Merry, in his present mood, might have taken himself to task for not utterly and finally refusing to work for the new parson—'cleaning brass in the church, indeed! A job that for maiden ladies and old spinsters, with nothing better to do than toady round a parson.' But Merry did nothing of the kind, for into his brain had crept the idea that by working for this Dr. Syn, he would be near enough to spy upon him, and it would go hard if sooner or later he could not find the means of tripping him up.
So the results of the interview, although greatly increasing Merry's hatred, put him in a better temper with life, although it would not have been suspected by his face, which was as sour and hard as usual. Another thing evolving from the interview which caused him added satisfaction, was the knowledge that Meg Clouder feared him, and he resolved to circumvent the parson's orders by some cunning and see that this fear increased. For although Meg attracted him more strangely than anyone had ever done before, he preferred to win her through the power of fear than any stupid urge of affection. To have her at his mercy—to watch her fears growing and to see her realising slowly that she could not escape. These thoughts were his pleasurable companions as he slunk out of the church, much to the relief of the very old sexton, who had not the courage to tackle Merry single-handed inside the building.
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'.
