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.
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