Page:Doctor Syn - A Smuggler Tale of the Romney Marsh.djvu/152

last. I know it was them, 'cos I could see their faces, you understand, when quite sudden I was seized from behind and pulled over backwards down the stairs. I fought the best I could, but there was a sort of overpowering smell upon a 'kerchief wot had been pulled over my mouth, and I was lifted up on four men's shoulders, as it seemed. I couldn't see anything of their faces, but as I went up the stairway on their shoulders I just remember a-seein' that schoolmaster a-comin' down in the same fashion as I was a-goin' up, only that he only required two to hold him. Now, whether this was because I was heavier, I don't know, or whether 'cos he was only a-comin' down while I was a-goin' up, or whether the things wot had got hold of me was real or sham, as 'twere, but certain am I the two things wot had the schoolmaster—and things I must call 'em, though they was a bit like men—had got the same shiny faces all alight, just like wot them demon riders had; and then I don't remember nothing else till I was woke up by hearin' a sort of horrible shriek downstairs which I thought was just a dream, but now suppose was poor Bill a-voicin' his last opinion in this world, as 'twere. After that I went to sleep again; then I was waked up again by a sort of groanin', which I finds was myself, and then in comes you after a long time and lets me go, as 'twere, and that's all I knows, so help me God, sir; but quite enough for one night, as I thinks you'll agree."