THE SCARECROW RIDES (16 page)

Out in the porch, however, his courage rose, for sitting on the
churchyard wall were the three Upton brothers who were amusing
themselves with frightening the beadle, making imaginary passes in the
air with their long canes, which were too close to his person for the
beadle's peace of mind.

The courage that suddenly filled the old sexton's soul was not
inspired by the beadle, but by the Upton boys, for whom he had a great
liking. He knew very well that they would not sit idly by and see him
ill-used by the unpopular Merry, so on the strength of this, he
remarked that although some people drank and didn't eat, he was one who
did both, and more than heartily upon a Sunday after morning prayer,
and added that things were come to a fine pass indeed when irregular
worshippers who didn't know what to do with their hats chose to lounge
about the place after the officials had gone.

Merry regarded him with a brandy eye, but said nothing, so that the
sexton was further emboldened to state that looking at Merry in a cold
church might entertain some, but not him.

“Then,” said Merry, “I fear you'll have to endure it the best you
can, because you'll see a good deal of me in future. I'm an official,
if you want to know. This new vicar ain't at all satisfied with the way
the place is kept. He wants to see his own face in the brass, and since
he's money to waste on such fancies, he's paying me to see 'em carried
out. And to-morrow you'll find that what you calls bright brass, I
don't. See?”

Satisfied that he had at least depressed the sexton's spirits, Merry
went slowly out of the churchyard gate, deliberately brushing by the
dangling legs of the Upton brothers as they sat on the wall, in the
hope that they might be tempted to play tricks with their elegant canes
on him, as they had already done to the beadle, when Merry would have
the excuse to snatch hold of one of them and break it across his knee.

For the purpose of tempting them to an aggression which he was in
the mood to welcome, he looked away from them as though they were for
all their fine clothes, beneath his notice. As he turned his head
towards the windows of the Hall beyond the Court House, however, he saw
a sight which caused him to stop and stare.

Behind one of the large casements he saw Meg, supported by Charlotte
and Lady Cobtree. She wore a rich dressing-gown, obviously lent her by
one of the ladies, and her hair hanging loose about her shoulders
caught the rays of the sun. Merry gazed, stupidly dazzled by her
beauty, and began to congratulate himself upon his choice. “I'll even
spend a bit of money on her,” he told himself. “I'll make her dress up
like that for me.”

Although he was dazed, her appearance had the opposite effect upon
the Upton boys. They sprang from the wall simultaneously and,
displaying their fine clothes to the best advantage, advanced towards
the Court House, using their handkerchiefs and walking canes with great
effect. They then glanced up at the window, removed their hats with a
fine flourish, and favoured the ladies with a bow in trio that had
taken many rehearsals to perfect.

The Cobtree ladies whispered something to Meg, who smiled down
sadly, but Miss Charlotte's eyes danced with a smile of real
appreciation. As she was always saying to people: “Oh, but I adore
those Upton boys,” she saw no reason to conceal her pleasure and
amusement.

However pleasing their extravagant homage was to the ladies, upon
Merry it had the opposite effect. “Why,” he asked himself, “should
these three swaggerers presuming on the good cut of their clothes, be
permitted to bow and scrape to the girl whom he was forbidden to
approach—the girl that eventually was to belong to him body and
soul—by the devil's grace?”

Since the three village gallants were not wearing swords (for they
had not yet had the effrontery to carry them to church) and since they
were disporting themselves in their London clothes (and it was rumoured
that they patronised the same tailor as the Prince of Wales did), it
was unlikely that they would risk disturbing such garments by a
hand-to-hand rough and tumble with the dirtily-clad Merry, which
supposition, prompted by wild hate against any that might now be
eligible for Meg's hand, led Merry to make a sudden rush behind their
backs and seize hold of the youngest Upton's cane, which he intended to
break across his knee. The sudden tug which he gave it, however, did
not jerk it out of young Tom Upton's hand, for the canes were all
embellished with wrist-loops and tassels.

Tom had turned like lightning, so had the brothers, and had seized
round Tom's waist so that Merry should not with his superior weight
pull away the cane. And as this tug-o'-war continued, Monty, the eldest
Upton, whispered in Tom's ear, who answered with a laugh. Merry,
determined to get the cane, dug his heels into the gravel and leaned
back, pulling with all his strength, and then suddenly Tom touched a
secret spring in the handle. The cane came in half and as Merry fell on
his back clutching the empty sheath, Tom sprang over him, pointing the
fine blade of the sword-stick at his breast. By the same infernal
juggling, Monty and Henry, the second brother, had likewise released
the blades of their sword-sticks so that Merry saw nothing but their
laughing faces above their shining rapiers. To add to his discomfiture,
he thought he heard the silvery laughter of the girls behind the
casement.

“If you break my sheath, I'll borrow your body instead,” said Tom,
looking so fierce that the beadle thought he was about experiment, and
thinking it quite safe to interfere, he crept up behind Merry's head
and plucked the empty cane away.

He then returned it politely to the owner, saying: “About time for
me to interfere, I think, gentlemen.” In fact, the beadle was quite
satisfied that his prowess had encompassed Merry's defeat.

It might have been more diplomatic had the ladies retired from
sight, but this Miss Charlotte had no intention of doing, since she had
enjoyed the excitement to the full, while Lady Cobtree thought that
seeing Merry worsted would go a long way towards dispelling the fear of
him in Meg's mind, but their presence enraged Merry to the last point
of brandy-flamed rage.

He stood up, and ignoring the grinning Uptons and the self-satisfied
beadle, he pointed up at Meg, and growled out: “Oh, then that settles
it.”

With three blades so ready at hand and augmented by the sexton armed
with the great key of the church, the beadle ventured to demand:
“Settles what?”

“Never you mind,” retorted Merry. “You'll se in good time—all of
you. It'll come as a surprise when it does come. And very surprising
it'll be round some of your necks, too. Yes. Your necks amongst others.
For no respecter of persons it won't be neither. Whether's it's necks
in the Court House there or humble necks like all of yourn, it'll have
'em just the same, you mind what I say.”

And although Merry had not the faintest idea what he was saying, or
what the 'it' was that was coming, he felt that the sentence expressed
his hatred of the whole pack of them, and that if it really had meant
anything more definite, it couldn't have sounded better.

It was, at any rate, a good enough speech to quit the field with,
and so he stalked off chuckling aloud.

“Did you ever now?” ejaculated the sexton. “And all because I hauls
him over the coals for keeping me waiting. What did he mean by all that
talk? And what did he want to come to church for?”

“On purpose to keep his hat on,” explained the beadle. “As to his
talk, well, I must look up the Statutes. I seem to recollect that
threatening an officer of law is a very grievous offence. What all his
talk meant, I do not know. But there was threats in it. Distinct
threats.”

“And I think, brothers, it will be safer for the windows of our
place of business,” said Monty, “if we follow him up and see he intends
no further harm.”

“But don't go surprising him with them swords no more, or there'll
be murder done,” cautioned the beadle.

“Very neat canes, Mister Beadle, eh?” laughed Tom.

“We bought them in London last week, when we attended the sale of
some bankrupt's goods,” explained Henry.

“We're keeping them, of course,” said Monty, “as they struck us as
very elegant. But we bought a deal of other things. Some quite
extraordinary things, which are for sale. You want to come and see.”

“Now, if you'd got the same sort of thing as them canes,” said the
beadle, “only made to look like a beadle's staff with a blunderbuss
inside, I'd buy it.”

“Or a church key,” suggested the sexton, “what was really a
horse-pistol. Ah, I'd buy that.”

“Nothing quite in that line, was there, brothers?” asked Monty. “But
we could let you have a brass warming-pan very cheap. And they'll go up
in price with the cold weather.”

“I find a drop o' Hollands keeps the cold out better than them
pans,” said the sexton. “I can't take no warming-pan into a grave I'm
digging, but Hollands, you see, I can.”

“My missus don't hold with warming-pans,” said the beadle. “Warm
bricks we have used ever since the first day, or rather night, we slept
in a Government House cottage. We'd be too scared of fire to use a pan.
Suppose them coals jumped out and set light to our bed, why the bed'd
set fire to the room and the room to the cottage and since the beadle's
residence is joined to the Court House, as you can see for yourselves
by looking at it over there, why, the Hall would be afire, and that
would mean the First Lord of the Level of Romney Marsh would be afire
and her ladyship would be afire, then she'd set the young ladies
ablaze, and before they knew what they'd done, they'd have enveloped
the precious baby in flames. No. It ain't good enough. Bricks for me.”

“You wants to know your wife very well, though,” suggested the
sexton. “I mean, it ain't every wife you'd trust with a great brick to
herself.”

“Never had no difficulty,” replied the beadle. “Every night just the
same. 'Good night, dear.' 'Good night, love.' Both our feet go down
upon our bricks and we're asleep.”

“Ah,” said the sexton, “you never had no children, did you?”

“Never,” replied the beadle. “Nor never no warming-pans neither.
Bricks is good enough for us.”

“Ah, then, if we can't sell you a warming-pan, we'll go home to
dinner,” laughed Monty, and with a brother on each side of him, he
swaggered off through the village.

This adventure of the Upton brothers, added to Dr. Syn's assurance
that there would be no further trouble from Merry, went so far to
dispel Meg's terror of the rogue that within a few days she was willing
to venture out, escorted by Charlotte and the parson, to view the work
of restoration being carried on under Josiah Wraight's direction in her
old home, the 'Sea-Wall Tavern'.

It was plain that everyone had worked with a will. The requests to
help had been so overwhelming, not only from the adjacent parishes but
from villages far removed across the Marsh, that in order to
incorporate all these volunteers, night-shifts of labourers were
enrolled, so that by the time Meg first viewed it from the sea-wall, it
was obvious that as far as the house was concerned, the storm had been
a blessing in disguise, for the old tavern, falling to pieces even
before the disaster, was now strong, solid and straight, floors and
ceilings interlaced with the fine old oak ribs of the brig, all cut
even and fitted into place. Gone were the old familiar chinks and
crevices through which the wind had used to whistle, and around the
wainscot not a hole remained, for a mouse to air his whiskers.
Lead-rimmed casements shut and opened easily, and not a draught could
creep through the fresh-set diamond panes.

After careful estimation of what was required, it was Josiah
Wraight's boast to the committee that every piece of wood left on the
brig had been utilised for the tavern. Even the little hut erected as
the office of works, and in which Josiah kept the plans, was knocked up
out of the bulkhead of the fo'c'sle.

“There's more brig than tavern about her now, Master Foreman,”
laughed one of the workmen, and when Josiah went to meet Meg Clouder,
and she exclaimed: “Oh, but it's so different, and so much more
important. How Abel would have loved it like this,” he paraphrased the
workman's remark with: “Aye, Meg, and when you go aboard you'll say:
'There's more
City of London
than “Sea-Wall Tavern”.' It's the
brig what has rebuilt it so fine.”

It was just as they were about to enter the front to 'go aboard', as
Josiah put it, that a sign-painter from New Romney approached and asked
if he were to get busy yet.

“Just a minute, son,” said Josiah, and then looking at Dr. Syn, he
gave the reverent gentleman a nod.

“Ah, yes,” replied the doctor. “We will ask Mrs. Clouder what she
thinks, and if her wishes are the same as the squire's this good fellow
may paint the words. You see, Mrs. Clouder, since so many good folk
have helped to rebuild the tavern, not only out of respect for your
brave husband, but also for all those poor souls who perished in the
brig which has now given its very ribs to build the house, the squire
is of the opinion that the house should stand now, and in generations
to come, as a memorial, and as he is giving you a new licence to run
the tavern to more advantage, now would be the convenient time to
change the title from 'Sea-Wall Tavern' to 'The City of London'.”

“Aye, and I think Abel would like it,” put in Josiah, “for in days
to come, when strangers look at the sign and say 'What has London to do
with Romney Marsh?' why, the story will be told of how Abel and Parson
Bolden died, and how the wreck not only rebuilt your house but brought
us our new vicar.”