ul 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 from 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.

'"Ah, but ye see now they needed it for another use," says he, smoothly.

'"So they did my serpentines," Sebastian cries. "I should be half across
the Western Ocean by this if my guns had been ready. But they're sold to a
Scotch pirate by your old friend."

'"Where's your proof?" says Sir John, stroking his beard.

'"I broke my shins over them not an hour since, and I heard John give
order where they were to be taken," says Sebastian.

'"Words! Words only," says Sir John. "Master Collins is somewhat of a liar
at best."

'He carried it so gravely, that for the moment, I thought he was dipped in
this secret traffick too, and that there was not an honest ironmaster in
Sussex.

'"Name o' Reason!" says Sebastian, and raps with his cow-tail on the
table, "Whose guns are they, then?"