Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/236

 DOCTOR SYN HAS A "CALL"

O YOU mean to say that you're going to leave Dymchurch?"

The squire was positively angry, a thing he had never been with Doctor Syn in all the years that he had known him. "You are undoubtedly pulling my leg—that's what you're doing. God bless my soul, sir, there's precious few fellows can do that, and precious few that dare try; but that's what you're doing, isn't it?"

"I'm afraid not, Sir Antony. My dear squire, my good friend, I am afraid that for once in my life I am most dreadfully in earnest."

"But what don't you like about the place? Is it something I've done? Do you want your stipend raised? Damme, I'll treble the blessed thing, if it's that. Oh, it's that rascally son of mine that's been putting you out. It's that Denis scamp, who never took to his books and never will. But I'll make him. I'll take my riding whip to the young whelp if he causes you pain. It is he! He's at the bottom of it. My soul and body, I'll give the young puppy a shaking up.