THE SCARECROW RIDES (2 page)

A vivid flash of lightning lit up the dim room and with no more than
a second's pause the thunder answered it in a sharp crackle that ended
in a loud voluminous peal.

“What did I tell you?” asked Merry. “If that ain't unseasonable, wot
is?”

“Thunder in November, eh?” was the comment of the Preventive
Officer.

“Strange, eh?” wheezed the invalid. “What my grandfather would have
called a 'Homen'. He saw lots. The last he saw was on the night he
died, but I forgets what sort it was.”

“Try and think, love,” encouraged his spouse.

But the invalid's effort of thought was destroyed in a fit of
coughing as the Preventive Officer opened the door and let the draught
in.

Another gust of storm and another crash of destruction.

“Won't be much left of Dymchurch by the time this has done with it,”
pronounced Merry.

“I wonder,” replied the Preventive officer. “That's right though,
I'll be bound.”

If Merry thought the Preventive man was answering him, he was
mistaken. The Preventive Officer was answering his own thoughts, and
was not aware that he had spoken aloud. His brain had been busy
searching for a motive that would make Merry brave the storm, and his
arguments to himself ran something on these lines: 'By my standard of
judging men, this miserable Merry is without doubt the worst of the bad
lots in Dymchurch. He can certainly put his hands to a job of work when
it serves him, but beyond that he has not a redeeming quality. There's
nothing he wouldn't or couldn't do, for he's capable enough. He'd cut a
man's throat as soon as a pig's, and there's been human throat cutting
on this Marsh in my time, and no murderer strung up. What more likely
then than that this dirty brute ain't the throat-cutter in chief for
the smugglers. There's many a man who don't think twice about
defrauding the Government who would shrink from violence. Such folk
have only to mention to Merry that So-and-so is a menace, and Merry
cuts So-and-so's throat, and when a hue and cry is raised, such folk
keeps mum through fear of what this cutthroat might do or say. Now,
suppose this 'ere ship in distress is nothing more than a laden lugger
caught by the storm, full of contraband. She goes ashore here and in
the name of the Government I make a seizure. That touches the pockets
of most of 'em in Dymchurch, and might touch a neck or two with Jack
Ketch hemp. A stab in the dark from this rogue would save 'em a lot of
trouble. A cry wouldn't be heard on a night like this, nor no one
notice a body sunk in the mud of the sluice-gate. Well, let Merry try
such a prank and he's mine body and soul, and a very useful gentleman,
too. I'd rather have him obeying me than a regiment of Dragoons. Let's
see, left-handed, ain't he? Then his knife will be handy in his left
pocket, or he wouldn't have done up his coat so tight.'

As he turned in the door and said 'good night', not even Merry
noticed that a short-muzzle pistol had been transferred from the right
to the left pocket of the officer's heavy coat. Merry did not suspect
the reason why the officer fetched along beside him on his left side,
and for support against the wind or comfort against the storm grasped
his left arm tightly with his right. Indeed, the officer's hand dropped
into Merry's pocket and gripped his wrist, almost as though he had put
him under arrest. Meanwhile, the ugly knife lay at the bottom of the
deep pocket, idle but safe. Even when these ill-assorted companions of
Law and Disorder had to negotiate their way over the branches of a
great tree that had been blown across the road from the Grove House,
the comfortable residence of Dr. Sennacharib Pepper, the local
physician and surgeon, even then did the officer keep Merry's wrist
shackled in his strong fingers. Lights were burning in the Grove House.
Evidently, Dr. Pepper expected the storm to give him a duty call, and
was not yet abed.

At the corner of Grove House the road turns and forks into an upper
path which runs up a bank and snuggles its way immediately below the
sea-wall. Up this path the two struggled, making their way towards a
snugly-gabled house known as 'the Sea-Wall Tavern'. The events of this
night were, however, destined to change this name. The two adventurers
looked up at the bedroom window, where in the light of a candle a
good-looking young woman was peering through the diamond-shaped panes.
Behind her loomed the figure of her husband.

Making a trumpet of his spare hand, the Preventive Officer shouted:
“Ahoy, Abel Clouder.”

In a vivid flash of lightning Abel looked down over his wife's
shoulder and recognised the two men standing on the gravel path beneath
the window. At the same time his wife pointed out to sea and uttered a
frightened cry that was echoed by what seemed like the wailing of lost
souls.

Abel made a sign to the men below and disappeared from the window.
In a few seconds they heard the chains being taken down from the door,
and it suddenly opened inwards. The two men dashed into the passage and
turned to help the owner close the door. Against the fury of the wind,
it took their combined force to do it.

“There's a ship in distress, ain't there?” asked the Preventive man.
“Do you know her?”

“No,” answered Abel. “Come upstairs and have a look. There'll be
lightning again in a minute.”

Mrs. Clouder left the window as the men came in, and sat down on the
side of the big bed.

Her husband dragged the Preventive man to the window, where they
waited for the next flash. Merry stood just inside the door and turned
his cadaverous eyes upon the girl. Like every other man in Dymchurch,
Merry realised that Abel Clouder had secured the best looking young
woman on the Marsh, when he made Meg Mrs. Clouder. But if the men,
including Merry, were envious of Abel, the women were no less jealous
of Meg, for Abel was the jolliest and the most handsome of the young
fishermen, and there had been many a heart aching when Abel had led Meg
to the altar. However, this envy and jealousy were only on the surface.
Deep down there was no one who did not wish this ideal couple well. All
save Merry. Meg's beauty disturbed him and made him realise his
inferiority to Abel, who had won the only girl whose physical
attractions filled him with a wild desire for her. Accordingly he hated
Abel, and Abel's popularity only served to increase the hatred.

The shrieking destruction of the wild elements outside entered his
wicked soul and filled it with a devilish glee as he watched Meg seated
on the bed, her pretty face clouded with anxiety as she watched and
listened to the storm. His hungry eyes feasted on her beauty. Her
clear-cut, almost classic, features, her broad honest brow with the
light brown hair that crowned it and fell in a provocative kiss curl
upon her firm young breast. Her eyes had the green of the sea in them,
and he was afraid of them, but the suspicion of freckles under them
somehow stirred his blood. She was dressed in an orange-coloured frock
of rough cloth, open at the neck, but the gay colour only made her look
more puritanical in his eyes. He hated purity, and the only useful
reason for it as far as he could see, was that it was a quality made
for destruction. His eyes that had been devouring Meg's face and
figure, shifted to her feet. They were bare, and he had a mad desire to
crunch those beautiful little bones between his teeth.

As the lightning flashed he watched her, enjoying the look of fear
that crept into her usually fearless eyes. 'Yes, to crunch those ankles
with my teeth. To see the colour of her blood. To bruise that healthy
flesh.' The thought made him involuntarily draw in his breath with a
vicious hiss. She turned for the first time and looked at him.

“Are you cold, Mr. Merry?” she asked.

“No,” he answered gruffly. “I've been wrapped up against the wet,
but it's strangely hot for November.”

As he spoke, he unbuttoned his coat, pulled it from him and dropped
it on the floor. Then he unwound his scarf and kept it on his hand, for
the sky was again lighted up with a succession of sheet lightning,
while the fire forks cracked and hissed down into the sea. For the
first time he saw what the others had been watching, a sturdy brig with
broken masts and fallen sails, being hurled nearer and nearer to the
sea-wall. He listened to the conversation of the two men in the window.

“She's no doubt striking the sand already as she dips,” said Abel.
“But she won't stick, not with that power of the sea. It'll lift her
off every time. She'll be broke up within the groyne. Maybe she'll get
hoisted on to the wall before she breaks her back. By gad. She's on
fire, too. Look.”

The sky had gone black as the thunder crashed, but a dull red spot
suddenly leapt into a fierce tongue of orange flame, and once more
arose the wail as of lost souls. And that their bodies were lost there
was no doubt. That flame, venomous and spiteful, had the ship. It was
as though one element were striving with the other for the victim. Fire
and water fought for the doomed vessel.

“Oh, poor people,” murmured Meg, trembling. “Can we do nothing but
watch?”

“I fear that's what it will amount to, lass,” replied her husband.
“It's no use trying to launch a boat, because it couldn't be done. But,
as we were saying just now, a line might help 'em.”

The shrieking wind seemed to scoff at his words, for a sheet of
water struck the lead-rimmed panes. Once more the lightning lit up sea
and sky.

“She's nearer now,” said Abel. “But every time the waves drop her
she sticks. When she stops shifting, if she does, I'll risk it.”

The forked spears of fire danced and darted in the sky as though
daring him to make good his boast. Merry looked at the storm, not with
the strength of pity that shone in Abel's eyes, but with the lust of
destruction, and his black soul whispered secretly: 'If the storm will
drag down the husband, then I will drag down the wife.' He looked at
Meg, and overcame a wild impulse to seize her face and kiss her on the
lips, but wisdom, or fear saved him from such folly as Meg stood up and
said firmly: “You are not to go, Abel. It is madness.”

Abel, however, had decided that he must go. He turned to his wife
and laid both hands upon her firm young shoulders.

“I'd sooner you loved me as a dead brave man, than as a living
coward. You ain't going to make me unworthy of your love?”

“Mrs. Clouder, that ain't a sea to swim in I allow,” said the
Preventive Officer. “There's but two men on Romney Marsh that might
attempt it at a long hazard, and your man's the stronger swimmer of the
two.”

“And is the other one a married man?” asked Meg.

The Preventive Officer shook his head. “It's the young vicar, I
mean. Parson Bolden.”

“But look at that sea,” protested Meg.

“Why, there is the parson,” exclaimed Abel. “See him, crouching his
way up by that boat-house wall. He's a dare-devil for all he's a
parson.”

“There's quite a crowd of the lads collected,” said the Preventive
man.

“Where?” asked Merry, going for the first time to the window. He had
a purpose for doing it, too. He dropped his dark scarf upon the dark
floor-boards. The light of the flickering candle did not betray this
fact, as Merry leaned against the casement.

“On the lee side of the boat-house,” was the reply to Merry's
question.

“Then it's time we joined 'em,” said Abel. “Have you got the key of
the boat-house, in case them rescue ropes are needed, mate?”

“I've got it,” answered the Preventive man, making for the
staircase. “Come on, Merry.”

Merry picked up his coat and began pulling it on as he followed down
the stairs. But one look he shot as he went, and he saw Meg in her
husband's arms, and he hugged his hatred to his soul.

“Give a look to the parlour fire below, lass,” said Abel, “and keep
a kettle going. We may get one or two of 'em ashore in spite of all,
and they'll want reviving.”

When Abel had his hand upon the bobbin of the front door, Merry put
his hand up to his coat collar. “You go on. I'll join you,” he said.
“I've left my scarf up in the bedroom.”

“You'd never pull this door to by yourself,” laughed Abel. “Here,
Meg. Mr. Merry's left his scarf up there. Heave her down, will you?”

But this didn't suit Merry. He had a word to say to Meg alone and he
meant to say it. He was up the stairs before Abel realised he was
going, and he entered the bedroom without a word.

Meg had evidently neither heard her husband call nor Merry's
footsteps, for she was kneeling beside the bed with her face buried in
her arms. Feeling a heavy hand upon her bowed head rumpling her hair,
she imagined that her prayer was answered and that her husband had
returned to tell her that the seas were too high to adventure.

Smiling through her tears, she looked up into the cadaverous face of
the miserable Merry. Facing what he could not begin to understand, the
man's face appeared stupidly wooden. Although he knew he would not
hesitate t cut a man's throat if he was sure of his own skin, he was
amazed at his own audacity in thus confronting Meg, and the nearness of
her beauty paralysed him.

Meg found herself suddenly afraid. Not so much of the man as of the
storm and his sudden appearance alone in her bedroom. Behind his tall
hovering figure the lightning danced. He had drawn away his hand with
an awkward gesture of fear. It was his left hand, and the twitching
fingers seemed self-conscious of what they had done. These fingers,
well-used to the stain of blood, recoiled from the silken touch of that
light brown hair. To gain confidence, they dropped subconsciously into
the left coat pocket and closed around the handle of the ugly knife.
Then, without knowing what he did, he drew his hand out of the pocket,
so that half the blade was exposed to her eyes. Strangely enough, her
fear vanished. Thinking of it later, she knew that she feared those
empty, groping fingers more than the clenched fist.