Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/228

 the purpose, bore away the body of the dead seaman, so that before the dawn lit up the Marsh there was no sign of smugglers anywhere, and Jerry Jerk, after disrobing with the others at the coffin shop, was packed off home to bed by Beelzebub, where, without disturbing his grandparents, he fell immediately to sleep, and dreamed his whole adventure over again.

Just as the dawn was breaking Mipps was returning from the vicarage barn, where he had deposited a bundle of weapons outside the door, when he saw a yellow-faced man creeping along the field by the churchyard wall. As he watched the figure disappear into a deep dyke he muttered: "I wonder if that there thing is real or unreal? I wonder if he did get off that reef in his body? If he did, what the blarsted hell's he findin' to live upon? and if he ain't—well, God help one of us in this 'ere place!" And he scurried back to the coffin shop like a sneaking rat.