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Page 66
'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 warehouse, 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."
'We rode to Brightling, and past Sir John's lodges, where the keepers
would have shot at us for deer-stealers, and we had Sir John down into
his Justice's chair, and when we had told him our tale and showed him
the cow-hide which Sebastian wore still girt about him, he laughed till
the tears ran.
'"Wel-a-well!" he says. "I'll see justice done before daylight. What's
your complaint? Master Collins is my old friend."
'"He's none of mine," I cried. "When I think how he and his likes have
baulked and dozened and cozened me at every turn over the church"----and
I choked at the thought.
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