‘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 us. 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 ran 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 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 help 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 Fanners 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’s a jewel—just about 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.