Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/260

 you will find in her a young woman of great resource, and of high courage, and those qualities, added to your well-known ability and cunning in getting out of difficult corners, should enable you to carry out our wishes for our own convenience and for the saving of your life, which we presume affords you some interest. Rh

With this useful letter tucked away in her blouse in company with one of Mrs. Waggetts' pistols, Imogene, after bidding farewell to the two fishermen, struck out from the beach across the mile or so of flat country that lies in front of the little rising town of Rye. It is a fortified town, an ancient stronghold against whose walls the sea at one time used to beat but has long since receded. Her heart beat high as she looked up at the great battlements and the quaint little houses that clustered in all shapes and sizes around them, higher and higher, until they reached the church tower, the highest point of all.

She did not enter the town by the north gate, but skirted the wall and ascended the long irregular step-way that rises from the river wharf—a long ladder of stone that climbs the surface of rock zigzag till you find yourself at the top of the wall and standing upon the cobbled roadway of Watchbell Street—a thoroughfare made green with moss and with rank grass and rendered vastly attractive by the picturesque houses that flank its little pavements. To one of these little houses