Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/171

 schemes, I has. I thinks about 'em by day, I does, and dreams of 'em at night."

"And they gives you a rare knack of puttin' away Missus Waggetts' victuals, I'm a-noticin'," dryly remarked the sexton.

"Lor', I'm sure he's heartily welcome to anything I've got," returned the landlady. "It fair cheers me up to see him eat well, and it'll be a fine man he'll be making in a year or so."

"Aye, that I will," cried young Jerk; "and when I'm a hangman I ain't a-goin' to forget my old friend. I'll come along from the town every Sunday, I will, and we'll go and hear Parson Syn preach just the same as we does now, and Mister Mipps will show us into the pew, and everybody will turn round and stare at us and say: *Why, there goes Hangman Jerk!' Then we'll come back and have a bite of supper together, that is providing I don't have to sup with the squire at the Court House."

"That 'ud be likely," interrupted Mipps.

"And, after we've had supper, I'll tell you stories about horrible sights I've seen in the week, and terrible things I've done, and it'll go hard with Sexton Mipps to keep even with me with weird yarnin', I tells you."

"Ha! ha!" chuckled Mipps. "Strike me dead and knock me up slipshod in a buckrum coffin, if this man Jerry Jerk don't please me. Look at him. Missus Waggetts. Will you please do me the favour of lookin'