Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/255

 now, we'll get back to the Ship Inn, bo'sun, and you can light us there, whilst Morgan Walters can change his clothes and get back and to sleep."

So they left him there, the bo'sun with a lantern stepping before the captain and Jerk to the door of the Ship. Just as they reached the door a horseman galloped up from the Hythe Road and, saluting, asked if any could direct him to Captain Collyer. As soon as the captain had made himself known, Jerk saw the rider hand the captain a blue paper, which the latter put carefully into his pocket. Then he led the rider and the bo'sun into the sanded parlour and gave them drinks, after which he went home to bed and slept sound.

But back in the vicarage, just as Morgan Walters was about to divest himself of his ecclesiastical robes, Mr. Mipps entered with a loaded blunderbuss and requested him to turn round, hold his hands above his head, and precede him to the coffin shop at the farther end of the village.

Doctor Syn slept at the Court House, for he did not intend to go to the vicarage any more at night. He had a dread of that sitting-room of his. The horrible whirring of a certain weapon boring a wholehole [sic] through the shutter was still in his ears, and he could see a terrible eye, magnified by the bottle glass of the casement, looking in at him from the darkness. No, he had had enough of that room, he told himself, and so he welcomed the squire's invitation to pass the night in the