y 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 ware-house, 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