Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/54

 enough eye on my farms, I can tell you. Why, I'm a positive king, sir. Do you know that if a man working in the neighbourhood doesn't please me, that I can shut every door of the Marsh against him? Why, these farmers are all scared stiff of me, sir. I'd like to see the man who went against the laws of Romney Marsh. I can tell you, sir, that I'd soon mark him down."

"You are perhaps too confident, sir," suggested the captain.

"Not a bit of it, sir," exclaimed the squire. "Mind you I don't trust 'em, oh, Lord, no; I just know 'em to be honest, because I don't give 'em the chance to be otherwise. They never know when or where I'll be turning up. Why, I have a groom in my stables awake all night in case I want to surprise a farm ten miles away. Smugglers? Pooh! Rubbish!"

"Then you consider that I am here on a wildgoose chase?" said the captain.

"Not even that," said the squire; "for you will find no wild geese to chase. However, I don't think that you need regret having been sent here, for we can give you really good entertainment; and I'll bet my head that after you have stayed with us a week or so you'll be sending in your papers to the Admiralty, and settling down on the Marsh as a good Kentish farmer."

"I'm afraid not, sir," laughed the captain.

"Oh, yes, you will," went on the squire. "And I'll be bound that we'll have you bothering Doctor Syn to