‘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.