hacked oak bench in Lindens' garden, looking across the valley of the brook at the ferncovered 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 ForgeMaster John Collins's foundry. Many a night has his big trip-hammer shok 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-haechoc, " 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 churchbuilding.'

'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's? Ruinous the church had been since the Black Death, and ruinous she should remain; and I could hang myself in my new scaffold-ropes! Gentle and simple, high and low-the Hayes, the Fowles. the Fanners, the Collinses-they were all in a tale against me. Only Sir John Pelham up yonder to 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.'

'It was, sure-ly,' said Puck, knees under chin. 'Did you never suspect any 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 remelted. 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's 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 Lindens, Sebastian was kitchen-beams for Mother.

a son.

my sweet news to limewashing the He loved her like

"God's where

"Cheer up, lad," he says. 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 lime-wash bucket. We gave out to ride o' Tuesday to London and made a show of making farewells of our friends-especially of Master John Collins. But at Wadhurst Woods we turned; rode by night to the watermeadows; hid our horses in a willow-tot at the foot of the glebe, and stole a-tiptoe up hill to Bar

nabas's church again. A thick mist, and a moon coming through.

'I had no sooner locked the tower-door behind us than over goes Sebastian full length in the dark.

""Pest!" he says. "Step high and feel low, Hal. I've stumbled over guns before."

'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-hon

est 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.

6.66

Aha! Your Devil has left his doublet! Does it become me, Hal?" He draws it on and capers in the slits of window-moonlight -won'erful devilish-like. Then he sits on the stair, 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