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Page 65
'I thought that was Sir Andrew Barton,' said Dan.
'Ay, but foundations before roofs,' Hal answered. 'Sebastian first put
me in the way of it. I had come down here, not to serve God as a
craftsman should, but to show my people how great a craftsman I was.
They cared not, and it served me right, one split straw for my craft or
my greatness. What a murrain call had I, they said, to mell with old St
Barnabas'? Ruinous the church had been since the Black Death, and
ruinous she would remain; and I could hang myself in my new
scaffold-ropes! Gentle and simple, high and low--the Hayes, the Fowles,
the Fenners, the Collinses--they were all in a tale against me. Only Sir
John Pelham up yonder at Brightling bade me heart-up and go on. Yet how
could I? Did I ask Master Collins for his timber-tug to haul beams? The
oxen had gone to Lewes after lime. Did he promise me a set of iron
cramps or ties for the roof? They never came to hand, or else they were
spaulty or cracked. So with everything. Nothing said, but naught done
except I stood by them, and then done amiss. I thought the countryside
was fair bewitched.'
'It was, sure-ly,' said Puck, knees under chin. 'Did you never suspect
ary one?'
'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 watermeadows; hid our horses in a willow-tot at
the foot of the glebe, and, come night, stole a-tiptoe up hill 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."
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