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gone, what shall I do? John’s gone to Ilo!” he half
said, half sung, and added: “Don’t yow fret. He’ll be home a’mos’ soon as yow
could knit him a puss. With a medal, too!”
    And with a chuckle and a flourish of his stick above his head, as an
expression of naval and military glory, Roboshobery pursued his walk. The
children stared from across the way till Dorrily had turned the corner at the
cross roads, and then went on with their song.
    Roboshobery Dove stumped along among the people and the stalls till he
came near the Crown and opposite a little front garden where a red-faced and
white-headed villager in shirt sleeves leaned on the gate and smoked his
pipe.
    “Morn’, Henery!”
    “Morn’, Bosh!”
    “Hev yow seen e’er a paper o’ noos?”
    “No, I an’t. Den’t see ye las’ night.”
    “True ‘tis. I kim up late from the look-out. Three prizes yes’day
art’noon; no sense o’ prizes, though—bits o’ coasters.”
    “Um!” Mr Prentice stood erect, rubbed his hand through the white hair
behind his head, and jerked his pipe toward his open front door. “Hev a nip,”
he said, and went up the garden path with Roboshobery behind him.
    It was a neat keeping-room, that lighted by the front window, with a tall
clock and a wavy looking-glass that made the gazer’s face an undulating
nightmare. Old Harry Prentice brought a black bottle from the blackest corner
of a dark cupboard, and two glasses. At the lifting of the cork a scent stole
about the room, the soft scent of old white brandy, such as never is on sea
or land in these meaner days.
    “Ah!” Roboshobery said, sniffing gratefully and holding his glass to the
light; “this is it!”
    He gave it the water it needed, nodded to his host, and rolled a gulp
about his teeth. Then he look at the glass again, and said, “That’s a few
years sen’ that drop kim over, I warr’nt.”
    “Ah, ‘tis,” answered the other. “It do come pretty good now, but not like
this.”
    “An’ not so much of it.”
    “No, not so much of it.” Mr Prentice’s eyes wandered toward the tall clock
by association of ideas. For the clock stood on a loose floor-board, and the
loose floor-board covered a space big enough for as many tubs as would make
provision for the thirst of the latter years of a man already old. “But,
Lord,” he went on, “I doan’t see why, now. These here coastguard chaps as
they got temp’ry, them aren’t worth nothen. Why, poor oad Stagg, the ridin’
officer, dead twenty year, he’d a’ done better’n them, arl the lot. An’ he were no sense o’ use. Why, if I was younger, an’ needin’ a stroke
o’ trade, I’d hev a cargo run now, easy.”
    “Ay, ‘twould be no trouble, I’d wager. I wonder some o’ the sharp ‘uns
don’t try. Oad Sim Cloyse, eh?”
    “Him or anybody. ‘Tis easier than any time this thutty year. Yow could
land a cargo on Canvey a’most by daylight, an’ night—Lord,
anywheres!”
    “I lay it ‘ud ha’ bin done if Golden Adams was about now. He’d soon ha’
found a freighter with the brass.”
    “Ah, he would. Mayhap he’s a-done it where he be now—over in
Sheppey. Though that ‘ud be a mile harder job.”
    Roboshobery Dove pulled out a knife and a hard plug, but paused ere he
cut. “Missus out?” he asked.
    “Yes. She’s full o’ the noos. Hear about Banham’s gal? She’ve bin
bewitched, so the women do say.”
    “Ay, I hear tell.” Dove spoke with a more hushed attention. “An’ Master
Murr’ll, he were hevin’ a witch-bottle made with young Steve Lingood.”
    “That’s so. Well, the witch-bottle’s made an’ bust an’ arl, an’ the gal’s
better; an’ they found the witch—so them says as believes in ‘em.” It
was the way among the more intelligent in Hadleigh to add some such saving
clause to any reference to the subject of witches.
    “Cuther! Found the witch, eh? Who is’t?”
    “Young Jack Mart’n’s