the pulpit and into a pew at the far end of the church. Scumbril, however, was still nervous and hiccuping occasionally.
The church was a small rectangular building, very plainly furnished. The pulpit stood in the middle of one of the long walls, and there were pews on either side of it, and across the aisle that divided the church in two there were more pews at right-angles to the others. The seats were all very narrow and uncomfortable, to prevent people from falling asleep during the sermon, and the wood was varnished. The pew that Inky Poops had chosen was at the end of the church farthest from the door.
For a minute or two they sat there all alone. On a fine day it was the people’s custom in Popinsay to wait outside the church, talking and gossiping, until the bell had stopped ringing; and then everybody would go in together. On this particular Sunday no one was in a hurry to go inside, because everyone wanted to look at the curious hats that Mrs. Spens and Mrs. Matches were wearing; and when at last the bell stopped, and Captain Spens led the way in, only a few people noticed Inky Poops and Dan Scumbril. The others could not take their eyes off Mrs. Spens’s South African hats.
It was unfortunate for the pirates that an old man called Nicholas Bunn always sat in the pew which they had chosen; and Nicholas Bunn used to take his dog to church. It was a black-and-white collie, a very well-behaved dog, and usually it lay quietly at Nicholas’s feet and disturbed no one. But when Nicholas sat down beside Dan Scumbril and Inky Poops, the dog began to growl immediately. The hair rose fiercely on its neck, it bared its teeth, and though Nicholas cuffed its ears and bade it be quiet, it continued to snarl and growl as though there were a couple of wolves in the pew. Dan Scumbril grew very nervous indeed, and hiccuped rather loudly.
The people in the pews in front stopped looking at Mrs. Spens’s new hats, and turned round to see what was going on behind them. The people in the pews on the other side of the aisle leaned forward to get a view, and those on the far side of the pulpit stood up. No one had ever seen anything so strange and hideous as the two pirates—not even Mrs. Spens’s hats—and within a minute or two everyone was staring at them in horror and bewilderment. Nicholas Bunn’s dog was growling more loudly than ever, and Dan Scumbril was hiccuping like a cock crowing in the morning.
‘Take me out of this!’ he whispered wildly. ‘The strain’s too much for me. I can’t stand it!’
Inky Poops, though by now he too was frightened, kept his head. ‘Come along then, Dan my dear,’ he answered, ‘and I’ll tell them you’ve taken ill and need fresh air. Keep calm, Dan, and we’ll be safe enough.’
They stood up and pushed their way past Nicholas Bunn and into the aisle. Nicholas’s dog began to bark, and would have followed them if Nicholas had not caught it by the tail.
‘Excuse me,’ said Inky to a woman in a pew across the aisle. ‘My poor husband’s taken ill with the hiccups, and needs fresh air.’
‘Hick! Hick-hick!’ cried Dan, crowing like a cock.
‘It’s the hiccups,’ explained Inky to an elderly man who sat near the pulpit. ‘My poor husband gets them terribly bad.’
He turned to repeat his apology on the other side of the aisle, and for a moment stood stock-still, unable to speak. For there, sitting with their parents, were Timothy and Hew, and beside them was Sam Sturgeon.
The boys, until now, had not seen the strangers who were causing so much disturbance, for while everyone else was leaning and craning forward to get a sight of them, and standing in their pews and jumping up and down, Captain Spens had said sternly, ‘Sit still and behave yourselves!’ He himself paid no attention to what was happening; Mrs. Spens and Mrs. Matches did not want to; and Timothy and Hew and Sam Sturgeon were not allowed to. —But now, right in front of them, stood the strangers who had so upset the quiet of a Sunday morning, and in spite of their curious disguise the boys recognised them at once.
‘Inky Poops!’ cried Timothy.
‘Dan Scumbril!’ shouted Hew.
They scrambled out of their pew, Sam Sturgeon with them, and at that moment Nicholas Bunn let go his dog, which rushed down the aisle, barking madly. But the two pirates had taken to their heels as soon as they were recognised, and though Old Mattoo and James William Cordiall, who sat near the door, had tried to stop them, they had both been knocked down and lay sprawling on the floor. The minister, a small fat man, had been about to enter the church as Scumbril and Inky Poops came running out, and he too would have been knocked over if he had not very neatly ducked the punch that Scumbril swung at him. Now he stood at the door and saw his whole congregation hurrying towards him, as though the church was on fire. Leading the charge were Timothy and Hew, and on the aisle in front of him Old Mattoo and James William Cordiall were trying to defend themselves against Nicholas Bunn’s black-and-white collie, which had decided to attack them instead of the two strangers.
‘We’re chasing two pirates,’ said Timothy to the minister.
‘Pirates!’ exclaimed the minister. ‘I have no pirates in my congregation!’
‘Not now,’ said Hew, ‘but you had a few minutes ago.’
The minister wanted to argue, but the boys slipped past him, and Sam Sturgeon followed, and when he saw that everyone was of the same mind and determined to give chase to the two strangers who had tried to knock him down, the minister—who was a very reasonable man—turned round and went with them; and in two minutes the church was entirely empty.
But Dan Scumbril and Inky Poops had got a good start, and running to the north they were now three fields away.
Timothy and Hew and Sam Sturgeon were only a hundred yards behind them, but the dog, which should have been most useful, had become wildly excited and was too busy biting members of the congregation to remember the strangers who had first roused its anger. It was the minister who now organised the chase. He was a very reasonable man indeed, and seeing that his congregation were in no mood for a sermon he said to them, ‘If those men are pirates they ought to be captured. So let’s capture them as quickly as possible, and then come back to church.’
Taking off his black gown and his white collar—which was too tight for comfort—he led the pursuit, and everyone followed except the very old, and a few who were very fat, and Captain Spens who could not run because he had an artificial leg, and Mrs. Spens and Mrs. Matches who did not want to lose their hats.
Some hurried across the fields, and some mounted their bicycles and raced along the road that led northward over the island, hoping to cut off the pirates’ retreat. Inky Poops and Dan Scumbril were running strongly, and for some time they kept their distance ahead of Timothy and Hew and Sam Sturgeon. Scumbril had thrown off his stolen jacket, and Inky Poops had got rid of Mrs. Matches’ tartan skirt and her old black bonnet. They had no plan except to keep away from their pursuers, and they ran till they were out of breath and could run no farther. This happened when they were passing the buildings of a farm called Hillocks, and Timothy and Hew and Sam Sturgeon lost sight of them completely. They were nearly out of breath themselves, and they had run a little way past the farm before they realised that the pirates had found a hiding-place.
‘Perhaps they’ve gone into the house,’ said Timothy, puffing and blowing.
‘Or into the barn, or the stable,’ said Hew.
‘We’ve got them now,’ said Sam, wiping his forehead. ‘But we’d better wait till the others come up, and then we’ll surround the whole place and make sure of them.’
All in their Sunday best, red of face and gasping for breath, the congregation came running across the fields, and when the minister arrived Sam told him that the pirates had taken refuge somewhere in the farmstead. The minister, who was always reasonable, agreed that the best plan was to surround the buildings, and the owner of the farm, whose name was Harcus, said there was no one at home and if they saw anyone stirring, or heard anyone making a noise, it must be one of the pirates.
‘For we all came to church this morning,’ said Mr. Harcus, ‘everyone of us—except Benjie the bull.’
No sooner had he spoken than they heard a deep bellow of rage, a splintering crash, and through a broken door in the farm-yard Benjie himself came running out. He was a great rusty-coloured Shorthorn bull, and everyone immediately perceived that he was in an extremely bad temper. He stopped for a moment when he saw the congregation, all in their Sunday best, and pawed the earth with one of his little short, stiff forelegs. Then he bellowed again, and putting his head down, charged. Scattering in all directions, the congregation fled, and Benjie chased them far and wide.
Inky Poops and Dan Scumbril had been lucky. They had gone into the byre to hide and rest themselves, and found it empty. After a few minutes, looking for another way out, they had opened a rough wooden door and found themselves in the bull-shed. They had been somewhat alarmed, but Benjie had been thoroughly frightened. Charging the outer door of the shed, he had broken through it, and then, by scattering their pursuers, he gave the pirates a new chance to escape.
Beyond Hillocks, to the north, there were two cottages not far away, and a deep ditch ran in their direction. Hurrying from the farm-yard, Inky Poops and Dan Scumbril got into the ditch, and crouching low, ran as fast as they could from the farm. None of the congregation saw them, for the congregation was intent only on escaping from Benjie. In one of the cottages, however, there lived a sharp-eyed elderly woman called Williamina MacAra who did not often go to church, but was always interested in what her neighbours were doing. She had been standing at her kitchen window, watching the strange sight of a hundred people or more running across the fields in their best Sunday clothes; and when she saw two unknown men crouching in the ditch below her cottage she took the shot-gun that she always kept on her kitchen dresser, and loaded it, and went out to meet them.
Suddenly, not twenty yards away, Dan Scumbril rose behind a clump of yellow irises, and Williamina MacAra was so startled by his villainous appearance that, without stopping to ask who he was, she took aim and fired at him. Her aim was very bad, however, and instead of hitting Scumbril she killed a sheep that was tethered in the next field. The sheep belonged to Nicholas Bunn, who lived in the other cottage. Mrs. Bunn, who had stayed at home to cook Nicholas’s dinner, was standing at the door. She had caught a glimpse of the pirates when they ran from the byre to the ditch, and when she heard a shot and saw the sheep drop dead, she thought it must be they who had killed it. So she hurried indoors to get her husband’s gun, and running out again met Williamina MacAra.
‘There they are!’ said Williamina, pointing to the pirates who were now a couple of hundred-yards away.
‘The murderers!’ exclaimed Mrs. Bunn, and fired her gun in their direction. At such a distance she could do no damage, of course, but Scumbril and Inky Poops thought it best to run a little faster. Mrs. Bunn and Williamina MacAra followed as quickly as they could, but neither was young and both were fat, and the pirates were in no great danger of being caught by them. Far away to the west of Hillocks, however, Timothy and Hew and Sam Sturgeon had heard their shots, and looking in the direction from which they came, they saw Scumbril and Inky Poops running heavily across a pale-green field of young oats.
Benjie the bull had chased them till they were tired, and then turned away to chase the minister. The minister, being one of the most reasonable men in Popinsay, had escaped by wading breast-high into a marshy pool, and Benjie had left him to chase Old Mattoo and James William Cordiall. The congregation were scattered over half a mile of country, but Timothy and Hew and Sam Sturgeon shouted loudly, and pointed to the pirates, and the pursuit went forward again in a long ragged line. Old Mattoo had not run away from Benjie, but stood to meet his charge, and hit him on his wet black muzzle with a heavy walking-stick. Benjie had pawed the ground, and bellowed once or twice; and then decided to chase a goat instead.
Dan Scumbril and Inky Poops turned eastward in their flight, for in front of them, beyond Popinsay House, the land rose over moor and rough pasture to the northern cliffs; and they had no liking for running uphill. But they had not gone very far to the east when they saw, coming towards them, Mr. Louttit the schoolmaster and a friend who was staying with him. Mr. Louttit and his friend, instead of going to church, had been walking round the loch to look for the nest of a pair of red-throated divers which had been seen there. They were both tall, sturdy young men, and Inky Poops and Dan Scumbril had no wish to meet them. So they turned to the north again, and now very wearily climbed the rising moor. Far behind came Williamina MacAra and Mrs. Bunn, who occasionally fired a shot after them; for each had filled her apron-pocket with cartridges before setting out.
Timothy and Hew and Sam Sturgeon led the chase, but they were still a quarter of a mile away when Scumbril and Inky Poops reached the cliffs and looked down at the green sea below them. Scumbril’s face was as red as a sausage and gleaming with sweat, but Inky was as grey as an old waterproof and the sweat ran down his cheeks like rain off a roof. They looked back and saw Timothy and Hew and Sam Sturgeon running uphill, and behind them were Williamina MacAra and Mrs. Bunn, and to the east were Mr. Louttit the schoolmaster and his friend, and farther away, but coming steadily nearer, a long line of people, a hundred or more, all in their best Sunday clothes. There was no escape for them by land, and below them lay the deep green sea where Davy Jones’s sailors might still be keeping watch.
‘A plan, a plan!’ cried Scumbril. ‘A plan of escape, and quickly! Use your brains, Inky, and tell me what to do now. How do we escape from here?’
But Inky shook his head, and gasped for breath, and said, ‘I’ve come to the end of my tether, Dan my dear. I don’t know what to do, and that’s the truth of it. Unless I make a speech, and tell them what a hard life we’ve had, and persuade them to give us another chance. I’ve got a silver tongue, Dan——’
‘Boil my bones for mutton-broth if I’ll listen to another word of it!’ roared Scumbril. ‘Your tongue’s done me no good, and you no good either, and it’s too late to hope for a change of luck now. No, no! It’s the ocean again for us, the green sea again, and we must jump for it!’
‘But Davy Jones may still be here! The sailors will be looking for us still, and keeping watch under the cliffs!’
‘We’ll take the risk,’ cried Scumbril. ‘The sea is broader than the land, we know it better than the land, and we’ve a wider chance there. So come, then—jump!’
He seized his shivering companion by the hand, and leaping from the cliff, dragged Inky with him. They met the water with a great splash, and disappeared. There was nothing to be seen but a whitish circle of melting foam when Timothy and Hew and Sam Sturgeon reached the edge of the land, and looked down at the sea.
‘They’ve escaped!’ said Timothy in bitter disappointment.
‘Maybe,’ said Sam, ‘and maybe not.’
They stood, breathing heavily, and stared anxiously at the calm green water. A few puffins flew nervously to and fro, a fulmar sailed past and looked at them with a cold black eye; they saw nothing else. And then, fifty yards out, the head of an oldish bald man with red side-whiskers rose from the sea, and Gunner Boles lifted his hand in salute and shouted, ‘Thank ’ee kindly, boys! Thank ’ee, Sam. We’ve got ’em safely now. Safe, and tied up all a-tauto!’
Then he disappeared again, just before Mr. Louttit and his friend reached the cliffs.
Four miles away, in the graveyard beside the parish church, Pott and Kettle lay in silent bewilderment and wondered what was going to happen to them. They had heard something of the uproar in church, and the beginning of their leaders’ flight, but they had stayed quietly in the shed where the gravedigger kept his tools, and no one had thought of looking for pirates there.