Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/127

 "You know nothing about him—he was a drunken rascal!"

"Doctor Syn knew him well, and he's told me things. A rough man he was, certain, and none rougher, reckless, too, and brave, a lawbreaker on land as well as sea, pitiless to his enemies, staunch to his friends, but contemptible he never was; and so, Mister Rash, you can afford to respect him, and I say again that I wish he were here to make you."

"Shouldn't care if he was," replied the schoolmaster, "for there's always the law to look after a man."

"So there is," chuckled Jerk, "and that you'll find."

"Bah! what's the good of haggling and squabbling?" said Mr. Rash. "You're mine, or you'll have to bear the consequences."

"And that is?" asked the girl defiantly.

"The rope for your friends when I turn King's evidence."

"You wouldn't dare, you coward, for you'd be hanging yourself as well."

"King's evidence will cover me all square."

"So you're determined to turn it, are you?"

"I am, unless you change your mind."

The girl didn't reply to that, so Mr. Rash, thinking that he was making an advance, continued:

"Think, Imogene—this Cobtree fellow will be packed off to London in a month or so, and from there on to Oxford; and after a university career of drinking,