‘D’you marvel that I love it?’ said Hal, in a whisper.  ’What can town folk know of the nature of housen—­or land?’

They perched themselves arow on the old hacked oak bench in Lindens garden, looking across the valley of the brook at the fern-covered dimples and hollows of the Forge behind Hobden’s cottage.  The old man was cutting a faggot in his garden by the hives.  It was quite a second after his chopper fell that the chump of the blow reached their lazy ears.

‘Eh—­yeh!’ said Hal.  ’I mind when where that old gaffer stands was Nether Forge—­Master John Collins’s foundry.  Many a night has his big trip-hammer shook me in my bed here. Boom-bitty!  Boom-bitty! If the wind was east, I could hear Master Tom Collins’s forge at Stockens answering his brother, Boom-oop!  Boom-oop! and midway between, Sir John Pelham’s sledge-hammers at Brightling would strike in like a pack o’ scholars, and “Hic-haec-hoc” they’d say, “Hic-haec-hoc,” till I fell asleep.  Yes.  The valley was as full o’ forges and fineries as a May shaw o’ cuckoos.  All gone to grass now!’

‘What did they make?’ said Dan.

’Guns for the King’s ships—­and for others.  Serpentines and cannon mostly.  When the guns were cast, down would come the King’s Officers, and take our plough-oxen to haul them to the coast.  Look!  Here’s one of the first and finest craftsmen of the Sea!’

He fluttered back a page of his book, and showed them a young man’s head.  Underneath was written:  ‘Sebastianus.’

’He came down with a King’s Order on Master John Collins for twenty serpentines (wicked little cannon they be!) to furnish a venture of ships.  I drafted him thus sitting by our fire telling Mother of the new lands he’d find the far side the world.  And he found them, too!  There’s a nose to cleave through unknown seas!  Cabot was his name—­a Bristol lad—­half a foreigner.  I set a heap by him.  He helped me to my church-building.’

‘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.’