第51章

'Not till Sebastian came for his guns, and John Collins played him the same dog's tricks as he'd played me with my ironwork. Week in, week out, two of three serpentines would be flawed in the casting, and only fit, they said, to be re-melted. Then John Collins would shake his head, and vow he could pass no cannon for the King's service that were not perfect. Saints! How Sebastian stormed! I know, for we sat on this bench sharing our sorrows inter-common.

'When Sebastian had fumed away six weeks at Lindens and gotten just six serpentines, Dirk Brenzett, Master of the Cygnet hoy, sends me word that the block of stone he was fetching me from France for our new font he'd hove overboard to lighten his ship, chased by Andrew Barton up to Rye Port.'

'Ah! The pirate!' said Dan.

'Yes. And while I am tearing my hair over this, Ticehurst Will, my best mason, comes to me shaking, and vowing that the Devil, horned, tailed, and chained, has run out on him from the church-tower, and the men would work there no more. So I took 'em off the foundations, which we were strengthening, and went into the Bell Tavern for a cup of ale. Says Master John Collins:

"Have it your own way, lad; but if I was you, I'd take the sinnification o' the sign, and leave old Barnabas' Church alone!" And they all wagged their sinful heads, and agreed. Less afraid of the Devil than of me - as I saw later.

'When I brought my sweet news to Lindens, Sebastian was limewashing the kitchen-beams for Mother. He loved her like a son.

"'Cheer up, lad," he says. "God's where He was. Only you and I chance to be pure pute asses. We've been tricked, Hal, and more shame to me, a sailor, that I did not guess it before! You must leave your belfry alone, forsooth, because the Devil is adrift there; and I cannot get my serpentines because John Collins cannot cast them aright. Meantime Andrew Barton hawks off the Port of Rye. And why? To take those very serpentines which poor Cabot must whistle for; the said serpentines, I'll wager my share of new continents, being now hid away in St Barnabas' church-tower. Clear as the Irish coast at noonday!"

"They'd sure never dare to do it," I said; "and, for another thing, selling cannon to the King's enemies is black treason - hanging and fine."

"'It is sure, large profit. Men'll dare any gallows for that. I have been a trader myself," says he. "We must be upsides with 'em for the honour of Bristol."

'Then he hatched a plot, sitting on the limewash bucket. We gave out to ride o' Tuesday to London and made a show of taking farewells of our friends - especially of Master John Collins. But at Wadhurst Woods we turned; rode home to the water-meadows; hid our horses in a willow-tot at the foot of the glebe, and, come night, stole a-tiptoe uphill to Barnabas' church again. A thick mist, and a moon striking through.

'I had no sooner locked the tower-door behind us than over goes Sebastian full length in the dark.

"'Pest!" he says. "Step high and feel low, Hal. I've stumbled over guns before."

'I groped, and one by one - the tower was pitchy dark - I counted the lither barrels of twenty serpentines laid out on pease straw. No conceal at all!

"'There's two demi-cannon my end," says Sebastian, slapping metal. "They'll be for Andrew Barton's lower deck. Honest - honest John Collins! So this is his ware-house, his arsenal, his armoury! Now see you why your pokings and pryings have raised the Devil in Sussex?

You've hindered John's lawful trade for months," and he laughed where he lay.

'A clay-cold tower is no fireside at midnight, so we climbed the belfry stairs, and there Sebastian trips over a cow-hide with its horns and tail.

"'Aha! Your Devil has left his doublet! Does it become me, Hal?" He draws it on and capers in the shafts of window-moonlight - won'erful devilish-like. Then he sits on the stairs, rapping with his tail on a board, and his back-aspect was dreader than his front, and a howlet lit in, and screeched at the horns of him.

"'If you'd keep out the Devil, shut the door," he whispered. "And that's another false proverb, Hal, for I can hear your tower-door opening."

"'I locked it. Who a-plague has another key, then?" I said.

"'All the congregation, to judge by their feet," he says, and peers into the blackness. "Still! Still, Hal! Hear 'em grunt! That's more o' my serpentines, I'll be bound. One - two - three - four they bear in! Faith, Andrew equips himself like an Admiral! Twenty-four serpentines in all!"

'As if it had been an echo, we heard John Collins's voice come up all hollow: "Twenty-four serpentines and two demi-cannon. That's the full tally for Sir Andrew Barton."

"'Courtesy costs naught," whispers Sebastian. "Shall I drop my dagger on his head?"

"'They go over to Rye o' Thursday in the wool-wains, hid under the wool-packs. Dirk Brenzett meets them at Udimore, as before," says John.

"'Lord! What a worn, handsmooth trade it is!" says Sebastian. "I lay we are the sole two babes in the village that have not our lawful share in the venture."

'There was a full score folk below, talking like all Robertsbridge Market. We counted them by voice.

'Master John Collins pipes: "The guns for the French carrack must lie here next month. Will, when does your young fool" (me, so please you!) "come back from Lunnon?"

"'No odds," I heard Ticehurst Will answer. "Lay 'em just where you've a mind, Mus' Collins. We're all too afraid o' the Devil to mell with the tower now." And the long knave laughed.

"'Ah! 'tis easy enow for you to raise the Devil, Will," says another - Ralph Hobden of the Forge.

"'Aaa-men!" roars Sebastian, and ere I could hold him, he leaps down the stairs - won'erful devilish-like howling no bounds. He had scarce time to lay out for the nearest than they ran. Saints, how they ran! We heard them pound on the door of the Bell Tavern, and then we ran too.

"'What's next?" says Sebastian, looping up his cow-tail as he leaped the briars. "I've broke honest John's face."

"'Ride to Sir John Pelham's," I said. "He is the only one that ever stood by me."