Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/309

 DYMCHURCH-UNDER-THE-WALL

HE next day war was again declared with France and every available man was pressed into service. Collyer was recalled from Dymchurch with all his men, and he was one of the first to fall under Nelson's command. His death was the saving of many necks in Dymchurch, for he had found out about everything. The demon riders and their steeds he could have marked down by day, and he had discovered how they transformed themselves, for in Mipps's coffin shop he had come across a recipe for the preservation of the sand phosphorous with which the sexton used to daub the riders and horses. The object of these men was to scare people away from the Marsh when the pack-ponies were out bringing the wool from the Marsh farms to the coast—people who were not in the wool-running scheme. With the death of Doctor Syn came the death of the wool-running. Sir Antony discovered in the vicarage much money stored away, and a sea-chest full of great valuables which Clegg had evidently amassed in the Southern Seas. A bar of gold and a wonderful ruby were sufficient in themselves to create a comfortable fortune,