Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/23

Rh But Mipps didn't encourage Mrs Waggetts when she was pleased to flatter, so he would take himself off in high dudgeon to avoid her further attentions.

This actual conversation took place one November afternoon, and the sexton, after slamming the inn door to give vent to his irritation, hurried along the sea-wall toward his shop, comforting himself that he could sit snug inside a coffin and cheer himself up with hammering it.

On the way he met Doctor Syn, who was standing silhouetted against the skyline with his telescope focussed upon some large vessel that was standing in off Dungeness.

"Ah, Mr. Mipps," said the cleric, handing his telescope to the sexton, "tell me what you make of that?"

Mipps adjusted the lens and looked. "The Devil!" he ejaculated.

"I beg your pardon?" said the Doctor. "What did you say?" One of the King's preventer men had come out of his cottage and was approaching them.

"I don't make no head nor tale of it," replied the sexton. "Perhaps you do, sir?"

"Well, it looks to me," continued the parson, "it—looks—to—me—uncommonly like a King's frigate. Can't you make out her guns on the port side?"

"Yes!" cried the sexton; "I'll be hanged if you're not right, sir; it's a damned King's ship as ever was."