Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/100

 they relish British cutlasses in their bowels, let them continue with such pranks as they played upon poor Pepper, and they'll get Pepper back and be damned to them, for it's Jack Ketch or the cold steel and nothing else." And having thus hurled his challenge at the assembly the captain put his pipe upon the table and sat down.

You can imagine that a speech of so staggering a nature had a strange effect upon the company. So sudden was it, so ferocious, so uncalled for, that nearly a minute elapsed before any one moved. At last the squire rose, speaking quietly but in that clear voice that everybody in Dymchurch knew so well and respected:

"Gentlemen, Doctor Syn spoke very wisely, as it is ever his wont to do, when he rebuked us for wrangling, for, as he said, both time and place are ill fitting. This is the first time that I have been insulted during my long sojourn in Romney Marsh, and I am glad that it has been in the presence of my friends and tenants of Dymchurch, who know me well and will do me right in their own minds, never allowing themselves to be warped for a single instant by the scathing and unjust remarks of a stranger upon whom I have, to the best of my ability, bestowed hospitality and every mark of friendship. On the other hand, I most honestly affirm that Captain Howard Collyer has given me insult in a straightforward way. In his defence I must say that the Admiralty have chosen a bad man to do their spying for them;