THE SCARECROW RIDES (7 page)

Gripping the iron-loaded billet with all his strength, he swung it
up when the stranger whipped around like lightning and the astonished
Merry was driven back with a long blade pricking into his chest.

“Drop that, you dog, or I'll drive this knife out through your
back.”

Merry dropped the billet of wood and retreated gibbering with fear
from the point of the knife.

“So you thought I was going to follow your knife up to heaven, did
you? It never occurred to you that I had another of my own already to
send you to hell. I seem destined to upset your plans, Mister Merry.”

“All right,” grunted Merry. “I'm beaten. Let me go and pick up your
hat for you, sir.”

The stranger shook his head. “Not yet, Mister Merry, for your knife
is sticking in the sand but a yard away from it, and it might tempt you
to be foolish again, and I am going to show you just how foolish. Since
you interrupted one knife trick, I am about to show you another. You
see the post behind you. It is about your height. Put your hat on the
top of it.”

Merry sullenly removed his hat and walked towards the breakwater,
only too glad to escape from the pricking knife. He put the hat upon
the six-foot post.

“Very life-like, upon my soul,” laughed the stranger. “Let me
introduce you, Mr. Merry that shall be, to Mister Merry that for the
moment
is
. A man of your perception, Mister Merry that shall be,
will realise that this Mister Merry that
is
has little to
recommend him. He is at the best as stubborn as old oak and iron, but
the oak is rotting and the iron eaten with rust. His brain beneath his
hat is nothing but a seething mass of bravadoes. He is as wooden as an
old Aunt Sally at the fair, and yet he has murder in his heart. Twice
he has tried to murder me to-night, and he is thinking hard how best to
try again. Let me show you how I deal with such a stumpy idiot. Ha!”
The stranger made a quick movement.

The knife whistled past the live Merry and stuck deep and quivering
in the centre of the post a foot beneath his hat.

“Right through the neck, Mr. Murderer. Right through the neck. Now
pluck it out and give it back to me.”

Once more Merry saw a chance, a faint chance, and leaping to take
it, he worked the knife with difficulty out of the post. But when he
turned he saw that the stranger had retreated and while settling on his
hat, was also balancing the other knife which he had picked out of the
sand.

“And now,” said he, taking up the slack of the rope and giving it a
spin on to Merry's wrist, “drop that knife in the sand in front of you
and step in after my chest, for this little diversion has filled up
time while the water dropped, and don't fear at being carried out by
the tide, for I have the rope as a reins with you as one horse and the
chest as the other.”

Merry strode desperately towards the waves and then stopped.

“Is the chest a big one?” he asked.

“Very big, and very heavy,” smiled the stranger.

“Then how do you think I can carry it with my wrists lashed
together?” he demanded.

“I don't for one minute. If you will come here, I will free you.”

“Then you'd best pick up your own knife,” advised Merry. “It seems
handier for cutting rope.”

“I have been brought up to believe it a crime to cut rope wantonly.
I'll untie it.”

Merry watched the stranger's long, sensitive fingers working, and he
realised that any man possessing such hands and such penetrating eyes
must be someone above the average. In a few seconds his left wrist was
free, but the rope's end still held his right firmly.

“I noticed that you are left-handed,” remarked the stranger. “You
killed the captain, at least, with your left. And in my own defence I
should like you to realise that the first thing I remember after my
buffeting on the stones, was the descent of your knife. Had I recovered
sooner I should have saved your victim's life.”

“Don't make another speech about it,” growled Merry, striding off
into the waves.

He picked up the other section of the rope and, lifting it from the
water, waded along it.

The chest lay in deeper water than the stranger thought, for as
Merry stooped to up-end it, a wave broke over his shoulders. This
discomfort irritated the baffled Merry beyond all bearing, and he
expended his rage upon the chest. Large it was, as the stranger had
said, and had it been a bank chest it could not have been heavier.
Merry decided that its owner must be a bank messenger bringing gold bar
from America, and he cursed his ill-luck that he had not murdered him
as well as the captain. His burning resentment against the stranger
made him regard the chest as his own property out of which he had been
cheated by gross injustice, and his only comfort was that, knowing the
chest existed, the devil might yet give him another chance at it. He
would anyway show the stranger that he was a man to be feared for his
strength, and with a superhuman effort fed with rage and wounded pride,
he somehow got the brass-bound breaking weight upon his back and
staggered with it from the water.

“Splendid,” cried the stranger, with a great show of admiration as
Merry passed him.

'And when I have a knife in your shoulder-blades, I'll say
“splendid” too,' said Merry to himself. Aloud he grunted: “To the Court
House, you said?”

“I did,” replied the stranger, “where I intend to spend this night
unless Tony Cobtree be much changed from the gallant lad he was when I
knew him.”

As they climbed the steps cut in the sea-wall, Merry rested the
chest upon the ledge of masonry, for the stranger, who had coiled the
long slack of the cord over his arm, had given Merry's wrist a pull as
he stopped and regarded the captain's body.

“Yes,” ejaculated Merry, as though blaming the stranger for the dead
man's plight. “What are you going to do about that? Best thing is to
give him a sea-burial, eh?”

“No, we'll lay him to rest in the churchyard with full honours,”
said the stranger. “I happen to know his wishes on burial. We discussed
it. I was for sea-burial, having witnessed one, and he, the sailor,
said not for him. So we'll respect his wish and cheat Davy Jones. I'll
take his papers and report his death.”

“But the wound?” muttered Merry in interrogation. “They'll find that
and wonder. Unless they think the fire aboard spread panic and it was a
case of every man for himself. I've known cases where sailors run wild
against authority. Now if you, being a survivor, could tell them some
such panic took place—”

The stranger, who had stowed the oilskin packet in his pocket,
silenced Merry with a gesture, then straightened out the dead man's
limbs. A sea-gull screeching and hovering overhead, then caused him to
lay his kerchief over the face. Having concluded the last service of
respect, he removed his hat and with bowed head uttered a prayer. Then
signing to Merry to proceed, he climbed the steps and fell in at his
side, saying quickly:

“As to what they will think of the captain's death wound, I cannot
say, but you can be sure of this. Cross me but once, and they shall
know the truth, for just as surely as they will believe my word against
yours, I shall denounce you for to-night's murder at the next Assizes.”

They walked on silently save for Merry's heavy breathing. It was
slow going, for the rough road was littered with branches of trees, and
bricks and tiles. At the corner of the churchyard the stranger stopped
and gave a little tug on the rope. Merry stopped too and eased the
weight of the chest on the low churchyard wall.

“Yes, a moment's rest before we ring at the door, I think,” said the
stranger. “The old church, eh? Looking very beautiful in the moonlight.
But I see that you are more interested in the gallows and the rags and
bones that swing there. What was he? A smuggler?”

“No. Sheep-stealer,” growled Merry.

“And to think that love of mutton should bring a poor fellow to
that,” philosophised the stranger.

“It was other people's mutton, you see,” grunted Merry.

“Oh, I am not excusing him,” replied the stranger. “The law of the
Marsh must be kept, just as the Wall must be maintained.”

“It seems then you're no stranger to these parts,” said Merry.
“Since we are to be further acquainted, it might be as well if I knew
what your name and occupation might be.”

“All in good time, Mister Merry. This is Friday? Very well then, on
Sunday you will attend morning prayer inside there. Then you may learn
something, if you keep awake.”

“I don't attend church. I ain't a hypocrite,” growled Merry.

“No one is a hypocrite who tries to turn over a new leaf, my friend,
and next Sunday you will show the parish that you intend to turn one.
You will be there early to insure yourself a seat.”

“Me in church? That's good,” scoffed Merry.

“Nevertheless, you will be there,” continued the other. It is a
command. Understand? And one thing more, before we part. To insure your
good behaviour, your guilty secret will be made public at your first
legal offense. In plain words, if Mister Merry appears for any
misdemeanour at the Petty Sessions, he will appear also at the Assizes
for the captain's murder and attempted murder on me. Now, up with the
chest again and follow me.”

As the church bells were pealing out their danger summons to the
Marsh, the stranger and Merry had not heard the ringing of the Court
House bell, but as they crunched their way across the gravel to the
front door, they saw that they were forestalled, and that another man
was being admitted into the hall. The footman was about to close the
door again when the stranger called out to him.

“I wish to see Sir Tony,” and then, without waiting for the
footman's reply he turned to Merry and added: “You can bring my chest
in here and put it down. Not on the rug but against the wall there on
the flagstones, where the sand and wet won't harm.”

New Hall, the residence which surrounded the Marsh Court House and
legal offices, in those days kept up a great show of state, all the
Cobtree serving men wearing scarlet liveries and powdered hair.
Although taken back by the stranger's unexpected entrance and air of
command, which assured him that he had to deal with a gentleman above
the ordinary, the pompous young footman was not so impressed when he
recognised the bearer of the chest was none other than the infamous
Merry. Also, the stranger's clothes of solemn black were sadly deranged
by sea water and sandy mud.

Before the footman could utter a word, the stranger continued: “I
take it that the squire has not departed from the Cobtree habit of
sitting up o' nights. However, if he should be abed, I fear that the
occasion demands you to call him.”

There was a something about the stranger which made the footman
realise that if he tried any browbeating he would fare the worse. But
the presence of Merry demanded that he should demonstrate his own
dignity.

So, avoiding the stranger's gaze, which disconcerted him, he looked
at Merry down his exalted nose and replied: “The High Lord of the Level
is at present engaged in the company of several local gentlemen. One of
the villagers who arrived just before you, and is the bearer of grave
news, has been admitted, so that for a time the squire is fully
occupied. No doubt, he would see you by appointment in the morning if
your business is urgent.”

“Urgent?” repeated the stranger. “It would seem so, I think, in that
I have successfully negotiated fire, tempest and sudden death to
transact it. When a man sets out from New England to Old in bad weather
even those more exacting than yourself will admit the urgency, I think.
As to the villager you mention, I rather gather that his bad news
concerns myself, since I have but now swum from the brig,
City of
London
, which lies with her back broken on Dymchurch Wall.

“Are you then a survivor of the wreck, sir?” asked the footman.

“Unless you can convince me that I am a ghost,” smiled the stranger.
“And I assure you I feel far from real. After so long a time to be
picked up by a wave and deposited here into the Cobtree Hall, and 'fore
heaven, how often, when I have seen false weights and measures in the
New World, have I not thought of these.”

He strode up the long hall, talking more to himself than to the
footman and examined the solid brass measures that were arranged in
sizes upon a great oak table. He picked up one of great weight with the
King's crown in the centre, Romney Marsh Level writ round it, with the
figures of weight, the orthodox weight by which all disputes must be
settled.

The footman cleared his throat and followed the stranger. He was
annoyed that anyone should handle the brass weights and measures, as he
had the cleaning of them. “If you are a survivor of the wreck, sir—“
he began, but the stranger cut him short with:

“If? Well, if not, how do you suggest I arrived here? Do you think I
swam with my sea-chest from Boston?”

“I was about to say, sir, that if you are a survivor, Sir Antony
will see you, and immediately, for such were his orders, though he had
small hope that any could live.”

“Then that bad news you spoke of,” continued the stranger, “was no
doubt a report that no survivor had reached land, eh?”

“It was somewhat worse than that, sir,” replied the footman
solemnly. “It was the report that the body of our vicar, who had
attempted with another to swim out with a life-line, has been
recovered. He is dead.”

“The vicar of Dymchurch is dead?” repeated the stranger.

“Aye, sir. Parson Bolden. He went out with young Clouder. Both lost.
The young widow Clouder has been brought here. Going on something
shocking till Dr. Pepper give her something to quieten her. She's
asleep now.”