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One summer evening a little party of soldiers came riding up from Leasan towards the throws. They carried crowbars and iron-tipped staves, which they had taken from the smithy, and their hearts were gay and childlike with the hope of destruction. It had been a rare piece of luck to hear that there was a fine, tall, superstitious cross standing in the neighbourhood and crying out to be cast down. Riding among the villages, they had found that most survivals of Popery had already disappeared; it seemed a marvel that this one had not been overthrown. Doubtless it was because Kent and Sussex were more ignorant and wild than other parts; perhaps the common folk did not yet know they were Protestants. They might as well learn it to-day, with the smoke of the Hastings beacon fires still drifting with the evening fogs over Odimere Ridge, to tell them that the King of Spain had been harried into Calais harbour and harried out again, and was now scattering his power into the north, routed by the fire-ships of Francis Drake and the sou'-west wind of God.