HAL O' THE DRAFT

Prophets have honour all over the Earth,

Except in the village where they were born,

Where such as knew them boys from birth

Nature-ally hold 'em in scorn.

When Prophets are naughty and young and vain,

They make a won'erful grievance of it;

(You can see by their writings how they complain),

But Oh, 'tis won'erful good for the Prophet!

There's nothing Nineveh Town can give

(Nor being swallowed by whales between),

Makes up for the place where a man's folk live,

That don't care nothing what he has been.

He might ha' been that, or he might ha' been this,

But they love and they hate him for what he is.

A rainy afternoon drove Dan and Una over to play pirates in the Little

Mill. If you don't mind rats on the rafters and oats in your shoes, the

mill-attic, with its trap-doors and inscriptions on beams about floods

and sweethearts, is a splendid place. It is lighted by a foot-square

window, called Duck Window, that looks across to Little Lindens Farm,

and the spot where Jack Cade was killed.

When they had climbed the attic ladder (they called it 'the mainmast

tree', out of the ballad of Sir Andrew Barton, and Dan 'swarved it with

might and main', as the ballad says) they saw a man sitting on Duck

Window-sill. He was dressed in a plum-coloured doublet and tight

plum-coloured hose, and he drew busily in a red-edged book.

'Sit ye! Sit ye!' Puck cried from a rafter overhead. 'See what it is to

be beautiful! Sir Harry Dawe--pardon, Hal--says I am the very image of a

head for a gargoyle.'

The man laughed and raised his dark velvet cap to the children, and his

grizzled hair bristled out in a stormy fringe. He was old--forty at

least--but his eyes were young, with funny little wrinkles all round

them. A satchel of embroidered leather hung from his broad belt, which

looked interesting.

'May we see?' said Una, coming forward.

'Surely--sure-ly!' he said, moving up on the window-seat, and returned

to his work with a silver-pointed pencil. Puck sat as though the grin

were fixed for ever on his broad face, while they watched the quick,

certain fingers that copied it. Presently the man took a reed pen from

his satchel, and trimmed it with a little ivory knife, carved in the

semblance of a fish.

'Oh, what a beauty!' cried Dan.

''Ware fingers! That blade is perilous sharp. I made it myself of the

best Low Country cross-bow steel. And so, too, this fish. When his

back-fin travels to his tail--so--he swallows up the blade, even as the

whale swallowed Gaffer Jonah ... Yes, and that's my ink-horn. I made the

four silver saints round it. Press Barnabas's head. It opens, and

then----' He dipped the trimmed pen, and with careful boldness began to

put in the essential lines of Puck's rugged face, that had been but

faintly revealed by the silver-point.

The children gasped, for it fairly leaped from the page.

As he worked, and the rain fell on the tiles, he talked--now clearly,

now muttering, now breaking off to frown or smile at his work. He told

them he was born at Little Lindens Farm, and his father used to beat him

for drawing things instead of doing things, till an old priest called

Father Roger, who drew illuminated letters in rich people's books,

coaxed the parents to let him take the boy as a sort of painter's

apprentice. Then he went with Father Roger to Oxford, where he cleaned

plates and carried cloaks and shoes for the scholars of a College called

Merton.

'Didn't you hate that?' said Dan after a great many other questions.

'I never thought on't. Half Oxford was building new colleges or

beautifying the old, and she had called to her aid the master-craftsmen

of all Christendie--kings in their trade and honoured of Kings. I knew

them. I worked for them: that was enough. No wonder----' He stopped and

laughed.

'You became a great man, Hal,' said Puck.

'They said so, Robin. Even Bramante said so.'

'Why? What did you do?' Dan asked.

The artist looked at him queerly. 'Things in stone and such, up and down

England. You would not have heard of 'em. To come nearer home, I

rebuilded this little St Barnabas' church of ours. It cost me more

trouble and sorrow than aught I've touched in my life. But 'twas a sound

lesson.'

'Um,' said Dan. 'We've had lessons this morning.'

'I'll not afflict ye, lad,' said Hal, while Puck roared. 'Only 'tis

strange to think how that little church was rebuilt, re-roofed, and made

glorious, thanks to some few godly Sussex iron-masters, a Bristow sailor

lad, a proud ass called Hal o' the Draft because, d'you see, he was

always drawing and drafting; and'--he dragged the words slowly--'_and_ a

Scotch pirate.'

'Pirate?' said Dan. He wriggled like a hooked fish.

'Even that Andrew Barton you were singing of on the stair just now.' He

dipped again in the ink-well, and held his breath over a sweeping line,

as though he had forgotten everything else.

'Pirates don't build churches, do they?' said Dan. 'Or _do_ they?'

'They help mightily,' Hal laughed. 'But you were at your lessons this

morn, Jack Scholar.'

'Oh, pirates aren't lessons. It was only Bruce and his silly old

spider,' said Una. 'Why did Sir Andrew Barton help you?'

'I question if he ever knew it,' said Hal, twinkling. 'Robin, how a'

mischief's name am I to tell these innocents what comes of sinful

pride?'

'Oh, we know all about _that_,' said Una pertly. 'If you get too

beany--that's cheeky--you get sat upon, of course.'

Hal considered a moment, pen in air, and Puck said some long words.

'Aha! that was my case too,' he cried. 'Beany--you say--but certainly I

did not conduct myself well. I was proud of--of such things as

porches--a Galilee porch at Lincoln for choice--proud of one

Torrigiano's arm on my shoulder, proud of my knighthood when I made the

gilt scroll-work for the _Sovereign_--our King's ship. But Father Roger

sitting in Merton Library, he did not forget me. At the top of my pride,

when I and no other should have builded the porch at Lincoln, he laid

it on me with a terrible forefinger to go back to my Sussex clays and

rebuild, at my own charges, my own church, where us Dawes have been

buried for six generations. "Out! Son of my Art!" said he. "Fight the

Devil at home ere you call yourself a man and a craftsman." And I

quaked, and I went ... How's yon, Robin?' He flourished the finished

sketch before Puck.

'Me! Me past peradventure,' said Puck, smirking like a man at a mirror.

'Ah, see! The rain has took off! I hate housen in daylight.'

'Whoop! Holiday!' cried Hal, leaping up. 'Who's for my Little Lindens?

We can talk there.'

They tumbled downstairs, and turned past the dripping willows by the

sunny mill-dam.

'Body o' me,' said Hal, staring at the hop-garden, where the hops were

just ready to blossom. 'What are these? Vines? No, not vines, and they

twine the wrong way to beans.' He began to draw in his ready book.

'Hops. New since your day,' said Puck. 'They're an herb of Mars, and

their flowers dried flavour ale. We say--

'Turkeys, Heresy, Hops, and Beer

Came into England all in one year.'

'Heresy I know. I've seen Hops--God be praised for their beauty! What is

your Turkis?'

The children laughed. They knew the Lindens turkeys, and as soon as they

reached Lindens orchard on the hill the full flock charged at them.

Out came Hal's book at once. 'Hoity-toity!' he cried. 'Here's Pride in

purple feathers! Here's wrathy contempt and the Pomps of the Flesh! How

d'you call _them_?'

'Turkeys! Turkeys!' the children shouted, as the old gobbler raved and

flamed against Hal's plum-coloured hose.

''Save Your Magnificence!' he said. 'I've drafted two good new things

today.' And he doffed his cap to the bubbling bird.

Then they walked through the grass to the knoll where Little Lindens

stands. The old farmhouse, weather-tiled to the ground, took almost the

colour of a blood-ruby in the afternoon light. The pigeons pecked at the

mortar in the chimney-stacks; the bees that had lived under the tiles

since it was built filled the hot August air with their booming; and the

smell of the box-tree by the dairy-window mixed with the smell of earth

after rain, bread after baking, and a tickle of wood-smoke.

The farmer's wife came to the door, baby on arm, shaded her brows

against the sun, stooped to pluck a sprig of rosemary, and turned down

the orchard. The old spaniel in his barrel barked once or twice to show

he was in charge of the empty house. Puck clicked back the garden-gate.

'D'you marvel that I love it?' said Hal, in a whisper. 'What can town

folk know of the nature of housen--or land?'

They perched themselves arow on the old hacked oak bench in Lindens

garden, looking across the valley of the brook at the fern-covered

dimples and hollows of the Forge behind Hobden's cottage. The old man

was cutting a faggot in his garden by the hives. It was quite a second

after his chopper fell that the chump of the blow reached their lazy

ears.

'Eh--yeh!' said Hal. 'I mind when where that old gaffer stands was

Nether Forge--Master John Collins's foundry. Many a night has his big

trip-hammer shook me in my bed here. _Boom-bitty! Boom-bitty!_ If the

wind was east, I could hear Master Tom Collins's forge at Stockens

answering his brother, _Boom-oop! Boom-oop!_ and midway between, Sir

John Pelham's sledge-hammers at Brightling would strike in like a pack

o' scholars, and "_Hic-haec-hoc_" they'd say, "_Hic-haec-hoc_," till I

fell asleep. Yes. The valley was as full o' forges and fineries as a May

shaw o' cuckoos. All gone to grass now!'

'What did they make?' said Dan.

'Guns for the King's ships--and for others. Serpentines and cannon

mostly. When the guns were cast, down would come the King's Officers,

and take our plough-oxen to haul them to the coast. Look! Here's one of

the first and finest craftsmen of the Sea!'

He fluttered back a page of his book, and showed them a young man's

head. Underneath was written: 'Sebastianus.'

'He came down with a King's Order on Master John Collins for twenty

serpentines (wicked little cannon they be!) to furnish a venture of

ships. I drafted him thus sitting by our fire telling Mother of the new

lands he'd find the far side the world. And he found them, too! There's

a nose to cleave through unknown seas! Cabot was his name--a Bristol

lad--half a foreigner. I set a heap by him. He helped me to my

church-building.'

'I thought that was Sir Andrew Barton,' said Dan.

'Ay, but foundations before roofs,' Hal answered. 'Sebastian first put

me in the way of it. I had come down here, not to serve God as a

craftsman should, but to show my people how great a craftsman I was.

They cared not, and it served me right, one split straw for my craft or

my greatness. What a murrain call had I, they said, to mell with old St

Barnabas'? Ruinous the church had been since the Black Death, and

ruinous she would remain; and I could hang myself in my new

scaffold-ropes! Gentle and simple, high and low--the Hayes, the Fowles,

the Fenners, the Collinses--they were all in a tale against me. Only Sir

John Pelham up yonder at Brightling bade me heart-up and go on. Yet how

could I? Did I ask Master Collins for his timber-tug to haul beams? The

oxen had gone to Lewes after lime. Did he promise me a set of iron

cramps or ties for the roof? They never came to hand, or else they were

spaulty or cracked. So with everything. Nothing said, but naught done

except I stood by them, and then done amiss. I thought the countryside

was fair bewitched.'

'It was, sure-ly,' said Puck, knees under chin. 'Did you never suspect

ary one?'

'Not till Sebastian came for his guns, and John Collins played him the

same dog's tricks as he'd played me with my ironwork. Week in, week out,

two of three serpentines would be flawed in the casting, and only fit,

they said, to be re-melted. Then John Collins would shake his head, and

vow he could pass no cannon for the King's service that were not

perfect. Saints! How Sebastian stormed! _I_ know, for we sat on this

bench sharing our sorrows inter-common.

'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 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.