‘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.
‘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 — honest 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.
‘“Aha! Your Devil has left his doublet! Does it become me, Hal?” He draws it on and capers in the shafts of window-moonlight — won’erful devilish-like. Then he sits on the stairs, 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 false proverb, Hal, for I can hear your tower-door opening.”
‘“I locked it. Who a-plague has another key, then?” I said.
‘“All the congregation, to judge by their feet,” he says, and peers into the blackness. “Still! Still, Hal! Hear ‘em grunt! That’s more o’ my serpentines, I’ll be bound. One — two — three — four they bear in! Faith, Andrew equips himself like an Admiral! Twenty-four serpentines in all!”
‘As if it had been an echo, we heard John Collins’s voice come up all hollow: “Twenty-four serpentines and two demi-cannon. That’s the full tally for Sir Andrew Barton.”
‘“Courtesy costs naught,” whispers Sebastian. “Shall I drop my dagger on his head?”
‘“They go over to Rye o’ Thursday in the wool-wains, hid under the wool-packs. Dirk Brenzett meets them at Udimore, as before,” says John.
‘“Lord! What a worn, handsmooth trade it is!” says Sebastian. “I lay we are the sole two babes in the village that have not our lawful 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 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!”
‘“I fear I have requited him very scurvily,” says Sebastian, looking at his knuckles. “But what of the demi-cannon? I could do with ‘em well, but they are not in the King’s Order.”
‘“Kindness — loving-kindness,” says Sir John. “Questionless, in his zeal for the King and his love for you, John adds those two cannon as a gift. ‘Tis plain as this coming daylight, ye stockfish!”
‘“So it is,” says Sebastian. “Oh, Sir John, Sir John
, why did you never use the sea? You are lost ashore.” And he looked on him with great love.
‘“I do my best in my station.” Sir John strokes his beard again and rolls forth his deep drumming Justice’s voice thus: “But — suffer me! — you two lads, on some midnight frolic into which I probe not, roystering around the taverns, surprise Master Collins at his” — he thinks a moment — ”at his good deeds done by stealth. Ye surprise him, I say, cruelly.”
‘“Truth, Sir John. If you had seen him run!” says Sebastian.
‘“On this you ride breakneck to me with a tale of pirates, and wool-wains, and cow-hides, which, though it hath moved my mirth as a man, offendeth my reason as a magistrate. So I will e’en accompany you back to the tower with, perhaps, some few of my own people, and three-four wagons, and I’ll be your warrant that Master John Collins will freely give you your guns and your demi-cannon, Master Sebastian.” He breaks into his proper voice — ”I warned the old tod and his neighbours long ago that they’d come to trouble with their side-sellings and bye-dealings; but we cannot have half Sussex hanged for a little gun-running. Are ye content, lads?”
‘“I’d commit any treason for two demi-cannon,” said Sebastian, and rubs his hands.
‘“Ye have just compounded with rank treason-felony for the same bribe,” says Sir John. “Wherefore to horse, and get the guns.”‘
‘But Master Collins meant the guns for Sir Andrew Barton all along, didn’t he?’ said Dan.
‘Questionless, that he did,’ said Hal. ‘But he lost them. We poured into the village on the red edge of dawn, Sir John horsed, in half-armour, his pennon flying; behind him thirty stout Brightling knaves, five abreast; behind them four wool-wains, and behind them four trumpets to triumph over the jest, blowing: Our King went forth to Normandie. When we halted and rolled the ringing guns out of the tower, ‘twas for all the world like Friar Roger’s picture of the French siege in the Queen’s Missal-book.’
‘And what did we — I mean, what did our village do?’ said Dan.
‘Oh! Bore it nobly — nobly,’ cried Hal. ‘Though they had tricked me, I was proud of them. They came out of their housen, looked at that little army as though it had been a post, and went their shut-mouthed way. Never a sign! Never a word! They’d ha’ perished sooner than let Brightling overcrow us. Even that villain, Ticehurst Will, coming out of the Bell for his morning ale, he all but runs under Sir John’s horse.
‘“‘Ware, Sirrah Devil!” cries Sir John, reining back.
‘“Oh!” says Will. “Market-day, is it? And all the bullocks from Brightling here?”
‘I spared him his belting for that — the brazen knave!
‘But John Collins was our masterpiece! He happened along-street (his jaw tied up where
* * *
‘I reckon you’ll find her middlin’ heavy, he says.’
* * *
Sebastian had clouted him) when we were trundling the first demi-cannon through the lych-gate.
‘“I reckon you’ll find her middlin’ heavy,” he says. “If you’ve a mind to pay, I’ll loan ye my timber-tug. She won’t lie easy on ary wool-wain.”
‘That was the one time I ever saw Sebastian taken flat aback. He opened and shut his mouth, fishy-like.
‘“No offence,” says Master John. “You’ve got her reasonable good cheap. I thought ye might not grudge me a groat if I helped move her.” Ah, he was a masterpiece! They say that morning’s work cost our John two hundred pounds, and he never winked an eyelid, not even when he saw the guns all carted off to Lewes.’
‘Neither then nor later?’ said Puck.
‘Once. ‘Twas after he gave St Barnabas’ the new chime of bells. (Oh, there was nothing the Collinses, or the Hayes, or the Fowles, or the Fenners would not do for the church then! “Ask and have” was their song.) We had rung ‘em in, and he was in the tower with Black Nick Fowle, that gave us our rood-screen. The old man pinches the bell-rope one hand and scratches his neck with t’other. “Sooner she was pulling yon clapper than my neck, he says. That was all! That was Sussex — seely Sussex for everlastin’!’
‘And what happened after?’ said Una.
‘I went back into England,’ said Hal, slowly. ‘I’d had my lesson against pride. But they tell me I left St Barnabas’ a jewel — justabout a jewel! Wel-a-well! ‘Twas done for and among my own people, and — Father Roger was right — I never knew such trouble or such triumph since. That’s the nature o’ things. A dear — dear land.’ He dropped his chin on his chest.
‘There’s your Father at the Forge. What’s he talking to old Hobden about?’ said Puck, opening his hand with three leaves in it.
Dan looked towards the cottage.
‘Oh, I know. It’s that old oak lying across the brook. Pater always wants it grubbed.’
In the still valley they could hear old Hobden’s deep tones.
‘Have it as you’ve a mind to,’ he was saying. ‘But the vivers of her roots they hold the bank together. If you grub her out, the bank she’ll all come tearin’ down, an’ next floods the brook’ll swarve up. But have it as you’ve a mind. The Mistuss she sets a heap by the ferns on her trunk.
‘Oh! I’ll think it over,’ said the Pater.
Una laughed a little bubbling chuckle.
‘What Devil’s in that belfry?’ said Hal, with a lazy laugh. ‘That should be a Hobden by his voice.’
‘Why, the oak is the regular bridge for all the rabbits between the Three Acre and our meadow. The best place for wires on the farm, Hobden says. He’s got two there now,’ Una answered. ‘He won’t ever let it be grubbed!’
‘Ah, Sussex! Sillly Sussex for everlastin’,’ murmured Hal; and the next moment their Father’s voice calling across to Little Lindens broke the spell as little St Barnabas’ clock struck five.
* * *
A SMUGGLERS’ SONG
If You wake at midnight, and hear a horse’s feet,Don’t go drawing back the blind, or looking in the street, Them that asks no questions isn’t told a lie. Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by! Five-and-twenty ponies, Trotting through the dark — Brandy for the Parson, ‘Baccy for the Clerk; Laces for a lady; letters for a spy, And watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
Running round the woodlump if you chance to findLittle barrels, roped and tarred, all full of brandy-wine; Don’t you shout to come and look, nor take ‘em for your play; Put the brishwood back again, — and they’ll be gone next day!
If you see the stable-door setting open wide;If you see a tired horse lying down inside; If your mother mends a coat cut about and tore; If the lining’s wet and warm — don’t you ask no more!
If you meet King George’s men, dressed in blue and red,You be careful what you say, and mindful what is said. If they call you ‘pretty maid,’ and chuck you ‘neath the chin, Don’t you tell where no one is, nor yet where no one’s been!
Knocks and footsteps round the house — whistles after dark — You’ve no call for running out till the house-dogs bark.Trusty’s here, and Pincher’s here, and see how dumb they lie — They don’t fret to follow when the Gentlemen go by!
If you do as you’ve been told, ‘likely there’s a chance,You’ll be give a dainty doll, all the way from France, With a cap of Valenciennes, and a velvet hood — A present from the Gentlemen, along o’ being good! Five-and-twenty ponies, Trotting through the dark — Brandy for the Parson, ‘Baccy for the Clerk. Them that asks no questions isn’t told a lie — Watch the wall, my darling, while the Gentlemen go by!
THE BEE BOY’S SONG
Bees! Bees! Hark to your bees! ‘Hide from your neighbours as much as you please, But all that has happened, to us you must tell, Or else we will give you no honey to sell!’
A Maiden in her glory,Upon her wedding-day, Must tell her Bees the story, Or else they’ll fly away. Fly away — die away — Dwindle down and leave you! But if you don’t deceive your Bees, Your Bees will not deceive you.
Marriage, bir
th or buryin’,News across the seas, All you’re sad or merry in, You must tell the Bees. Tell ‘em coming in an’ out, Where the Fanners fan, ‘Cause the Bees are justabout As curious as a man!
Don’t you wait where trees are,When the lightnings play; Nor don’t you hate where Bees are, Or else they’ll pine away. Pine away — dwine away — Anything to leave you! But if you never grieve your Bees, Your Bees’ll never grieve you!
* * *
‘Dymchurch Flit’
Just at dusk, a soft September rain began to fall on the hop-pickers. The mothers wheeled the bouncing perambulators out of the gardens; bins were put away, and tally-books made up. The young couples strolled home, two to each umbrella, and the single men walked behind them laughing. Dan and Una, who had been picking after their lessons, marched off to roast potatoes at the oast-house, where old Hobden, with Blue-eyed Bess, his lurcher dog, lived all the month through, drying the hops.
They settled themselves, as usual, on the sack-strewn cot in front of the fires, and, when Hobden drew up the shutter, stared, as usual, at the flameless bed of coals spouting its heat up the dark well of the old-fashioned roundel. Slowly he cracked off a few fresh pieces of coal, packed them, with fingers that never flinched, exactly where they would do most good; slowly he reached behind him till Dan tilted the potatoes into his iron scoop of a hand; carefully he arranged them round the fire, and then stood for a moment, black against the glare. As he closed the shutter, the oast-house seemed dark before the day’s end, and he lit the candle in the lanthorn. The children liked all these things because they knew them so well.
Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) Page 409