'"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.
'"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 now 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?"
'"Yours, manifestly," says Sir John. "You come with the King's Order for 'em, and Master Collins casts them in his foundry. If he chooses to bring them up from Nether Forge and lay 'em out in the church-tower, why, they are e'en so much the nearer to the main road and you are saved a day's hauling. What a coil to make of a mere act of neighbourly kindness, lad!"
