Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/53

 "So I should imagine," said the cleric.

"And what have you come here for?" asked the squire.

"To hang every smuggler on Romney Marsh," said the captain.

"Do you believe in ghosts?" said the squire.

"What do you mean?" retorted the captain.

"What I say," returned the squire. "Do you believe in ghosts?"

"Well, I can't say I do," laughed the captain, "for I have never yet met one."

"No more have I," returned the squire. "But they say the Marsh is haunted at night. They've said so so long that people believe it. Whenever a traveller loses his way on the Marsh and disappears, folk say that the Marsh witches have taken him. When the harvests are bad, when the wool is poor, when the cattle are sickly, oh, it's always the Marsh witches that are blamed. They set fire to haystacks, they kill the chickens, they blast the trees, they curdle the milk, and hold up travellers and rob them of their purses. In fact all the vices of the Marsh, really performed by Master Fox, or Master Careless, or Master Footpad, are all put down to the poor Marsh witches, who don't exist except in the minds of the people. I know the Marshes as well as any man ever will, and I've never seen a witch, and it's the very same with smugglers. The whole thing's a fallacy. I've never caught 'em at it; and I keep a stern