Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/21

Rh He was as proud of this song as if he had written it himself, and it was a continual source of amusement to the fishermen to hear him sing it, which he frequently did of an evening in the parlour of the old Ship Inn when he went there for a chat and a friendly pipe; for Doctor Syn was, as I have said, broadminded, and held views that would certainly have been beyond those of the diocesan dignitaries. The very daring of a parson drinking with the men in a public inn had a good effect, he declared, upon the parish, for a good parson, as a good sailor, should know when he has had enough. The squire would back him up in this, and there they would both sit every evening laughing and talking with the fishermen, very often accompanying some crew down to the beach to help them launch their boat—and of course all this added to their popularity. But on Sunday nights they dined at the Court House, leaving the field open for the redoubtable Mipps, who, as has been said, took full advantage of it.

Now the ungainly little sexton had a great admirer in the person of Mrs. Waggetts, the landlady of the Ship. Her husband had been dead for a number of years, and she was ever on the lookout for another. She perceived in the person of Mipps her true lord and master. He was enterprising, he had also money of his own, for he was parish undertaker as well as sexton, and ran from his small shop in the village every trade imaginable. You could buy anything, from a