THE SCARECROW RIDES (36 page)

Flattered by their friendliness, Merry went on to tell them of his
passion for Meg Clouder, whom he described in such glowing terms, that
although the colonel damned all women but his baby girl as plagues and
nuisances, Captain Vic became so enthusiastic on Merry's behalf that he
avowed he would win Meg for him.

“You're a morose sort of a devil,” he declared, filling up Merry's
glass, “and for all that I love you as a sworn brother in arms, I'd
take my oath you'd never win a cow-girl, much less this beautiful young
hostess you speak of. Now, I have a way with women of all classes and
ages, as the colonel will bear me out. Many's the kicking filly, aye,
and demure young miss, too, who has rued the day the let Captain Vic
get away with her; and I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll marry the wench
myself and then abandon her. You can then take her on the rebound if
you've the manhood in you that I imagine. How's that?”

After a good deal of argument, for at first Colonel Delacourt did
not relish staying in the same inn as his arch-enemy without his
henchman, it was decided that Captain Vic should have a post-chaise and
set off that very afternoon to Dymchurch. Meanwhile, Merry was to watch
Dr. Syn as he came in and out, and the colonel was to lie low in his
sitting-room, with as much drink as he needed supplied by the dutiful
Merry.

“And you'll not take it unkindly of me, friend Merry,” asked Captain
Vic, when the post-chaise was at the door, “if I make love to this Meg
of yours in good earnest?”

“You can do what you like with her,” replied Merry. “There's no soft
love about me. I doubt whether there's love at all, for at times I hate
her for upsetting me. Break her spirit, my captain, then throw her to
me. So that I possess her at last—aye, and her inn, too—you can do
your worst to her.”

“The worst will be well for you,” answered the captain. “For if she
comes to hate me, why, she'll love you all the more for giving her
protection.”

“I wonder,” growled Merry. “She hates me like hell, but that's all
one, so that I get her.”

“You shall have her, Mr. Merry; you can take Captain Vic's word for
that.”

So the red-bearded one departed, full of glee that he was escaping
from the gloom of Madame Delacourt's sick-bed, and with the prospects
of a diverting adventure at the end of his journey.

Just as the colonel was figuring that the post-chaise carrying
Captain Vic would be nearly Dymchurch, Merry announced the local
physician. After an examination of his patient, he returned to the
sitting-room, closing the bedroom door behind him. He looked more
serious than usual, which was quite enough to enrage the colonel
without the following pronouncement:

“Colonel Delacourt,” he said, “your wife is sinking, and as far as I
am concerned, her decline is unnecessary. Her body is well enough,
allowing for her condition, but it is her mind that is wrong. She has
not the will to exert her strength, and without that will, I am
useless. Now it happens, by the best of good fortune, that there is
alighted at this inn a man of such high spirituality, and possessed of
such charm of manner that where my poor eloquence has failed, he is one
who might succeed. He is beloved by all who know him, and it is his
mission in life to attend to the comforts of afflicted souls. I propose
to bring this gentleman up to see your wife.”

“Oh, you do, do you?” growled the colonel. “And who might the
gentleman be that he can claim admittance to my lady's sick-room? A
doctor?”

“Yes, a doctor,” replied the physician gravely. “A learned doctor of
divinity, but the broadest-minded man of his cloth that I have ever
encountered. In short, it is Dr. Syn, vicar of a place called Dymchurch
across the Kent border. He is below stairs now and will be delighted to
take a glass of wine with you, so that you may be the better acquainted
before he visits your poor wife. I will bring him up, with your
permission.”

“Which you will not get, my interfering doctor,” growled the
colonel.

“Eh?” demanded the amazed physician.

“I utterly forbid you to do any such thing,” went on the colonel in
an angrier tone.

“But when I tell you that the benefits of his visit may—indeed,
will—do untold good. In fact, as your medical adviser in this case, I
will go so far as to insist upon your seeing him. My confidence in the
man is so sure.”

“You are dictating now out of your province,” retorted the colonel.
“My wife is a foreigner, and her religion has nothing to do with the
Church of England, and the last person she would wish to see is this
parson friend of yours.”

“There, Colonel Delacourt, I must contradict you,” said the
physician. “I spoke of this good man to your good lady, and as I spoke,
I could see that her spirit seemed to burn with a new life. Let us go
together to her now and ask if it is not her wish to see this Dr. Syn,
since you will not take my word for it.”

Colonel Delacourt staggered to his feet with his fists clenched.

“You may be a good physician, sir,” he said, “but you must own that
I have paid for your services up to date in good money. I trust that
you will consider it your duty to continue your professional visits to
my wife and daughter, just as I shall consider it my duty to pay your
fees handsomely. But I do not desire spiritual advice from you or your
friends, and I take it as an impertinence that you should propose
introducing a stranger to my wife in her present state. Call to-morrow,
sir, with your physicals as usual, but let me have no more of this
parson nonsense.”

“She is your wife,” returned the physician, “and on this point I
must not go against your authority.”

“I can promise you that,” interrupted the colonel.

“But I must tell you that I like you the less for your decision,”
continued the doctor. “And one word more, and here I speak within my
province, and if it offends you—blame yourself. Your friend has ridden
off in a post-chaise. For long or short, I do not know and care less.
But since you are alone, I command you to abstain from further liquor,
and I presume you will not now consider it your duty to keep the
night-owl awake with your cursed songs. Good afternoon.”

“Oh, go to hell, and come to-morrow for your money,” retorted the
colonel.

* * * * * *

Below stairs, in the handsomely-appointed sitting-room which was
always set aside for Dr. Syn, the physician found the Dymchurch parson
receiving some of his many friends in Rye. Leading him aside, he told
him of the colonel's objection to parsons, adding his opinion of
husbands who can drink, gamble and sing ribald songs at the very
threshold of their wives' sick-rooms.

“Add to that, sir, the fact that the wife wished to see you, and
said your visit would be a great comfort to her, and yet this bully
refuses point-blank. I wish he had gone away with his companion, who
they tell me has taken chaise for your Dymchurch.”

“I wonder now why he has gone there? I must speak to Merry on the
subject, and if necessary we will keep an eye upon this other offensive
man.”

“You'll not have difficulty in recognising him,” replied the
physician. “I have never seen so conspicuous a man. His red beard
flames like a furnace, and he carries two golden balls from his
ear-lobes that put one in mind of a pawnbroker's sign. A flashy,
handsome, swaggering braggart if ever there was one.”

And in the meantime, the gentleman under discussion had arrived at
Dymchurch and entered the cosy bar of 'The City of London' inn. To say
that such a magnificent specimen of a man lifted poor Meg off her feet
is but to state a literal truth, for, after treating the usual
following in the bar with as much drink as they could carry and
presenting each villager with a guinea when Meg was not looking, to
leave him a clear coast for his wooing, he lifted Meg right over the
drinking counter and carried her out like a baby on to the sea-wall,
crying in one breath to the pot-boy to mind the custom, and in the next
declaring his undying passion for the girl in his arms.

The tide was far out and the setting sun reflecting the golden light
of the sands caused the beard of Captain Vic to sparkle red. Meg
thought she had never seen such a glorious man, never encountered such
colossal strength.

With a cry of joy, Captain Vic raced along the deserted beach
laughing at the bewildered face against his shoulder. When he had run
far from the village, he sat himself down against a breakwater, with
Meg still in his arms who, woman-like, protested that he would soil his
fine velvet coat if he leaned against the tarred and seaweed-covered
wood.

Captain Vic assured her that he had a score of coats every bit as
fine hanging up in his wardrobe at the 'Mermaid' in Rye, and that
failing those there were a score of fashionable London tailors who were
pestering him to order more. He kept vowing that he loved her, that he
had never loved before, and that when he had heard of her beauty that
very day, he had known she was the right wife for him and had set off
immediately to claim her.

When she heard that it was Merry who had raved about her, she
trembled with fear and told her impetuous lover of her dread. He
assured her that she need have no fear of any man while he lived to
protect her, and he went on in the most gentlemanly fashion to tell her
the arrangements he was about to make for their immediate wedding.

“Whether we live on for a time at your inn or take ship to my vast
plantations in the Indies, is for you to decide, my Meg,” he added.
“Naturally, I will not sleep at your inn but will take rooms at the
'Ship', for everything must be above board for the sake of your sweet
reputation. But on Monday I will ride into Hythe, take out a special
licence from the magistrate and then we will be married quietly and
return in the evening as man and wife and confront this village with
our happiness.”

Meg protested against such a hurry, but she owned that the sudden
romance of it appealed to her. Whereupon, Captain Vic kissed her
heartily and told her the affair was settled.

When he brought her home and kissed her good night under the
darkness of the sea-wall, Meg entered 'The City of London' happier than
she had ever been since the night of the wreck, and feeling a great
sense of relief that at last she could carry on her business under the
security of Captain Vic's protection.

By mutual consent, her new lover not only slept at the 'Ship Inn',
but mealed there, though the rest of the day he insisted on sitting in
Meg's bar, in which he rapidly gained a popularity, owing not only to
his generosity but to his gentlemanly manners, for Captain Vic knew how
to play his cards in life for his own advantage, just as he knew how to
conceal an ace up his sleeve when playing real cards upon the table.

For one, also, he took the care to keep himself reasonably sober,
and the more she saw of him, the more confident did Meg feel that he
was the man she could safely choose as her protector.

“And as for that rogue Merry,” he laughed, “if he so much as annoys
you as to show his face in this good 'City of London', why, I'll break
his neck between my finger and thumb.” And when Meg saw him tear a pack
of cards across the middle, which no other man could accomplish in that
bar, she knew that he was not idly boasting of his strength.

Her confidence in Captain Vic increased when they discovered that
the licence would take some days to prepare, for although annoyed at
the delay and damning old England for a puritanical slow-coach, which
was excusable in such an impetuous lover, his behaviour never went
beyond the bounds required by the most exacting chaperon. “He is a
gentleman to his finger-tips,” said Meg, and everyone agreed with her.

On the whole, Meg was not averse to being married quietly in Hythe,
for she was afraid of the opinion of the Dymchurch folk who had loved
her husband. She was not at all easy in her mind, however, in taking
such a serious step without consultation with Dr. Syn, but this was
impossible since the reverend gentleman had taken the opportunity of
his journey to Rye to pay a number of visits to certain of the clergy
in that district, keeping with him the redoubtable Mipps as his
body-servant, who also took opportunity at each place to pass word from
the Scarecrow concerning the arrangements for the mightiest 'run' ever
undertaken by the smugglers.

Meg was anxious to take Charlotte Cobtree into her confidence, but
Captain Vic, after some argument persuaded her against this, saying
that since Meg was so young a widow it was more seemly not to announce
her second marriage till it was an established fact.

“Besides,” he added, “it will only seem that you are telling her in
order to conjure rich presents out of the squire's family, and since I
can give you money to play ducks and drakes with, we will buy all you
want ourselves and make you feel the more independent.”

Thus it was that Meg and Captain Vic departed one morning by special
coach to Hythe without a word to anyone as to their purpose, and
returned to 'The City of London' as man and wife.

The evening that Dr. Syn returned from his profitable little tour
over the Sussex border, he dined with the Cobtrees, in order, as he put
it, to learn all the gossip of Dymchurch since he had been absent.

“Well, Doctor, the most extraordinary news is this,” said the
squire. “This daughter of mine here, this Charlotte, has at last, and
in your absence, chosen her twenty-first birthday present from me, and
you'll never guess what it is. You see, Doctor, like all the other
romantic misses of the neighbourhood, she has thought fit to admire
this mysterious Scarecrow, because he saved the necks of a number of
Dymchurch lads. Now, although her Sirius is accounted one of the best
hunters on the Marsh,—she must now have a black horse too. Why? Oh,
because the Scarecrow rode a black horse, if you please. Well, I tell
her, so did the murderer Grinsley.”