alf-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 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