Sir John Dering by Jeffery Farnol

The sun's kindly beams were gilding the age-worn old Cross and making it a thing of glory, for it was a golden morning. And, looking from his lattice, Sir John blinked drowsily in the warm radiance, though Alfriston had been long awake and full of cheery, leisured bustle. Borne to him on the fragrant air was a mingling of comfortable, homely sounds: the faint rattle of crockery, the clank of a pail, a snatch of song, voices raised in greeting, a faint, melodious whistling, with the clink of hammer and anvil. Indeed, the only silent object in the whole cheery place seemed to be the weatherbeaten old Cross itself.

Alfriston was serenely awake; folk went about their business with a placid deliberation, or paused to exchange comments on weather, present and to come, on growing crops and things in general, but with never a word for the desperate doings of last night.