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Title: Nicky-Nan, Reservist
Author: Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
Release Date: April 26, 2005 [EBook #15710]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NICKY-NAN, RESERVIST ***
Produced by Lionel Sear
NICKY-NAN, RESERVIST.
By Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch, ('Q')
Contents.
Chap.
I. HOW THE CHILDREN PLAYED.
II. CALL TO ARMS.
III. HOW THE MEN WENT.
IV. THE FIRST SERMON.
V. THE ANONYMOUS LETTER.
VI. TREASURE TROVE.
VII. "QUID NON MORTALIA PECTORIA . . ."
VIII. BUSINESS AS USUAL.
IX. THE BROKEN PANE.
X. THE VICAR'S MISGIVINGS.
XI. THE THREE PILCHARDS.
XII. FIRST ATTEMPT AT HIDING.
XIII. FIRST AID.
XIV. POLSUE _V_ PENHALIGON, NANJIVELL INTERVENING.
XV. THE 'TATY PATCH.
XVI. CORPORAL SANDERCOCK.
XVII. THE SECOND SERMON.
XVIII. FEATHERS.
XIX. I-SPY-HI!
XX. MISS OLIVER PROFFERS ASSISTANCE.
XXI. FAIRY GOLD.
XXII. SALVAGE.
XXIII. ENLIGHTENMENT, AND RECRUITING.
XXIV. THE FIRST THREE.
NICKY-NAN, RESERVIST.
CHAPTER I.
HOW THE CHILDREN PLAYED.
When news of the War first came to Polpier, Nicholas Nanjivell
(commonly known as Nicky-Nan) paid small attention to it, being
preoccupied with his own affairs.
Indeed, for some days the children knew more about it than he, being
tragically concerned in it--poor mites!--though they took it gaily
enough. For Polpier lives by the fishery, and of the fishermen a
large number--some scores--had passed through the Navy and now
belonged to the Reserve. These good fellows had the haziest notion
of what newspapers meant by the Balance of Power in Europe, nor
perhaps could any one of them have explained why, when Austria
declared war on Servia, Germany should be taking a hand. But they
had learnt enough on the lower deck to forebode that, when Germany
took a hand, the British Navy would pretty soon be clearing for
action. Consequently all through the last week of July, when the
word "Germany" began to be printed in large type in Press headlines,
the drifters putting out nightly on the watch for the pilchard
harvest carried each a copy of _The Western Morning News_ or _The
Western Daily Mercury_ to be read aloud, discussed, expounded under
the cuddy lamp in the long hours between shooting the nets and
hauling them.
"When the corn is in the shock,
Then the fish is on the rock."
A very little of the corn had been shocked as yet; but the fields,
right down to the cliffs' edge, stood ripe for abundant harvest.
I doubt, indeed, if in our time they have ever smiled a fairer
promise or reward for husbandry than during this last fortnight of
July 1914, when the crews, running back with the southerly breeze for
Polpier, would note how the crop stood yellower in to-day's than in
yesterday's sunrise, and speculate when Farmer Best or farmer Bate
meant to start reaping. As for the fish, the boats had made small
catches--dips among the straggling advance-guards of the great armies
of pilchards surely drawing in from the Atlantic. "'Tis early days
yet, hows'ever--time enough, my sons--plenty time!" promised Un'
Benny Rowett, patriarch of the fishing-fleet and local preacher on
Sundays. Some of the younger men grumbled that "there was no
tellin': the season had been tricky from the start." The
spider-crabs--that are the curse of inshore trammels--had
lingered for a good three weeks past the date when by all rights they
were due to sheer off. Then a host of spur-dogs had invaded the
whiting-grounds, preying so gluttonously on the hooked fish that,
haul in as you might, three times out of four the line brought up
nothing but a head--all the rest bitten off and swallowed.
"No salmon moving, over to Troy. The sean-boats there hadn't even
troubled to take out a licence." As for lobsters, "they were
becomin' a winter fish, somehow, and up the harbours you started
catchin' 'em at Christmas and lost 'em by Eastertide:" while the
ordinary crabbing-grounds appeared to be clean bewitched.
One theorist loudly called for a massacre of sea-birds, especially
shags and gannets. Others (and these were the majority) demanded
protection from steam trawlers, whom they accused of scraping the
sea-bottom, to the wholesale sacrifice of immature fish--sole and
plaice, brill and turbot.
"Now look 'ee here, my sons," said Un' Benny Rowett: "if I was you,
I'd cry to the Lord a little more an' to County Council a little
less. What's the full size ye reckon a school o' pilchards, now--one
o the big uns? Scores an' scores o' square miles, all movin' in a
mass, an' solid a'most as sardines in a tin; and, as I've heard th'
Old Doctor used to tell, every female capable o' spawnin' up to two
million. . . . No; your mind can't seize it. But ye might be fitted
to grasp that if th' Almighty hadn' ordained other fish an' birds as
well as us men to prey upon 'em, in five years' time no boat'd be
able to sail th' Atlantic; in ten years ye could walk over from
Polpier to Newfoundland stankin' 'pon rotten pilchards all the way.
Don't reckon yourselves wiser than Natur', my billies. . . . As for
steam trawlin', simmee, I han't heard so much open grievin' over it
since Government started loans for motors. Come to think--hey?--
there ben't no such tearin' difference between motors an' steam--not
on principle. And as for reggilations, I've a doo respect for County
Council till it sets up to reggilate Providence, when I falls back on
th' Lord's text to Noey that, boy an' man, I've never known fail.
_While th' earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest shall not cease._
And again," continued Un' Benny Rowett, "Behold, I say unto you,
_Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already
to harvest_."
If pressed in argument he would entrench himself behind the wonderful
plenty of john-doreys: "Which," he would say, "is the mysteriousest
fish in the sea and the holiest. Take a john-dorey or two, and the
pilchards be never far behind. 'Tis well beknown as the fish St
Peter took when Our Lord told 'en to cast a hook; an' be shot if he
didn' come to hook with a piece o' silver in his mouth! You can see
Peter's thumb-mark upon him to this day: and, if you ask _me_, he's
better eatin' than a sole, let alone you can carve en with a
spoon--though improved if stuffed, with a shreddin' o' mint.
Iss, baked o' course. . . . Afore August is out--mark my words--the
pilchards'll be here."
"But shall _we_ be here to take 'em?"
It was a dark, good-looking, serious youth who put the question: and
all the men at the end of the quay turned to stare at him. (For this
happened on the evening of Saturday, the 25th--St James's Day,--when
all the boats were laid up for the week-end.)
The men turned to young Seth Minards because, as a rule, he had a
wonderful gift of silence. He was known to be something of a
scholar, and religious too: but his religion did Dot declare itself
outwardly, save perhaps in a constant gentleness of manner.
The essence of it lay in spiritual withdrawal; the man retiring into
his own heart, so to speak, and finding there a Friend with whom to
hold sweet and habitual counsel. By consequence, young Seth Minards
spoke rarely, but with more than a double weight.
"What mean ye, my son?" demanded Un' Benny. "Tell us--you that don't
speak, as a rule, out of your turn."
"I think," answered Seth Minards slowly, "there is going to be War
for certain--a great War--and in a few days."
Three days later the postmistress, Mrs Pengelly (who kept a general
shop), put out two newspaper placards which set all the children at
the Council Schools, up the valley, playing at a game they called
"English and Germans"--an adaptation of the old "Prisoners' Base."
No one wanted to be a German: but, seeing that you cannot well
conduct warfare without an enemy, the weaker boys represented the
Teutonic cause under conscription, and afterwards joined in the
cheers when it was vanquished.
The Schools broke up on the last day of July; and the contest next
day became a naval one, among the row-boats lying inside the old
pier. This was ten times better fun; for a good half of the boys
meant to enter the Navy when they grew up. They knew what it meant,
too. The great battleships from Plymouth ran their speed-trials off
Polpier: the westward mile-mark stood on the Peak, right over the
little haven; and the smallest child has learnt to tell a Dreadnought
in the offing, or discern the difference between a first-class and a
second-class cruiser. The older boys knew most of the ships by name.
Throughout Saturday the children were--as their mother agreed--"fair
out of hand." But this may have been because the mothers themselves
were gossiping whilst their men slumbered. All Polpier women--even
the laziest--knit while they talk: and from nine o'clock onwards the
alley-ways that pass for streets were filled with women knitting hard
and talking at the top of their voices. The men and the cats dozed.
Down by the boats, up to noon the boys had things all their own way,
vying in feats of valour. But soon after the dinner-hour the girls
asserted themselves by starting an Ambulance Corps, and with details
so realistic that not a few of the male combatants hauled out of
battle on pretence of wounds and in search of better fun.
Nicholas Nanjivell, "mooning" by the bridge twelve paces from his
door, sharpening his jack-knife upon a soft parapet-stone that was
reported to bring cutlery to an incomparable edge and had paid for
its reputation, being half worn away--Nicholas Nanjivell, leaning his
weight on the parapet, to ease the pain in his leg--Nicholas
Nanjivell, gloomily contemplating his knife and wishing he could
plunge it into the heart of a man who stood behind a counter behind a
door which stood in view beyond the bridge-end--Nicholas Nanjivell,
nursing his own injury to the exclusion of any that might threaten
Europe--glanced up and beheld his neighbour Penhaligon's children,
Young 'Bert and 'Beida (Zobeida), approach by the street from the
Quay bearing between them a stretcher, composed of two broken paddles
and part of an old fishing-net, and on the stretcher, covered by a
tattered pilot-jack, a small form--their brother 'Biades
(Alcibiades), aged four. It gave him a scare.
"Lor sake!" said he, hastily shutting and pocketing his knife.
"What you got there?"
"'Biades," answered 'Beida, with a tragical face.
"Han't I heard your mother warn 'ee a score o' times, against lettin'
that cheeld play loose on the Quay! . . . What's happened to 'en?
Broke his tender neck, I shouldn' wonder. . . . Here, let me have a
look--"
"Broke his tender fiddle-stick!" 'Beida retorted. "He's bleedin' for
his country, is 'Biades, if you really want to know; and if you was
helpful you'd lend us that knife o' yours."
"What for, missy?"
"Why, to take off the injured limb. 'Bert's knife's no good since
the fore-part o' the week, when he broke the blade prizin' up limpets
an' never guessing how soon this War'd be upon us."
"I did," maintained 'Bert. "I was gettin' in food supplies."
"If I was you, my dears, I'd leave such unholy games alone,"
Nicky-Nan advised them. "No, and I'll not lend 'ee my knife,
neither. You don't know what War is, children: an' please God you
never will. War's not declared yet--not by England, anyway.
Don't 'ee go to seek it out until it seeks _you_."
"But 'tis comin'," 'Beida persisted. "Father was talkin' with Mother
last night--he didn' go out with the boats: and 'Bert and I both
heard him say--didn' we, 'Bert?--'twas safe as to-morrow's sun.
The way we heard was that Mother'd forgot to order us to bed; which
hasn't happened not since Coronation Night an' the bonfire. When she
came up to blow out the light she'd been cryin'. . . . That's because
Father'll have to fight, o' course."
"I wish they'd put it off till I was a man," said 'Bert stoutly.
At this point the wounded hero behaved as he always did on
discovering life duller than his hopes. He let out a piercing yell
and cried that he wanted his tea. 'Beida dropped her end of the
ambulance, seized him as he slid to the ground, shook him up, and
told him to behave.
"You can't have your tea for another hour: and what's more, if you're
not careful there won't be no amputation till afterwards, when
Mother's not lookin' an' we can get a knife off the table. You bad
boy!"
'Biades howled afresh.
"If you don't stop it,"--'Bert took a hand in threatening,--
"you won't get cut open till Monday; because 'tis Sunday to-morrow.
And by that time you'll be festerin', I shouldn't wonder."
"--And mortification will have set in," promised his sister.
"When that happens, you may turn up your toes. An' 'tis only a
question between oak an' elum."
'Biades ceased yelling as abruptly as he had started. "What's
'fester'?" he demanded.
"You'll know fast enough, when you find yourself one solid scab,"
began 'Bert. But Nicky-Nan interrupted.
"There, there, children! Run along an' don't ee play at trouble.
There's misery enough, the Lord knows--" He broke off on a twinge of
pain, and stared down-stream at the congregated masts in the little
harbour.
Polpier lies in a gorge so steep and deep that though it faces but a
little east of south, all its western flank lay already in deep
shadow. The sunlight slanting over the ridge touched the tops of the
masts, half a dozen of which had trucks with a bravery of gilt, while
a couple wore the additional glory of a vane. On these it flashed,
and passed on to bathe the line of cottages along the eastern shore,
with the coast-guard hut that stood separate beyond them on the round
of the cliff-track--all in one quiet golden glow. War? Who could
think of War? . . . Nicky-Nan at any rate let the thought of it slip
into the sea of his private trouble. It was as though he had hauled
up some other man's "sinker" and, discovering his mistake, let it
drop back plumb.
While he stared, the children had stolen away.
Yet he loitered there staring, in the hush of the warm afternoon,
lifting his eyes a little towards the familiar outline of the hills
that almost overlapped, closing out sight of the sea. A verse ran in
his head--"_I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence
cometh my help_. . . ."
The slamming of a door at the street-corner beyond the bridge
recalled him to the world of action.
On the doorstep of the local Bank--turning key in lock as he left the
premises--stood a man respectably dressed and large of build. It was
Mr Pamphlett, the Bank-Manager. Nicky-Nan thrust his hands in his
trouser-pockets and limped towards him.
"If you please, sir--"
Mr Pamphlett faced about, displaying a broad white waistcoat and a
ponderous gold watch-chain.
"Ah! Nanjivell?"
"If you please, sir--" Nicky-Nan, now balanced on his sound leg,
withdrew a hand from his pocket and touched his cap. "I've been
waitin' your convenience."
"Busy times," said Mr Pamphlett. "This Moratorium, you know. The
War makes itself felt, even in this little place."
If Nicky-Nan had known the meaning of the word Moratorium, it might
have given him an opening. But he did not, and so he stood dumb.
"You have come to say, I hope," hazarded Mr Pamphlett after a pause,
"that you don't intend to give me any more trouble? . . . You've
given me enough, you know. An Ejectment Order. . . . Still--if, at
the last, you've made up your mind to behave--"
"There's no other house, sir. If there was, and you'd let it to
me--"
"That's likely, hey? In the present scandalous laxity of the law
towards tenants, you've cost me a matter of pounds--not to mention
six months' delay, which means money lost--to eject you. You, that
owe me six pounds rent! It's likely I'd let you another house--even
if I had one!"
"Even if you had the will, 'twouldn' be right. I understand that,
sir. Six young men, as I know, waitin' to marry and unable, because
the visitors snap up cottage after cottage for summer residences,
an'll pay you fancy prices; whereas you won't build for the likes o'
we."
"Your six young men--if six there be--" said Mr Pamphlett, "will be
best employed for some time to come in fighting for their country.
It don't pay to build cottages, I tell you."
Nicky-Nan's right hand gripped the knife in his pocket. But he
answered wearily--
"Well, anyways, sir, I don't ask to interfere with them: but only to
bide under my own shelter."
"Owing me six pounds arrears, and piling up more? And after driving
me to legal proceedings! Look here, Nanjivell. You are fumbling
something in your pocket. Is it the six pounds you owe me?"
"No, sir."
"I thought not. And if it were, I should still demand the costs I've
been put to. If you bring me the total on Monday--But you know very
well you cannot."
"No, sir."
"Then," said Mr Pamphlett, "we waste time. I have been worried
enough, these last few days, with more serious business than yours.
In the times now upon us a many folk are bound to go to the wall; and
the improvident will go first, as is only right. Enough said, my
man!"
Nicky-Nan fumbled with the knife in his pocket, but let Mr Pamphlett
pass.
Then he limped back to the house that would be his until Monday, and
closed the door. Beyond the frail partition which boarded him off
from the Penhaligon family he could hear the children merry at tea.
CHAPTER II.
CALL TO ARMS.
NESCIO QUA NATALE SOLUM DULCEDINE CUNCTOS
DUCIT ET IMMEMORES NON SINIT ESSE SUI.
--The Old Doctor (to whom we have made allusion) had been moved to
write an account of his native place, and had contrived to get it
published by subscription in a thin octavo volume of 232 pages,
measuring nine by five and a half inches. Copies are rare, but may
yet be picked up on secondhand bookstalls for six or seven shillings.
From this 'History of Polpier' I must quote--being unable to better
it--his description of the little town. (He ever insisted in calling
it a town, not a village, although it contained less than fourteen
hundred inhabitants.)
"If the map of the coast of Cornwall be examined, on the
south-east, between the estuaries of the two rivers that divide
the Hundred of West from the Hundred of East and the Hundred of
Powder, will be noticed an indentation of the littoral line, in
which cleft lies the little town of Polpier. Tall hills,
abrupt and rugged, shut in a deep and tortuous valley, formed
by the meeting of smaller coombs; houses, which seem dropped
rather than built, crowd the valley and its rocky ledges; a
rapid rivulet dances in and out among the dwellings, till its
voice is lost in the waters of a tidal haven, thronged with
fishing boats and guarded by its Peak of serried rock."
The Doctor after this first modest mention of "a rivulet" invariably
writes of it as "the River," and by no other name does Polpier speak
of it to this day. On the lower or seaward side of the bridge-end,
where the channel measures some three yards across, the flank of his
house leaned over the rushing water, to the sound of which he slept
at night. Across the stream the house of Mr Barrabell, clerk, leaned
forward at a more pronounced angle, so that the two neighbours, had
they been so minded, might have shaken hands between their bedroom
windows before retiring to rest. Tradition reports this Mr Barrabell
(though an accountant for most of the privateering companies in
Polpier) to have been a timorous man: and that once the Doctor,
returning home in the small hours from a midwifery case, found his
neighbour and his neighbour's wife hiding together under his
bed-clothes. Upon an alarm that Bonaparte was in the town, they had
bridged the stream with a ladder to the Doctor's open window and
clambered across in their night-clothes. It is reported also that,
on the transit, Mrs Barrabell was heard to say, "Go forward,
Theophilus! Th' Old Doctor knows all about _me_, if he don't about
you. You can trust en to the ends of the world." "That's right
enough, ma'am," said the Doctor in his great way; "but you appear to
have gone a bit further." A variant of the story has it that Mrs
Barrabell was found beneath the bed, and her spouse alone between the
bed-clothes, into which he had plunged with an exhortation, "Look
after yourself, darling!" "And what do you think Theophilus found
under that magnificent man's bed?" she asked her neighbours next day.
"Why, naught but a plumed hat in a japanned case; no trace of alarm,
and yet ready there against any emergency."
The Doctor (I should say) had held a commission--worn a Major's
uniform--in the local Artillery Volunteers during those days of the
Napoleonic peril. They passed, and he survived to die in times of
peace, leaving (as has been told) a local history for his memorial.
A tablet to his memory records that "_In all his life he never had a
lawsuit. Reader, take example and strive to be so good a man_."
In his childhood Nicky-Nan had listened to many a legend of the Old
Doctor, whose memory haunted every street and by-lane and even
attained to something like apotheosis in the talk of the older
inhabitants. They told what an eye he had, as a naturalist, for
anything uncommon in the maunds; how he taught them to be observant,
alert for any strange fish, and to bring it home alive, if possible;
and how he was never so happy as when seated on a bollard near the
Quay-head with a drawing-board on his knee, busy--for he was a wonder
with pencil and brush--transferring to paper the outline and markings
of a specimen and its perishable exquisite colours; working rapidly
while he listened to the account of its capture, and maybe pausing
now and again to pencil a note on the margin of the portrait.
They told, too, of his ways--how for a whole month he came forth from
his front door in a crouching posture, almost on all fours, so as not
to disturb the work of a diadem spider that had chosen to build its
web across the porch; of his professional skill, that "trust yourself
to th' Old Doctor, and he'd see you came to a natral end of some
sort, and in no haste, neither;" of his habit of dress, that (when
not in martial uniform) he wore a black suit with knee-breeches, silk
stockings, and silver shoe-buckles; of his kindness of heart, that in
the _Notes of Periodic Phenomena_, which he regularly kept, he always
recorded a midnight gale towards the close of August, to account for
the mysterious depletion of his apple-crop.
But the Old Doctor had gone to his fathers long ago, and the old
house, divided into two tenements--with access by one porch and front
passage--had been occupied for twenty years past by Nicky-Nan and
(for eight or nine) by the Penhaligon family. Nicky-Nan's cantle
overhung the river, and comprised a kitchen and scullery on the
ground-floor, with a fairly large bedroom above it. The old Doctor's
own bedroom it had been, and was remarkable for an open fireplace
with two large recessed cupboards let into a wall, which measured a
good four feet in depth beyond the chimney-breast. Once, in cleaning
out the cupboards, Nicky-Nan had discovered in the right-hand one
that one or two boards of the flooring were loose. Lifting them
cautiously he had peered into a sort of lazarette deep down in the
wall, and had lowered a candle, the flame of which, catching hold of
a mass of dried cobweb, had shot up and singed his eyebrows, for a
moment threatening to set the house on fire. It had given him a
scare, and he never ventured to carry his exploration further.
His curiosity was the less provoked because at least a score of the
old houses in Polpier have similar recesses, constructed (it is said)
as hiding-places from the press-gang or for smugglers hotly pursued
by the dragoons.
The Penhaligon family inhabited the side of the house that faced the
street, and their large living-room was chiefly remarkable for the
beams supporting the floor above it. They had all been sawn
lengthwise out of a single oak-tree, and the outer edges of some had
been left untrimmed. From a nail in the midmost beam hung a small
rusty key, around which the spiders wove webs and the children many
speculations: for the story went that a brother of the old Doctor's--
the scapegrace of the family--had hung it (the key of his quadrant)
there, with strong injunctions that no one should take it down until
he returned--which he never did. So Mrs Penhaligon's feather-brush
always spared this one spot in the room, every other inch of which
she kept scrupulously dusted. She would not for worlds have
exchanged lodgings with Nicky-Nan, though his was by far the best
bedroom (and far too good for a bachelor man); because from her
windows she could watch whatever crossed the bridge--folks going to
church, and funerals. But the children envied Nicky-Nan, because
from his bedroom window you could--when he was good-natured and
allowed you--drop a line into the brawling river. Of course there
were no real fish to be caught, but with a cunning cast and some luck
you might hook up a tin can or an old boot.
Now Nicky-Nan was naturally fond of children, as by nature he had
been designed for a family man; and children gave him their
confidence without knowing why. But in his early manhood a girl had
jilted him, which turned him against women: later, in the Navy, the
death of a friend and messmate, to whom he had transferred all the
loyalty of his heart, set him questioning many things in a silent
way. He had never been able to dissipate affection or friendship:
and his feelings when hurt, being sensitive as the horns of a snail,
withdrew themselves as swiftly into a shell and hid there as
obstinately: by consequence of which he earned (without deserving) a
name not often entered upon the discharge-sheets of the Royal Navy.
But there it stood on his, in black upon white--"A capable seaman.
_Morose_."
He had carried this character, with his discharge-sheet, back to
Polpier, where his old friends and neighbours--who had known him as a
brisk upstanding lad, sociable enough, though maybe a trifle shy--
edged away from the taciturn man who returned to them. Nor did it
help his popularity that he attended neither Church nor Chapel: for
Polpier is a deeply religious place, in its fashion.
Some of the women-folk--notably Mrs Polsue, the widow-woman, and Miss
Cherry (Charity) Oliver, a bitter spinster--spoke to the Wesleyan
Minister about this.
The Minister listened to them politely. He was the gentlest of
little men and had a club-foot. Mrs Polsue and Miss Oliver
(who detested one another) agreed that it would be a day of grace
when his term among them expired and he was "planned" for some other
place where Christianity did not matter as it did in Polpier.
They gave various reasons for this: but their real reason (had they
lived in a Palace of Truth) was that the Rev. Mark Hambly never spoke
evil of any one, nor listened to gossip save with a loose attention.
"The man has a wandering mind!" declared Miss Oliver. "It don't seem
able to fix itself. If you'll believe me, when I told him about
Bestwetherick's daughter and how she'd got herself into trouble at
last, all he could say was, 'Yes, yes, poor thing!'--and invite me to
kneel down an' pray she might come safely through it!"
"You surely weren't so weak as to do it?" said Mrs Polsue,
scandalised.
"Me?" exclaimed Cherry. "Pray for that baggage? To start with, I'd
be afeard the Lord'd visit it on me. . . . An' then it came out he'd
Known the whole affair for more than two months. The girl had been
to him."
"And he never told? . . . I tell you what, Cherry Oliver! It's my
belief that man would set up a confessional, if he could."
"Don't 'ee tell up such things, Mary-Martha Polsue, or I'll go an'
drown myself!"
"And why not?--he bein' so thick with Parson Steele, that sticks up
'High Mass' 'pon his church door and is well known to be
hand-in-glove with the Pope. I tell you I saw the pair meet this
very Wednesday down by the bridge as I happened to be lookin' out
waitin' to scold the milk-boy: and they shook hands and stood for
up-three-minutes colloguin' together."
When these two ladies joined forces to attack Mr Hambly on the
subject of Nicky-Nan's atheism, presumed upon his neglect to attend
public worship, the Minister's lack of interest became fairly
exasperating. He arose and opened the window.
"Astonishing plague of house-flies we are suffering from this year,"
he observed. "You have noticed it, doubtless? . .. Yes, yes--about
Nanjivell . . . it is so good of you to feel concerned. I will talk
it over with the Vicar."
"God forbid!" Mrs Polsue ejaculated.
"One uses up fly-papers almost faster than Mrs Pengelly can supply
them," continued the Minister. "And, moreover, she will sell me but
two or three at a time, alleging that she requires all her stock for
her own shop. I fell back last week upon treacle. Beer, in small
glass jars, is also recommended. I trust that if you ladies see me
issuing from the Three Pilchards to-morrow with a jug of beer, you
will make it your business to protect my character. The purchase
will not escape your knowledge, I feel sure. . . . But we were
talking of Nanjivell. I have some reason to believe that he is a
God-fearing man, though his religion does not take a--er--
congregational turn. Moreover, he is a sick man."
"H'mph!" Miss Oliver sniffed.
"The amount of disease disseminated by house-flies is, I am told,
incalculable," pursued Mr Hambly. "Yes--as I was saying, or about to
say--it's a pity that, in a small town like Polpier, two ministers of
religion cannot between them keep a general shop to suit all tastes,
like Mrs Pengelly." Mr Hambly's voice dropped as he wound up.
"Ah, if--like Mrs Pengelly--we kept bull's-eyes for the children!"
"And for another year we have to sit under a man like that!" said Mrs
Polsue to Miss Oliver on their way homeward.
Nicky-Nan had one thing in his favour. He came of an old Polpier
stock. It had decayed, to be sure, and woefully come down in the
world: but the town, though its tongue may wag, has ever a soft heart
towards its own. And the Nanjivells had been of good "haveage"
(lineage) in their time. They had counted in the family a real
Admiral, of whom Nicky-Nan had inherited a portrait in oil-colours.
It hung in the parlour-kitchen underneath his bedroom, between two
marine paintings of Vesuvius erupting by day and Vesuvius erupting by
night: and the Penhaligon children stood in terrible awe of it
because the eyes followed you all round the room, no matter what
corner you took.
In neighbourliness, then, and for the sake of his haveage,
Nicky-Nan's first welcome home had been kindly enough. His savings
were few, but they bought him a small share in a fishing-boat,
besides enabling him to rent the tenement in the Doctor's House, and
to make it habitable with a few sticks of furniture. Also he rented
a potato-patch, beyond the coastguard's hut, around the eastward
cliff, and tilled it assiduously. Being a man who could do with a
very little sleep, he would often be found hard at work there by nine
in the morning, after a long night's fishing.
Thus, though always on the edge of poverty, he had managed his
affairs--until four years ago, when the trouble began with his leg.
At first he paid little heed to it, since it gave him no pain and
little more than a passing discomfort. It started, in fact, as a
small hard cyst low down at the back of the right thigh, incommoding
him when he bent his knee. He called it "a nut in the flesh," and
tried once or twice to get rid of it by squeezing it between fingers
and thumb. It did not yield to this treatment.
He could not fix, within a month or so, the date when it began to
hurt him. But it had been hurting him, off and on, for some weeks,
when one night, tacking out towards the fishing-grounds against a
stiffish southerly breeze, as he ran forward to tend the fore-sheet
his leg gave way under him as if it had been stabbed, and he rolled
into the scuppers in intolerable anguish. For a week after this
Nicky-Nan nursed himself ashore, and it was given out that he had
twisted his knee-cap. He did not call in a doctor, although the
swelling took on a red and angry hue. As a fact, no medical man now
resided within three miles of Polpier. (When asked how they did
without one, the inhabitants answered gravely that during the summer
season, when the visitors were about, Dr Mant came over twice a-week
from St Martin's; in the winter they just died a natural death.)
At any rate Nicky-Nan, because he was poor, would not call in a
doctor; and, because he was proud, would not own to anything worse
than a twisted knee, even when his neighbours on the Quay, putting
their heads together, had shaken them collectively and decided that
"the poor man must be suff'rin' from something chronic."
Then followed a bitter time, as his savings dwindled. He made more
than a dozen brave attempts to resume his old occupation. But in the
smallest lop of a sea he was useless, so that it became dangerous to
take him. Month by month he fell further back in arrears of rent.
And now the end seemed to have arrived with Mr Pamphlett's notice of
ejectment. Nicky-Nan, of course, held that Mr Pamphlett had a
personal grudge against him. Mr Pamphlett had nothing of the sort.
In ordinary circumstances, knowing Nicky-Nan to be an honest man, he
would have treated him easily. But he wanted to "develope" Polpier
to his own advantage: and his scheme of development centred on the
old house by the bridge. He desired to pull it down and transfer the
Bank to that eligible site. He had a plan of the proposed new
building, with a fine stucco frontage and edgings of terra-cotta.
Mr Pamphlett saw his way to make this improvement, and was quite
resolute about it; and Nicky-Nan, by his earlier reception of notices
to quit, had not bettered any chance of resisting. Still--had
Nicky-Nan known it--Mr Pamphlett, like many another bank manager, had
been caught and thrown in a heap by the sudden swoop of War.
Over the telephone wires he had been in agitated converse all day
with his superiors, who had at length managed to explain to him the
working of the financial Moratorium.
So Mr Pamphlett, knowing there must be War, had clean forgotten the
Ejectment Order, until Nicky-Nan inopportunely reminded him of it;
and in his forgetfulness, being testy with overwork, had threatened
execution on Monday--which would be the 3rd: August Bank Holiday, and
a _dies non_.
Somehow Nicky-Nan had forgotten this too. It did not occur to him
until after he had supped on boiled potatoes with a touch of butter,
pepper and salt, washed down with water, a drink he abhorred. When
it occurred to him, he smote his thigh and was rewarded with a twinge
of pain.
He had all Sunday and all Monday in which to lay his plans before the
final evacuation, if evacuation there must be. The enemy had
miscalculated. He figured it out two or three times over, made sure
he was right, and went to bed in his large gaunt bedroom with a sense
of triumph.
Between now and Tuesday a great many things might happen.
A great many things were, in fact, happening. Among them, Europe--
wire answering wire--was engaged in declaring general War.
Nicky-Nan, stretched in the four-post bed which had been the Old
Doctor's, recked nothing of this. But his leg gave him considerable
pain that night, He slept soon, but ill, and awoke before midnight to
the sound--as it seemed--of sobbing. Something was wrong with the
Penhaligon's children? Yet no . . . the sound seemed to come rather
from the chamber where Mr and Mrs Penhaligon slept. . . . It ceased,
and he dropped off to sleep again.
Oddly enough he awoke--not having given it a thought before--with a
scare of War upon him.
In his dream he had been retracing accurately and in detail a small
scene of the previous morning, at the moment quite without
significance for him. Limping back from his cliff-patch with a
basket of potatoes in one hand and with the other using the shaft of
his mattock (or "visgy" in Polpier language) for a walking-staff, as
he passed the watch-house he had been vaguely surprised to find
coastguardsman Varco on the look-out there with his glass, and
halted.
"Hallo, Bill Varco! Wasn't it you here yesterday? Or has my memory
lost count 'pon the days o' the week?"
"It's me, right enough," said Varco; "an' no one but Peter Hosken
left with me, to take turn an' turn about. They've called the others
up to Plymouth."
"But why?" Nicky-Nan had asked: and the coastguardsman had responded:
"You can put two an' two together, neighbour. Add 'em up as you
please."
The scene and the words, repeated through his dream, came back now
very clearly to him.
"But when a man's in pain and nervous," he told himself, "the least
little thing bulks big in his mind." War? They couldn't really mean
it. . . . That scare had come and had passed, almost a score of
times. . . . Well, suppose it was War? . . . that again might be the
saving of him. Folks mightn't be able to serve Ejectment Orders in
time of War. . . . Besides, now he came to think of it, back in the
week there had been some panic in the banks, and some talk of a law
having been passed by which debts couldn't be recovered in a hurry.
And, anyway, Mr Pamphlett had forgotten about Bank Holiday.
There was no hurry before Tuesday . . .
Nicky-Nan dropped off again into a sleep punctuated by twinges of
pain.
Towards dawn, as the pain eased, his slumber grew deeper and
undisturbed. He was awakened by--What?
At first it seemed to be the same sound of sobbing to which he had
listened early in the night. Then, with a start, he knew it to be
something quite different--an impatient knocking at the foot of his
bed-chamber stairs.
Nicky-Nan shuffled out of bed, opened his door, and peered down the
stairway.
"Who's there?" he challenged. "And what's your business? Hullo!"--
catching sight of Bill Varco, coastguardsman, on the flat below--"the
house afire? Or what brings you?"
"The Reserves are called out," answered up Bill Varco. "You'll get
your paper later. But the Chief Officer's here from Troy with a
little fellow from the Customs there, and I be sent round with first
news. I've two dozen yet to warn . . . In the King's name!
An' there'll be a brake waiting by the bridge-end at ten-thirty.
If War isn't declared, it mighty soon will be. Take notice!"
Bill Varco disappeared, sharp on the word. Nicky-Nan paused a
moment, hobbled back to bed and sat on the edge of it, steadying
himself, yet half-awake.
"It's some trick of Pamphlett's to get me out," he decided, and went
downstairs cautiously.
CHAPTER III.
HOW THE MEN WENT.
In the passage he found Mrs Penhaligon standing, alone, rigid as a
statue. By her attitude she seemed to be listening. Yet she had
either missed to hear or, hearing, had missed to understand Varco's
call up the stairs. At Nicky-Nan's footstep she turned, with a face
white and set.
"Sam's got to go," she said. Her lips twitched.
"Nonsense, woman! Some person's playin' a trick 'pon the town."
"They start from the bridge at ten-thirty. There's no trick about
it. Go an' see for yourself." She motioned with her hand.
Nicky-Nan limped to the porch and peeked out (as they say at
Polpier). Up the street the women stood clacking the news just as
though it were a week-day and the boats had brought in a famous haul.
Feminine gossip in Polpier is not conducted in groups, as the men
conduct theirs on the Quay. By tradition each housewife takes post
on her own threshold-slate, and knits while she talks with her
neighbours to right and left and across the road; thus a bit of news,
with comment and embellishment zigzags from door to door through the
town like a postal delivery. To-day being Sunday, the women had no
knitting; but it was observable that while Mrs Trebilcock, two doors
away, led the chorus as usual, her hands moved as though plying
imaginary needles: and so did the hands of Sarah Jane Johns over the
way.
Down by the bridge-end two men in uniform sat side by side on the low
parapet, sorting out a small pile of blue papers. They were Mr
Irons, the chief officer of Coastguard at Troy, and a young
custom-house officer--a stranger to Nicky-Nan. The morning sunlight
played on their brass buttons and cap-rims.
Nicky-Nan withdrew his head hastily.
"Where's Sam?" he asked.
"Gone down to Billy Bosistow's to fetch his sea-boots."
"I don't follow 'ee." Nicky-Nan rubbed his unshaven jaw with two
fingers. "Is the world come to its end, then, that Billy Bosistow
keeps open shop on a Sunday mornin'?"
"'Tisn' like that at all. . . . You see, Sam's a far-seein' man, or
I've tried to make him so. I reckon there's no man in Polpier'll
turn out in a kit smellin' stronger of camphor, against the moth.
Twice this week I've had it out an' brushed it, fingerin' (God help
me) the clothes an' prayin' no shell to strike en, here or there.
. . . Well, an' last autumn, bein' up to Plymouth, he bought an extry
pair of sea-boots, Yarmouth-made, off some Stores on the Barbican,
an' handed 'em over to Billy to pickle in some sort o' grease that's
a secret of his own to make the leather supple an' keep it from
perishin'. He've gone down to fetch 'em; an' there's no
Sabbath-breakin' in a deed like that, when a man's country calls en."
"'Tis terrible sudden, all this," said Nicky-Nan, ruminating.
"'Tis worse than sudden. Here we be, with orders to clear out before
Michaelmas: and how be I to do that, with my man away? Think of all
the great lerrupin' furnicher to be shifted an' (what's harder)
stowed in a pokey little cottage that wasn' none too big for Aun'
Bunney when she lived. An' sixteen steps up to the door, with a turn
in 'em! Do 'ee mind what a Dover-to-pay there was gettin' out the
poor soul's coffin? An' then look at the size of my dresser. . . ."
"I can't think why you turn out, for my part. Pamphlett's served me
with notice to quit by to-morra. You don't catch me, though."
"Why, Mr Nanjivell, you won't set yourself up to fly in the teeth of
the law!"
"Just you wait. . . . And Pamphlett doesn' know all the law that's in
the land, neither, if he reckons to turn me out 'pon a Bank Holiday."
Mrs Penhaligon stared. "Well, I s'wow! Bank Holiday to-morra, and
I'd clean forgot it! . . . But, with the Lord's Sabbath standin' 'pon
its head, 'tis excusable. The children, now--out an' runnin' the
town in the Sunday clothes with never a thought o' breakfast; and how
I'm to get their boots an' faces clean in time for Chapel, let alone
washin'-up, I ask you!"
"Well, I'll go upstairs an' get a shave," said Nicky-Nan.
"_That_'ll feel like Sunday anyhow."
"Poor lonely creatur'!" thought Mrs Penhaligon, who always pitied
bachelors. On an impulse she said, "An' when you've done, Mr
Nanjivell, there'll be fried eggs an' bacon, if you're not above
acceptin' the compliment for once."
When Nicky-Nan came downstairs again, clean-shaven and wearing his
Sunday suit of threadbare sea-cloth, he found the Penhaligon children
seated at the board, already plying their spoons in bowls of
bread-and-milk. As a rule, like other healthy children, they ate
first and talked afterwards. But to-day, with War in the air, they
chattered, stirring the sop around and around. 'Beida's eyes were
bright and her cheeks flushed.
"War's a funny thing," she mused. "Where do _you_ feel it, Mother?"
"Don't clacky so much, that's a darlin', but go on with your
breakfast." But Mrs Penhaligon heaved a sigh that was answer enough.
"Well, I wanted to know, because down by Quay-end I heard old Aun'
Rundle say it made her feel like the bottom of her stomach was
fallin' out. I suppose it takes people differ'nt as they get up in
years."
"I know azackly where I feel it!" announced 'Biades. "It's _here_."
He set down his spoon and pointed a finger on the third button of his
small waistcoat. "An' it keeps workin' up an' down an' makin' noises
just like Billy Richard's key-bugle."
"Then it's a mercy it ben't real," commented his brother.
"'Biades is right, all the same." 'Beida regarded the child and
nodded slowly. "It do feel very much like when you hear a band
comin' up the street. It catches you--" She broke off and laid
her open palm on her chest a little below the collar. "An' then it's
creepin' up the back of your legs an' along your arms, an' up your
backbone, right into the roots o' your hair. But the funniest thing
of all is, the place looks so differ'nt--an' all the more because
there's so little happenin' differ'nt. . . . I can't tell just what I
mean," she owned candidly, turning to Nicky-Nan; "but it don't seem
we be _here_ somehow, nor the houses don't seem real, somehow.
'Tis as if your real inside was walkin' about somewhere else,
listenin' to the band."
"Nonsense your tellin'," 'Bert interrupted. "Father's put on his
uniform. How can you make it that things ben't differ'nt, after
that?"
"An' _he_'s here!" 'Biades nodded, over his half-lifted spoon, at
Nicky-Nan.
"Oh!" said 'Bert, "that isn' because of the War. That's to say
Good-bye, because he's turnin' out this week."
"For goodness, children, eat up your meal, an' stop talkin'!"
Mrs Penhaligon returned from the hearth to the table and set down a
dish of eggs and sizzling bacon. "Wherever you pick up such notions!
. . . You must excuse their manners, Mr Nanjivell."
But Nicky-Nan was staring at young 'Bert from under fiercely bent
eyebrows.
"Who told you that I was turnin' out this week?" he demanded.
"I heard Mr Pamphlett say it, day before yesterday. He was round
with Squinny Gilbert--"
"Fie now, your manners get worse and worse!" his mother reproved him.
"Who be you, to talk of the builder-man without callin' him
'Mister'?"
"Well then, he was round with Mister Squinny Gilbert, lookin' over
the back o' the house. I heard him say as you was done for, and
would have to clear inside the next two or three days--"
"He did--did he?" Nicky-Nan was arising in ungovernable rage; but
Mrs Penhaligon coaxed him to sit down.
"There now!" she said soothingly. "Take un' eat, Mr Nanjivell!
The Good Lord bids us be like the lilies o' the field, and I can
vouch the eggs to be new-laid. Sufficient for the day. . . .
An' here 'tis the Sabbath, an' to-morrow Bank Holiday. Put the man
out o' your thoughts, an' leave the Lord to provide."
"If I had that man here--"
Nicky-Nan was sharp set; indeed he had been hungry, more or less, for
weeks. But now, with the eggs and bacon wooing his nostrils, his
choler arose and choked him. He stared around the cleanly kitchen.
"And on quarter-day, ma'am, 'twill be your turn. It beats me how you
can take it so quiet."
"I reckon," said Mrs Penhaligon simply, looking down on the dish of
eggs (which maybe suggested the image to her)--"I reckon as the hen's
home is wherever she can gather the chickens under her wings.
Let's be thankful we're not like they poor folk abroad, to have our
homes overrun by this War."
"'War'?" Nicky-Nan recollected himself with an effort. "Seemin' to
me you're all taken up with it. As though there weren't other things
in this world--"
"If only the Almighty'll send my Sam home safe an' well!"
But at this point Mr Penhaligon entered the kitchen, with the
sea-boots dangling from his hand. He wore his naval uniform--that of
an A.B.; blue jumper and trousers, white cinglet edged with blue
around his stout throat, loose black neck-cloth and lanyard white as
driven snow. His manner was cheerful--even ostentatiously cheerful:
but it was to be observed that his eyes avoided his wife's.
"Hullo, naybour!" he shouted, perceiving Nicky-Nan. "Well, now, I
count this real friendly of ye, to come an' give me the send-off."
And indeed Nicky's presence seemed to be a sensible relief to him.
"Haven't ate all the eggs, I hope? For I be hungry as a hunter.
. . . Well, so it's War for sure, and a man must go off to do his
little bit; though how it happened--" In the act of helping
himself he glanced merrily around the table. "Eh, 'Beida, my li'l
gel, what be you starin' at so hard?"
"Father looks fine, don't-a?" responded 'Beida, addressing the
company.
"What I want to know," said 'Bert, "is why he couldn' have married
Mother years afore he did--an' then I'd have been a man an' able to
work a gun."
"Ho!" Mr Penhaligon brought his fist down on the table with huge
enjoyment. "Hear that, my dear? Wants to know why we didn' marry
years afore we did?" He turned to his wife, appealing to her to
enjoy the joke, but hastily averted his eyes. "Well, now, I'll tell
ye, sonny--if it's strictly atween you an' me an' the bedpost.
I asked her half a dozen times: but she wouldn' have me. No: look at
me she wouldn' till I'd pined away in flesh for her, same as you see
me at present. . . . Eh, M'ria? What's your version?"
Mrs Penhaligon burst into tears; and then, as her husband jumped up
to console her, started to scold the children furiously for dawdling
over breakfast, when goodness knew, with their clothes in such a
state, how long it would take to get them ready for Chapel.
The children understood and gulped down the rest of their breakfast
hastily, while their mother turned to the fireplace and set the
saucepan hissing again. Having finished this second fry, she tipped
the cooked eggs on to the dish, and swept the youngsters off to be
tittivated.
Nicky-Nan and his host ate in a constrained silence. Nicky, though
ravenous, behaved politely, and only accepted a fifth egg under
strong pressure.
"Curious caper, this o' Germany's," said Mr Penhaligon, by way of
making conversation. "But our Navy's all right."
"Sure," Nicky-Nan agreed.
"I've been studyin' the papers, though--off an' on. The Kaiser's
been layin' up for this, these years past: and by my reck'nin' 'tis
goin' to be a long business. . . . I don't tell the Missus _that_,
you'll understand? But I'd take it friendly if you kept an eye on
'em, as a naybour. . . . O' course 'tis settled we must clear out
from here."
"I don't see it," said Nicky-Nan, pursing his lips.
"Pamphlett's a strong man. What he wants he thinks he's bound to
have--same as these Germans."
"He won't, then: nor they neither."
"Tis a pity about your leg, anyway," said Mr Penhaligon
sympathetically, and stared about the room. "Life's a queer
business," he went on after a pause, his eyes fixed on the old beam
whence the key depended. "To think that I be eatin' the last meal in
this old kitchen. An' yet so many have eaten meals here an' warmed
theirselves in their time. Yet all departed afore us! . . .
But anyway you'll be hereabouts: an' that'll be a cheerin' kind o'
thought, o' lonely nights--that you'll be hereabouts, with your eye
on 'em."
He lit a pipe and, whilst puffing at it, pricked up his ears to the
sound of wheels down the street. The brakes were arriving at the
bridge-end. He suggested that--his own kit being ready--they should
stroll down together for a look. Nicky-Nan did not dare to refuse.
The young Custom-house Officer, as he caught sight of Penhaligon
approaching in uniform, slipped down from the parapet of the bridge,
and sorted out his summons from the pile of blue papers in his hand.
"That's all right, my billy," Penhaligon assured him. "Don't want no
summons, more'n word that His Majesty has a use for me."
"Your allotment paper'll be made out when you get to St Martin's, or
else aboard ship."
"Right. A man takes orders in these days."
"But go back and fetch your kit," advised the Chief Officer of
Coastguard, who had strolled up. "The brake'll be arriving in ten
minutes." He paid Nicky-Nan the attention of a glance--no more.
While Penhaligon was away, kissing his wife and family and bidding
them farewell (good man!) in tones unnaturally confident and
robustious, the last brake rattled up to the bridge-end with a
clatter. The whole town had assembled by this time, a group about
each cheerful hero.
It was a scene that those who witnessed it remembered through many
trying days to come. They knew not at all why their country should
be at war. Over the harbour lay the usual Sabbath calm: high on the
edge of the uplands stood the outposts of the corn, yellowing to
harvest: over all the assured God of their fathers reigned in the
August heaven. Not a soul present had ever harboured one malevolent
thought against a single German. Yet the thing had happened: and
here, punctually summoned, the men were climbing on board the brakes,
laughing, rallying their friends left behind--all going to slay
Germans.
The Custom-house Officer moved about from one brake to another,
calling out names and distributing blue papers. "Nicholas
Nanjivell!"
There was a shout of laughter as Nicky-Nan put his best face upon it
and limped forward. "Why, the man's no use. Look at his leg!"
The young officer scanned Nicky, suspiciously at first.
"Well, you'll have to take your paper anyway," said he--and Nicky
took it. "You'd best see the doctor and get a certificate."
The two officers climbed in at the tail of the hindmost brake, and
the drivers waved their whips for a cheer, which was given. As the
procession started, all on board waved their caps and broke out
singing. They were Cornish-men and knew no music-hall songs--"It's a
long way to Tipperary" or anything of the sort. Led by a fugleman in
the first brake, they started--singing it in fine harmonies--
"He's the Lily--of the Valley,
O--my--soul!"
So the first batch of men from Polpier were rattled through the
street and away up the hill. The crowd lingered awhile and
dispersed, gossiping, to Church or Chapel.
Nicky-Nan, seated on the parapet of the bridge, unfolded the blue
paper which the young officer had thrust into his hand. He was alone
and could study it at leisure.
It was headed by the Royal Arms, and it ran as follows:--
R.V. 53.
Actual Service Form.
From To
The Registrar of Naval Reserve, Royal Navy Reserve Man,
Port of Troy. NICHOLAS NANJIVELL,
Polpier.
NOTICE TO MEN OF ROYAL NAVAL RESERVE TO JOIN THE ROYAL NAVY.
HIS MAJESTY THE KING having issued His Proclamation calling into
Active Service, under the Act 22 & 23 Vict. c. 40, the ROYAL NAVAL
RESERVE FORCE in which you are enrolled, you are required to report
yourself at once in uniform and with your Certificate R.V. 2 at
12 noon o'clock on August 2nd at the Custom House, St Martin's,
Cornwall.
You will be forthwith despatched to the Naval Depot and should bring
with you any necessary articles.
Should absence from home prevent your receiving this notice in time
to attend at once or at the hour specified, you should on its receipt
proceed forthwith to the Mercantile Marine Office named.
Failure to report yourself without delay will render you liable to
arrest as a Deserter.
Note.--Reasonable expenses incurred in travelling from your home will
be allowed.
By command,
Joshua Johns, Registrar.
Dated this Second day of August 1914.
CHAPTER IV.
THE FIRST SERMON.
Some ten minutes after the brakes had departed, Mrs Polsue and Miss
Oliver, bound for divine service, encountered at the corner where
Jolly Hill unites with Bridge Street, and continued their way
together up the Valley road.
"Good-morning! This is terrible news," said Miss Oliver, panting a
little, for she had tripped down the hill in a great hurry.
"I have been expecting it for a long while," responded Mrs Polsue
darkly. Like some other folks in this world, she produced much of
her total effect by suggesting that she had access to sources of
information sealed to the run of mankind. She ever managed to convey
the suggestion by phrases--and, still more cleverly, by silences--
which left the evidence conveniently vague. To be sure, a
great-uncle of hers had commanded in his time a Post-Office Packet
plying between Falmouth and Surinam, and few secrets of the
Government had been withheld from him: but he was now, as Mrs Polsue
had to confess, "no more," and when you came to reflect on it (as you
sometimes did after taking leave of her), the sort of knowledge she
had been intimating could hardly have been telegraphed from another
and better world. She had also a cousin in London, "in a large way
of drapery business," who communicated to her--or was supposed to
communicate--"what was wearing": an advantage which she used,
however, less to refresh her own toilettes than to discourage her
neighbours'. Moreover, there was a brother-in-law somewhere "in the
Civil Service," to whom she made frequent allusion. But the
knowledge she derived from him concerning State secrets or high
politics could, at the best, but be far from recent, because as a
fact the pair had not been on terms of intercourse by speech or
letter since her husband's decease twelve years ago. (There had been
some unpleasantness over the Will.)
"I have been expecting it for a long while," asseverated Mrs Polsue.
"Gracious! Why?"
"You are panting. You are short of breath. You should be more
careful of yourself than to come hurrying down the hill at such a
rate, at your time of life," said Mrs Polsue. "It reddens the face,
too: which is a consideration if you insist on wearing that bit of
crimson in your hat. The two shades don't go together."
"It is not crimson. It is cherry," said Miss Oliver.
"Which, dear?"
"The ribbon, Mary-Martha. You should wear glasses. . . . But I
started late," Miss Oliver confessed. "I didn't like to show myself
walking to Chapel, and so many of the men-folk passing in the
opposite direction. It seemed so _marked_." She might have
confessed further (but did not) that she had waited, peeping over her
blind, to see the brakes go by. "But _you_ were late too," she
added.
"If you will use your reason, Cherry Oliver, it might tell you that I
couldn't get past the crowd on the bridge, and was _forced_ to wait."
"Dear me, now! Was it so thick as all that? . . . You know, I can't
see the bridge from my back window--only a bit of the Old Doctor's
house past the corner of Climoe's: and I shan't see the bridge even
when the old house comes down. But I called in builder Gilbert last
Monday on pretence that the back launder wanted repairing; and when
he'd examined it and found it all right, I asked him how pulling down
that house would affect the view: and he said that in his opinion it
would open up a bit of the street just in front of the Bank, so that
I shall be able to see all the customers going in and out."
This was news to Mrs Polsue, and it did not please her at all.
Her own bow-window enfiladed the Bank entrance (as well as that of
the Three Pilchards by the Quay-head), and so gave her a marked
advantage over her friend. To speak in military phrase, her
conjectures upon other folks' business were fed by a double line of
communication.
"Well, my dear, you won't pry on _me_ going in and out there," she
answered tartly, with a sniff. "Whenever I wish to withdraw some of
my balance, to invest it, I send for Mr Pamphlett, and he calls on me
and advises--I am bound to say--always most politely."
But here Miss Oliver put in her shot. (And Mrs Polsue indeed should
have been warier: for the pair were tried combatants. But a tendency
to lose her temper, and, losing it, to speak in haste, was ever her
fatal weakness.)
"Why; of course, . . . and _that_ accounts for it," Miss Oliver
murmured.
"Accounts for what?"
"Oh, nothing. . . . There was a visitor here last summer--I forget
her name, but she used to go about making water-colours in a mushroom
hat you might have bought for sixpence--quite a simple good creature:
and one day, drinking tea at the Minister's, she raised quite a laugh
by being so much concerned over your health. She said she'd seen the
doctor calling at your house almost every day with a little black
bag, and made sure there must have been an operation. She mistook Mr
Pamphlett for the doctor, if you ever heard tell of such
simple-mindedness."
"WHAT?"
"And the awkward part of it was," Miss Oliver continued in a musing
voice, searching her memory--"the awkward part was, poor Mrs
Pamphlett's being present."
"And you never told me, Cherry Oliver, until this moment!" exclaimed
the widow.
"One doesn't go about repeating every little trifle. . . . And, for
that matter, Mrs Pamphlett was just as much amused as everybody else.
'Well, the bare idea!' she cried out. 'I must speak to Pamphlett
about this! And Mary-Martha Polsue, of all women!' These were her
very words. But of course one had to say _something_ to explain to
the other innocent woman and stop her running on. So I told who you
were; and that, as everybody knew, you were a well-to-do woman, and
no doubt would feel a desire to consult your banker oftener than the
most of us."
"If you had money of your own, Cherry Oliver, you'd know how vulgar
it feels to have the thing paraded like that."
"But I haven't," said Miss Oliver cheerfully. "And, anyway, you
weren't there, and I did my best for you. . . . Well, now, I'm glad
sure enough to know _from you_ that 'tis vulgar to make much of your
wealth, and I'll remember it against the time my ship comes home.
. . . Somebody did explain--now I come to think of it--that maybe
you'd be all the more dependent on Pamphlett's advice, seein' that
you hadn't been used to handle money before you were married, and it
all came from your husband." ("There! And I don't think she'll
mention my cherry ribbon again in a hurry," thought Miss Oliver.)
After a moment's silence Mrs Polsue rallied. "I was saying that this
War didn't surprise me. The wonder to me is, the Almighty's wrath
hasn't descended on this nation long before. He must be more patient
than you or me, Charity Oliver; or else more blind, which isn't to be
supposed. Take Polpier, now. The tittle-tattle that goes about, as
you've just been admitting; and the drinking habits amongst the men--
I saw Zeb Mennear come out his doorway, not fifteen minutes since,
wiping his mouth with the back of his sleeve; and him just about to
board the brake and go off to be shot by the Germans!"
"Maybe 'twas after kissin' his wife good-bye," Miss Oliver suggested.
"_I_ should!"
"There's no accounting for tastes, as you say. . . . But I've had
good reason to know for some time that they order a supply into the
house and drink when nobody is looking. I've seen the boy from the
Pilchards deliver a bottle there almost every Saturday. . . . So, the
publics being closed this morning, he can't help himself but go off
with (I dare say) a noggin of Plymouth gin for a stiffener; and
might, for all we know, be called to the presence of his Maker with
it still inside him."
"What hurries me," confessed Miss Oliver, "is the Government's being
so inconsistent. It closes the public-houses on a six-days' licence
and then goes and declares War on the very day the magistrates have
taken the trouble to hallow." She shook her head. "I may be
mistaken--Heaven send that I am!--but I can't see on any Christian
principles how a nation can look to prosper that declares war on a
Sabbath. If it's been coming this long while; as everybody seems to
say now; why couldn't we have waited until the clocks had finished
striking twelve to-night--or else done it yesterday, if there was all
that hurry?"
"The Battle of Waterloo was fought on a Sunday," Mrs Polsue put in.
"I've often heard my great uncle Robert mention it as a remarkable
fact."
"Then you may be sure the French began it, with their Continental
ideas of Sunday observance. I suppose we mustn't speak ill of the
French, now that we're allies with them. But I couldn't, when I
heard the news, help fearing that our King and his Cabinet had been
led away by them in this matter: and once you begin tampering with
the Lord's Day--" Miss Oliver shivered. "We shall have the shops
open next, I shouldn't wonder."
"You are right about the Battle of Waterloo," said Mrs Polsue.
"My great-uncle Robert was always positive that the French began it.
He had that on the best authority. The Duke of Wellington, he said,
had no choice but to resist: and it must have gone all the more
against the grain because he was distantly connected with John
Wesley, only for some reason or another they spelt their names
differently. My great-uncle, in the room that he called his study,
had two engravings, one on each side of the chimney-piece. One was
John Wesley, when quite a child, being rescued from a burning house,
with his father right in the foreground giving thanks to God in the
old-fashioned knee-breeches that were then worn. The other
represented the Duke of Wellington in a similar frame on his famous
charger Copenhagen and in the act of saying in his racy way,
'Up, Guards, and at 'em!' My great-uncle would often point to these
two pictures and spell out the names for us as children,
'W-e-s-l-e-y' and 'W-e-l-l-e-s-l-e-y,' he would say.
'What different destinies the Almighty can spell into the same word
by sticking a few letters in the middle!'"
"It's to be wished we had more men of that stamp in these days,"
sighed Miss Oliver. "I should feel safer."
"I hear Lord Kitchener well spoken of," said her friend guardedly.
"But I think we go too fast, my dear. It does not follow, because
the Reserves are called up, that War is actually declared. It is
sometimes done by way of precaution--though God forbid I should say a
word in defence of a Government which taxes us for being patriotic
enough to keep domestic servants. That doesn't, of course, apply to
_you_, my dear; still--"
"It only makes matters worse," Miss Oliver declared hastily.
"If they haven't declared War yet, there's the less hurry to
gallivant these Reservists about in brakes when to-morrow's a Bank
Holiday. And, as for patriotism, if I choose to fall downstairs
taking up my own coals, surely I'm as patriotic as if I employed
another person to do it: though for some reason best known to itself
the Law doesn't compensate _me_."
"There's something in what you say," agreed Mrs Polsue, a little
mollified, having caused her friend to rankle. "And the Law--or the
Government, or whatever you choose to call it--could afford the
money, too, if 'twould look sharper after compensating _itself_.
. . . A perfectly scandalous sight I witnessed just now, by the
bridge. There was that Nicholas Nanjivell called up to take his
marching-orders, and--well, you know how the man has been limping
these months past. The thing was so ridic'lous, the other men
shouted with laughter; and prettily annoyed the Customs Officer, for
he went the colour of a turkey-cock. ''Tis your own fault,' I had a
mind to tell him, 'for not having looked after your business.'
Pounds and pounds of public money that Nanjivell must have drawn
first and last for Reservist's pay, and nobody takin' the trouble to
report on him."
"I suppose," said Miss Oliver, "the man really _is_ lame, and not
shamming?"
"The Lord knows, my dear. 'Twas _somebody's_ business to have a look
at the man's leg, and not mine nor yours, I hope. . . . Put it now
that the case had been properly reported and a doctor sent to see the
man. If he's shamming--and unlikelier things have happened, now you
mention it--the doctor finds him out. If the man's sick, and 'tis
incurable, well, so much the worse for him: but anyway Government
stops paying for a fighting man that can't fight--for that is what it
amounts to."
"You can't make it less," Miss Oliver agreed. "But doctors are
terribly skilful nowadays with the knife," went on Mrs Polsue.
"Very likely this growth, or whatever it is, might have been removed
months ago."
"He ought to be made to undergo an operation."
"And then, most like, he'd have gone off with the others to be fed at
the country's expense and no housekeeping to worry him, instead of
giving Mr Pamphlett trouble. For he has been giving Mr Pamphlett
trouble. Three times this past week I've seen him call at the Bank,
and if you tell me 'twas to put money on deposit--"
"If builder Gilbert is right," put in Miss Oliver with a sigh of
envy, "I shall be able to see the Bank as well as you, when that
house comes down: and I shan't want to use spectacles neither."
She cut in with this stroke as the pair joined the small throng of
worshippers entering the Chapel porch. Also she took care to speak
the last seven words (as Queen Elizabeth danced) "high and
disposedly," giving her friend no time for a _riposte_.
The Minister, Mr Hambly, gave his congregation a very short service
that morning. He opened with three sentences from the Book of Common
Prayer: "Rend your heart, and not your garments. . . . Enter not into
judgement with thy servant, O Lord. . . . If we say that we have no
sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us."
Then, after a little pause, he gave out the hymn that begins "On
earth we now lament to see." . . . It had not been sung within those
walls in the oldest folks' remembrance--nay, since the Chapel had
been built; and many were surprised to find it in the book. But at
the second verse they picked up the tune and sang it with a will:--
"As 'listed on Abaddon's side,
They mangle their own flesh and slay,
Tophet is moved and opens wide
Its mouth for its enormous prey;
And myriads sink beneath the grave
And plunge into the flaming wave."
"O might the universal Friend
This havoc of his creatures see!" . . .
They sang it lustily to the end. With a gesture of the hand Mr
Hambly bade all to kneel, opened the Book of Common Prayer again, and
instead of "putting up" an _extempore_ prayer, recited that old one
prescribed for use "_In the Time of War and Tumults_":--
"O Almighty God, King of all kings, and Governour of all things,
whose power no creature is able to resist, . . . Save and
deliver us, we humbly beseech thee, from the hands of our
enemies; abate their pride, asswage their malice, and confound
their devices; that we, being armed with thy defence, may be
preserved evermore from all perils, to glorify thee, who art
the only giver of all victory;" . . .
The voice, though creaking in tone and uttering borrowed words,
impressed many among its audience with its accent of personal
sincerity. Mrs Polsue knelt and listened with a gathering choler.
This Hambly had no unction. He could never improve an occasion: the
more opportunity it gave the more helplessly he fell back upon old
formulae composed by Anglicans long ago. She had often enough
resented the Minister's dependence on these out-of-date phrases,
written (as like as not) by men in secret sympathy with the Mass.
Mr Hambly arose from his knees, opened the Book, and said: "The
portion of Scripture I have chosen for this morning is taken from
Paul's Letter to the Ephesians, vi. 10:--"
'My brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his
might. Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to
stand against the wiles of the devil. For we wrestle not
against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against
powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world,
against spiritual wickedness in high places. Wherefore take
unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to
withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.'
He paused here, and for a moment seemed about to continue his
reading; but, as if on a sudden compulsion, closed the book, and went
on:
"My Brethren,--choose any of those words. They shall be my text;
they and those I read to you just now: 'If we say that we have no
sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.'
"In entering upon this War we may easily tell ourselves that we have
no sin: for in fact not a man or a woman in this congregation--so far
as I know--harbours, or has harboured a single thought of evil
disposition against the people who, from to-morrow, are to be our
enemies, in whose distress we shall have to exult. In a few days
this will seem very strange to you; but it is a fact.
"So it might plausibly be said that not we, but our Government, make
this war upon a people with whom you and I have no quarrel.
"But that will not do; for in a nation ruled as ours is, no Ministry
can make war unless having the people behind it. That is certain.
The whole people--not only of Great Britain, but of Ireland too--
seems to be silently aware that a War has been fastened upon it, not
to be shirked or avoided, and is arming; but still without hate.
So far as, in this little corner of the world, I can read your
hearts, they answer to my own in this--that they have harboured no
hate against Germany, and indeed, even now, can hardly teach
themselves to hate.
"None the less, the German Emperor protests, calling on God for
witness, that the sword has been thrust into his hand: and, if he
honestly believes this, there must be some great confusion of mind in
this business. One party or the other must be walking under some
terrible hallucination.
"The aged Austrian Emperor calls on _his_ God to justify him.
So does the German; while we in turn call on _our_ God to justify
_us_.
"Now, there cannot be two Gods--two real Gods--president over the
actions of men. That were unthinkable. Of two claimants to that
sceptre, one must be a pretender, an Anti-Christ.
"Therefore our first duty in this dreadful business is to clear our
minds, to make sure that ours is truly the right God. Let us not
trouble--for it is too late--about any German's mind. Our business
is to clear our own vision.
"I confess to you that, however we clear it, I anticipate that what
we see in the end is likely to be damaging to what I will call
'official' Christianity. However you put it, the Churches of Europe
(established or free) have been allowing at least one _simulacrum_ of
Christ to walk the earth, claiming holiness while devising evil.
However you put it, the slaughter of man by man is horrible, and--
more than that--our Churches exist to prevent it, by persuasion
teaching peace on earth, good-will towards men.
"Disquieted, unable to sleep for this thought, I arose and dressed
early this morning, and sat for a while on the wall opposite, gazing
at this homely house of God across the roadway. It looked strange
and unreal to me, there in the dawn; and (for Heaven knows I can
never afford to slight the place it holds in my affection) I even
dared in my fondness to reckon it with great and famous temples such
as in our Westminster, in Paris, in Rheims--aye, and in Cologne--men
have reared to the glory of God. I asked myself if these, too,
looked impertinent as this day's sun took their towers, dawning so
eventfully over Europe; if these, too, suffered in men's minds such a
loss of significance by comparison with the eternal hills and the
river that rushed at my feet refreshing this valley as night-long,
day-long, it has run refreshing and sung unheeded for thousands upon
thousands of years.
"Then it seemed to me, as the day cleared, that whatever of
impertinence showed in this building was due to _us_--and to me, more
than any--who in these few years past have believed ourselves to be
working for good, when all the while we have never cleared our vision
to see things in their right proportions.
"We are probably willing to accept this curse of War as a visitation
on our sins. But for _what_ sins? O, beware of taking the
prohibitions of the Decalogue in a lump, its named sins as
_equivalent!_ In every one of you must live an inward witness that
these sins do not rank equally in God's eye; that to murder, for
instance, is wickeder than to misuse the Lord's name in a hasty oath;
that to bear false witness against a neighbour is tenfold worse than
to break the Sabbath. Yet we for ever in our Churches put these out
of their right order; count ourselves righteous if we slander our
neighbour, so it be on the way to worship; and in petty cruelties
practice the lust of murder, interrupting it to shudder at a profane
oath uttered by some good fellow outside in the street. To love God
and your neighbour, summed up, for Christ, all the Law and the
Prophets: and his love was for the harlot and the publican, as his
worst word always for the self-deceiver who thanked God that he was
not as other men.
"I verily believe that in this struggle we war with principalities
and powers, with the rulers of darkness in this world, with spiritual
wickedness in high places. But make no mistake: the men who are
actually going out from England to brave the first brunt for us are
men whom _we_ have not taught to die like heroes, who have little
interest in Church or Chapel or their differences, who view sins in
an altogether different perspective from ours; whom we enlisted to do
this work because they were hungry and at the moment saw no better
job in prospect: whom we have taught to despise us while they protect
us.
"The sins of our enemy are evident. But if _We_ say we have no sin,
we shall deceive ourselves and the truth will not be in us."
"Did you ever hear a feebler or a more idiotic sermon?" demanded Mrs
Polsue of Miss Oliver on their way home down the valley.
"If ever a man had his chance to improve an occasion--"
"Tut! I say nothing of his incapacity. There are some men that
can't rise even when 'tis a question of all Europe at war. But did
you hear the light he made, or tried to make, of Sabbath-breaking?"
"I didn't hear all that," Miss Oliver confessed: "or not to notice.
It seemed so funny his getting up at that hour and dangling his legs
on a wall."
"We will press to have a married man planned to us next time," said
Mrs Polsue. "A wife wouldn't allow it."
"Do you suppose he _smoked?_" asked Miss Oliver.
"I shouldn't wonder. . . . He certainly does it at home, for I took
the trouble to smell his window-curtains; and at an hour like that,
with nobody about--"
"There's an All-seeing Eye, however early you choose to dangle your
legs," said Miss Oliver.
CHAPTER V.
THE ANONYMOUS LETTER.
Just about seven o'clock next morning Nicky-Nan, who had breakfasted
early and taken post early in the porchway to watch against any
possible _ruse_ of the foe--for, Bank Holiday or no Bank Holiday, he
was taking no risks--spied Lippity-Libby the postman coming over the
bridge towards him with his dot-and-go-one gait.
Lippity-Libby, drawing near, held out a letter in his hand and
flourished it.
"Now don't excite yourself," he warned Nicky-Nan. "When first I seed
your name 'pon the address I said to myself 'What a good job if that
poor fella's luck should be here at last, and this a fortun' arrived
from his rich relatives in Canada!' That's the very words I said to
myself."
"As it happens, I han't got no rich relatives, neither here nor in
Canada," answered Nicky-Nan. "Is that letter for me? Or are you
playin' me some trick?"
"A man of your descent," said Lippity-Libby, "can't help havin'
relatives in great quantities dispersed about the world. I've
figured it out, and the sum works like that old 'un we used to do on
our slates about a horse-shoe. Your great-grandfather married your
great-grandmother, and that set the ball rollin'--to go no farther
back than the head will carry. Six sons an' daughters they had, for
the sake of argyment, and each married and had six again.
Why, damme, by that time there's not a quarter in Europe where a rich
chap deceased mayn't be croppin' up and leavin' you his money, for no
better reason than that you're a Nanjivell. That always seemed to me
one of the advantages of good birth. For my part," the postman
continued, "my father and mother never spoke of such matters, though
she was a Collins and married in Lanteglos parish, where I daresay
the whole pedigary could be looked up, if one wasn't a postman and
could spare the time. But in the long evenings since my poor wife's
death I often find time to think of you, Mr Nanjivell; bein' both of
us lame of the right leg as it happens. Hows'ever 'tisn' no news o'
riches for 'ee to-day, sorry as I be to say it: for the postmark's
'Polpier.'"
He tendered the letter. Nicky-Nan stretched out a hand, but drew it
back on a sudden suspicion.
"No," he said. "You may take an' keep it. 'Tis a trick, I doubt."
"You can't mean that, surely?" Lippity-Libby eyed the letter almost
greedily, holding it between finger and thumb. "Of course, if I
thought you meant it--I don't remember gettin' more 'n three letters
in all my life; that's if you don't count the trade they send me at
election times, tellin' me where to put my cross. Three letters all
told, and one o' they was after my poor Sarah died, threatenin' me
about the rates, that had slipped out o' my head, she bein' in the
habit of payin' them when alive. The amount o' fault she'd find in
'em, too, an' the pleasure she'd take in it, you'd never believe.
I've often thought how funny she must be feelin' it up there--the
good soul--with everything of the best in lighting an' water, an' no
rates at all--or that's how _I_ read the last chapter o' Revelations.
. . . Yes, only three letters of my own, that have handed so many to
other people, with births, marriages, an' deaths, shipwrecks an'
legacies an' lovin' letters from every port in the world.
Telegrams too--I'd dearly like to get a telegram of my own. . . .
But Government be a terrible stickler. You may call it red tape, if
you will: but if Mrs Pengelly caught me holdin' back any person's
letter, even though I knowed it held trouble for 'en, she'd be bound
to report me, poor soul, an' then like enough I'd lose place an'
livelihood. So I thank 'ee, naybour, for bein' so forward to give me
a bit o' pleasure; but 'twon't do--no, by the Powers Above it won't."
He shook his head sadly. Then of a sudden his eye brightened.
"I tell 'ee what, though. There's no rule of His Majesty's Service
why I shouldn' stand by while you reads it aloud."
"No, no," said Nicky-Nan hastily. "Here, hold hard a moment--Is it
in Pamphlett's hand-writin' by any chance?"
The question wounded Lippity-Libby's feelings, and he showed it.
"As if I shouldn' ha' told you!" he protested, gently reproachful.
"Nor his clerk's?"
"What, Hendy?--Hendy makes all his long letters straight up an' down,
while these be made with loops. The writin's sloped backwards too,
with a rake on it, same as was fash'nable on some o' the tea-clippers
in my young days, but now 'tis seldom carried 'nless by a few
steam-yachts."
"Well, hand me over the thing--I'll risk it," said Nicky-Nan.
He took the missive and glanced at the address--"Mr N. Nanjivell,
_Naval Reservist_, Polpier R.S.O., Cornwall." The words "_Naval
Reservist_" underlined gave him a tremor. But it was too late to
draw back. He broke open the envelope, drew forth the letter,
unfolded it, and ran his eye hurriedly overleaf, seeking the
signature.
"Why, 'tisn' signed!"
"Not signed?" echoed Lippity-Libby. "That's as much as to say
'nonymous." Suddenly he slapped his thigh. "There now! O' course--
why, what a forgetful head is mine! And simme I knew that hand, too,
all the while."
"Eh?"
"Yes, to be sure--'tis the same that, up to two years ago, used to
write an' send all the 'nonymous letters in Polpier. The old woman
an' I, we tracked it down to one of two, an' both females. It lay
between 'em, and I was for old Ann' Bunney--she bein' well known for
a witch. But now that can't be, for the woman's gone to Satan these
three months. . . . An' my missus gone too--poor tender heart--an'
lookin' down on me, that was rash enough to bet her sixpence on it,
an' now no means to pay up."
"Who was the other?" demanded Nicky-Nan, frowning over the letter,
his face flushing as he frowned.
"You're goin' to read it to me, ben't you?"
"Damned if I do," answered Nicky-Nan curtly. "But I'd like to know
who wrote it."
"It don't stand with Government reggilations, as _I_ read 'em," said
Lippity-Libby, "for a postman to be tellin' who wrote every 'nonymous
letter he carries. . . . Well, I be wastin' time; but if you'll take
my advice, Mr Nanjivell, and it isn' too late, you'll marry a woman.
She'll probably increase your comfort, and--I don't care who she is--
she'll work out another woman that writes 'nonymous. Like a stoat in
a burrow she will, specially if she happens to take in washin' same
as my lost Sarah did. She was shown a 'nonymous letter with 'Only
charitable to warn' in it. Dang me, if she didn' go straight an'
turn up a complaint about 'One chemise torn in wash,' an' showed me
how, though sloped different ways, the letters were alike, twiddles
an' all, to the very daps. I wouldn' believe it at the time, the
party bein' a female in good position. But my wife was certain of
it, an' all the more because she never allowed to her last breath
that the woman's shimmy had been torn at all. Well, so long!"
Nicky-Nan carried the letter indoors to his small, dark sitting-room,
and there spelled it through painfully, holding the paper close up to
the window-pane. It ran:--
Sunday, 2/8/14.
Mr N. Nanjivell.
Sir,--As an inhabitant of Polpier, born in the town and anxious
for its good name, besides being a ratepayer and one that pays
taxes to His Majesty, I was naterally concerned to-day at your
not taking your place along with the other men that went off to
fight for their country. I am given to understand that you were
served with a paper, same as the rest, and the Customs Officer
was put out by your not going. I don't wonder at it. Such want
of pluck.
Its no good your saying you are not Abel. If you are Abel to be
a Reservist and _draw pay_, you are Abel to Fight thats how I
look at it. I would let you to know the Public doesnt pay money
for gamey legs that go about taking all they can get until the
Pinch comes.
Theres a good many things want looking into in Polpier, It has
reached me that until the present sistem came in and put a stop
to it you drew pay for years for drills that you never atended.
This is a time when as Lord Nelson said England expects every
Man to Do his Duty. I think so bad of your case that I am
writing by same post to the Custom House at Troy about it.
So I warn you as
A Well-Wisher.
Nicky-Nan read this amiable missive through, and re-read it almost to
the end before realising the menace of it. At the first perusal his
mind was engaged with the mechanical task of deciphering the script
and with speculating on its authorship. . . . He came to the end with
no full grasp of the purport.
His wits were dulled, too, being preoccupied--in spite of
Lippity-Libby--with suspicions of Mr Pamphlett. He recognised the
hand of an enemy; and though conscious of possessing few friends in
the world (none, maybe--he did not care how many or how few, anyway),
he was aware of one only enemy--Pamphlett. He held this tenement
which Pamphlett openly coveted: but what besides had he that any one
could envy? Who else could wish him worse off than he was?
His broken past, his present poverty and daily mental anguish, his
future sans hope--any one who wanted these might take 'em and
welcome!
But when, on the second reading, he reached the last paragraph but
one, his heart stood still for a moment as if under a sudden stab.
Yes, . . . in the man or woman who had written this letter he had an
enemy who indeed wished him worse off than he was, and not only worse
but much worse; who would take from him not only the roof over his
head, but even the dreadful refuge of the Workhouse; who would hunt
him down even into jail. That talk about his not going to the War
was all nonsense. How could all the Coastguard or Custom-house
Officers in Christendom force a man to go to the War with a growth
under his thigh as big as your fist? Damn the War!--he'd scarcely
given a thought to it (being so worried with other matters) until
last night. He hadn't a notion, at this moment, what it was all
about. But anyhow that stuff about "want of pluck" was silly
nonsense,--almost too silly to vex a man. He would have gone fast
enough had he been able. In truth, Nicky-Nan's conscience had no
nerve to be stung by imputations of cowardliness. He had never
thought of himself as a plucky man--it wasn't worth while, and, for
that matter, _he_ wasn't worth while. He had, without considering
it, always found himself able to take risks alongside of the other
fellows. Moreover, what did he amount to, with his destinies, hopes,
and belongings all told, to be chary of losing them or himself?
But it was a fact, as the letter hinted, that some years ago, and for
two successive seasons, the Reservists' training happening to fall at
a time when fish was plentiful and all hands making money, he, with
one or two other men, had conspired with a knavish Chief Officer of
Coastguard to put a fraudulent trick on the Government. It was the
Chief Officer who actually played the trick, entering them up as
having served a course which they had never attended, and he had kept
their training pay as his price. What his less guilty conspirators
gained was the retention of their names on the strength, to qualify
them in due time for their pensions.
This and other abuses of the old system had been abolished when the
Admiralty decided that every reservist must put in his annual spell
of training at sea. The trick at the time had lain heavily upon
Nicky-Nan's conscience: but with time he had forgotten it. Since the
new order came into force, he had fulfilled his obligations regularly
enough--until the year before last, by which time his leg really
disabled him. It had fortuned, however, that one afternoon on the
Quay, loafing around less on the chance of a job (for odd jobs are
scarce at Polpier) than to wile away time, he had encountered Dr
Mant, the easy-going practitioner from St Martin's. Dr Mant
fancying an excursion after the mackerel, at that time swarming close
inshore, Nicky-Nan had rowed him out and back along the coast to St
Martin's. The bargain struck for half-a-crown, the doctor sent his
trap back by road.
Some way out at sea he inquired, "Hullo! what's wrong with that right
knee of yours?"
"Ricked it," answered Nicky-Nan mendaciously, and added, "I was
thinkin' to consult you, sir. I be due for trainin' with the Reserve
in a fortni't's time."
"Want a certificate? Here, let me have a feel what's wrong."
The Doctor interrupted his whiffing for a moment to reach forward and
feel Nicky's knee professionally, outside the thick sea-cloth
trousers. "Hurts, does it? You've a nasty swelling there, my man."
"It hurts a bit, sir, and no mistake. If I could only have a
certificate now--"
"All right; I'll give you one," said the Doctor, and turned his
attention again to the mackerel.
Before stepping ashore at St Martin's, he pulled out a fountain-pen
and scribbled the certificate on a leaf torn from his note-book.
Having with this and one shilling compounded for his trip, he said as
he traced up his catch--
"There, stick that in an envelope and post it. You're clearly not
fit for service afloat till that swelling goes down."
Nicky-Nan duly posted the certificate, which Dr Mant had
characteristically forgotten to date. After a week it came back with
an official note drawing Nicky's attention to this, and requesting
that the date should be inserted.
"Red tape," said Nicky. He borrowed a pen from Mrs Penhaligon, and
wrote the date quite accurately at the foot of the document.
Then, for some reason or other, his conscience smote him. He put off
posting the letter; and at this point again fortune helped him.
Word came to him by a chance wind that the staff of the Coastguard
had been shifted, over at Troy. Also (though he never discovered
this) the Chief Officer of Customs, after returning the certificate,
had left for his summer holiday.
So Nicky-Nan kept it in his pocket; and nothing happened.
The next year--so easy is the slope of Avernus--Nicky-Nan, who had
felt many qualms over filling in a date which (though accurate)
should by rights have been filled in by the Doctor, felt none at all
in adding a slight twiddle of the pen which changed "1912" into
"1913"; by which he escaped again, and again went undetected.
It had all been contrived so easily, and had succeeded so easily!
Everything said and done, his leg was worse. Any doctor alive, if
brought in, would bear witness that it incapacitated him.
Also any man, who looks ahead, will fight for the pension which alone
stands between him and the workhouse.
With such arguments Nicky-Nan had salved his conscience; and his
conscience had slept under them.
Now in a moment, with eyes fixed on the fatal handwriting, he saw
every bandage of false pretence, all his unguents of conscience,
stripped away, laying his guilt bare to the world.
An enemy was on his track--one who knew and could call up fatal
evidence.
The light in the window-pane had been growing darker for some
minutes. The morning had broken squally, with intervals of sunshine.
A fierce gust came howling up the little river between its leaning
houses and broke in rain upon the bottle-glass quarrels of the
window.
Nicky-Nan started, as though it were a hand arresting him.
CHAPTER VI.
TREASURE TROVE.
The rain--the last, for many weeks, to visit Polpier--cleared up soon
after midday. At one o'clock or thereabouts Nicky-Nan, having dined
on a stale crust and a slice of bacon, and recovered somewhat from
his first alarm (as even so frugal a meal will put courage into a
man), ventured to the porch again for a look at the weather.
The weather and the set of the wind always come first in a Polpier
man's interest. They form the staple of conversation on the
Quay-side. Fish ranks next: after fish, religion: after religion,
clack about boats and persons; and so we come down to politics, peace
and war, the manner of getting to foreign ports and the kind of
people one finds in them.
Nicky-Nan could read very few signs of the weather from his dark
little parlour. The gully of the river deflected all true winds, and
the overhanging houses closed in all but a narrow strip of sky,
prolonged study of which was apt to induce a crick in the neck.
To be sure, certain winds could be recognised by their voices: a
southerly one of any consequence announced itself by a curious
droning note which, if it westered a little, rose to a sharp whistle
and, in anything above half-a-gale, to a scream. But to _see_ what
the weather was like, you must go to the front porch.
Nicky-Nan went to the front porch and gazed skyward. The wind--as
the saying is--had "catched in," and was blowing briskly from the
north-west, chasing diaphanous clouds across the blue zenith.
The roofs still shone wet and dazzling, and there were puddles in the
street. But he knew the afternoon was going to be a fine one.
He took pleasure in this when, a few moments later, his ear caught
the thudding of a distant drum. . . . Yes, yes--it was Bank Holiday,
and the children would be assembling, up the valley, for the
Anniversary Treat of the Wesleyan Sunday School. There would be
waggons waiting to convey them up-inland to Squire Tresawna's
pleasure-grounds--to high shaven lawns whereon, for once in the year,
they could enjoy themselves running about upon the level.
(In Polpier, as any mother there will tell you, a boy has to wear out
his exuberance mostly on the seat of his breeches and bring it to a
check by digging in his heels somewhere. And the wastage at these
particular points of his tailoring persists when he grows up to
manhood; for a crabber sits much on the thwart of a boat and drives
with his heels against a stretcher. Thus it happens that
three-fourths of Billy Bosistow's cobbling is devoted to the
"trigging" of boot-heels, while the wives, who mend all the small
clothes, have long ago and by consent given up any pretence of
harmonising the patch with the original garment. At Troy and at
St Martin's they will tell you that every Polpier man carries about
his home-address on his person, and will rudely indicate where.
Mrs Penhaligon put it one day in more delicate proverbial form.
"In a rabbit-warren," she said, "you learn not to notice scuts.")
While Nicky-Nan--who, as we have said, had a fondness for children--
stood and eyed the weather with approval, Mrs Penhaligon came
bustling out, with her bonnet on.
"Lord sakes!" she exclaimed. "Be that the drum already? What a
whirl one does live in!--and if there's one thing I hate more'n
another, 'tis to be fussed."
"What about the children, ma'am?"
"The children? . . . Gone on this half-hour, I should hope.
'Beida's a good gel enough, when once ye've coaxed her into her best
things. It sobers her you can't think. She'll look after 'Biades
an' see that he don't put 'Lead us, Heavenly Father, lead us' into
his mouth, though 'tis where he puts most things."
"But you're goin' to the Treat yourself, ma'am?" Nicky-Nan suggested.
"What, in _this_ rig-out? Catch me!" answered Mrs Penhaligon, not
with literal intention but idiomatically. "No, I'm but goin' up to
see 'em off decent. But I wonder at you liggin' behind, when 'tis
the only Bank Holiday randivoo this side o' Troy. . . ."
"'Tidn' for want o' will," Nicky-Nan answered ruefully and
truthfully, with a downward glance, which reminded Mrs Penhaligon to
be remorseful.
"Eh, but I forgot . . . and you with that leg on your mind!
But you'll forgive a body as has been these two days in a stirabout.
And if you're fittin' to take a stroll before I get back, maybe
you'll not forget to lock the house up."
Nicky-Nan promised. (He and the Penhaligons had separate keys of the
main door.) He watched the good woman as she hurried on her way,
tying her bonnet-strings as she went.
It occurred to him that, leg or no leg, he felt lonely, and would be
all the better for a stroll. So, having fetched his stick and locked
the house-door behind him, he dandered down towards the Quay.
The street was empty, uncannily silent. "It's queer now," thought
Nicky-Nan, "what a difference childern make to a town, an' you never
noticin' it till they're gone." All the children had departed--the
happy little Wesleyans to climb on board the waggons, the small
Church of England minority to watch them, and solace their envy with
expectation of their own Treat, a more select one, promised for
this-day-fortnight. Then would be _their_ turn, and some people
would live to be sorry that they went to Chapel. But a fortnight is
a long time, and weather in the West is notoriously uncertain.
Of course you cannot eat your cake and have it: but Mrs Penhaligon
arrived just in time to stop a fight between 'Bert and Matthey
Matthew's ugly boy, who sang in the Church choir, and hoped it would
rain. (_Odium theologicum_.)
The most of the mothers had departed also, either to "assist" at the
Treat or to watch the embarkation: while those of the men whom the
War had not claimed had tramped it over to Troy, which six weeks
ago--and long before the idea of a European War had occurred to any
one--had advertised a small regatta for Bank Holiday, with an
afternoon's horse-racing.
The tunding of the drum up the valley seemed to Nicky-Nan to
emphasise the loneliness all about him. But down by the Quay-head he
came in sight of Policeman Rat-it-all (so named from his only and
frequent expletive), seated on a bollard and staring up at the sky.
Nicky-Nan hesitated: hung, indeed, for a moment, on the edge of
flight. This was Bank Holiday, and until to-morrow's sunrise a
constable was powerless as Satan in a charmed circle. Still, the man
might have the ejectment order in his pocket--would, if not already
furnished with it, almost certainly know about it. On the other hand
there was a chance--it might be worth while--to discover how much
Rat-it-all knew. Forewarned is forearmed. Moreover, when your
country is at war, and silence holds the city, there is great comfort
in a chat. Nicky-Nan advanced with a fine air of nonchalance.
"Lookin' at the sky?" said he. "Wind's back in the nor'-west again.
Which, for settled weather, I'd rather it took off-shore a bit later
in the afternoon. It'll last though, for all that, I shoudn'
wonder."
Policeman Rat-it-all withdrew his gaze from the firmament.
"I wasn' thinkin' of the wind," said he. "I take no account of the
elements, for my part. Never did; and now never shall--havin' been
born up to Bodmin, where the prison is."
"Oh!" said Nicky-Nan suspiciously. "What's it like?"
"Bodmin?" Policeman Rat-it-all seemed to reflect for a moment.
"Well, I wouldn't just say it's altogether _like_ any place in
particular. There's a street, of course, . . . and there's the
prison, and the barracks, and an asylum where they keep the lunatics,
and a workhouse and what-not. But if you put to me, in so many
words, what it's _like_--"
"I--I meant the prison," explained Nicky-Nan; that being the only
feature of Bodmin in which he felt any instant concern.
"It's a place," answered Policeman Rat-it-all with painful lucidity,
"where they shut people up. Sometimes there's an execution. But not
often; not very often; once in a while, as you might say. There's a
monument, too,--upon a hill they call the Beacon. I'm very fond of
Bodmin. It's the County Town, you know; and with these little things
going on, in one way and another, why, that enlarges the mind."
"Does it so?" asked Nicky-Nan, a trifle puzzled.
"It do indeed," the constable assured him with conviction. "Take
_me_, now, at this present moment, for instance. You comes upon me
suddent, and what do you catch me doin'? You catches me,"--here his
voice became impressive--"you catches me lookin' up at the sky.
And why am I lookin' up at the sky? It is to say to you, 'Nicholas
Nanjivell, the wind is sot in the sou'-west?'"
"Not if you expect me to believe 'ee. 'Tisn' a point off
north-an-by-west."
"--Or," the constable continued, lifting a hand, "is it to say to
you, 'It is sot in the _north-west_,' as the case may be? Or is it I
was wastin' the day in idleness, same as some persons I could mention
in the Force if there wasn' such a thing as discipline? Not so. I
was lookin' up in the execution of my duty. An' what do you suppose
I was lookin' for?"
"I'm sure I can't tell 'ee," answered Nicky-Nan after a painful
effort at guessing. "It couldn' be for obscene language; nor yet for
drunks."
Policeman Rat-it-all leant forward and touched him on the top button
of his waistcoat.
"Zepp-a-lins!" he said mysteriously.
"Eh?"
"Zepp-a-lins!"
"Oh!"--Nicky-Nan's brow cleared--"You mean them German balloon things
the papers make so much fuss about."
"Die-rigitable," added Rat-it-all. "That's the point."
"Well? . . . Have 'ee seen any?" Nicky-Nan lifted his gaze skyward.
"I won't go so far as to say that I've seen anything answerin' to
that description knockin' about--not up to the present. But these
are times when a man must keep his eyes liftin' if he doesn' want Old
England to be taken with what the newspapers call a Bolt from the
Blue."
"I've come across the expression," said Nicky-Nan.
"Well, what I say is, Down here, in this corner of the world--though,
mind you, I'm not sayin' anything against it--you don't _reelise_
things: you reely don't. Now I come from Bodmin, as I think I must
have told you."
"You did."
"Where you see the soldiers goin' about with the stripes down their
trowsers: but they've done away with that except for the Yeomanry
(which is black, or dark blue, I forget which), and that's how you
know the difference. So your mind gets enlarged almost without your
knowin' it, and you feel what's at stake."
"I wonder you didn' want to enlist," said Nicky-Nan.
"I did: but I was too tall--too tall _and_ too strong," sighed the
policeman, bending his arm and causing his biceps to swell up
mountainously. "You haven't a notion how strong I am--if, for
instance, I took it into my head to catch you up and heave you over
the Quay here. Yes, yes, I am wonderfully well made! And on top of
that, Mother picked up some nonsense against soldiering off a speaker
at a Pleasant Sunday Afternoon. There was nothing for it but the
Force. So here I AM. But give me the wings of a dove, and I'd join
the Royal Flyin' Corps to-morrow, where they get higher pay because
of the risk, same as with the submarines. If you ask _me_, every
Englishman's post at this moment is in the firing line."
Nicky-Nan winced, and changed the subject in haste.
"Well, it must be a great consolation to have such strength as
yours," he said pleasantly. "But I wonder--with nothing else doin',
and on a Bank Holiday too--you could manage to stay away from the
School Treat."
"Rat it all!" broke out the constable, and checked himself.
"I thought I was igsplaining to you," he went on as one who reasons
patiently with an infant, "that a man has to think of something above
an' beyond _self_ in these days."
"I never found time to think out the rights an' wrongs o' warfare,
for my part," said Nicky-Nan.
"Ah, I daresay not." Policeman Rat-it-all blew out his chest.
"It's a deep subject," he added, wagging his head solemnly.
"A very deep subject; and I quite understand your not having time for
it lately. How about that Ejectment Order?"
Nicky-Nan jumped like a man shot. "Ha--have you got the--the thing
about 'ee?" he twittered. "Don't tell me that Pamphlett has got 'em
to send it down? . . . But there, you can't do anything on a Bank
Holiday, anyway."
"Have I got the thing about me?" echoed the policeman slowly. "You
talk as if 'twas a box o' matches. . . . Well, I may, or I mayn't;
but anyways I've followed the case before Petty Sessions; and if you
haven't a leg to stand on, the only thing is to walk out peaceably.
Mind, I'm puttin' it unofficial, as between friends."
"And what if I don't?"
"Then, rat it all!--I mean," the constable corrected himself to a
tolerant smile and gazed down on his mighty hands and arms--"then I
got to put you into the street."
Nicky-Nan leaned on his stick and the stick shook with his
communicated fury. "Try it--try it--try it!" he blazed out.
"Try it, you Bodmin fathead!"
He shuffled away, nodding his head with wrath. He roamed the
cliff-paths for an hour, pausing now and again to lean his back
against an out-cropping mass of rock and pass the back of his hand
across his eyes, that at first were bloodshot with fury. He had a
great desire to kill Policeman Rat-it-all. As his passion died down
and he limped forward, to pause and again limp forward, his gait and
the backward cast of his eye were not unlike those of a hunted hare.
He reached the house door at nightfall, just as Mrs Penhaligon came
shepherding her offspring home down the dusky street, 'Biades had
yielded to the sleep of exhaustion, and lay like a log in his
mother's arms. 'Bert, for no other reason than that he had tired
himself out, was sulky and uncommunicative. But 'Beida--whose whole
manner ever changed when once she had been persuaded into fine
clothes--wore an air of sustained gentility.
"Squire Tresawna keeps seven gardeners," she reported. "He has three
motor-cars and two chauffeurs. The gardeners keep the front lawn so
short with their mowing-machines that 'Biades couldn't possibly have
made the front of his blouse in the mess it is unless he had
purposely crawled on his stomach to lower me in the eyes of all.
When it got to a certain point I pretended to have no connection with
him. There was nothing else to do. Then he felt sorry and wanted to
hug me in front of everybody. . . . Oh, thank you . . . yes, I've
enjoyed myself very much! Mrs Tresawna wears a toque: but I suppose
that when you get to a certain position you can carry on with toques
long after every one else has given them up. She has two maids; one
of them in a grey velours dress that must have been one of Mrs
Tresawna's cast-offs, for it couldn't possibly have come out of her
wages; though, by the fit, it might have been made for her."
A little before ten o'clock Nicky-Nan climbed the stairs painfully to
his bedroom, undressed in part, and lay down--but not to sleep.
For a while he lay without extinguishing the candle--his last candle.
He had measured it carefully, and it reached almost to an inch beyond
the knuckle of his forefinger. It would last him a good two hours at
least, perhaps three.
He lay for a while almost luxuriously, save for the pain in his leg,
and watched the light flickering on the rafters. They had a few more
days to abide, let Pamphlett's men be never so sharp: but this was
his last night under them. His enemies--some of them until this
morning unsuspected--were closing in around him. They had him, now,
in this last corner.
But that was for to-morrow. The very poor live always on the edge of
to-morrow; and for that reason the night's sleep, which parts them
from it, seems a long time.
After all, what could his enemies do to him? If he sat passive, the
onus would rest on them. If Policeman Rat-it-all flung him into the
street, why then in the street he would sit, to the scandal of
Polpier. If, on the other hand, Government claimed him for a
deserter, still Government would have to fetch a cart to convey him
to jail: his leg would not allow him to walk. Of wealth and goods
God Almighty had already eased him. _Cantat vacuus_ . . . He slid a
hand under the bed-clothes and rubbed the swelling on his leg,
softly, wondering if condemned men felt as little perturbed--or some
of them--on the eve of execution.
He ceased rubbing and lay still again, staring up at the play of
light on the rafters. Fine old timbers they were . . . solid English
oak. Good old families they had sheltered in their time; men and
women that feared God and honoured the King--now all gone to decay in
churchyard, all as cold as homeless fellows. The Nanjivells had been
such a family, and now--what would his poor old mother think of
_this_ for an end? Yet it was the general fate. Pushing men, your
Pamphletts, rise in the world. Old families go down, . . . it
couldn't be worked else. If he had only been born with _push_, now!
If it could only be started over again, . . . if he had been put to a
trade, instead of being let run to sea--
He broke off to wonder at the different things the old beams had
looked down upon. Marriages, births--and deaths. The Old Doctor
(he knew) had died in the fore-room, for convenience--the room where
the Penhaligons slept: and even so, the family had been forced to
lift the coffin in and out of the window, because of that twist in
the stairs. There wasn't that difficulty with people's coming _into_
the world. No doubt in its time this room must have seen a mort of
births too. . . . And the children? All gone, the same way!
Drizzle o' rain upon churchyard graves. . . . "And you, too,"--with a
flicker of his closing eyelids threatening the flicker on the beams--
"you, too, doomed, my billies! Pamphlett'll take _me_ to-morrow,
_you_ the day after; as in time the Devil'll take him and his!"
Nicky-Nan rolled over on his side and, perceiving the candle to be
burnt down to a short inch, hastily blew it out. Almost in the act
of relaxing the elbow on which he had raised himself for this effort
he dropped asleep to his pillow.
For three hours he lay like a log. Then his troubled brain began to
reassert itself. At about two in the morning he sat bolt upright in
his bed. For twenty minutes or so he had been thinking rather than
dreaming, yet with his thought held captive by sleep.
He reached for his matchbox and struck a light. . . . The whole world
was after him, hunting him down, tearing down the house above his
head! . . . Well, he would go down with the house. Pamphlett, or
Government, might take his house: but there was the old
hiding-cupboard to the right of the chimney-breast. . . .
When they summoned him to-morrow, he would have vanished.
Only by uncovering his last shelter should they discover what was
left of him. He would perish with the house.
He lit the candle and carried it to the cupboard; opened this, and
peered into the well at his feet: lifted one of the loose
bottom-boards, and, holding himself steady by a grip on the scurtain,
thrust a naked leg down, feeling into vacancy.
The ball of his foot touched some substance, hard and apparently
firm. He supposed it to be a lower ceiling of the hole, and, after
pressing once or twice to make sure, put all his weight upon it.
With a creak and a rush of masonry the whole second flooring of the
cupboard gave way beneath him, leaving his invalid leg dangling, in
excruciating pain. But that the crook of his elbow caught across the
scurtain (shooting darts as of fire up the jarred funny-bone), he had
made a part of the avalanche, the noise of which was enough to wake
the dead. Luckily, too, he had set his candle on the planching
floor, just wide of the cupboard entrance, and it stood burning as
though nothing had happened.
With pain which surely must be worse than any pain of death, he
heaved himself back and on to the bedroom floor again. The cascade
of plaster, timber, masonry, must (he judged) have shot itself
straight down into his parlour below.
He picked up the candle, and warily--while his leg wrung him with
torture at every step--crept down the stairs to explore.
The parlour door opened inwards. He thrust it open for a short way
quite easily. Then of a sudden it jammed: but it left an aperture
through which he could squeeze himself. He did so, and held the
candle aloft.
While he stared, first at a hole in the ceiling, then at the "scree"
which had broken through it and lay spread, fan-shaped, on the solid
floor at his feet, he heard a footstep, and Mrs Penhaligon's voice in
the passage without.
"Mr Nanjivell! Is that Mr Nanjivell?"
"Yes, ma'am!"
"Oh, what has happened?"
"Nothing, ma'am. Only a downrush of soot in the chimney," answered
Nicky-Nan, gasping: for the heap of dust and mortar at his feet lay
scattered all over with golden coins!
"But the noise was terrible. I--I thought for sure it must be the
Germans," came in Mrs Penhaligon's voice.
"Nothing of the sort. You exaggerate things," answered Nicky-Nan,
commanding his voice. "A rush of soot down the chimney, that's all.
I've been expectin' it for weeks."
"You mustn't mind my bein' easily alarmed--left alone as I be with a
family--"
"Not in the least, ma'am." Nicky-Nan resolutely closed the door and
lifted his candle to confirm the miracle.
The candle, which had been guttering, shot up one last flame and died
on a flicker of gold.
CHAPTER VII.
"QUID NON MORTALIA PECTORA . . ."
A moment later Nicky-Nan took a step to the door, half-repentant, on
an impulse to call Mrs Penhaligon back and bid her fetch a candle.
God knows how much of subsequent trouble he might have spared himself
by obeying that impulse: for Mrs Penhaligon was a woman honest as the
day; and withal had a head on her shoulders, shrewd enough--practised
indeed--in steering the clumsy male mind for its good.
But, as we have recorded, Nicky-Nan, having suffered in early life
from a woman, had been turned to a distrust of the sex; a general
distrust which preoccupied with its shadow the bright exception that,
on a second thought, he was ready enough to recognise in Mrs
Penhaligon.
This second thought came too late, however. He took one step towards
the door, guided by the glimmer, beneath it, of her retreating
candle. His hand even fumbled for the latch, and found it. But a
sudden shyness seized him and he drew back. He heard her footsteps
creaking on the party-stairs: heard the sound of her door softly
closed, then the sound of a bolt thrust home in its socket; and
turned to face darkness.
His brain worked quite clearly. He guessed well enough what had
happened. In his youth he had often listened, without taking note of
their talk, while his elders debated how it came about that the Old
Doctor had left, beyond some parcels of real estate--cottage property
for the most part, the tenants of which were notoriously lax in
paying their rents--but a very few personal effects. There were book
debts in an inordinate mass; and the heirs found an inordinate
difficulty in collecting them, since the inhabitants of Polpier--a
hardy sea-faring race--had adopted a cheerful custom of paying for
deliverance from one illness when they happened (if ever they did) to
contract another: and this custom they extended even to that branch
of medical service which by tradition should be rewarded in ready
money. ("I always," explained a Polpier matron, "pays 'en ver one
when I engages 'en ver the next; an' the laast I'll never pay ver"--
and she never did.) On top of this, Polpier folk argued that
doctoring wasn't, like property, a gift which a man could pass on to
his heirs, and most certainly not if they happened to be--as they
were--a corn-factor and an aged maiden sister of independent but
exiguous means. "As _I_ look at it," some one put this argument, on
the Quay, "th' Old Doctor's mastery was a thing to hisself, and a
proper marvel at that. Us brought nothin' into the world, my sons
an' us can't carry nothin' out: but that don't mean as you can leave
it behind--leastways, not when it takes the form of professional
skill. . . . Why, put it to yourselves. Here's th' old man gone up
for his reward: an' you can hear th' Almighty sayin', 'Well done,
thou good an' faithful servant.'"--"Amen," from the listeners.--
"Yes, an' 'The labourer is worthy of his hire,' and what not.
'Well, then,' the Lord goes on, flatterin'-like, 'what about that
there talent I committed to 'ee? For I d' know _you_'re not the sort
to go hidin' it in a napkin.' An' d' 'ee reckon th' old chap'll be
cuttin' such a figure as to own up, 'Lord, I left it to a
corn-merchant'? Ridic'lous to suppose! . . . _The Lord giveth, an'
the Lord taketh away_. . . . With cottage property, I grant 'ee,
'tis another thing. Cottage property don't go on all-fours."
Nicky-Nan, then, guessed well enough what had happened. Almost in a
flash he had guessed it.
He had surprised the Old Doctor's secret, hidden all these years.
Folks used to make hoards of their money in the bygone days, when
Napoleon threatened to invade us and deposit banks were scarce.
And the Doctor, by all that tradition told, was never a man to break
a habit once formed. For more than the span of two generations this
wealth had lain concealed; and now _he--he_, Nicholas Nanjivell--was
a rich man, if only he played his cards well!
With how sure an instinct he had clung to the old house!--had held on
to this relic of a past gentility to which by rights he belonged!
He was a rich man now, and would defy Pamphlett and all his works--
How pleasant it is to have money, heigho!
How pleasant it is to have money!--
if only he knew how much!
And yet . . . Although philosophers in all ages have descanted on the
blessings of Hope, and the part played by Imagination in making
tolerable the business of living--so that men in the mass not only
carry life through with courage but will turn and fight desperately
for it, like stags at bay--it is to be doubted if one in ten ever
guesses how constantly he is sustained by this spirit scorning the
substance, gallantly blind, with promises lifting him over defeat.
I dare to say that, save for the strength of hope it put into him,
this wealth, so suddenly poured at Nicky-Nan's feet, doubled his
discomfort, physical and mental.
Of his physical discomfort, just now, there could be no question.
He could not find courage to leave his trove and climb the stairs
back to his bedroom. Some one might rob him while he slept, and--
horror!--he would never even know of how much he had been robbed.
The anguish in his leg forbade his standing sentry: the night wanted
almost three hours of dawn. Shirt and trousers were his only
garments.
He knelt and groped on the stone floor to a corner clear of the
fallen rubbish. On his way his fingers encountered a coin and
clutched it--comfort, tangible proof that he had not been dreaming.
He seated himself in the corner, propping his back there, and fell to
speculating--sensing the coin in his palm, fingering it from time to
time.
The Old Doctor had always, in his lifetime, been accounted a
well-to-do man. . . . Very likely he had started this hoard in
Bonaparte's days, and had gone on adding to it in the long years of
peace. . . . It would certainly be a hundred pounds. It might be a
thousand. One thousand pounds!
But no--not so fast! Put it at a hundred only, and daylight would be
the unlikelier to bring disappointment. The scattered coins he had
seen by that one brief flash of the candle danced and multiplied
themselves before his eyes like dots of fire in the darkness.
Still he resolutely kept their numbers down to one hundred.
A hundred pounds! . . . Why, that, or even fifty, meant all the
difference in life to him. He could look Pamphlett in the face now.
He would step down to the Bank to-morrow, slap seven sovereigns down
on the counter--but not too boldly; for Pamphlett must not suspect--
and demand the change in silver, with his receipt. Full quittance--
he could see Pamphlett's face as he fetched forth the piece of paper
and made out that quittance, signing his name across a postage stamp.
Not once in the course of his vision-building did it cross
Nicky-Nan's mind that the money was--that it could be--less than
legitimately his. Luck comes late to some men; to others, never.
It had come late to him, yet in the nick of time, as a godsend.
His family and the Old Doctor's had intermarried, back along, quite
in the old days; or so he had heard. . . . Nicky-Nan knew nothing of
any law about treasure-trove. Wealth arrived to men as it befell or
as they deserved; and, any way, "findings was keepings." His notion
of other folks' concern in this money reached no further than a vague
fear of folks in general--that they might rob him or deprive him of
it in some way. He must go to work cautiously.
Thus out of despair Fortune lifted him and began to install him in
fear.
He must go to work _very_ cautiously. Being all unused to the
possession of money, but accustomed to consider it as a weapon of
which fortunate men obtained a hold to employ it in "besting" others
less fortunate, he foresaw endless calls upon his cunning. But this
did not forbid his indulging in visions in which--being also at
bottom good-natured--he pictured himself as playing the good genius
in his native town, earning general gratitude, building in a
large-handed way the new pier that was so badly needed, conferring
favours right and left, departing this life amid the mourning of the
township, perchance (who could tell?) surviving for the wonder of
generations to come in a carved statue at the Quay-head. He had
observed, in the ports he had visited abroad, such statues erected in
memory of men he had never heard tell of. It would be a mighty fine
thing--though a novelty in Polpier--to have one's memory kept alive
in this fashion. . . . He would lord it in life too, as became a
Nanjivell--albeit the last of the race. To the Penhaligon family he
would be specially kind. . . . Upon other deserving ones he would
confer surprising help by stealth. . . . He wished now that, in spite
of experience, he had married and begotten children--an heir at
least. It would be a fine thing to restore the stock to a prospect
of honour. He wondered that in the past he had never realised his
plain duty in this light and taken the risk. As it was, the old name
could only be preserved in a commonalty's gratitude.
The flagged floor galled him cruelly; for he was of lean build.
Shift his posture or his weight as he might, after a few seconds'
ease his haunch-pins were pressing again upon the pavement, with no
cushion of flesh but a crushed nerve or two that kept telephoning
misery to his knee and fetching fierce darts of pain for response.
A quick succession of these, running into one as though a red-hot
iron had been applied under the thigh, searing it to the very bone,
stabbed suddenly into his brain with a new terror. He had forgotten
the anonymous letter and its threat!
He was a rich man now. The business of a rich man was to stay at
home and preserve his riches while making use of them-like
Pamphlett. Who in this world ever heard of a rich man being hauled
off to serve in the Navy as a common seaman? The thing was
unprecedented. He could buy himself out; at the worst by paying up
the money he had drawn.
Yes, but this would involve disclosing his wealth, and the source of
it. . . . He was terribly afraid of publicity. He had enemies, as
the letter proved: he suspected that the law itself might be another
enemy--you could never predict which side the law would take--and
between them, if they got to know his secret, they would despoil him.
. . . On the other hand if, covering his secret, he opposed but a
passive resistance, they might carry him off to jail, and then all
this money would be laid bare to the world. Intolerable exposure!
He must hide it. . . . He must count it, and then--having staved off
Pamphlett--hide it tomorrow with all speed and cunning. When would
the dawn come?
The sun, in the longitude of Polpier, was actually due to rise a few
minutes before five o'clock. But Polpier (as I have told) lies in a
deep cleft of the hills. Nicky-Nan's parlour looked out on a mere
slit at the bottom of that cleft; and, moreover, the downfall of
plaster blocked half the lower portion of its tiny dirty window.
What with one hindrance and another, it was almost a quarter past
five before daylight began to glimmer in the parlour. It found him
on his knees--not in prayer, nor in thanksgiving, but eagerly feeling
over the grey pile of rubbish and digging into it with clawed
fingers.
An hour later, with so much of daylight about him as the window
permitted, he was still on his knees. Already he had collected more
than a hundred golden coins, putting them together in piles of
twenty.
The dawn had been chilly: but he was warm enough by this time.
Indeed, sweat soaked his shirt; beads of sweat gathered on his grey
eyebrows, and dripped, sometimes on his hands, sometimes on the pile
of old plaster--greyish-white, and fine almost as wood-ash--into
which they dug and dug, tearing the thin lathes aside, pouncing on
each coin brought to the surface.
Once only--though the kneeling cost him torture, and the sweat came
no less from anguish than from exertion--did he pause and straighten
himself up to listen. Upstairs the Penhaligon children had awakened
with the daylight and were talking--chirruping like sparrows--before
they left their beds--
Hey! now the day dawis;
The joly cock crawis . . .
--but Nicky-Nan toiled on in his dim parlour, collecting wealth.
By eight o'clock he had picked up and arranged--still in neat piles
of twenty--some eight hundred coins of golden money. His belly was
fasting: but he had forgotten the crust in the cupboard. Had he not
here enough to defray a king's banquet?
Some one tapped on the door. Nicky-Nan, startled, raised himself
upright on his knees and called in a tremor--
"No admittance!"
As he staggered up and made for the door, to press his weight against
it, Mrs Penhaligon spoke on the other side.
"Mr Nanjivell!"
"Ma'am?"
"The postman, with a letter for you! I'll fetch it in, if you wish:
but the poor fellow 'd like a clack, I can see."
It jumped to his tongue to bid her fetch and pass it in to him under
the door. The outside of a letter would not tell her much, and
anyhow would excite less curiosity than his own corporal envelope,
begrimed as it was just now with dust and plaster and cobwebs.
But the end of her message alarmed him with misgivings more serious.
"Why should Lippity-Libby want a clack with him? . . . Just for
gossip's sake?--or to convey a warning?" Lippity-Libby knew, or
averred that he knew, the author of yesterday's anonymous
letter. . . .
"Tell him I'll be out in a moment!"
Nicky-Nan beat his hands together softly to rid them of the worst of
the plaster, then smoothed them briskly down his chest in a hasty
effort to remove the cobwebs that clung there. The result--two
damning smears on the front of his shirt--was discouraging.
He opened the door with great caution, peered out into the passage,
and found to his great relief that Mrs Penhaligon, that discreet
woman, had withdrawn to her own premises.
He would have reconnoitred farther, but in the porch at the end of
the passage Lippity-Libby stood in plain view, with the street full
of sunshine behind him. So Nicky-Nan contented himself with closing
the door carefully and hasping it.
"If," began Lippity-Libby, "you go on gettin' letters at the rate o'
one a day, there's only two ways to it. Either you'll practise
yourself not to keep the King's postman waitin', or you'll make it up
afterwards in the shape of a Christmas-box. . . . I ought in fairness
to tell you," Lippity-Libby added, "that there _is_ a third way--
though I hate the sight of it--and that's a letter-box with a slit in
the door. Parson Steele has one. When I asked en why, he laughed
an' talked foolish, an' said he'd put it up in self-defence. Now,
what sort o' defence can a letter-box be to any man's house?
And that was six months afore the War, too!"
"Another letter for me?" Nicky-Nan hobbled forward, blinking against
the sunlight.
"'Ho-Haitch-Hem-Hess'--that means 'On His Majesty Service';
post-mark, Troy. . . . Hullo!--anything wrong wi' the house?"
"Eh?"
"Plasterin' job?"
Nicky-Nan understood. "What's that to you?" he asked curtly.
"I don' know how it should happen," mused Lippity-Libby after a pause
of dejection; "but the gettin' of letters seems to turn folks
suspicious-like all of a sudden. You'd be surprised the number that
puts me the very question you've just asked. An' they tell me that
'tis with money the same as with letters. I read a tract one time,
about a man that found hisself rich of a sudden, and instead o'
callin' his naybours together an' sayin' 'Rejoice with me,' what d'ye
think he went an' did?"
"Look here," said Nicky-Nan, eyeing the postman firmly. "If you're
hidin' something behind this clack, I'll trouble you to out with it."
"If you don't _want_ the story, you shan't have it," said
Lippity-Libby, aggrieved. "'Tis your loss, too; for it was full of
instruction, an' had a moral at the end in different letterin'. . . .
You're upset this mornin', that's what you are: been up too early an'
workin' too hard at that plasterin' job, whatever it is." The little
man limped back into the roadway and cricked his head back for a gaze
up at the chimneys. "Nothing wrong on this side, seemin'ly. . . .
Nor, nor there wasn't any breeze o' wind in the night, not to wake
me. . . . Anyways, you're a wonderful forgivin' man, Nicholas
Nanjivell."
"Why so?"
"Why, to be up betimes an' workin' yourself cross, plasterin' at th'
old house, out o' which--if report's true--you'll be turned within a
week."
"Don't you listen to reports; no, nor spread 'em. Here, hand me over
my letter. . . . 'Turn me out,' will they? Go an' tell 'em they
can't do it--not if they was to bring all the king's horses and all
the king's men!"
"And _they_ be all gone to France. There! there! As I said to
myself only last night as I got into bed--'What a thing is War!'
I said, 'an' o' what furious an' rummy things consistin'--marches to
an' fro, short commons, shootin's of cannon, rapes, an' other
bloodthirsty goin's-on; an' here we be in the midst thereof!
That's calkilated to make a man _think_.' . . . But I must say," said
Lippity-Libby, eyeing the sky aloft, "the glass is goin' up stiddy,
an' _that's_ always a comfort."
As the old man took his departure, Nicky-Nan broke the seal of his
letter, opened it, and read--
To Nicholas Nanjivell,
R.N.R., Polpier.
Troy, August 3rd, 1914.
I am advised that you have failed to join the Royal Naval Reserve
Force called into Active Service under the Act 22 and 23 Vict. c. 40;
nor have you reported yourself at the Custom-House, St Martin's,
Cornwall, as required on the Active Service Paper, R.V. 53, duly
delivered to you.
Before filling up your description on Form R.V. 26a (R.N.R.
Absentees and Deserters) I desire that you will let me know the cause
of your non-compliance with H.M. summons; and, if the cause be
sickness or other disablement, that you will forward a medical
certificate _immediately_, as evidence of same, to
Joshua Johns,
Registrar, Royal Naval Reserve.
CHAPTER VIII.
BUSINESS AS USUAL.
"Business as usual!" said Mr Pamphlett heartily to his clerk Mr
Hendy, as he let himself in at 9.40 by the side door of the Bank.
Mr Hendy lived on the premises, which his wife served as caretaker,
with a "help" to do the scrubbing.
Mr Hendy, always punctual, stood ready in the passage, awaiting his
master. He received Mr Pamphlett's top-hat and walking-stick, helped
him off with his black frock-coat, helped him on with the light
alpaca jacket in which during the hot weather Mr Pamphlett combined
banking with comfort.
"Business as usual!" said Mr Pamphlett, slipping into the alpaca.
"That's the motto. Old England's sound, Hendy!"
"Yes, sir: leastways, I hope so."
"Sound as a bell. It's money will put us through this, Hendy, as it
always has. We mayn't wear uniforms"--Mr Pamphlett smoothed down the
alpaca over his stomach--"but we're the real sinews of this War."
Mr Hendy--a slight middle-aged man, with fluffy straw-coloured hair
which he grew long above his ears, to compensate for the baldness of
his cranium--answered that he was glad Mr Pamphlett took it in so
hearty a fashion, but for his part, if it wasn't for the Missus, he
was dying to enlist and have a slap at the Germans. Mr Pamphlett
laughed and entered his private office. Here every morning he dealt
with his correspondence; while Hendy, in the main room of the Bank,
unlocked the safe, fetched out the ready cash and the ledgers, and
generally made preparations before opening the door for business on
the stroke of ten.
Five or six letters awaited Mr Pamphlett. One he recognised by
envelope and handwriting as a missive from headquarters: and he
opened it first, wondering a little, pausing, as he broke the seal,
to examine the post-marks. "Yesterday had been Bank Holiday. . . .
But, to be sure, in these times the Head Office would very likely be
neglecting Bank Holidays, the clerks working at high pressure. . . ."
But no: the London post-mark bore date "Aug. 1." The letter had been
received and delivered at Polpier on the 2nd, and had been lying in
the bank letter-box for two whole days. He broke the seal in some
trepidation: for he had spent the last sixty hours or so of national
emergency on a visit with Mrs Pamphlett to her brother-in-law, a
well-to-do farmer, who dwelt some twelve miles inland. Here Mr
Pamphlett, after punctual and ample meals, had gently stimulated
digestion with hot brandy-and-water (which never comes amiss, even in
August, if you happen to be connected with farming and have duly kept
the Sabbath), and had sat with one leg crossed over the other,
exchanging--rather by his composed bearing than in actual words--
confidence in Britain's financial stability against confidence in her
agriculture. His presence had somewhat eased a trying situation at
Lawhilly Farm, where his young fool of a nephew--an only son, too--
fired by the war, had gone so far as to distress his parents with
talk of enlisting.
"Business as usual!" had been Mr Pamphlett's advice to the young man.
"There was, for a day or two--I won't deny it--a certain--er--
tendency to what I may call _nervousness_ in the City. Can we wonder
at it, holding as we do so many--er--threads?" Mr Pamphlett held up
his two hands, and spread them as though they contained a skein of
wool to be unwound. "But the Chancellor of the Exchequer took steps.
Opposed as I am in a general way to the present Government, I am free
to admit that, at this juncture, the Chancellor of the Exchequer
realised his responsibilities and--er--took steps. Markets may--er--
fluctuate for some weeks to come--may, as I would put it, exhibit a
certain amount of--er--unsteadiness. But we shall tide that over,
easily--as I am advised, quite easily. Great Britain's credit is
solid; that's the word, _solid_: and if that--er--solidarity holds
true of our monetary system with"--here Mr Pamphlett expanded and
contracted his fingers as if gathering gossamers--"its delicate and
far-reaching complexities. . . That was an excellent duck, James,"
said he, turning to his brother-in-law. "I don't remember when I've
tasted a better."
"Maria believes in basting, I thank God," said his brother-in-law,
Farmer Pearce acknowledging the compliment. "'Tis a more
enterprisin' life you lead by the sea, if your business calls you
that way. You pick up more money--which is everything in these
days--and you see the ships and yachts going to and fro, and so
forth. But you can't breed ducks for table. Once they get nigh to
tidal water, though it be but to the head of a creek, the flesh turns
fishy, and you can't prevent it. We must set it down to Natur', I
suppose. But inland ducks for me!"
"Maria has a great gift with the stuffing, too. . . . You're spoilt,
Ebenezer--and so too is Obed here--up in this fat of the land, though
you don't know it. Eh?" said Mr Pamphlett sharply as his nephew
Obed, who had been sitting by and listening sulkily, made an
impatient movement,--"But as I was going on to say, if we, that hold
(as I may put it) the threads of commerce in these times, believe in
sitting solid, why surely the same applies--only more so--to
agriculture."
"Which is the backbone of Old England," interposed Farmer Pearce,
"an' always has been."
"There's two ends to most backbones," put in young Obed, who had been
tracing patterns with his fingers on the surface of the mahogany
table. "And I don't pretend to have the cleverer one. But I don't
want the other to be kicked into doin' summat; which is what'll
happen to us farmin' chaps if we don't start enlistin'."
"The aggericultural community," persisted his father, who had picked
up that resonant term at meetings of the Farmers' Union, "is, an'
always has been, the backbone of England."
"Then 'tis time we showed it, in the Yeomanry."
"I wish you'd hold your tongue on that word; when you know your
mother never hears it spoke but she wakes me up at night with the
palpitations. . . . We _be_ showin' it, I tell 'ee. We _be_ doin'
something for our country in this here crisis. Why, didn' Squire
Tresawna ride over but yesterday an' commandeer Tory an' Pleasant?--
that's my two best waggon-hosses," the farmer explained to his
brother-in-law. "An' didn' he say as most likely he'd be over again,
inside a fortni't, after light draught hosses for the Artillery?
I don't murmur, for my part. We must all be prepared to make
sacrifices in these times. But all I say is, you can't pick up
draught hosses--light _or_ heavy--off a greengrocer, nor yet off a
bird-fancier; an' the man who says you can, I'll tell him to his face
he's no better than a liar," concluded Farmer Pearce, suddenly
growing crimson in the face, and smiting the table with unnecessary
heat.
"If the hosses be goin', why should the men linger?" young Obed
urged. "An' I don't see what you sacrificed either, over Tory an'
Pleasant; for you told me yourself the Squire gave a very fair price
for 'em."
"Well, an' I should hope so! You don't reckon as I was goin' to make
Government a present of 'em, do 'ee?--a man rated up to the ears, as
I be!" Here he glanced nervously at his brother-in-law, who (as a
town-dweller) held the monstrous belief that farmers enjoyed their
share, and even a little more, of relief from rating, and had more
than once shown argumentative fight on this subject in the piping
times of peace. But Mr Pamphlett tactfully ignored the challenge.
"Listen to me, Obed," he put in. "By what I hear from London, as
well as what I read in the papers, the most serious question before
this country just now is to maintain--or, as I might put it, to keep
up--an adequate supply of foodstuffs. To which end," pursued Mr
Pamphlett, in the weighty periods of the "leading article" from which
he had gathered this information, "it appears to us--I mean, to me--
that our agricultural friends would be well advised, at this
juncture, in considering the advisability, as well as the
feasibility, of restoring a quantity of their pasture-land to an
arable condition, and cultivating it _as_ such. The Board of
Agriculture, it is understood, will shortly issue a circular--er--on
these lines. Now you cannot effect the change thus indicated without
labour--"
"Or hosses."
"That there Board of Agriculture," put in the farmer, "is always
settin' up to know us farmers' business better than we d'know it
ourselves. Grow wheat--must we? All very well, an' for my country's
good I'm willin' enough, provided it can be done at a profit.
Will Government guarantee _that?_ . . . No, brother Pamphlett: what
you say about your callin', I says about mine. 'Business as usual'--
that's my word: an' let Obed here be a good son to his mother an'
bide at home, defyin' all the Germans in Christendom."
Mr Pamphlett, then, had spent his week-end in rural comfort, and with
the consciousness of being useful--a steadying influence in a
household threatened by youthful restlessness, which (Heaven knew)
might so easily turn to recklessness. His wife, too, was devotedly
attached to her sister, whose heart had always been liable to
palpitations. But he realised at sight of the letter, which had been
lying so long in the box, that a phrase is not everything: that
"business as usual," while it might serve as a charm or formula
against panic in the market-place, and even sustain in private many a
doubting soul accustomed to take things on trust, was an incantation
something less than adequate to calm the City of London, or the Bank
directors and their confidential clerks, who maybe had been working
in a frenzy through Sunday and Bank Holiday in their closed offices
at headquarters. For a moment Mr Pamphlett realised this, and it
gave him a scare. In the act of opening the letter he cast his eyes
around on the chance that a telegram had followed the letter,
demanding to know the cause that took him from his post at this
crisis. But there was no telegram. The envelope held two
enclosures. He scanned them hurriedly: the blood came back to his
face, and he was a man again.
The first enclosure merely acknowledged, in conventional words, the
receipt of certain returns posted by him last Friday. The second
ran--
New Bank Premises: Polpier Branch.
Dear Sir,--With reference to the above, the Board has had under
consideration your letter of the 23rd ult.; and directs me to
say that, in the present unsettled situation abroad, and the
consequent need of strict watchfulness over capital expenditure
(however small), it may be wise to defer the issuing of tenders,
as suggested by you, until further notice. The Board has, in
its confidence, entrusted you with almost complete discretion in
this matter; and possibly you may find it difficult, at this
juncture, to delay matters as suggested. If so, please
advise.--
Yours faithfully,
Walter P. Schmidt,
Managing Director.
So _that_ was all right! It might defer building operations, but it
need not defer his dealing with Nanjivell, his own tenant, who paid
nothing. He could turn Nanjivell out, and then--well, whenever the
Bank chose to start building, the Directors (having gone so far)
would no doubt consider the length of time the premises had been
standing idle.
His brow cleared. He opened the next letter, with the handwriting of
which he was familiar enough. One Retallack, a speculative builder,
suggested a small increase on his overdraft, offering security.
This would not do, in War time. Mr Pamphlett dealt with it at once--
Dear Sir,--You are doubtless aware that the outbreak of a
European War compels the Banking Houses to look jealously after
all advances, or extensions of credit, even the smallest.
It is not so much a question of declining this new request on
your part as of reconsidering very carefully the present
position of your account. I will satisfy myself concerning this
and advise you without delay.--I am, dear sir, yours faithfully,
Alfred Pamphlett,
Manager.
"Business as usual"--Mr Pamphlett repeated it many times to himself
as he went through the rest of his correspondence. His spirit--in
revulsion after his brief scare--soared almost to gaiety. He walked
into the main room of the Bank as Hendy started to pull the
door-bolts.
"We don't open for business to-day, Hendy."
Hendy had shown himself flatly incapable of understanding the
Moratorium; what it was or how it worked. Mr Pamphlett, for his
part, was uncertain about the details. But he explained them to
Hendy.
Then he returned to his private office, pausing by the rack in the
passage to draw from the tail pocket of his frock-coat there a folded
copy of _The Western Morning News_. There was something furtive in
his action: he would have started guiltily had he been surprised in
it, even by the meek Hendy.
Business--well, business could not be altogether as usual in these
times. As a rule Mr Pamphlett read his paper through, before and
during breakfast, and left it at home for Mrs Pamphlett to scan the
births, deaths, and marriages, the "wanteds," the Court Circular, and
any report there might happen to be of a colliery explosion (she
specialised in colliery explosions: they appealed to her as combining
violent death with darkness) before interviewing the cook.
But to-day, with all Europe in the melting-pot--so to speak--Mr
Pamphlett had broken his rule. He craved to know the exact speed at
which Russia was "steam-rolling." There was a map in the paper,
and it might repay study.
Before studying the map his eye fell on a paragraph headed "Rise in
Prices." He paused and spent some time over this.
He was still conning it when the door opened, and Hendy appeared.
Mr Pamphlett muttered "Consols," and refolded the newspaper hastily.
"Nanjivell is here to see you, sir: at the side door. 'Says he must
speak to you in private."
"Oh . . . confound Nanjivell! I've had enough of that man. . . .
Very well; but tell him I can't spare a moment over five minutes."
Hendy ushered in Nicky-Nan, who hobbled forward to the table, hat in
hand.
"Good-morning, Nanjivell!" said Mr Pamphlett.
"'Mornin', sir."
"Another plea, I suppose?--when you had my word on Saturday that I'd
done with you."
"'Tain't that."
"Then what is it? . . . For I hardly suppose 'tis to pay up--rent
_and_ arrears."
"One--two--three--four--five--six--seven!" Nicky-Nan dived in his
pocket for the fistful of coins, picked them out carefully, and laid
them one by one on the table. "I'll take the change an' a receipt,
if you please."
"How came you by this money?" asked the Bank Manager, after a pause,
staring at the gold.
"What the hell is that to you?" demanded Nicky-Nan.
For a moment Mr Pamphlett made no reply. Then he leaned forward and
picked up one of the coins.
"I asked," he said, "because one of these happens to be a
guinea-piece--a spade guinea, and scarcely worn at all."
"'Tis as good as a sovereign's worth, hey?"
"Certainly: worth more in fact."
"I'll trust 'ee for the difference then," said Nicky-Nan. "As for
how I came by it, I came by it honest, an' that's enough. A man o'
my family may have a bit o' hoard put by--by his forefathers."
"I see," said Mr Pamphlett thoughtfully. "Hendy shall make out the
receipt. But this doesn't include costs of the ejectment order, you
know."
"I'll bring 'em to-morrow, if you'll let me know the amount."
"Hendy shall give you a note of it. . . No--to be fair, the
ejectment order still stands against you. I have power to turn you
out to-morrow."
"But you won't!"
"If you use that tone with me, my man, I certainly will. If you take
your receipt and clear out, I may relent so far as to give you a
short grace."
When Nicky-Nan had taken his leave, Mr Pamphlett picked up the spade
guinea and considered it curiously. It had a beautifully sharp
impression, and might have been minted yesterday. He thought it
would go very well on his watch-chain.
Then he opened the paper again, sought out the paragraph headed "Rise
in Prices," and read it through, pausing now and again to pencil a
note or two on the back of an envelope.
On his way homeward in the dinner-hour he called at Mrs Pengelly's
shop and gave that good woman an order for groceries. The size of it
almost caused her to faint. It ran into double figures in pounds
sterling.
"Business _as_ usual!" repeated Mr Pamphlett to himself complacently,
as he pursued his way up the hill.
CHAPTER IX.
THE BROKEN PANE
During his interview with Mr Pamphlett, Nicky-Nan had been in a fever
to get back to his parlour. It had no lock to the door, and goodness
knew what the Penhaligon children might not be up to in these holiday
times. Also he could not rid his mind of a terror that his wealth
might prove, after all, to be fairy gold, and vanish in air.
It was a relief in a way to find that Mr Pamphlett, after ringing
each coin on his table, had accepted the seven pieces for currency.
But this business of the spade-guinea raised a new scare to agitate
him.
In a confused way he remembered that in building the coins into piles
he had found some of them to be broader than others, so that their
edges overlapped, and that for symmetry he had sorted these broader
pieces out and stacked them apart. Of the last ten he had made a
mixed pile,--four broad coins at the base, six narrower ones above;
and from this he had taken, purely by chance, the seven topmost to
pay his debt--that is to say, six sovereigns and one guinea-piece.
Luck had stood his friend. A pretty business, had he gone to the
banker with seven of those old-fashioned guineas!
Mr Hendy had handed him five shillings and fourpence change with his
quittance, and on his way home he made a detour to hobble into Mr
Gedye's shop--"S. Gedye, Ironmonger and Ship-Chandler"--and purchase
two staples, a hasp, and a stout padlock, with key.
Mr Gedye, selecting these articles with a care that was slow torture
to his customer, opined that the weather was settled at last, and
trusted it would assist the Russians in mobilising. The slower Mr
Gedye became, the more ardently he repeated an expression of hope
that the Russians would hurry up.
"Once they get going--" said Mr Gedye, and pulled out a drawerful of
staples so far that it upset and spilled its contents in an avalanche
on the dark floor behind the counter. "I knew a ship's captain once,
a Russian that married a woman over to Troy and would go to sleep for
a week on end every time he came home from a voyage. His wife would
wake him up and give him tea: that was all he took--tea without milk,
between the sheets. He had been a Radical over in his own country,
and the Radical agent over to Troy got wind o' this an' took steps to
naturalise him. It took seven years. . . . But put him on deck in a
gale o' wind and a better skipper (I'm told) you wouldn' meet in a
day's march. When he got up an' dressed, he'd dander down to the
butcher's an' point to the fatty parts of the meat with the end of
his walking-stick, which was made out of a shark's backbone, if you
ever! In my experience, a very quiet nation until roused. . . .
Well, the Kaiser's done it this time--and a padlock, I think you
said? An uncomfortable man--that's my opinion of him, and I've never
seen cause to change it. Now, for a padlock, here is one I can
thoroughly recommend, with two keys, so that you can lose one and
still have the other, which is often a convenience. Yu'll be lockin'
up your 'taty-patch, Mr Nanjivell, against the Germans? Well, a very
proper precaution."
"One can't be too careful in these times," said Nicky-Nan with
feigned artlessness.
"No, indeed! Anything I can do for 'ee in the way of barbed wire?"
"No, I thank 'ee." Nicky-Nan's eyes had been wandering around the
shop. "But I'll take this small sieve, now I come to think on it."
"Certainly, Mr Nanjivell. One-an'-three. Shall I send it for 'ee?
No?--an' nothing further to-day? Then one-an'-three and one is
two-an'-three, an' two two's four, two-an'-seven, screws and staples
two two's, two-an'-eleven. If you ask my opinion we're in for
settled weather."
Nicky-Nan's business had taken time--some twenty minutes in excess of
his calculations, as a glance at the sky informed him. (He carried
no watch.) He hurried home in a twitter of nervousness, which
increased as he drew near to his front door. In the passage he
stumbled against a pail of water, all but upsetting it, and swore
under his breath at his evil luck, which had deferred Mrs
Penhaligon's weekly scrubbing to Tuesday (Bank Holiday being a _dies
non_).
On entering the parlour he drew a breath of relief. No one had
visited it, to disturb it. The threadbare tablecloth rested as he
had spread it, covering the piles of gold; the tattered scrap of
carpet, too, hiding (so far as it might) the scree of fallen rubbish.
On this rubbish, after assuring himself that his treasure was safe,
he fell to work with the sieve; making as little noise as might be,
because by this time Mrs Penhaligon had begun operations on the brick
flooring of the passage. Mrs Penhaligon's father had been a groom in
Squire Tresawna's service, and she had a trick of hissing softly
while she scrubbed, as grooms do in washing-down and curry combing
their horses. He could hear the sound whenever her brush intromitted
its harsh _whoosh-whoosh_ and she paused to apply fresh soap.
So they worked, the man and the woman--both kneeling--with the thin
door between.
Nicky-Nan felt no weariness as yet. He used his coal-scraper to fill
the sieve, and shook the fine powdery lime into one heap, and gently
tilted the coarse residuum upon another, after searching it carefully
over. At the end of an hour's labour he had added two guinea-pieces
and nine sovereigns to his collection.
He vaguely remembered having been told--long ago by somebody--that
sovereigns had first come into use back in the last century, not long
after the battle of Waterloo; that in more ancient times gold had
been paid in guineas; that guineas were then worth much more than
their face value, because of the great amount of paper money; that
Jews went about buying them up for twenty-three or twenty-four
shillings; that, over at Troy, a Jew had been murdered and robbed of
a lot of these coins by the landlord of a public-house.
He reasoned from this--and rightly, no doubt--that the Old Doctor had
started his hoard in early life, when Boney was threatening to invade
us; and had kept up the habit in later and more prosperous years,
long after the currency had been changed. That would account for the
sovereigns being so many and the guineas by comparison so few.
He was aching sorely in back and reins: his leg, too, wanted ease.
. . . He would take a rest and spend it in examining the window, by
which alone he could get rid of the rubbish without courting inquiry.
It was his only postern gate.
It had not been opened for many years--never, indeed, in the time of
his tenancy. Door and fireplace had provided between them all the
ventilation he was conscious of needing.
It cost him three minutes to push up the lower sash. He managed to
open it some ten inches, and then, as a protest against this
interference with its gradual decay, the sash-cord broke. He heard
with a jump of the heart the weight thud down behind the woodwork:
then, as he groped hastily behind him for a brick, to prop the sash,
it came down with a run, and closed its descent with a jar that shook
out two of its bottle panes to drop into the water that rushed below.
Prompt upon this came a flutter and scurry of wings in water, and a
wild quacking, as a bevy of ducks dashed for shore.
A casement window was thrust open on the far side of the stream.
A woman's voice shrilled--
"That's _you_, is it? Oh, yes--you Penhaligon children! You needn'
clucky down an' hide--an' after breakin' Mr Nanjivell's windows, that
hasn' sixpence between hisself an' heaven, to pay a glazier!"
(But it was Mr Nanjivell himself who cowered down out of sight,
clutching the woodwork of the window-sill with wealth behind him
surpassing the dreams of avarice.)
"Proper young limbs you be," the voice went on. "With no father at
home to warm 'ee!"--
(Let this not be mistaken for a tribute to Mr Penhaligon's parental
kindness, good father though he was. To "warm" a child in Polpier
signifies to beat him with a strap.)
"And him in danger of submarines, that snatch a man before his Maker
like a snuff of a candle, while you can find no better way of
employing your holidays than scatterin' other folks' glass to the
danger o' my ducks! You just wait till I've wiped my arms, here, and
I'll be round to tell your mother about 'ee!"
Nicky-Nan had recognised the voice at once. It belonged to Mrs
Climoe, possibly the champion virago of Polpier, and a woman of her
word--a woman who never missed an opportunity to make trouble.
Her allusion to wiping her arms before action he as swiftly
understood. The window across the stream belonged to Mrs Climoe's
wash-kitchen. Again he cursed the luck that had interposed Bank
Holiday and adjourned the washing operations of Polpier.
But he must defend himself: for Mrs Climoe never promised anything
which--if it happened to be unpleasant--she did not punctually
perform. With swift cunning he snatched up his parcel of staples and
screws, caught at a poker, and made a leap for the door.
Here luck aided him. Mrs Penhaligon had finished her scrubbing and
carried her pail out to the porch. There she met Mrs Climoe's first
accost, and it surprised her beyond measure: for her children were
down upon the Quay playing. By rights they should have returned half
an hour before: it was, indeed, close upon dinner-time. But she had
been in the passage for a whole hour, with just an interval now and
then for a dive into the kitchen to see how the pasties were cooking.
She felt morally sure that they could not have returned without her
knowing it. They usually made her so exceedingly well aware of their
return.
Under Mrs Climoe's onslaught of accusation she wheeled about in
bewilderment, at the sound of hammering, to perceive Nicky-Nan at the
end of the passage, driving a staple into his doorpost with blows of
a poker.
"There now! What did I tell you?" persisted Mrs Climoe, attempting
to thrust herself past.
"This is my house," retorted Mrs Penhaligon, bravely heading her off.
"If my children--but I could take my oath, here afore th' Almighty--"
"You ask Mr Nanjivell! Why d'ee reckon he's puttin' a lock on his
doorway, 'nless 'tis to prevent what I'm tellin' you from happenin'
again?"
Mrs Penhaligon stared about her. She went to the kitchen, she passed
through the kitchen to the inner room. . . . No children! She came
down the passage and close behind Nicky-Nan (who continued to hammer
hypocritically), she gazed up the stairway and called "'Bert!"
"'Beida!" "You naughty children--come down this moment!" Still no
answer.
She turned upon Nicky-Nan. "If they're really here and have been
breakin' your glass--"
"You never heard no complaint from _me_, ma'am," answered Nicky-Nan,
still intent on fixing his staple.
"Oh!" interposed Mrs Climoe viciously, "if you two are colleaguin'
already to hush something up, the affair lies between you, of course.
It seems odd to me, Maria Penhaligon, an' your proper husband not two
days gone to the wars. But if Nicholas Nanjivell, here, chooses to
play father to the fatherless an' cover up the sins of the children
that go an' break his parlour windows afore my very eyes, well,
'tisn't for me to say more than I hope no harm'll come of it."
She was preparing to say more. If she said more, Nicky-Nan did not
hear it. For at this moment the three Penhaligon children broke in
at the porch, burst past Mrs Climoe, and clung to their mother,
clamouring for dinner.
In the hubbub Nicky-Nan meanly slipped back to his den, closed the
door, and dragged two chairs against it. Then he took a worn
tea-tray and propped it against the window, blocking the broken
panes. It seemed to him that the world had suddenly grown full of
eyes, peering upon him from every side.
CHAPTER X.
THE VICAR'S MISGIVINGS.
Mrs Steele, the Vicar's wife--a refined, shy little woman, somewhat
austere in self-discipline and her own devotional exercises, but
incapable of harsh judgment upon any other living soul--had spent
Bank Holiday in writing letters and addressing them (from a list
drawn up in long consultation with her husband) to "women-workers" of
all denominations in the parish, inviting them to meet in the
Vicarage drawing-room at 3.30 P.M. on Wednesday, to discuss "what
steps (if any) could be taken to form sewing-parties, ambulance
classes, &c.," and later to partake of afternoon tea.
The list was a depressing one, and not only because it included the
names of Mrs Polsue and Miss Oliver. "It makes my heart sink," Mrs
Steele confessed. "I hadn't realised till now, dear, how lonely we
are--after five years, too--in this parish. Three out of every four
are Nonconformists. It seems absurd, my taking the chair," she added
wistfully. "Most likely they will wonder--even if they don't ask
outright--what business I have to be showing the lead in this way."
The Vicar kissed his wife. "Let them wonder. And if they ask--but
they won't, being west-country and well-mannered--I shall be here to
answer."
"I wish you would answer them before they start to ask. That would
be running no risks. A few words from you, just to explain and put
them at their ease--"
He laughed. "Cunning woman!" said he, addressing an invisible
audience. "She means, 'to put _her_ at her ease,' by my taking over
the few well-chosen remarks expected of the chairwoman. . . .
My dear, I know you will be horribly nervous, and it would be easy
enough for me to do the talking. But I am not going to, and for two
reasons. To begin with, you will do it better--"
"My _dear_ Robert!"
"Twice as effectively--and all the more effectively if you contrive
to break down. _That_ would conciliate them at once; for it would be
evident proof that you disliked the job."
"I don't quite see."
"The religion of these good people very largely consists in shaping
their immortal souls against the grain: and I admire it, in a sense,
though on the whole it's not comparable with ours, which works
towards God by love through a natural felicity. Still, it is
disciplinary, and this country will have great use for it in the next
few months. To do everything you dislike, and to do it thoroughly,
will carry you quite a long way in war-time. The point at which
Protestantism becomes disreputable is when you so far yield to loving
your neighbour that you start chastising his sins to the neglect of
your own. I have never quite understood why charity should begin at
home, but I am sure that discipline ought to: and I sometimes think
it ought to stay there."
"That Mrs Polsue has such a disapproving face! . . . I wonder she
ever brought herself to marry."
"If you had only been following my argument, Agatha, you would see
that probably she had no time for repugnance, being preoccupied in
getting the poor fellow to do what he disliked. . . . Secondly--"
"Oh! A sermon!"
"Secondly," pursued the Vicar with firmness, "this War is so great a
business that, to my mind, it just swallows up--effaces--all scruples
and modesties and mock-modesties about precedence and the like.
If any one sees a job that wants doing, and a way to put it through,
he will simply have no time to be humble and let another man step
before him. The jealousies and the broken pieces of Etiquette can be
left to be picked up after the smoke has cleared away; and by that
time, belike, they will have cleared away with the smoke. Do you
remember that old story of Hans Andersen's, about the gale that
altered the signboards? Well, I prophesy that a good many signboards
will be altered by this blow, up and down England, perhaps even in
our little parish. If it teach us at all to see things as they are,
we shall all be known, the rest of our lives, for what we proved
ourselves to be in 1914."
"I saw in this morning's paper," said Mrs Steele, "that over at Troy
they have an inn called the King of Prussia, and the Mayor and
Corporation think of changing its name."
"Yes," said her husband gravely; "the Kaiser wrote to the Town Clerk
suggesting the Globe as more appropriate: but the Town Council, while
willing to make some alteration, is divided between the Blue Boar and
the Boot. . . . But that reminds me. If I am to attend your meeting,
let us call in the Wesleyan Minister as a set-off. There's nothing
makes a Woman's Meeting so womanly as a sprinkling of ministers of
religion."
"Robert, you are talking odiously, and you know it. I hate people to
be satirical or sarcastic. To begin with, I never understand what
they mean, so that I am helpless as well as uncomfortable."
The Vicar had taken a step or two to the bay-window, where, with
hands thrust within his trouser-pockets, he stood staring gloomily
out on the bright flower-beds that, next to the comeliness and order
of her ministering to the Church--garnishing of the altar, lustration
of the holy vessels, washing and mending of vestments,--were the
pride of Mrs Steele's life.
"See how the flowers, as at parade,
Under their colours stand display'd:
Each regiment in order grows,
That of the tulip, pink, and rose.--
O thou, that dear and happy Isle,
The garden of the world erstwhile,
Thou Paradise of the four seas
Which Heaven planted us to please,
But, to exclude the world, did guard
With wat'ry, if not flaming, sword;
Unhappy! shall we never more
That sweet militia restore?
When gardens only had their towers,
And all the garrisons were flowers. . . ."
He murmured Marvell's lines to himself and, with a shake of the
shoulders coming out of his brown study, swung round to the
writing-table again.
"Dear, I beg your pardon! . . . The truth is, I feel savage with
myself: and, being a condemned non-combatant, I vented it on the most
sensitive soul I could find, knowing it to be gentle, and taking care
(as you say) to catch and render it helpless." He groaned.
"Yes, yes--I am a brute! Even now I am using that same tone which
you detest. You do right to detest it. But will it comfort you a
little to know that when a man takes that tone, often enough it's
because he too feels helpless as well as angry? 'Mordant' is the
word, I believe: which means that the poor fool bites _you_ to get
his teeth into himself."
She rose from her writing-chair and touched him by the arm.
"Robert!" she appealed.
"Oh, yes--'What is the matter with me?' . . . Nothing--or, in other
words, Everything--that is to say, this War."
"It's terrible, of course; but I don't see--" She broke off.
"Is it the War itself that upsets you, or the little we can do to
help? If _that's_ your trouble, why, of course it was silly of me to
worry you just now about my being nervous of facing these people.
But we're only at the beginning--"
"Agatha!" The Vicar drew a hand from his pocket, laid it on his
wife's shoulder, and looked her in the eyes. "Don't I know that, if
the call came, you would face a platoon? It's I who am weak.
This War--" He stared out of the window again.
"It is a just War, if ever there was one. . . . Robert, you don't
doubt _that_, surely! Forced on us--Why, you yourself used to warn
me, when I little heeded, that the Germans were preparing it, that
'the Day' must come sooner or later: for they would have it so."
"That's true enough."
"So positive about it as you were then, proving to me that their
Naval Estimates could spell nothing else! . . . And now that it has
come, what is the matter with _us?_ Have _we_ provoked it? Have
_we_ torn up treaties? Had you, a week ago--had any one we know-the
smallest desire for it?"
"Before God, we had not. The English people--I will swear to it, in
this corner of the land--had no more quarrel with the Germans than I
have with you at this moment. Why, we saw how the first draft--the
Naval Reservists--went off last Sunday. In a kind of stupor, they
were. But wars are made by Governments, Agatha; never by peoples."
"And our Government--much as I detest them for their behaviour to the
Welsh Church--our Government worked for peace up to the last."
"I honestly believe they did. I am sure they did . . . up to the
last, as you say. The question is, _Were they glad or sorry when
they didn't bring it off?_"
"Robert!"
"I am trying--as we shall all have to try--to look at things as they
are. This trouble has been brewing ever since the South African War,
. . . and for ten years at least Germany has been shaping up for a
quarrel which we have hoped to decline. On a hundred points of
preparation they are ready and we are not; they have probably sown
this idle nation with their spies as they sowed France before 1870:
they make no more bones about a broken oath or two to-day than they
made about forging the Ems telegram. They are an unpleasant race,--
the North Germans, at least--and an uncivilised--"
"They make the most appalling noises with their soup. . . . Do you
remember that German baron at the _table d'hote_ at Genoa?"
"The point is that, with all their thoroughness in plotting, they
have no _savoir faire_; they are educated beyond the capacity of
their breeding; and the older, lazier, civilised nations have--as the
saying is--caught the barbarian stiff. It is--as you choose to look
at it--a tragedy of tactlessness or a triumph of tact; and for our
time, anyway, the last word upon the Church of Christ--call it
Eastern or Western, Roman, Lutheran, or Anglican."
Mrs Steele looked at her husband earnestly. "If you believe that--"
"But I do believe it," he interrupted.
"If you believe that," she persisted, "I can understand your
doubting, even despairing over a hundred things. . . . But below it
all I feel that you are angry with something deeper."
"Eh?"
"With something in yourself."
"Yes, you're right," he answered savagely. "You shall know what it
is," said he, on the instant correcting himself to tenderness, "when
I've taken hat and stick and gone out and wrestled with it."
As luck would have it, on his way down the hill he encountered Mr
Hambly, and delivered his message.
"The notion is that we form a small Emergency Committee. Here at
home, in the next few weeks or months, many things will want doing.
For the most important, we must keep an eye on the wives and families
whose breadwinners have gone off to fight; see that they get their
allotments of pay and separation allowances; and administer as wisely
as we can the relief funds that are already being started. Also the
ladies will desire, no doubt, to form working-parties, make hospital
shirts, knit socks, tear and roll lint for bandages. My wife even
suggests an ambulance class; and I have written to Mant, at St
Martin's, who may be willing to come over (say) once a week and teach
us the rudiments of 'First Aid' on the chance--a remote one, I own--
that one of these days we may get a boat-load of wounded at Polpier.
I'll admit, too, that all these preparations may well strike you as
petty, and even futile. But they may be good, anyhow, for our own
souls' health. They will give us a sense of helping."
Mr Hambly took off his spectacles and wiped them, for his eyes were
moist. "Do you know," said he, smiling, "that I was on my way to
visit you with a very similar proposal? . . . Now, as you are a good
thirty years younger than I, and, moreover, have been springing
downhill while I have been toiling laboriously up--" He glanced down
at his club foot.
--"That I took duty for you and did the long-windedness," put in the
Vicar with a laugh. "And I haven't quite finished yet. The idea is
(I should add) that, as in politics, so with our religious
differences, we all declare a truce of God. In Heaven's name let us
all pull together for once and forget our separation of creeds!"
The Minister rubbed his eyes gently; for the trouble, after all,
seemed to be with them and not with his spectacles.
"And I ought to add," said he, "that the first suggestion of such a
Committee came from the ladies of my congregation. The only credit I
can claim is for a certain obstinacy in resisting those who would
have confined the effort to our Society. . . . Most happily I managed
to prevail--and it was none the easier because I happen just now to
be a little out of odour with some of the more influential members of
what I suppose must be termed my 'flock.'"
"Yes: I heard that your sermon last Sunday had caused a scandal.
What was it you said? That, in a breakdown of Christianity like the
present, we might leave talk of the public-houses and usefully
consider Sunday closing of churches and chapels--or something of the
sort."
"Was it in that form the report reached you?" the Minister asked with
entire gravity. "There is an epigrammatist abroad in Polpier, and I
have never been able to trace him--or her. But it is the truth--and
it may well have leaked out in my discourse--that I feel our services
to have lost their point and our ministrations their savour. . . .
I--I beg your pardon," he corrected himself: "I should have said
'_my_ ministrations.'"
"Not at all. . . . Do you suppose I have not been feeling with you--
that all our business has suddenly turned flat, stale, unprofitable?"
"It is a natural discouragement. . . . Let us own it to none until we
have found our hearts again. I see now that even that hint of it in
my sermon was a momentary lapse of loyalty. Meanwhile I clutch on
this proposal of yours. It will give us all what we most want--a
sense of being useful."
The Vicar stepped back a pace and eyed him. Then, on an impulse--
"Hambly," he said, "you have to hear Confession. I am going to tell
you something I have kept secret even from my wife. . . . I have
written to the Bishop asking his permission to volunteer for
service."
"May God bring you safely back, my friend! If I were younger. . . .
And the Army will want chaplains."
"But I am not offering myself as a chaplain."
"How, then?"
"I am asking leave to _fight_. . . . Don't stare, man; and don't
answer me until you have heard my reasons. Well, you have read your
newspaper and must have noted how, all over Britain, the bishops,
clergy, and ministers of all denominations are turning themselves
into recruiting sergeants and urging men to fight. You note how they
preach this War as a War in defence of Law, in defence of Right
against Might, a War for the cause of humanity, a War for an ideal.
In to-day's paper it has even become a War against War. . . .
Well, if all this be true, why should I as a priest be denied my
share in the crusade? Why should I be forbidden to lay down my life
in what is, to these people, so evidently my Master's service?
Why should it be admirable--nay, a fundamental of manhood--in Tom and
Dick and Harry to play the Happy Warrior life-size, but reprehensible
in _me?_ Or again, look at it in _this_ way.--You and I, as
ministers of the Gospel, have gone about preaching it (pretty
ineffectively, to be sure) for a Gospel of Peace. Well now, if these
fellows are right, it turns out that we have been wrong all the time,
and the sooner we make amends, by carrying a gun, the better.
Any way--priest or no priest--I have in me certain scruples which
deter me from telling Tom or Dick or Harry to take a gun and kill a
man, and from scolding him if he is not quick about it, while I
myself am not proposing to take the risk or earn the undying honour--
or the guilt--whichever it may be."
"My mind moves slowly," said the Minister after a pause, during
which the Vicar drew breath. "And often, when confronted in a hurry
with an argument which I dislike but see no present way to
controvert, I fall back for moral support on the tone of the
disputant. . . . I have a feeling at this moment that you are in the
wrong, somewhere and somehow, because you are talking like an angry
man."
"So my wife assured me, half an hour ago. . . . Then let me put it
differently and with a sweet reasonableness. If this War be a Holy
War, why may I not share actively in it? Or on what principle, if
the military use of weapons be right for a layman, should it be wrong
for a clergyman? What differentiates us?"
"In a vague way," said the Minister, "I see that a great deal may
differentiate you. Suppose, now, I were to ask what separates you
from a layman, that you should have a right, which you deny him, to
pronounce the Absolution. You will answer me, and in firm faith,
that by a laying-on of hands you have inherited--in direct succession
from the Apostles--a certain particular virtue. You know me well
enough by this time to be sure that, while doubting your claim, I
respect its sincerity. . . . It is a claim, at least, which has
silently endured through some hundreds of generations of men, to
reassert itself quietly, times and again, after many hundreds of
accesses of human madness. . . . I do not press the validity of my
mission, which derives what sanction it may merely from a general
spiritual tradition of the race. But yours is special, you say; by
it _you_ are consecrated, separated, reserved. Then if you are
reserved to absolve men of their sins, may you not be rightly
reserved against sharing in their combats?"
"I am hot," the Vicar acknowledged; "and in my heat the most I can
manage is sarcasm. But I have the grace to hope that in process of
time I shall acquire the sweeter temper of irony."
A dull thud shook the atmosphere overhead, and was followed some four
seconds later by another and louder reverberation. The two men,
startled for a moment, smiled as they collected their thoughts.
"That means security, not danger."
"Gun-practice. We were warned of it by advertisement in this
morning's paper. A 9.4-inch gun, by the sound of it--and there goes
another! A battle-cruiser at least!--Shall we walk out to the cliffs
for a sight of her?"
CHAPTER XI.
THE THREE PILCHARDS.
"Boo-oom!" echoed Un' Benny Rowett on the Quay, mocking the noise of
the cannonade. "War--bloody war, my hearties! There goes a hundred
pound o' taxpayers' money; an' there go all our pilchards for this
season, the most promisin' in my recollection."
"He'll be tellin' us," suggested a humourist, "that the British Navy
is firin' on pilchards, in the hope there may be a submarine
somewhere amongst 'em."
"I never rose to the height o' puttin' myself into the enemy's mind,"
retorted Un' Benny; "which they tell me, in the newspapers, is the
greatest art o' warfare. I be a modest man, content with
understandin' pilchards; and if you'd ever taken that trouble, Zack
Mennear--Boo-oom! there it goes again!--you'd know that, soon as they
hear gunfire, or feel it--for their senses don't tally with mine, or
even with yours--plumb deep the fish sink. Th' Old Doctor used to
preach that, when sunk, they headed back for Americy; but seein' as
they sunk, and out o' reach o' net, I never could see the matter was
worth pursooin'. The point is, you an' me'll find ourselves poorer
men by Christmas. And that's War, and it hits us men o' peace both
ways. Boo-oom!--plunk goes one hundred pounds o' money to the bottom
o' the sea; an' close after it goes the fish! You may take my word--
'tis first throwin' away the helve and then the hatchet. I could
never see any sense in War, for my part; an' I remember bein' very
much impressed, back at the bye-election, by a little man who came
down uninvited in a check ulster and a straw hat. The Liberal
Committee disowned him, and he was afterwards taken up an' give three
months at Quarter Sessions for payin' his board an' lodgin' somewhere
with a fancy cheque. But he was most impressive, even convincing
while he lasted; and I remember to this day what he told us about the
South African War. 'That War, my friends,' he said, 'has cost us,
first an' last, two hundred an' fifty millions of money--and 'oo
_paid_ for it? You an' me.' Boo-oom! once more! That's the way the
money goes,--an', more by token, here comes Pamphlett to know what
the row's about, an' with the loose cash, I'se wage, fairly skipping
in his trouser-pockets."
Sure enough, Mr Pamphlett, as the cannonade shook the plate-glass
windows of his bank, had started up in some alarm, and was sallying
forth to seek reassurance. For again the inner sheet of the
newspaper, with its reports of the mobilisation of armies and of
embassies taking flight from various European capitals, had engaged
all his attention, and he had missed the advertisement columns.
On his way to ask news of the group of fishermen at the Quay-head he
hurried--and almost without observing him--past Nicky-Nan; who
likewise had hobbled forth to discover the meaning of the uproar,
and, having discovered it, had retired to seat himself on the bollard
outside the "Three Pilchards" and nurse his leg. "What's this firing
about?" asked Mr Pamphlett, arriving in a high state of perspiration.
"I--I gather, from the cool way you men are taking it, that there's
no cause for alarm?"
Now Un' Benny, who found it hard as a rule to bear ill-will toward
any living creature, very cordially disliked Mr Pamphlett--as indeed
did most of the men on the Quay. But whereas the dislike of
nine-tenths of Polpier was helpless as the toad's resentment of the
harrow--since the banker held the strings of sundry Fishing
Companies, and was a hard taskmaster--Un' Benny, with a few chosen
kinsmen, had preserved his independence.
"The kings o' the earth rise up together, sir," answered Un' Benny
very deliberately; "an' by consikence the little fishes take hidin'.
'Tis a poor look-out for our callin'--a wisht poor job altogether!
Fishers and apostles always stood in together, an' War's the
ruination o' both. What with the Gospel gone scat, an' no dividends
this side o' Christmas--"
"I asked you," interrupted Mr Pamphlett, "what that firing means, out
there? It's friendly, of course? A British battleship?"
"As to that," replied Un' Benny, slowly ruminating, "I wouldn' call
it _friendly_ in any man to let off a big-inch gun at anything.
That's not the word I'd choose. And I don't grant 'ee that there's
no danger because we men, as you call us"--here Un' Benny distributed
the emphasis delicately--"happen to be takin' it cool. But if you
ask my opinion, she's a first-class cruiser; an' you hit it off when
you asked, 'What's this firin' about?' 'Firin' about,' that's _of_
it, as I reckon; and aboard of her, belike, the boys that left us o'
Sunday, takin' a little practice to get their hands in. But there!
A guess is a guess; and if you're anxious about it, and'll step into
my boat, sir, we'll put out and make sure."
Mr Pamphlett ignored this proposal. He turned on the other men.
"It's a fine day, anyhow," he said; "and the wind turning
nor'-westerly. If sure she's only a cruiser at practice, why are you
fellows loafing in harbour?"
"As for _that_"--Un' Benny intercepted the question blandly--"they
can answer for their-selves, them that's under obligation to 'ee.
But you started on _me_, an' so I'll be polite an' lead off.
In th' first place, with all this tow-row, the fish be all gone to
bottom; there's not one'll take hook by day nor net by night.
An' next, with a parcel o' reservists pickin' up the gunnery they've
forgot, for a week or so the firin' is apt to be flippant. Yes, Mr
Pamphlett, you can go back to your business an' feel all the easier
in mind every time a bangin' great shell makes ye bob up an' down in
your chair. 'Tis a fine thing to stand here an' feel we've a Navy
protectin' us all; but don't send these poor fellows out to be
protected _too near_." Un' Benny's eyes twinkled a moment. "It does
'em good, too, to take a rest now an' then, an' smoke a pipe, an'
praise the Lord that made 'em Englishmen."
Mr Pamphlett detested Un' Benny's conversation. It always struck him
as significantly meaningless. Again he addressed himself to the
other men.
"What Rowett says about the fish is true enough, I dare say.
When they hear all this noise--"
But Un' Benny took him up, blandly as before. "There's a man, down
to Mevegissey," he said, "that holds 'tis no question of hearin', or
of what you and I do call hearin'. Accordin' to him the fish have a
sixth sense, denied to ordinary Christians--"
"I don't want to hear what this or that fool says at Mevegissey--"
"He's a County Councillor," murmured Un' Benny. "But, to be sure, it
don't follow."
"What _I_ say," pursued Mr Pamphlett, shaking a forefinger at the
group, "is that Rowett may be his own master, but the rest of you
mustn't take it into your heads that because our country happens to
be at war you've an excuse to be idle. 'Business as usual'--that's
my motto: and I doubt if Rowett here will find you a better-paying
one, however long you listen to him." On secure ground now, Mr
Pamphlett faced about, challenging the old man.
"Heigh?" said Un' Benny with a well-affected start of surprise.
"There now!--and I was allowin' you'd had enough o' my chatter.
'Business as usual'"--he looked closely at Mr Pamphlett, and so let
his gaze travel down the street, till it rested meditatively on the
Bank doorway. "'Business as usual' . . . aye to be sure!
Well, well!"
There was nothing in this upon which Mr Pamphlett could retort.
So, after wagging his forefinger again at the group of men, he turned
and left them.
On his way back he came face to face with Nicky-Nan, still solitary
and seated on his bollard; and pulled up before him.
"Oh, by the way, Nanjivell!--I hope you understand that the ejectment
order still holds, and that I can take possession of the premises at
any time?"
"That's as may be," answered Nicky-Nan slowly. "You tell me so, and
I hear you."
"I tell you so, and it's the law. . . . But I've no wish to be hard,
even after the trouble you've given me; and moreover this War may--
er--tend to interpose some delay in one or two small matters I
was--er--projecting. 'Business as usual' is, and has been--as I have
just been telling those fellows yonder--my motto since the early days
of the crisis "--Mr Pamphlett could not accurately remember when he
had first come upon that headline in his newspaper--"'Business as
usual,' but with--er--modifications, of course. As I remember, I
told you yesterday that, if you behave yourself, I may relent so far
as to give you a short grace."
"Thank 'ee," said Nicky-Nan. "I'm behavin' myself--that's to say, so
far as I know."
"But I want to make one or two points very clear to you. In the
first place, what I'm about to say is strictly without prejudice?"
Mr Pamphlett paused, upon a note of interrogation.
"I don't rightly know what that means. But no matter: since you're
sayin' it and I'm not."
"Secondly, if I give you yet a few weeks' grace, it is on condition
that you bring me your rent regularly from this time forward."
"Go on."
"Thirdly, you are to understand plainly that, as I have the power and
the right, so I shall use my own convenience, in ordering you to
quit. Happen this War will last a long time."
"Then 'tis an ill wind that blows good to nobody."
"Happen it may be a short one. Or again, even if it lasts, I may
change my mind and decide to start work on the premises at once.
There may be a depression in the building trade, for example, and
even putting in hand a small job like that would help to restore
public confidence."
"You may give any dam reason you please to yourself," said Nicky-Nan
uncompromisingly, "so long as you don't start palmin' it 'pon me.
I paid Hendy the costs o' the order this morning--which is not to say
that I promise 'ee to act on it. Whatever your reason may be, the
point is you don't propose turnin' me out till further notice--hey?"
"Provided your rent is duly paid up to date."
"Right." Nicky-Nan slid a hand into his trouser-pocket, where his
fingers met the reassuring touch of half-a-dozen sovereigns he
carried there for earnest of his good fortune.
"And on the understanding that I claim possession whenever it suits
me. When I say 'the understanding,' of course, there's no bargain
implied. I am in a position to do as I like at any time. I want to
make that clear."
"Very thoughtful of you."
"Well, I'm glad you're grateful."
"Who said so?"
"At least," answered Mr Pamphlett with rising choler, "you must own
that I have shown you great consideration--great consideration _and_
forbearance." He checked his wrath, being a man who had severely
trained himself to keep his temper in any discussion touching
business. To the observance of this simple rule, indeed, he owed
half his success in life. (During the operation of getting the
better of a fellow-man, it was wellnigh impossible to ruffle Mr
Pamphlett.) "I'll leave you to think it over."
"Thank 'ee," said Nicky-Nan as the banker walked away; and sat on in
the August sunshine, the potable gold of which harmonised with the
tangible gold in his pockets, but so that he, being able to pay the
piper, felt himself in command of the tune. He had ballasted both
pockets with coins. It gave him a wonderful sense of stability, on
the strength of which he had been able to talk with Mr Pamphlett as
one man should with another. And lo! he had prevailed. Obedient to
some subtle sense, Pamphlett had lowered his usual domineering tone,
and was climbing down under the bluff he yet maintained. . . .
Nicky-Nan was not grateful: but already he felt inclined to make
allowance for the fellow. What a mastery money gave!
A voice hailed him from the doorway of the Three Pilchards.
"Mornin', Nicky!"
Nicky-Nan slewed himself about on the bollard, and encountered the
genial gaze of Mr Latter, the landlord. Mr Latter, a retired Petty
Officer of the Navy, stood six feet two inches in his socks, and
carried a stomach which incommoded even that unusual stature.
The entrance-door of the Three Pilchards being constructed in two
flaps, Mr Latter habitually closed the lower one and eased the upper
part of his facade upon it while he surveyed the world.
"Mornin', Nicky!" repeated Mr Latter. "I han't seen ye this couple
o' days; but I had word you weren't gone with the rest, your leg
bein' so bad. Step indoors, an' rest it over a drink."
"You're very kind, Mr Latter," Nicky-Nan answered somewhat stiffly.
"I was just then thinkin' I'd come in and order one for the good o'
the house." To himself he added: "One o' these days I'll teach
that man to speak to me as 'Mr Nanjivell'--though it come to
remindin' him that his wife's mother was my father's wet-nurse, and
glad of the job." But this he growled to himself as he hobbled up
the steps to the door.
"I didn't say anything about payment," Mr Latter remarked affably,
stepping back a pace as he pulled open the flap of the door, and
politely suppressing a groan at the removal of that abdominal
support. "I was askin' you to oblige me by takin' a drink, seein' as
how--"
"Seein' as how _what?_" Nicky-Nan asked with suppressed fierceness as
he pushed his way in, conscious of the ballast in his pocket.
(Wonderful--let it be said again--is the confidence that money
carries: subtle and potent the ways by which it asserts itself upon
the minds of men!)
--"Seein' as how," Mr Latter corrected himself, drawing back again
and giving such room in the passage as his waist allowed--"seein' as
how all true patriots should have a fellow-feelin' in times like the
present, an' stand shoulder to shoulder, so to speak, not refusin' a
drink when offered in a friendly way. It gives a feelin' of
solidarity, as one might say. That's the word--solidarity.
Still, if you insist," he paused, following Nicky-Nan into the little
bar-parlour, "I mustn't say no. The law don't allow me. A two of
beer, if I may suggest?"
"Brandy for me!" said Nicky-Nan recklessly. "And a soda."
"Brandy for heroes, as the sayin' is. Which, if Three Star, is
sixpence, an' two is a shilling, and a split soda makes one-an'-four.
'Tis a grand beverage, but terrible costly." Mr Latter took down the
bottle from its shelf and uncorked it, still with an incredulous eye
on Nicky-Nan. "What with the War breakin' out an' takin' away the
visitors, an' money certain (as they tell me) to be scarce all over
the land, I didn' reckon to sell another glass between this an'
Christmas; when in walks you, large as my lord, and calls for a
brace! . . . Sure ye mean it?"
"I never insisted 'pon _your_ choosin' brandy," said Nicky-Nan,
beginning to fumble in his left trouser-pocket. "You can make it
beer if you wish, but _I_ said 'brandy.' If you have no--"
He ended on a sharp outcry, as of physical pain.
For a dire accident had happened. The men of Polpier (as this
narrative may or may not have mentioned)--that is to say, all who are
connected with the fishery--in obedience to a customary law,
unwritten but stringent, clothe the upper part of their persons in
blue guernsey smocks. These being pocketless, all personal cargo has
to be stowed somewhere below the belt. (In Mrs Pengelly's shop you
may purchase trousers that have as many as four pockets. They cost
anything from eleven-and-sixpence to fifteen shillings, and you ask
Mrs Pengelly for them under the categorical name of "non-plush
unmentionables"--"non-plush" being short for _Non Plus Ultra_.)
Nicky-Nan, then, plunging a hand into his left trouser-pocket in
search of a florin which he believed to lie there amidst the costlier
cargo, and confident that by its size and his sense of touch he could
separate it from the gold, found that he must first remove his
pocket-handkerchief. As he drew it forth, alas! two golden
sovereigns followed in its fold, fell, and jingled on the slate-paved
floor. Not all the fresh sawdust strewn there could deaden the merry
sound of wealth. The two coins ran trickling, the one to clash
against a brass spittoon, the other to take hiding in a dark corner
under the counter. "You might," said Mr Latter that evening,
relating the occurrence to a circle of steady customers, "have
knocked me down with a feather. To see old Nicky, of all men,
standin' there before my very eyes an' sheddin' gold like a
cornopean!"
What Mr Latter did at the moment, or as soon as he recovered his
presence of mind, was to set down his bottle and dive under the
counter; while Nicky-Nan chased the coin which had ricochetted off
the spittoon and lodged against the wainscot. Their physical
infirmities made the pursuit painful for both, as the darkness in a
small room overcrowded with furniture made it difficult. Mr Latter
emerged panting, in audible bodily distress. His search had been
longer than Nicky-Nan's, but it was successful. He straightened
himself up and held out the coin to the light.
"A sovereign! . . . I'll have to go out an' fetch change.
A sovereign, send I may never!" He rang it on the bar-counter.
"I'll step along an' get change from the Bank."
"There's no hurry," stammered Nicky-Nan hastily and in confusion.
"Let's have the drink, an' maybe I can fish out something smaller.
. . . You keep your parlour very dark," he added, repocketing both
coins.
"I reckon now," observed Mr Latter thoughtfully as he measured out
the two tots of brandy, "that 'taty-patch o' your'n has been a
perfect gold-mine this season. Everyone tells me how agriculture is
lookin' up."
Nicky-Nan sought refuge in a falsehood.
"'Tis my rent," said he, "that I've been savin' up for Pamphlett.
Didn' you see him stop an' speak wi' me five minutes since?
Well, that was to make an appointment an' give me the receipt.
Between you an' me, I've been gettin' a bit to leeward with it
lately."
"Ay," said Mr Latter, opening the soda-water and pouring it.
"Everybody in the parish knows _that_. . . . Well, things are
lookin' up, seemingly, and I congratulate 'ee. Here's Success to
Agriculture! . . . Brandy for heroes! 'Tis a curious thing, how
this partic'lar drink goes straight to the heart an' kindles it.
Champagne has the same effect, only more so. A glass o' champagne
will keep kickin' inside o' ye for an hour maybe. With brandy 'tis
soon over and you want another go. I've noticed that often."
"You won't have a chance to notice it today." Nicky-Nan drained his
glass at a gulp, and searched again in his pockets. . . .
"And if you'll believe me," reported Mr Latter to a wondering
audience that evening, "the man pulled out of his pocket--his _right_
pocket, this time--a two-shillin' piece and a penny; and as he picks
out the two-shillin' piece, to pay me, what happens but he lets drop
another sovereign, that had got caught between the two! It pitched
under the flap o' the counter an' rolled right to my boot! 'What did
I say to en?' Well, I don't mind ownin' that for a moment it took me
full aback an' tied the string o' my tongue. But as I picked it up
and handed it to en, I says, says I, 'Mr Nanjivell,' I says, 'at this
rate I don't wonder your not joinin'-up wi' the Reserve.' . . .
What's more, naybours, I don't mind admittin' to you that after the
man had paid an' left, I slipped to the door an' keeked out after
him--an' that story of his about it bein' his rent-money was all a
flam. He went past Pamphlett's Bank, never so much as turnin' to
look at it."
CHAPTER XII.
FIRST ATTEMPT AT HIDING.
Nicky-Nan belonged, congenitally and unconsciously, to that happy
brotherhood of men--_felices sua si bona norint_--whom a little
liquor exhilarates, but even a great deal has no power to bemuse.
But what avails an immunity above your fellows, if life seldom or
never gives you opportunity to prove it?
Nicky-Nan had drunk, after long abstinence and upon a fasting
stomach, one brandy-and-soda. He was sober as a judge; he walked
straight and--bating his weak leg--firmly, yet he trod on air: he
looked neither to the right nor to the left, yet he saw nothing of
the familiar street through which he steered. For a vision danced
ahead of him. Gold in his pockets, golden sunshine now in his
veins--thanks to the brandy-and-soda,--a golden vision weaving itself
and flickering in the golden August weather, and in his ears a
sentence running, chiming, striking upon the word "gold"--
"Ding-a-ding-a-dong! 'Taty-patch a _gold_ mine--'taty-patch a _gold_
mine!" The prosaic Mr Latter had set the chime ringing, as a dull
sacristan might unloose the music of a belfry; but like a chime of
faery it rippled and trilled, closing ever upon the deep note "gold,"
and echoed back as from a veritable gong of that metal.
"'Taty-patch a gold mine"--How came it that, until Latter put the
idea into his head, he had never thought of this, his one firm
holding on earth, as a hiding-place for his treasure? His lodging in
the old house, hard as he would fight for it, acknowledged another
man's will. But the patch of ground by the cliff was his own.
He had claimed its virginity, chosen and tamed it, marked it off,
fenced it about, broken the soil, trenched it, wrought it, taught the
barren to bear. It lay remote, approachable only by a narrow
cliff-track, overlooked by no human dwelling, doubly concealed--by a
small twist of the coast-line and a dip of the ground--from the
telescopes of the coastguard in their watch-house. Folks had hinted
from time to time (but always chaffing him) that the land must
belong to _some one_--to the Crown, maybe, or, more likely, to the
Duchy. But he had tilled it for years undisturbed and unchallenged.
The parcel had come to be known as "Nicky-Nan's Chapel," because on
fine Sundays, when godlier folks were in church, he spent so much of
his time there, smoking and watching the Channel and thinking his
thoughts. It was inconceivable that any one should dispute his title
now, after the hundreds and hundreds of maundfuls of seaweed under
which, first and last--in his later years--he had staggered up the
path from the Cove, to incorporate them in the soil.
At the turn of the street he fetched up standing, arrested by another
bright idea. Why, of course! He would carry up a part of his wealth
to the 'taty-patch and bury it. . . . But a man shouldn't put all his
eggs in one basket, and--_why_ hadn't he thought of it before?
The money had lain those many years, safe and unsuspected, under the
false floor of the cupboard. Simplest thing in the world, now that
Pamphlett had given him a respite, to plank up the place again with a
couple of new boards, plaster up the ceiling of the sitting-room, and
restore a good part of the gold to its hiding!--not all of it,
though; since Pamphlett might change his mind at any time, and of a
sudden. No, a good part of the gold must be conveyed to the
'taty-patch. He would make a start, maybe, that very night--or
rather, that very evening in the dusk when the moon rose: for (now he
came to remember) the moon would be at her full to-morrow, or next
day. While the dusk lasted he could dig, up there, and no passer-by
would suspect him of any intent beyond eking out the last glimpse of
day. To be surprised in the act of digging by moonlight was another
matter, and might start an evil rumour. For one thing, it was held
uncanny, in Polpier, to turn the soil by moonlight--a deed never done
save by witches or persons in league with Satan. Albeit they may not
own to it, two-thirds of the inhabitants of Polpier believe in black
magic.
He would make a start, then, towards dusk. There was no occasion to
take any great load at one time, or even to be seen with any
conspicuous burden. As much gold as his two pockets would carry--
that would serve for a start. To-morrow he might venture to visit
Mrs Pengelly and purchase a new and more capacious pair of trousers--
to-morrow, or perhaps the day after. Caution was necessary. He had
already astonished Mr Gedye, the ironmonger, with his affluence: and
just now again, like a fool, he had been dropping sovereigns about
Latter's bar-parlour. That had been an awkward moment. He had
extricated himself with no little skill, but it was a warning to be
careful against multiplying evidence or letting it multiply. A new
pair of trousers, as this narrative has already hinted, is always a
somewhat dazzling adventure in Polpier. No. . . . decidedly he had
better postpone _that_ investment. Just now he would step around to
boatbuilder Jago's and borrow or purchase a short length of
eight-inch planking to repair the flooring of the bedroom cupboard.
Jago had a plenty of such odd lengths to be had for the asking.
"I'll make out the top of the water-butt wants mending," said
Nicky-Nan to himself. "Lord! what foolishness folk talk about the
contrivances of poverty. Here have I been living in fear and
tremblement over a dozen things never likely to befall, and all
because my brain has been starving for years, along with my stomach.
Start the pump with a dose of brandy, and it rewards ye by working
sweet and suent. Here at this moment be a dozen things possible and
easy, that two hours agone were worrying me to the grave. Now I know
how rich men thrive, and I'll use the secret. Simplicity itself it
is: for set me on the Lord Mayor's throne and fill me with expensive
meat and drink, and I'll be bold to command the Powers o' Darkness."
This was fine talking. But he had not freed himself from the tremors
of wealth: and now again--
Can such things be,
And overcome us like a summer cloud,
Without our special wonder?
--now and again and for about the twentieth time--now again, as he
turned to bend his steps towards Boatbuilder Jago's yard--suddenly
and without warning, as a wave the terror took him that in his
absence some thief or spy had surprised his hoard. Under its urgency
he wheeled right-about and hurried for home, to assure himself that
all was safe.
Such was his haste that in passing the corner of the bridge he
scarcely observed a knot of children gathered thereby, until 'Beida's
voice hailed him and brought him to a halt.
"Mr Nanjivell!"
"Hey! Is that you, Missy?" Nicky-Nan wheeled half-about.
"If you had eyes in your head, you wouldn' be starin' at me," said
'Beida, "but at 'Bert. Look at him--And you, 'Biades, can stand
there an' look up at him so long as you like, provided you don't bust
out cryin' at his altered appearance: no, nor crick your neck in
doin' it, but bear in mind that mother used up the last of the arnica
when you did it last time tryin' to count the buttons up Policeman
Rat-it-all's uniform, an' that if the wind should shift of a sudden
and catch you with your eyes bulgin' out of your head like they'm
doin' at this moment, happen 'twill fix you up comical for life: an'
then instead of your growin' up apprenticed to a butcher, as has been
your constant dream, we'll have to put you into a travellin' show for
a gogglin' May-game, an' that's where your heart will be turnin'
ever, far from the Old Folks at Home. . . . You'll excuse me, Mr
Nanjivell, but the time an' trouble it costs to wean that child's
eyes off anything in the shape of a novelty you'd hardly believe.
. . . Well, what do you say to 'Bert?"
"I'd say," answered Nicky-Nan slowly, contemplating the boy--who wore
a slouch hat, a brown shirt with a loosely tied neckerchief,
dark-blue cut-shorts and stockings that exhibited some three inches
of bare knee--"I'd say, if he came on me sudden, that he was Buffalo
Bill or else Baden Powell, or else the pair rolled into one."
"You wouldn't be far wrong either. He's a Boy Scout, that's what he
is. Walked over to St Martin's this mornin' an' joined up. A kind
lady over there was so took with his appearance that she had to
improve it or die on the spot, out of her own pocket. He's walked
back with his own trousers in a parcel, lookin'--well, like what you
see. _I_ think it becomin', on the whole. He tells me his motto is
'Be British,' an' he has to do a kind action every day of his life:
which he won't find easy, in a little place like Polpier."
As 'Beida drew breath, the boy faced Nicky-Nan half sulkily.
"They put me into this outfit. I didn't _ask_ for it."
"If you want my opinion, 'Bert," said Nicky-Nan, "it suits 'ee very
well; an' you look two inches taller in it already."
He hurried on in the direction of Boatbuilder Jago's yard, which
stands close above the foreshore, on the eastern side of the little
haven. When he returned, with the boards under his arm, it was to
find 'Bert the centre of a knot of boys, all envious--though two or
three were making brave attempts to hide it under a fire of jocose
criticism. It was plain, however, that morally 'Bert held the upper
hand. Whilst they had been playing silly games around the Quay, he
had walked to St Martin's and done the real thing. No amount of
chaff could hide that his had been the glory of the initiative.
Indeed, he showed less of annoyance with his critics than of boredom
with 'Biades, who, whichever way his big brother turned, revolved
punctually as a satellite, never relaxing his rapt, upward gaze of
idolatry.
"You can shut your heads, the whole lot," said 'Bert airily. "First
thing to-morrow mornin' the half of 'ee'll be startin' over for
St Martin's to enlist; an' you know it. Better fit you went off home
and asked your dear mammies to put 'ee to bed early. Because there's
not only the walk to St Martin's an' back--which is six mile--but
when you've passed the doctor for bandy legs or weak eyesight, you
may be started on duty that very night. I ben't allowed to say more
just now," he added with a fine air of official reticence. "And as
for _you_"--he turned impatiently on 'Biades--"I wish you'd find your
sister, to fetch an' shut 'ee away somewhere. Where's 'Beida _to?_"
"She's breakin' the news to mother," answered 'Biades.
By seven o'clock Nicky-Nan had measured and cut his boards to size.
He fitted them loosely to floor the bedroom cupboard. Later on he
would fix them securely in place with screws. But by this time
daylight was dusking in, and more urgent business called him.
Returning to the parlour downstairs, he refilled his pockets with the
gold of which he had lightened himself for his carpentry, knotted
another twenty sovereigns tightly in his handkerchief, picked up the
lighter of his two spades--for some months he had eschewed the
heavier--and took his way through the streets, up the cliff-track by
the warren, and so past the coastguard watch-house.
The sun had dropped behind the hill, leaving the West one haze of
gold: but southward and seaward this gold grew fainter and fainter,
paling into an afterglow of the most delicate blue-amber. In the
scarce-canny light, as he rounded the corner of the cliff, he
perceived two small figures standing above the hollow which ran down
funnel-wise containing his patch, and recognised them.
"Drat them children!" he muttered; but kept on his way, and, drawing
near, demanded to know what business brought them so far from home at
such an hour.
"I might ask you the same question," retorted 'Beida. "Funny time,--
isn't it?--to start diggin' potatoes? An' before now I've always
notice you use a visgy for the job. Yet you can't be _plantin_--not
at this season--"
"I find the light spade handier to carry," explained Nicky-Nan in
some haste. "But you haven't answered my question."
"Well, if you _must_ know, I'm kissin' goodnight to 'Bert here.
They've started him upon coast-watchin', and he's given this beat
till ten-thirty, from the watch-house half-way to the Cove.
I shouldn' wonder if he broke his neck."
"No fear," put in 'Bert, proudly exhibiting and flashing a cheap
electric torch. "They gave me this at St Martin's--and in less than
an hour the moon'll be up."
"But the paper says there be so many spies about--eh, Mr Nanjivell?"
"Damme," groaned Nicky-Nan, "I should think there were! Well, if
there's military work afoot, at this rate, I'd better clear.
--Unless 'Bert would like me to stay here an' chat with 'en for
company."
"We ben't allowed to talk--not when on duty," declared young 'Bert
stoutly.
"Then kiss your brother, Missy, an' we'll trundle-ways home."
CHAPTER XIII.
FIRST AID.
"I hope, Mary-Martha," said Miss Oliver, pausing half-way up the hill
and panting, "that, whatever happens, you will take a proper stand."
"You are short of breath. You should take more exercise." Mrs
Polsue eyed her severely. "When an unmarried woman gets to your time
of life, she's apt to think that everything can be got over with
Fruit Salts and an occasional dose of Somebody's Emulsion.
Whereas it can't. I take a mile walk up the valley and back every
day of my life."
"I don't believe you could perspire if you tried, Mary-Martha."
"Well, and _you_ needn't make a merit of it, . . . and if you ask
_me_," pursued Mrs Polsue, "one half of your palpitation is put on.
You're nervous what show you'll make in the drawing-room, and that's
why you're dilly-dallyin' with your questions and stoppages."
"Mrs Steele and me not being on visiting terms--" Miss Oliver
started to explain pathetically. "Yes, I know it was my _duty_ to
call when they first came: but what with one thing and another, and
not knowing how she might take it--Of course, Mary-Martha, if you
insist on walking ahead like a band-major, I can't prevent it.
But it only shows a ruck in your left stocking."
Mrs Polsue turned about in the road. "You were hoping, you said,
that I'd be taking a proper stand? If that woman comes any airs over
me--"
She walked on without finishing the sentence. "She's every bit as
much afraid as I am," said Miss Oliver to herself, as she panted to
catch up; "the difference being that I want to put it off and she's
dying to get it over." Aloud she remarked, "Well, and that's all I
was saying. As like as not they'll be trying to come it over us; and
if we leave it to Hambly--"
"_Him?_" Mrs Polsue sniffed. "You leave it to me!"
The Vicar welcomed them in the porch, and his pleasantly courteous
smile, which took their friendliness for granted, disarmed Mrs Polsue
for a moment. "It took the starch out of you straight: I couldn't
help noticin'," was Miss Oliver's comment, later in the day.
"It took me by surprise," Mrs Polsue corrected her: "--a man has no
business to stand grimacing in his own doorway like a--a--"
"Butler," suggested Miss Oliver, "--like a figure in a
weather-house. What do _you_ know about butlers? . . . but"--after a
pause--"I daresay you're right, there. I've heard it put about that
her father used to keep one; and quite likely, now you mention it,
she stuck her husband in the doorway to hide the come-down."
"The pot-plants were lovely," Miss Oliver sighed; "they made me feel
for the moment like Eve in the Garden of Eden." "Then I'm thankful
you didn't behave like it. _I_ was stiff enough by time we reached
the drawing-room."
"Stiff" indeed but faintly describes Mrs Polsue's demeanour in the
drawing-room; where, within a few minutes, were gathered Mrs
Pamphlett, Mr Hambly, Dr Mant (who had obligingly motored over from
St Martin's), five or six farm wives, with a husband or two (notably
Farmer Best of Tresunger, an immense man who, apparently mistaking
the occasion for a wedding, had indued a pair of white cotton gloves,
which he declined to remove, ignoring his wife's nudges). Four or
five timid "women-workers," with our two ladies and the host and
hostess, completed the gathering.
Mrs Steele opened the business amid an oppressive silence, against
which all the Vicar's easy chat had contended in vain.
"I hope," she began nervously, "that at such a time none of you will
object to my using the word I want to use, and calling you 'friends'?
. . . My friends, then--It was at my husband's suggestion that I
invited you to meet this afternoon--because, you know, _somebody_
must make a beginning."
"Hear, hear," put in Dr Mant encouragingly. Mrs Steele's voice grew
a little firmer. "We thought, too, that the Vicarage might be the
most convenient place on the whole. It is a sharp walk up the hill
for those of you who live in Polpier itself: but our stables being
empty, the farmers, who come from farther and just now at greater
sacrifice, escape a jolting drive down into the village and back."
"Hear, hear," repeated Dr Mant. He was thinking of the tyres of his
car. But this time he overdid it, and fetched up Mrs Polsue as by a
galvanic shock.
"If interruptions are to be the order of the day," said Mrs Polsue,
"I'd like to enter my protest at once. I don't hold, for my part,
with calling public meetings--for I suppose this _is_ a public
meeting?" she asked, breaking off, with a challenging eye on the
Vicar.
"By no means," he answered with quick good-humour. "It's a meeting
by invitation, though--as my wife was about to explain--the
invitations were meant to include _friends_ of all creeds and
parties."
"It's for a public purpose, anyhow?"
"Certainly."
"Then I may be saying what doesn't meet with your approval, or Mrs
Steele's, or the company's: but that's just my point. I don't hold
with meetings for public business being called in a private house.
Because if things are done that you don't approve of, either you sit
mum-chance out o' politeness, or else you speak your mind and offend
your host and hostess."
Mr Hambly was about to interpose, but the Vicar checked him with a
quick movement of his hand.
"Mrs Polsue's is a real point; and, if she will allow me to say so,
she has put it very well. Indeed, I was going to propose, later on,
that we hold our future meetings in a place to be agreed on. This is
just a preliminary talk; and when a dozen people meet to discuss,
it's handier as a rule to have some one in the chair. . . .
You agree? . . . Then for form's sake, I propose that we elect a
chairman."
"And I propose Mrs Steele," added Mr Hambly.
"Seconded," said Farmer Best. "Damn it!"
"William!" his spouse ejaculated. (She knew that he detested Mrs
Polsue, whom he had once described in private as "the p'isenest
'ooman that ever licked verdigris off a farthing.")
"'Tis all right, Chrisjana," he responded in a muffled voice, with
head abased as nearly between his calves as a protuberant stomach
allowed. "But one o' the castors o' this here chair has given way.
. . . Beggin' your pardon, ma'am,"--he raised a face half-apoplectic
but cheerful, and turned it upon his hostess--"but I totalled up
seventeen score when last weighed. There's no damage done that can't
be set right with a screw-driver afore I go." Then, with another
turn-about that embraced the company, "Proposed an' seconded that Mrs
Steele do take the chair. Those in favour say 'Hi!'--the contrary
'No.' . . . The Hi's 'ave it." (Farmer Best was Vice-Chairman of the
Board of Guardians, and knew how to conduct public business.)
Mrs Steele resumed her little speech. A pink spot showed upon either
cheek, but she spoke bravely.
"I suppose the first thing to be done is to see, as tactfully as we
can, that during these first few weeks at any rate the wives and
families of the men who have gone away to fight for us suffer no
want. There are other ways in which we can be useful--And I take it
for granted that all of us women, who cannot fight, are longing to be
useful in some way or other. . . . There is the working of socks,
scarves, waistcoats, for instance; the tearing and rolling of
bandages; and Dr Mant, who has so kindly driven over from St
Martin's, tells me that he is ready to be kinder still and teach an
Ambulance Class. . . . But our first business--as he and Mr Hambly
agree--is to make sure that the wives and children of our reservists
want neither food nor money to pay their rent. . . . They tell me
that in a few weeks the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association
will be ready to take much of this work off our hands, though acting
through local distributors. Indeed, the Vicar--indeed, my husband
has already received a letter from the District Secretary of the
Association asking him to undertake this work. In time, too, no
doubt--as Government makes better provision--that work will grow less
and less. But we have not even arrived at it yet. Until it is set
going these poor women and children may be short of money or the food
that money buys. So the proposal is to raise a few pounds, form a
War Emergency Committee, and tide matters over until a higher
authority supersedes us. For in the interval a neighbour may be
starving because her husband has gone off to fight for his country.
None of us, surely, could bear the thought of that?"
Mrs Steele's voice had gathered confidence, with something of real
emotion, as it went on; and an approving murmur acknowledged her
little speech. Her husband, whose eyes had kindled towards the
close, was in the act of throwing her an applausive glance when Mrs
Polsue's voice cut the silence sharply.
"I don't understand this talk about a Soldiers' and Sailors'
Association, or whatever you call it. Are we a part of it, here in
this room?"
"Oh, no," the Vicar answered. "We are here merely to discuss forming
an Emergency Committee, to provide (among other things) present
relief until the Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association--
dreadful name!--until the S.S.F.A., as we'll call it, is ready to
take over the work."
"And then we shall be cold-shouldered out, I suppose?"
"Dang it, ma'am!" put in Farmer Best. "What matter who does the
work, so long as the poor critters be fed meantime?"
[Here we should observe that while Mrs Polsue had a trick of sniffing
that suggested a chronic cold in the head, Farmer Best suffered from
an equally chronic obstruction of the respiratory organs, or (as he
preferred to call them) his pipes. As from time to time he essayed
to clear one or another of these, the resultant noise, always
explosive, resembled the snort of a bullock or the _klock_ of a
strangulated suction-pump. With these interjections Mrs Polsue on
the one hand, Farmer Best on the other, punctuated the following
dialogue. And this embarrassed the company, which, obliged in
politeness to attribute them to purely physical causes, could not but
own inwardly that they _might_ be mistaken for the comments--and
highly expressive ones--of mutual disapprobation.]
"Danging it don't answer my question--nor banging it," persisted Mrs
Polsue. "I want to know more about this Association, and where _we_
come in. . . . Just now, Mrs Steele was talking about a District
Secretary and local distributors--which looks to me as if the whole
business was cut-and-dried."
"There's nothing cut an' dried about _me_, ma'am." Farmer Best's
sharp little eyes twinkled, and he chuckled obesely.
"Again Mrs Polsue has the right of it," answered the Vicar.
"Perhaps I should have explained at the beginning that this War,
coming upon us so suddenly, has taken the S.S.F.A. somewhat at
unawares, in Cornwall at any rate. The machinery exists--in
skeleton; but there still wants the _personnel_ to work it.
In our District, for instance--"
"District?" snapped Mrs Polsue. "What's a District?"
The Vicar pulled a wry face. "The Districts at present correspond
with the Deaneries in the diocese."
"O-oh, indeed? Ha!"
"There is worse to come, Mrs Polsue." He laughed frankly.
"You asked, 'Who are the local distributors?' A present rule of the
Association--which I beg you to believe that I regret--provides for
two agents in each parish, to report and advise on cases: the Parson,
and one of the Guardians."
"--And that's me, ma'am. _Honk!_" added Farmer Best. "I'm what
Parson called the skelliton of the machinery." He wound up with a
wink at the company, and a wheezy laugh.
"You may titter, all of you!" Mrs Polsue glared about her. "But if
ever there was hole-and-corner sectarianism in this world--And _this_
is what we've come to listen to!"
"You han't done much listenin' up to now, ma'am."
"Forgive me," Mrs Steele interposed, as Dr Mant looked at his watch.
"I don't know much about rules of the chair; but I really think you
are all out of order. We are not yet discussing the Association or
its rules, but whether or not we shall form a Committee to look after
these poor people until something better is done for them.
We in this room, at all events, belong to very different
denominations. I--I hope we meet only as Christians."
Farmer Best slapped his thigh. "Bray-vo, ma'am! and you never spoke
a truer word."
"I only wish to add," the Vicar persisted, "that before any outside
society works in this parish, I shall urge very strongly that the
parish nominates its agents: and that I hope to have the pleasure of
proposing Mrs Polsue and Mr Hambly. One more word--"
"Certainly not." His wife cut him short with a sharp rap on the
table. "I can rule _you_ out of order, at all events!"
Everybody laughed. Even Mrs Polsue was mollified. "Well, I managed
to drag the truth out at last," was her final shot, as the meeting
resolved itself into Committee and fell to business.
She was further placated, a few minutes later, by being elected
(on the Vicar's proposition) a member of the House-to-house Visiting
Sub-Committee. "'Twill give her," Farmer Best growled to his wife,
later, as they jogged home in the gig, "the chance of her life to
poke a nose into other folks' kitchens."
Farmer Best--it should here be observed--with all his oddities, was
an exemplary Poor Law Guardian. He had small personal acquaintance
with Polpier itself: the steepness of the coombs in which it lay was
penible to a man of his weight: yet, albeit by hearsay, he knew the
inner workings of the small town, being interested in the
circumstances of all his neighbours, vividly charitable towards them,
and at the same time no fool in judging. Of the country-folk within
a circuit of twelve miles or more his knowledge was something
daemonic. He could recount their pedigrees, intermarriages, numbers
in family; he understood their straits, their degrees of affluence;
he could not look across a gate at a crop, or view the state of a
thatch, but his mind worked sympathetically with some neighbour's
economies. He gave away little in hard money; but his charities in
time and personal service were endless. And the countryside
respected him thoroughly: for he was eccentric in the fashion of a
true Englishman, and, with all his benevolence, you had to get up
early to take him in.
Nor was Farmer Best the only one to doubt Mrs Polsue's fitness for
her place in the sub-committee. Mrs Steele spoke to her husband very
positively about it as he helped to water her begonia-beds in the
cool of the evening.
"You were weak," she said, "to play up to that woman: when you know
she is odious."
"The more reason," he answered. "If you're a Christian and find your
neighbour odious, you conciliate him."
"Fiddlesticks!"
"My dear Agatha--isn't that a somewhat strong expression, for you?"
She set down her watering-pot.
"Do you know what I _want_ to say?" she asked. "I _want_ to say,
'Go to blazes!' . . . When I said the woman is odious, do you suppose
I meant odious to me or to you?"
"O-oh!" The Vicar rubbed the back of his head penitently.
"I am sorry, Agatha--I was thinking of the time she gave you this
afternoon."
"She will give those poor women a worse time--a dreadful time!" said
Mrs Steele, with conviction.
He picked up his watering-pot in such a hurry as to spill a tenth or
so of its contents into his shoes; swore under his breath; then
laughed aloud.
"I'll bet any money they'll get upsides with her, all the same.
Lord! there may be fun!"
His wife eyed him as he emptied the watering-pot spasmodically over
the flowers.
"As a rule you have so much more imagination than I. . . . Yet by
fits and starts you take this business as if it were a joke.
And it _is_ War, you know."
The Vicar turned away hurriedly, to fetch more water.
On the Sub-Committee for House to house Visiting--the Relief
Committee, as it came to be called--were elected:
(1) For Polpier--Mrs Polsue, Miss Alma Trudgian (in Mrs Polsue's
words, "a pitiful Ritualist, but well-meaning. _She'll_ give no
trouble"), the Vicar, and Mr Hambly.
(2) For the country side of the parish--Mr and Mrs Best, "with power
to add to their number." On the passing of this addendum, Farmer
Best uttered, apparently from the roof of his palate, a noise not
unlike the throb of the organ under the dome of St Paul's, and the
mysterious words, "Catch me!"
Next was formed a Sub-Committee of Needle-Workers, to make
hospital-shirts, knit socks, &c. It included Miss Charity Oliver;
and Mrs Steele undertook to act as Secretary and send out the
notices.
--Next, a Sub-Committee of Ways and Means, to collect subscriptions,
and also to act as Finance Committee. The Vicar, Mr Best, Mr Hambly,
with Mr Pamphlett for Honorary Treasurer. Mrs Pamphlett (a timid
lady with an irregular catch of the breath), without pledging her
husband, felt sure that under the circumstances he wouldn't mind.
Then Dr Mant unfolded a scheme of Ambulance Classes. He was one of
those careless, indolent men who can spurt invaluably on any business
which is not for their private advantage. (Everybody liked him; but
he was known to neglect his own business deplorably.) He could motor
over to Polpier and lecture every Saturday evening, starting
forthwith. Mrs Steele undertook to write to the Local Education
Authority for permission to use the Council Schoolroom.
At this point the parlour-maid brought in the tea.
"I believe," remarked Miss Oliver pensively, on the return journey,
"I could take quite a liking to that woman if I got to know her."
"She won't give you the chance, then," said Mrs Polsue; "so you
needn't fret."
"No, I suppose not . . . in a fashion. Still"--Miss Oliver
brightened--"she proposed me on the Needlework Committee, and we're
to meet at the Vicarage every Wednesday. She looked up at me a
moment before mentioning my name, and smiled as nice as possible; you
might almost say she read what was in my mind."
"'Twould account for her smiling, no doubt."
"I don't know what you mean by that. 'Twas in my mind that I'd
rather be on that committee than on any other. She's a proper lady,
whatever you may say, Mary-Martha. And the spoons were real silver--
I took occasion to turn mine over, and there was the lion on the back
of it, sure enough."
"I saw you in the very act, and meant to tell you of it later; but
other things drove it out of my head. You should have more command
over yourself, Charity Oliver."
"But I _can't_," Miss Oliver protested. "When I see pretty things
like that, my fingers won't stop twiddlin' till I make sure."
"By the same argiment I wonder you didn't pocket the spoon.
Which was old Lord Some-thing-or-Other's complaint; though I doubt
you wouldn't get off so light as he did."
"There was the tea-pot, too. . . . I couldn't get nigh enough to see
the mark on that, though I tried. Next time, perhaps--though I doubt
she won't have the silver out for ordinary workin' parties--"
"Tut--the tea-pot was silver right enough. I ought to know, havin'
one of my own and a heavier by ounces. No, I don't use it except on
special occasions: because you can't make so good tea in silver as in
china ware; and clome is better again. But though you lock it away,
a silver tea-pot is a thing to be conscious of. I don't hold," Mrs
Polsue fell back on her favourite formula, "with folks puttin' all
their best in the shop window."
"Well, you _must_ be strong-minded! For my part," Miss Oliver
confessed, "little luxuries always get the better o' me. I declare
that if a rich man was to come along an' promise to load me with
diamonds and silver tea-pots and little knick-knacks of that sort, I
shouldn' care who he was, nor how ugly, but I'd just shut my eyes
and fling myself at his head."
"You'd better advertise in the papers, then. It's time," said Mrs
Polsue sardonically. She wheeled about. "Charity Oliver, you
needn't use no more silly speech to prove what I could see with my
own eyes, back yonder, even if I hadn't known it already. You're a
weak fool--that's what you are! Those folks, with their pretty
manners and their 'how-dee-do's,' and 'I hope I see you well's,' and
their talk about all classes bein' at one in those times of national
trial and standin' shoulder to shoulder till it makes a body sick--do
you reckon they _mean_ a word of it? Do you reckon that if 'twas
Judgment Day itself, and you given to eatin' peas with a knife,
they'd really want you to luncheon?"
"But I _don't_."
"I'm puttin' it for the sake of argument--"
"Then I wish you wouldn't," Miss Oliver interrupted with some spirit.
"--And old Hambly kow-towing like a Puss-in-Boots till I could have
wrung his neck for him--and you weakenin' and playin' gentility as
you picked it up, like another cat after a mouse--and myself the only
one left to show 'em plain that we weren't to be put upon--yes, and
after you'd hoped, up to the very door, that whatever happened,
I'd take a proper stand!"
"Well, and so I did," Miss Oliver admitted defiantly. "But I didn't
ask you to make yourself _conspicuous_."
CHAPTER XIV.
POLSUE V. PENHALIGON, NANJIVELL INTERVENING.
At breakfast, two days later, Dr Mant received a summons to visit
Polpier and pronounce upon the symptoms of Boatbuilder Jago's
five-year-old son Josey (Josiah), who had been feverish ever since
Tuesday evening. The Doctor's practice ranged over a wide district,
and as a rule (good easy man) he let the ailments of Polpier
accumulate for a while before dealing with them. Then he would
descend on the town and work through it from door to door--as Un'
Benny Rowett put it, "like a cross between a ferret an' a Passover
Angel." Thus the child and his temperature might have waited for
thirty-six hours--the mothers of Polpier being skilled in febrifuges,
from quinine to rum-and-honey, treacle posset, elder tea--to be dealt
with as preliminaries to the ambulance lecture, had it not been that
(1) the Doctor had recently replaced his old trap with a two-seater
car, which lifted him above old economies of time, and (2) he wished
to ascertain if the valley schoolhouse, in which he was to lecture,
possessed a wall-chart or diagram of the human frame; for it is a
useful rule to start an ambulance class with some brief information
on the body and its organs, their position and functions. Also he
remembered casually an official letter received from Troy, a couple
of days ago, concerning one Nicholas Nanjivell, a reservist.
The man, if he remembered rightly, had an epithelioma somewhere in
his leg, and was quite unfit for service. Nevertheless he must be
visited: for the letter was official.
First of all, then, the Doctor hied him to Boatbuilder Jago's: and it
was lucky he did so, for the child had developed measles--a
notifiable complaint. "Any other cases about?" he asked. Mrs Jago
did not know of another child sick or sorry in the whole of Polpier.
"Which," she went on to argue in an aggrieved tone, "it therefore
passes my understandin' why our Josey should be took, poor mite!
'Tisn't as if he was a naughty child, either."
"Everything must have a beginning, Mrs Jago," said the doctor in his
cheerful matter-of-fact way.
"You reckon as it will spread, then?"
"I don't know. I hope not. . . . It's a mercy that the schools are
closed for the holidays. When did they close, by the way?"
"Just a week ago."
"H'm. . . . I must step up and ask the Schoolmaster a few questions."
"I called you in to cure my Josey, not to talk about other folk's
children." (Mrs Jago was a resentful woman.)
"And I am doing my best for him. . . . Tut! in a week or so he'll be
running about as well as ever. But I'm the Medical Officer of
Health, ma'am."
"Well I know it; seein' that, four months back, as you happened to be
passin', I called you in an' asked you to look at the poor dear's
eyes an' give me a certificate that he was sufferin' from something
chronic. An' you flatly declined."
"If my memory serves me, I said he had a small stye in his eye, and I
was willing to certify that for what it was worth, if you didn't mind
paying me half-a-crown."
"If edication's free, as they call it, I don't see why a body should
pay half-a-crown to get off what can be had for nothing. That's how
I reasoned then, and always shall. In consikence o' which that
la-di-da of an Attendance Officer, that thinks all the maids be after
him an' looks sideways into every shop window he passes for a sight
of his own image--and if it rids us of a fella like that, I'm all
for Conscription--got me summonsed before the Tregarrick bench an'
fined another half-crown, with five shillin' costs. An' now, when
the mischief's done an' the tender dear one rash from head to foot"--
Mrs Jago mopped her eyes with the edge of her apron--"what better
can 'ee say than thank God the schools be closed! For my part, I
wish He'd close an' roll the great stone o' Daniel agenst 'em for
ever and ever!"
Doctor Mant sought up the valley to the Schoolmaster, Mr Rounsell,
whose quarters formed a part of the school buildings, and ended the
block on its southern or seaward side. One roof, indeed, covered him
in and out of school: and the Vicar, as one of the Managers, had been
heard to lament this convenient provision. "It never allows the
fellow to forget his chain: he talks to me as if I were a class of
forty."
Mr Rounsell himself answered the door. He had been gardening, and
was in his shirt-sleeves. At sight of his visitor he became
exceedingly prim and scholastic, with a touch of defiance. He was
short in stature, and, aware of this, often paused in the middle of a
sentence to raise himself on his toes. He made a special study of
what he called "Voice-Production," and regulated his most ordinary
conversation by the laws (as he understood them) of that agreeable
science.
"Doctor Mant?"
"Ah, it's yourself, is it?" chimed Dr Mant, whom the Schoolmaster's
accent always sent back, and instantly, to a native brogue.
"Well, and it's a fine row of sweet peas you have, Mr Rounsell, at
the edge of the garden by the stream. I note them every time I drive
by: and how in the world you contrive it, year after year, in the
same soil--"
"You take me at some disadvantage, sir," said Mr Rounsell stiffly.
"My daughter being from home on a holiday, and few people coming to
this door at any time, unless it be to ask a small favour."
"Well, and you've hit it: for myself's one of that same," Dr Mant
assured him cheerily. "But business first! Jago's child has the
measles. Had you any reason to suspect measles, or anything of the
sort, in your school before you closed it a week ago?"
Mr Rounsell, who had seemed to be arming himself against a very
different approach, sensibly relaxed his guard. He was punctilious
by habit in all official responsibilities. He considered for a
moment before answering.
"Had I done so, I should have reported my--er--suspicions. I cannot
tax my memory, Dr Mant, with having observed a symptom in any child
which pointed--er--in that direction. With regard to the child
Jago, I was the less likely to be forewarned of such an--er--shall we
say?--eventuality, seeing that he is the most irregular attendant of
my infant class, and, so far as my recollection serves me, his
attendances during the past quarter amount to but twenty-three point
four. I leave you to judge."
"Right--O! What about his attendance the week before breaking up?"
"I can look up the Register if you wish, sir. But, speaking at
off-hand, I should compute the child Josiah Jago's attendances during
the last week of July at _nil_, or thereabouts. You will understand,
Dr Mant, that at the very close of the school year many parents take
advantage, reasoning that they will not be prosecuted during the
holidays. I may say that I have drawn the attention of the School
Attendance Committee to this--er--propensity on the part of parents,
and have asked them to grapple with it: but, so far, without result."
"Hallelujah!" exclaimed Dr Mant. "Then there's hope we may isolate
the little devil. . . . Well, so far so good. But that wasn't my
only reason for calling. I have to give an ambulance lecture in your
schoolroom to-morrow evening: and I came to ask if you had a wall-map
or chart of the human body to help me along. Otherwise I shall have
to lug over a lot of medical books with plates and pass 'em around:
and the plates are mixed up with others. . . . Well, you understand,
they're not everybody's picture-gallery. That's to say, you can't
pass a lot of books around and say 'Don't turn the page, or maybe
you'll get more than you bargain for. '"
Mr Rounsell had stiffened visibly. "I will not conceal from you, Dr
Mant, that the matter on which you now approach me is--er--the
subject on which I--er--privately anticipated that you had called.
I have no _official_ knowledge of your lecturing here to-morrow--
instructive as I am sure it will be. The Managers have not consulted
me; they have not even troubled to give me official notice. But come
inside, sir."
Doctor Mant followed, to a little parlour lined with books; wherein
the little man turned on him, white with rage.
"I have heard, by a side wind," he foamed, "that a meeting was held,
two days ago, up at the Vicarage, when it was decided that you should
hold lectures in this school--_my_ school. I wasn't asked to attend.
. . . And of course you will jump to the conclusion that I am
over-sensitive, huffed for my own sake. It isn't that! . . . I _am_
huffed--maddened--if you will--for the sake of my calling.
For twenty years, Dr Mant, I have opened this school every morning
with prayer, dismissed it with prayer every evening, and between
times laboured to preach many things that all in the end come to one
thing--the idea of a poor English schoolmaster. All over the country
other poor schoolmasters have been spending their lives teaching in
just the same way their notion of England--what she is, has been,
ought to be. Similarly, no doubt, teachers all over France and
Germany have been teaching--under the guise of grammar, arithmetic,
what not--_their_ ideas of what France or Germany has been, is, ought
to be. These nations are opposed and at length they come to a direct
conflict, in this War. Mark you what happens! At once we patient
teachers in England are brushed all aside. You call a chance
Committee of amateurs, and the man who has taught the boys whom,
within a fortnight, you will be clamouring to fight for you, has not
even the honour to be consulted. . . . Yes, I think well enough of
Great Britain to be pretty confident that she will win, letting us
slip; that is, she will win though fighting with a hand tied.
But Germany is no such fool. _She_ won't, in her hour of need,
despise the help of her teachers. They teach what is almost
diametrically opposed to our teaching: they teach it thoroughly, and
on my soul I believe it to be as nearly opposed as wrong can be to
right. But they have the honour to be trusted; therefore they will
succeed in making this war a long one. . . . Yes, I have a wall-map,
sir, of the human body. It does not belong to the school: I bought
it on my own account seven years ago, but the then Managers
considered it too naked to hang on the walls of a mixed school, and
disallowed the expense. You are very welcome to use it, and I am
only glad that at length it will serve a purpose."
"Touchy lot, these school-teachers!" mused Dr Mant on his way back
to the town. "I never can like 'em, somehow. . . . Maybe I ought to
have used a little tact and told him that, as I understood it, Mrs
Steele called the meeting; and it was for women-workers only.
That wouldn't quite account for Farmer Best though," he chuckled.
"And I suppose Best and the Vicar, as Managers--yes, and Mrs
Pamphlett's another--just put their heads together on the spot and
gave leave to use the schoolroom, without consulting the Head Teacher
at all. I don't suppose it ever crossed their minds. . . . No: on
the whole that poor little man is right. Nobody in England ever
_does_ take any truck in schoolmasters. They're just left out of
account. And I dare say--yes: I dare say--that means we don't, as a
people, take any real truck in Education. Well, and who's the worse
for it?--barring the teachers themselves, poor devils! Germany has
taken the other line, put herself in the hands of pedagogues, from
the Professors down: and a nice result it's going to be for her, and
for the rest of the world in the meantime! On the whole--"
On the whole, the Doctor decided--faithful to his habit of looking
questions in the face and so passing on--that these things worked out
pretty well as they were.
His reflections carried him to the bridge-end, where, in the porch of
the Old Doctor's house, he encountered Mrs Polsue.
"Ah! Good morning, ma'am! We are bound for the same door, it
appears? That's to say if, as I seem to remember, a man called
Nanjivell lives here?"
"He does," Mrs Polsue answered. "And if I may make bold to say so,
it's high time!"
"Eh? . . . Are you looking after him? I'd no idea that he was really
sick."
"No more haven't I," said Mrs Polsue. "But I'll say 'tis time
_somebody_ looked after him, if I say no more. In point of fact,"
she added, "I'm not seeing Nicholas Nanjivell, but a woman called
Penhaligon who lives in the other tenement here. Her husband was
called up last Saturday."
"What, are you ladies at work already?"
"Oh, _I_ don't let the grass grow under my feet," said Mrs Polsue.
"Damn the woman, I suppose that's a slap at _me_," muttered Dr Mant
to himself. But he tapped on the Penhaligons' door for her very
politely.
"Thank you," she said. "That's Nanjivell's door, at the end of the
passage."
He bowed and went on, came to the door, paused for a glance at the
padlock hitched loose on the staple, knocked, and--as his custom was
when visiting the poor--walked in briskly, scarce waiting for an
answer.
"Hullo!"
Between him and the small window, almost blocking the light--on a
platform constructed of three planks and a couple of chairs set face
to face--stood Nicky-Nan, with a trowel in one hand and a
bricklayer's board in the other, surprised in the act of plastering
his parlour ceiling.
"Had an accident here?" asked Dr Mant, eyeing the job critically.
"Old house tumbling about your ears?"
"No . . . yes--that's to say--" stammered Nicky-Nan; then he seemed
to swallow down something, and so to make way for a pent-up fury.
"Who sent for 'ee? Who told 'ee to walk in like that without
knockin'? . . . _That's_ what I ask--Who sent for 'ee here?
_I_ didn!"
"What in thunder's wrong with ye?" asked the Doctor, very coolly
taking a third chair, seating himself astraddle on it, and crossing
his arms over the top. "No harm to be taken patching up a bit of
plaster, is there?" Again he eyed the ceiling.
"I--I beg your pardon, Doctor," answered Nicky-Nan, recollecting
himself. "But I live pretty lonely here, and the children--"
"So _that's_ why you put a padlock on the door? . . . Well, I'm not a
child. And though you didn't send for me, somebody else did.
Mr Johns, the Custom House Officer at Troy. He wants to know why you
didn't go with the rest of the Reserve last Sunday."
Nicky-Nan blazed up again. "Then you can tell 'en I can't nor I
won't--not if he cuts me in little pieces, I won't! Curse this War,
an' Johns 'pon the top of it! Can't you _see_--"
"No," put in the Doctor, "that's just what I can't, while you stand
up there spitting like a cat on the tiles between me and the light.
What fly has stung ye I can't think; unless you want to get off by
passing yourself on me for a lunatic; and I can't certify to that
without calling in a magistrate. . . . Here, man, don't be a fool,
but get down!"
Nicky-Nan laid aside trowel and board on the platform, and lowered
himself to the floor, very painfully.
"Sit ye down here!" Doctor Mant jumped up and turned his chair about.
"Wait a moment, though, and let me have a look at you. No! not that
way, man--with your back to the light!" He caught Nicky-Nan by the
two shoulders, faced him about to the window, and took stock of him.
"H'm . . . you look pretty bad."
Nicky-Nan, in fact, had spent half the previous night in crawling
upstairs and downstairs, between parlour and bedroom, or in kneeling
by the bedroom cupboard, hiding his wealth. He had thrown himself at
last on his bed, to sleep for a couple of hours, but at daybreak had
turned out again to start upon the plastering and work at it
doggedly, with no more sustenance than a dry biscuit. It had all
been one long-drawn physical torture; and the grey plaster smeared on
his face showed it ghastly even beyond nature.
"Here, sit down; strip your leg, and let me have a look at it."
The examination took some fifteen minutes, perhaps; the Doctor
kneeling and inspecting the growth with the aid of a pocket
magnifying-glass.
"Well," said he, rising and dusting his knees, "it's a daisy, and
I'll bet it hurts. But I don't believe it's malignant, for all that.
If you were a rich man, now--but you're not; so we won't discuss it.
What you'll have to do is to lie up, until I get you a ticket for the
South Devon and East Cornwall Hospital."
"No hospital for me," said Nicky-Nan, setting his jaw.
"Don't be a fool. I let slip in my haste that I don't reckon the
thing malignant; and I don't--as yet. But it easily may be; and
anyhow you're going to have trouble with it."
"I've had trouble enough with it already. But, mortal or not, I
ben't goin' to stir out o' Polpier nor out o' this house. . . .
Doctor, don't you ask it!" he wound up, as with a cry extorted by
pain.
"Why, man, what are you afraid of? An operation for _that_, what is
it? A whiff of chloroform--and in a week or so--"
"But--," interrupted Nicky-Nan sharply, and again recollected
himself. "To tell 'ee the truth, Doctor--that's to say, if what
passes between patient an' doctor goes no farther--"
"That's all right. I'm secret as houses."
"To tell 'ee the truth, then, there's a particular reason why I don't
want to leave Polpier--not just for the present."
Dr Mant stared at him. "You are going to tell me that reason?"
But Nicky-Nan shook his head. "I'd rather not say," he confessed
lamely.
Still Dr Mant stared. "Look here, Nanjivell. You've a beast of a
lump on your leg, and I can certify at once that it unfits you for
service. You couldn't even crawl up a ladder aboard ship, let alone
work a gun. But the people over at Troy have asked the question;
and, what is more, it sticks in my head that, two days ago, I got a
letter about you--an anonymous letter, suggesting that you were just
a malingerer, who nursed an ailment rather than go to the War and
take your chance with the others. As a rule I put that kind of
letter in the fire, and so I did with this one. As a rule, also, I
put it right out of my head. . . . But I've a conscience, in these
times; and if I thought you to be nursing a trouble which I pretty
well know to be curable, just to avoid your honest share in this
War--" Dr Mant paused.
"Cuss the War!" said Nicky-Nan wearily. "It looks to me as if
everybody was possessed with it."
Dr Mant still gazed at him curiously, then whipped about with a
sudden "Hey! What's _that?_"
_That_ was the voice of Mrs Penhaligon uplifted without, voluble and
frenzied: and the Doctor hurried forth, Nicky-Nan hobbling after, to
find Mrs Penhaligon waving her arms like a windmill's, and Mrs
Polsue, as before the blast of them, flat-backed against the wall of
the passage.
"--And there you'll stay," Mrs Penhaligon threatened, "while I teach
your proud flesh! S'pose now I ventured on _you_, as you've been
venturin' on _me!_ S'pose now that, without so much as a visitin'
card, I nosed in on you with--'So that's your poor dear husban's
portrait, that you nagged to his grave--and a speakin' image of him
too, afore he took to the drink as the better way--An' what little
lux'ries might _you_ have cookin' in the apparatus, such as a barren
woman might reas'nably afford? Yes, yes--it must be a great savin',
havin' no children of your own, but do it warrant pig's liver an'
bacon of a Saturday?' Oh, my Gor, _I'll_ make your two ends meet
afore I've done with 'ee! _I'll_ tell 'ee the savin' of lard 'pon
butter! _I'll_ tell 'ee about nettle-broth an' bread-crumbs for a
child's diet! _I'll_--"
The noise had attracted a group of women to the porchway; among them,
Mrs Climoe--"good at the war-cry," as Homer says of Diomede.
They huddled forward, obscuring the light.
Mrs Polsue, feeling the wall firm against her back, collected her
dignity. "I wish all _respectable_ people here," she appealed to Dr
Mant, as he came hurrying up the passage, "to take note of this
woman's language."
"'Woman?'" panted Mrs Penhaligon. "No more of a woman than yourself:
and less of a lady, thank God! Out! OUT! afore I soil my hands upon
'ee!"
"You would hardly believe, Dr Mant"--Mrs Polsue addressed him with an
air of fine gentility, as the one person present who could
understand--"but I called on this poor body to advise and, if
necessary, procure her some addition to her income from the Emergency
Fund."
"Oh, take her away!" sobbed Mrs Penhaligon, suddenly breaking down.
"Isn't it enough to lie awake at night with your man at the wars?
You're a gentleman, sir, an' a doctor, an' can understand.
Do 'ee take her away!"
But Nicky-Nan had pushed forward. "You mean well, ma'am, I don't
doubt," he said, addressing Mrs Polsue. "But this here War has got
upon everybody's nerves, in a manner o' speaking."
"It doesn't seem to trouble yours," retorted Mrs Polsue, at bay and
vicious; "or maybe it has, and that's why you're not with the
Reserve."
Nicky-Nan flushed to the roots of his hair. But he answered
pacifically--"Until I go, ma'am, you may take it from me that Mrs
Penhaligon shan't want. I fixed all that up with her husband afore
he left. So there's not need for you callin' again, if you don't
mind."
He said it firmly, yet quite respectfully. One or two of the women
in the porch murmured approval.
Not so Mrs Climoe.
"O-oh!" said Mrs Climoe, half aloud and all unheeded for the moment.
"So that's the way the wind blows, sure enough!"
CHAPTER XV.
THE 'TATY-PATCH.
Nicky-Nan went back to his parlour, closed the door carefully,
mounted the platform again, and resumed his plastering. He felt
vexed with himself over that little speech of bravado. It had been
incautious, with all those women listening.
Still it might be explained away, and easily enough. That woman
Polsue put everybody's back up. His words had been just a piece of
bluff to get rid of her.
He had succeeded, too. He chuckled, recalling Mrs Polsue's
discomfiture; how with a final sniff she had turned and passed out
between the ironical files that drew aside for her in the porchway.
. . . For a burden had fallen from his heart: his little mistake,
just now, weighed as nothing against the assurance that Dr Mant
would write a certificate and settle these meddlesome idiots at the
Troy Custom-house. . . . Moreover Dr Mant, who passed for a
knowledgeable fellow in his profession, had as good as assured him
that his leg was nothing to die of; not just yet anyway. Well, he
would have it attended to, sometime; his life was valuable now.
But he wasn't going to hurry about it, if a sound leg meant his being
taken and ordered off to this dam-fool War. Nicky-Nan pursed up his
lips as he worked, whistling to himself a cheerful, tuneless ditty.
Some one tapped on the door. "Who's there?"
"It's me," answered the voice of Mrs Penhaligon. "Can I come in?"
"No, you can't!" he shouted. "Here, wait a minute! . . . And what
might be the matter now?" he asked, as he opened the door a very
little way. "I'm sorry, ma'am, that I can't ask 'ee to step inside;
but there's a tidyin'-up goin' forward."
"I'd as lief speak to 'ee here, in the passage. Indeed I'd rather,"
said Mrs Penhaligon as he emerged, trowel in hand. "Well, what is
it?"
She hesitated a moment. "'Tis a hard thing for a woman to say. . . .
But maybe 'tis turnin' out you are?" she suggested brightly.
"Turnin' out?"
"That would simplify things, o' course. And everybody knowin' that
Pamphlett's served you with a notice to quit--"
But thereupon Nicky-Nan exploded. "Served me with a notice, did he?
Pamphlett! . . . Well, yes he did, if you want to know. But never
you fret: I'm upsides with Pamphlett. This is my house, ma'am: an'
here I bide till it pleases me to quit."
"O-oh!" sighed Mrs Penhaligon dejectedly, "then it puts me in a very
awkward position, if you don't mind my sayin' so."
"How is it awkward, ma'am?" asked Nicky-Nan, rubbing his unshaven
chin with the point of the trowel.
"Well, Mr Nanjivell, I dare say you meant it well enough. But I have
my reputation to think about; an' the children, God bless 'em!
I grant that Polsue body to be a provokin' woman. She 'ave a way
with her that drives me mad as a sheep. But, if you don't mind me
tellin' 'ee, you men have no sense--not a mother's son of 'ee. Not a
doubt my Sam'd ha' spoke up just as fierce as you did. But then, you
see, he's my Sam."
"Very like 'tis my dulness, ma'am," said Nicky-Nan, still delicately
scraping his jaw-bristles with the trowel; "but I don't catch your
drift, even now."
"Then I'll speak plainer. Where was the sense to blurt out afore a
lot o' naybours as _you_'d see I didn' come to want? Be I the kind
o' woman to take any help but my own man's?--even if you had it to
give, which 'tis well be-known as you haven't."
"Oh, damn!" He swore as if a wasp had stung him: and indeed he had
jabbed the point of the trowel into his jaw. After a pause he added,
"The naybours know--do they?--as I couldn' act up to what I promised
that woman, not if I tried. Very well, then. Where's the harm done?
. . . I cleared her out, anyway."
Mrs Penhaligon eyed him with pity for a moment. "Yes," she sighed,
"that's just the plumb-silly way my Sam would talk: and often enough
he've a-driven me just wild with it. Men be all of one mould. . . .
Mr Nanjivell, you've no great experience o' women. But did 'ee ever
know a woman druv to the strikes[1] by another woman? An' did 'ee
ever know a woman, not gone in the strikes, that didn' keep some wit
at the back of her temper? . . . _I_ was dealin' with Mrs Polsue,
don't you make any mistake."
"It struck me that she had been distressin' you, an' you'd be glad to
get the rids of her."
"So I _was_ in distress. But I had th' upper hand, 'specially wi'
those women hearkenin' and every one hatin' her. . . . What must
happen, but forth you steps with a 'Leave this to me. _I_'ll look
after Mrs Penhaligon. _I_'ll see _she_ don't come to want'--all as
bold as a fire-hose. '_I_'ll clear 'ee out o' this house, which is
_our_ house,' says you--or to that effect. I wasn' so mad but, when
I heard 'ee, there was time to glimpse mother Climoe's face.
Oh yes! I know what you'll be sayin'. 'Talk, is it?' you'll be
sayin', just like my Sam: an' 'Let them talk. What's talk?'--an'
talk, all the time, two-thirds of every decent woman's life!"
"I never heard such dratted nonsense in all my born days."
"That's because you was never married. You'd have heard it from a
wife, half your time: though I dare say"--Mrs Penhaligon sighed--
"'twould ha' been with you like the rest. . . . 'A nice cauch Mr
Nanjivell's made of it,' said I to myself, getting back to the
kitchen: 'but he's under notice to quit: and if he quits quick an'
delicate, mebbe there's no great harm done.' So I came along to ask
you about it."
At this point Nicky-Nan fairly lost command of his temper.
"So you're one wi' the rest, eh? All in one blasted conspiracy to
turn me to doors! One comes threatenin', t'other comes carneyin',
but all endin' in the same lidden.[2] 'Your health ben't the best,
Nanjivell: let me recommend a change of air.' 'Nanjivell, you're a
fine upstandin' fellow, an' young for your age. Why don't 'ee leg it
off to the War?' 'These be hard times, Nanjivell; so I'm forced to
ask 'ee for your rent, or out you go.' An' now along you come wi'
the latest. 'Would you mind makin' yourself scarce, Mr Nanjivell, to
oblige a lady as has lost confidence in her repitation?' Now look
'ee here, ma'am--what I said to that woman Polsue, just now, is no
more than I'm able to abide by. If the shoe pinches at any time, you
can come to me, and I'll reckon up wi' Sam Penhaligon when he comes
back. What's more--though, to be sure, 'tis no affair o' mine--I
reckon Sam Penhaligon's the only chap alive, savin' yourself,
consarned in this repitation you've started to make such a fuss
about. But you're playin' Pamphlett's game, ma'am, to turn me out,"
wound up Nicky-Nan wrathfully, turning away: "that's what you're
doin': and I'll see you--"
He closed the oath upon a slam of the door.
"There was never a man in this world," sighed Mrs Penhaligon as she
regained her own kitchen, "but hisself came afore all the world." She
arrested her hand on the cover of the flour-barrel.
"He talked so confident of his money, too. . . . Funny thing if
Nicky-Nan, that we've been pityin' all this time, should turn out to
be a miser!"
An hour later, in the full light of the afternoon sunshine, Nicky-Nan
emerged from the old house with a shovel on his arm and a bundle
dangling from it. He had heard 'Bert Penhaligon say that the Boy
Scouts were employed by night only for coast-watching. By day the
pilots with their telescopes habitually commanded this whole stretch
of coast, nor could the periscope of a submarine push itself above
the inshore water and not be detected.
At the corner of the Warren, where the cliff turns eastwardly with a
sharp bend, Nicky-Nan almost ran into Policeman Rat-it-all, who
pulled himself up for a chat as usual.
"I don't know what _you_ think," observed the Policeman, "but to my
mind this here War gives us a great sense o' brotherhood. I read
that on the newspaper this mornin', and it struck me as one o' the
aptest things I'd seen for a long while."
"You said something o' the sort last time we met," answered
Nicky-Nan.
"You're wrong there." Rat-it-all seemed to be slightly hurt in his
feelings; "because I read it on the paper only this morning.
'Against War in the abstrac' much may be urged,' it said. 'But 'oo
will deny as it begets a sense o' Brotherhood if it does nothin'
else?' That was the expression."
"I don't take much truck in this War, for my part," said Nicky-Nan,
quartering on the narrow footpath to let Rat-it-all pass: "but it'll
do a dam sight else afore we're through with it, if you want my
opinion."
"To a man in the Force," said Rat-it-all pensively, "an expression
like that, mixed up with photographs in the 'Daily Mirror,' strikes
HOME. A man in the Force, as I'll put it, is in some ways unlike
other men." He paused to let this sink in.
"Take your time," said Nicky-Nan. "But I'm not contradictin' 'ee."
"If they're a species, he's a specie--a man set apart, like a parson.
A parson tells you how you ought to behave, and I take you in charge
if you don't."
"Like Satan," Nicky-Nan suggested.
"Rat it all! Not a bit like Satan!" said the Constable angrily.
"You've not been followin'. I never heard so foolish an interruption
in all my born days. . . . What be you carryin' in that there bundle,
makin' so bold?"
Nicky-Nan felt his heart stand still. "Just my waskit an' a few odds
an' ends," he answered with affected nonchalance. Forcing himself to
meet Rat-it-all's gaze, and perceiving it to be dreamy rather than
suspicious, he added, "What makes 'ee ask?"
"Nothin', . . . nothin'. . . . Only you reminded me of a song I used
to sing, back in the old days. It was called 'Off to Philadelphia in
the mornin'.' A beautiful voice I used to have: tenor. I shouldn'
wonder if I had it yet; only"--with a wistful sigh--"in the Force you
got to put that sort o' thing behind you, . . . which brings me back
to what I was saying. In an ordinary way, a police-constable's life
is like a parson's: they see more'n most men o' what's goin' on, but
they don't _belong_ to it. You can't properly hobnob with a chap
that, like as not, you'll be called on to marry or bury to-morra, nor
stand him a drink--nor be stood--when, quite as like, next time
you'll be servin' a summons. There's a Jane on both sides."
"A who?"
"'Tisn' a ''oo,' 'tis an 'it': bein' an expression I got off an
Extension Lecturer they had down to Bodmin, one time. I'd a great
hankerin', in those days, to measure six foot two in my socks afore I
finished growin', and I signed on for his lectures in that hope.
With a man callin' his-self by that name and advertisin' as he'd
lecture on 'Measure for Measure,' I thought I'd a little bit of all
right. But he ran right off the rails an' chatted away about the
rummiest things, such as theatricals. I forget what switched 'en off
an' on to that partic'lar line: but I well remember his openin'
remark. He said, 'To measure the true stature of a great man we must
go down to the true roots. A certain Jane is bound to overtake us if
we dig too long among the common 'taturs with their un-stopp'd lines
an' weak endings and this or that defective early quest. Oh! all
profitable, no doubt, an' worth cultivatin' so long as we do not look
for taste.' When I woke up at the end 'twas with these words printed
in mind same as they've remained. But I couldn' figure out how this
here Jane got mixed up in the diet. So, bein' of a practical mind
then, in my 'teens, same as I be to-day, I stopped behind and asked
him--takin' care to look bright and intelligent--who might be this
Jane he'd allooded to. If you'll believe me, it turned out to be no
person at all, but a way the gentry have of sayin' they're
uncomfortable; same as, through some writin' chap or other, all the
papers was talkin' of your belly as your Little Mary."
"Mine?"
"When I say 'yours,' o' course I mean to say 'ours'--that's to say,
every one's." Rat-it-all made a semicircular sweep of the hand in
front of his person.
"Something of a liberty, I should say, however many you include.
What I object to in these newspapers is the publicity. . . . But, if
you ask my opinion, that Extension fellow made a start with pullin'
your leg."
"You're wrong, then. For I tried the expression 'pon Parson Steele
only two days ago. 'This here war, sir,' I took occasion to say,
'fairly gives me the Jane.' He reckernised the word at once, an'
lugged out his note-book. 'Do you know, constable,' says he,
'that you're talkin' French, an' it's highly interestin'?'
'I make no doubt as 'twould be, sir,' says I, 'if I was to hold on
with it.' 'You don't understand,' says he. 'These Gallic turns o'
speech'--which, 'tween you an' me, I'd always thought o' Gallic as a
kind of acid--'these Gallic turns o' speech,' says he, 'be engagin'
the attention of learned men to such an extent that I think o'
writin' a paper upon 'em myself,' says he, 'for the Royal Institution
o' Cornwall at their next Summer Meetin'.' . . . I was considerably
flattered, as you may well understand. . . . But that brings me back
to my point. Parsons an' constables, as I see the matter, be men set
apart, an' lonely. So when I reads 'pon the paper that this here war
has made us all brothers, it strikes HOME, an' I feel inclined to
stop an' pass the time o' day with anybody. I don't care who he may
be."
"Then why waste time danderin' along the cliffs, here?"
Policeman Rat-it-all lowered his voice. "Between you an' me, again,"
he confessed, "I got to do my four miles or so every day, for the
sake o' my figger."
"'Tis unfortunate then," said Nicky-Nan, taking heart of grace and
lying hardily: "for you've missed a lovely dog-fight."
"Where? Whose?" Rat-it-all panted, suddenly all alive and
inquisitive.
"Dog-fights don't concern me. . . . It may ha' been Jago's
bull-terrier an' that Airedale o' Latter's. Those two seldom meet
without a scrap."
"Is it over?" A sudden agitation had taken hold of Rat-it-all's
legs.
"Very like," lied Nicky-Nan, now desperately anxious to be rid of
him. "I heard somebody callin' for snuff or a pot o' pepper--either
o' which they tell me--"
"An' you've kept me dallyin' all this while how-de-doin'?" Rat-it-all
made a bolt down the path.
Nicky-Nan watched his disappearing figure, and collapsed upon a
thyme-scented hillock in sudden revulsion from a long strain of
terror.
He sat there for a good five minutes, staring out on the open waters
of the Channel. An armed cruiser, that had been practising gunnery
at intervals during the day, was heading home from Plymouth. A tug
had come out and was fetching back her targets. Nicky-Nan arose very
deliberately, made for his 'taty-patch in the hollow beyond the pilot
house, laid his bundle on the ground, and began to dig in and cover
his golden coins, fetching a handful at a time. He had buried them
all, and was returning at shut of dusk, when he met young 'Bert
Penhaligon coming up the path.
"This is the last night for us here," proclaimed young 'Bert, "and I
can't say as I'm sorry. But maybe they'll move us."
"How so?" asked Nicky-Nan.
"Well, between you an' me," announced young 'Bert, who during the
last week had seemed to put on stature with confidence, "there's a
company of Royal Engineer Territorials ordered over from Troy to dig
theirselves in an' camp here."
[1] Hysterics.
[2] Monotonous burthen.
CHAPTER XVI.
CORPORAL SANDERCOCK.
Nicky-Nan arose with the dawn after a night of little sleep.
Very cautiously, with one hand feeling the wall, and in the other
carrying his boots, lest he should wake the Penhaligons, he stole
downstairs to his parlour. The day being Sunday, he could not dare
to risk outraging public opinion by carrying shovel or visgy through
the open streets. To be sure nobody was likely to be astir at that
hour: for Polpier lies late abed on Sunday mornings, the fishermen
claiming it as their week's arrears of sleep. None the less it might
happen: Un' Benny, for example, was a wakeful old man, given to
rising from his couch unreasonably and walking abroad to commune with
his Maker. For certain if Nicky-Nan should be met, going or coming,
with a shovel on his shoulder, his dereliction from grace would be
trumpeted throughout the parish, and--worse, far worse--it would
excite curiosity.
In the parlour he provided himself with the plastering trowel and a
sack, and wrapped the one in the other into a tight parcel, easily
carried under the crook of his arm-pit. With this he tiptoed along
the passage. There was no trouble with latch or bolt: for, save in
tempestuous weather, the front door of the old house--like half the
front doors of the town--stood open all night long. An enormous
sea-shell, supposed of Pernambuco, served it for weight or "dog,"
holding it tight-jammed against the wall of the passage.
Nicky-Nan seated himself on the bench in the porchway and did on his
boots. The light was very dim here, and his fingers trembled, so
that he took a long time threading the laces through the
eyelet-holes. He became aware that his nerves were shaken. At the
best of times, with his hurt leg, he found this operation of lacing
his boots one of the worst of the day's jobs. It cost him almost as
much time as shaving, and far more pain.
But at length the laces were threaded and tied, and tucking his
parcel under his arm he set forth. He had forgotten his
walking-staff and dared not go back to fetch it. Moreover, in
Polpier it is held to be inauspicious if, once started on an
enterprise, you turn back for something you have forgotten: and
Nicky-Nan, a sceptic by habit, felt many superstitions assailing him
this morning. For instance, he had been careful to lace up his right
boot before his left.
A high tide filled the inner pool of the harbour, and on its smooth
surface several gulls floated, paddling lazily if at all.
These birds know Sunday from week-days as well as any Christian folk:
which is nothing very wonderful, for the Polpier boats have lain at
home all the night and there is no fish-offal drifting about.
Nicky-Nan counted the birds carefully, and drew a breath of relief on
assuring himself that they totalled fifteen--an odd number and a
lucky one. But he had no sooner done so than, as if they had been
waiting for him, to signal misfortune, two of the flock arose,
pattered for a moment on the water, wheeled upward twice, thrice, in
short circles, and sailed off. His heart sank as he did the small
sum in subtraction: but he controlled himself, noting that they
sailed off to the right.
It was pretty to see them rising out of the blue liquid shadow of the
harbour-pool; rising until, in a flash, they took the morning sun-ray
that struck almost level across the top of the chasm, and were
transformed into winged jewels, dazzling the eye. But Nicky-Nan
scarcely marked this, being preoccupied with his cares and fears: for
where a man's treasure is, there will his heart be also. Nor did he
note at the bend of the cliff, which brought him in turn, after a
long climb, face to face with the sun, that already its beams were
warming the dew-drenched cushions of thyme on either side of the
track, and drawing delicious odour from them. The ray, smiting full
in his eyes for a moment or two, hid from him all details of the
landscape ahead and on his left, even as effectually as it hid the
stars of night. Nicky-Nan hobbled on for a few paces, blinking.
Then, with a catch of the breath, he came to a halt. His vision
clearing by degrees, he let out a gasp and his knees shook under him.
A couple of hundred yards away, and for half a mile beyond that, the
green turf was populous with soldiery!
For some miles east and west of our haven the coast-front runs, as it
were, in two tiers. From the sea rises a sheer face of naked rock,
averaging some two hundred feet in height, for the most part
unscaleable, but here and there indented with steep gully-ways, down
each of which, through thickets of cow-parsley, flax, kale, and
brambles, matted curtains of ground-ivy, tussocks of thrift and
bladder-campion, a rivulet tumbles to the brine. Above this runs a
narrow terrace or plat of short turf, where a man may walk with his
hands in his pockets; and here, with many ups and downs, runs the
track used by the coastguard, who blaze the stones beside it at
intervals with splashes of whitewash, for guidance on dark nights.
Above this plateau, which here expands to a width of twenty or thirty
feet and anon contracts almost to nothing, the cliff takes another
climb, right away now to the skyline; but the acclivity is gentler,
with funnel-shaped turfy hollows between bastions of piled rock not
unlike Dartmoor tors or South African kopjes in miniature. On top of
all runs a second terrace, much broader than the first, and a low
hedge, beyond which, out of sight, the cultivated land begins.
Hard by the foot of one of these rock-bastions, on a fan-shaped plat
of green, backed by clumps of ivy and wind-tortured thorns, a group
of tents had sprung up like a cluster of enormous mushrooms.
More tents aligned the upper terrace, under the lee of the hedge: and
here also five or six waggons stood against the sky-line, with men
busy about them. Smaller knots of men in khaki toiled in the
hollows, dragging down poles, sleepers, bundles of rope, parcels of
picks and entrenching spades for the lower camp. Twos and threes,
perched precariously on the rock-ridges, held on to check-ropes,
guiding the descent of the heavier gear. The sound of voices
shouting orders came borne on the clear morning air; and above it, as
Nicky-Nan halted, rose the note of a bugle, on which somebody was
practising to make up for time lost in days of peace.
Nicky-Nan pulled his wits together and stumbled forward, terror in
his heart. Could he reach the 'taty-patch and snatch his treasure
before these invaders descended upon it?
The patch (as has been told) lay in a hollow, concealed from sight of
the pilot-house. The cliff-track crossed a sharp knoll and brought
you upon it suddenly. Nicky-Nan's heart beat fast, and unconsciously
he accelerated his hobble almost to a run. As he pulled up short on
the edge of the dip a sob broke from him--almost a cry.
Below him a couple of men in khaki were measuring the hollow with a
field-tape; while a third--an officer--stood almost midway between
them pencilling notes in a book. The tape stretched clean across the
potato-patch.
"Right!" announced the officer, not perceiving Nicky, whose shadow,
of course, lay behind on the path.
The nearer man--a stout corporal--dropped his end of the
measuring-tape. The other wound it up slowly.
"We'll have to lay the trench through here," said the officer; and
quoted, "'I'm sorry for Mr Naboth--I'm sorry to cause him pain;' but
you, corporal, must find him and tell him he'll get compensation for
disturbance." He pocketed his note-book, turned, and mounted the
slope towards the encampment. The soldier holding the spool on the
far side of the dip finished winding the tape very leisurably; which
gave it the movement and appearance of a long snake crawling back to
him across Nicky-Nan's potato-tops and over Nicky-Nan's fence.
Then, shutting the spool with a click, he turned away and followed
his officer. The stout corporal, left alone, seated himself on a
soft cushion of thyme, drew forth a pipe from his hip-pocket, and was
in the act of lighting it when Nicky-Nan descended upon him.
"And 'oo may _you_ be?" asked the stout corporal, turning about as he
puffed.
"You--you've no business here!" stammered Nicky wrathfully.
"The first sojer I catch trespassin' on my piece o' ground, I'll have
the law on him!"
"Hullo! Be you the owner o' this patch, then?"
"Yes, I be: and I tell 'ee you've no business messin' around my
property."
The corporal removed the pipe from his mouth and rubbed its bowl
softly against the side of his nose. "So you said, to be sure.
I didn' laugh at the moment, not bein' a triggerish chap at a joke.
But it'll come in time. That's why I joined the sappers."
"Eh?"
"I takes a pleasure in _redoocin'_ things. . . . Well, if you be the
owner o' this here patch, the pleasure is mootual, for you've saved
me time an' trouble over and above your speakin' so humorous.
And what might your name be, makin' so bold?"
"Nanjivell."
"You don't say so! . . . Christian name?"
"Nicholas."
"'Tis a fair co-incidence," mused the corporal aloud. "I knew a man
once by the name of Nanjivell--a fish-dealer; but he was called
Daniel, an' he's dead, what's more. I remember him all the better,
because once upon a time, in my young days, I made a joke upon him,
so clever it surprised myself. It began with my sendin' in a bill
'Account rendered' that he'd already paid. I started by tellin' 'ee
that I was young at the time. 'Twas before I married my wife to look
after the books, an' I won't say that I wasn' a bit love-struck an'
careless. Anyway, in went that dam bill; and he'd kep' the receipt,
which made him fair furious. Mad as fire he was, an' wrote me a
letter about it. Such a saucy letter! 'Twas only last Christmas or
thereabouts I found it in my desk an' tore it up. But I got even
with him. 'Dear sir,'--I wrote back, 'your favour of the 5th instant
received an' unchristian spirit of the same duly noted. On inquiry I
find the 3 lb. of sausages to esteemed order was paid for on
Lady-day: which on cooler thoughts you will see in the light of a
slip as might have happened to anybody. Which in fact it did in this
case. P.S.--Nanjivell ought to rhyme with _civil_. What a mistake
when it rhymes with D--!--Yours faithfully'--and I signed my name.
Then, on second thoughts, I tacked on another pos'script. At this
distance o' time I can't be sure if 'twas 'Flee from the Wrath to
Come' or 'The Wages o' Sin is Death'--but I think the latter, as
bein' less easily twisted into a threat. . . . That," added the
corporal after a pause, "closed the correspondence."
"And where," Nicky-Nan asked, "might all this have happened?"
"At Penryn: which, for electoral purposes, is one borough with
Falmouth. . . . I hoped as you would ha' laughed: but I'm glad to
find you interested, anyway. Sandercock is my name, if you can make
anything o' that,--Eli Sandercock, Fore Street, Penryn, pork and
family butcher. You've heard o' Sandercock's hogs-puddin's I don't
doubt?"
"Never."
"Haven't travelled much, maybe?"
"Knocked about a little. . . . Mostly on the China station an' South
Pacific."
"Ah, they're hot climates, by all accounts. They wouldn't--no, o'
course they wouldn't--"
"Wouldn't _what?_"
"Bring you into contact, so to speak. . . . You should see my
vi'lets, too."
"Violets?"
"They go together. You may notice the same thing in Truro: everybody
that sells pork sells vi'lets."
"Damme if I can see the connexion--"
"You wouldn't--not at first. Vi'lets is a delicate way of
advertisin' that there's an r in the month, an' your pork by
consequence can be relied on. My wife, too, is never happy without a
great bowlful o' vi'lets on the counter, done up in bunches: she
thinks they suit her complexion. Now this patch o' yours'd be the
very place to raise vi'lets. I was thinkin' so just now when I
measured it. Suffer much from red-spider in these parts?"
"Not so far as I know. . . . But 'tis a curious thing," went on
Nicky-Nan, "to find a man like you turned to sojerin'."
"Ah," cried Corporal Sandercock, eager for sympathy, "yes, well you
may say that! It seems like a dream. . . . Of course in the
pork-business August is always a slack month, an' this blasted War
couldn' have happened at a more convenient season for pork, not if
the Kaiser had consulted me."
"But what drove 'ee to it?"
"Into the Engineers? Well, 'tis hard to say. . . . I always had
leanin's: an' then the sausages preyed on my mind--they look so much
like fuses. So, what with one thing and another, and my wife likin'
to see me in scarlet, with piping down my legs, which is what we wear
on Sundays--'Tis a long story, however, an' we can talk it over as
we're diggin' up yer 'taties."
"'Diggin' up my 'taties'?" Nicky-Nan echoed with a quaver.
"Let me catch you tryin' it!"
"Now, we're comin' to business," said Corporal Sandercock.
"_That's_ what the O.C. told me--Captain Whybro, commandin' Number 4
Works Company, Cornwall Fortress Royal Engineers. 'Here's where we
carry our first trench,' says he; 'an' here, if wit o' man can grasp
the why or the wherefore,' says he, 'is a filthy potato-patch lyin'
slap across our line. Corporal,' says he to me, 'you're a family man
an' tactful. I detach you,' says he, 'to search the blighter out an'
request him to lift his crop without delay. If at first you don't
succeed, try, try again,' says he, 'an' the more you run around the
better it'll be for your figure, an' the more you'll thank me,' he
winds up, 'when we march together into Berlin.' So now you
understand how welcome you dropped in. . . . 'Tis a terribly hilly
country hereabouts."
"If there's law in England," Nicky-Nan threatened, "you'll keep clear
o' this here patch o' mine, or it'll be the worse for 'ee!"
Corporal Sandercock seated himself leisurably on a hillock of thyme,
began to knock out his pipe against the edge of his boot-sole, and
suddenly exploded in laughter so violent that he was forced to hold
his sides. The exhibition took Nicky-Nan right aback. He could but
stand and stare.
"Oh, oh!" panted the corporal. After another paroxysm he gasped,
"You'll excuse me, but that's how I get taken. 'You've got no
business here' was your words." (Another paroxysm.) "You can't
think how comical you said it, either."
"Comical or not, I mean it," Nicky-Nan assured him, with a saturnine
frown. "If you can give over holdin' your belly an' listen, I don't
mind tellin' you my opinion o' this here War; which is, that 'tis a
put-up job from start to finish, with no other object than to annoy
folks."
The corporal sat up, wiping his eyes. "That's a point o' voo," he
admitted, and added guardedly, "I don't say as I agree: but I'd like
to know how, comin' upon all of us so suddent, it strikes a man like
you, dwellin' in these out-o'-the-way parts. My wife declares she've
seen matters workin' up to it for years."
"I never thought about it, one way or t'other, an' I don't want to
think about it now. Who in the world _wants_ war? Not I, for one."
"Me either, if it comes to that," Corporal Sandercock allowed,
refilling his pipe. "If the matter had rested with me, I'd ha' gone
on forming fours every Wednesday an' Saturday, contented enough, all
the rest o' my life. But the great ones of earth will have it, the
Kaiser especially: and, after that, there's no more to say.
The Kaiser wants a place in the sun, as he puts it; an' 'tis our
bounden duty as true Britons to see he don't get any such thing."
"I never heard tell as he expressed a hankerin' for my 'taty-patch,"
answered Nicky Nan sourly. "The way I look at it is, _he_ leaves me
alone in quiet, an' you don't. A pack o' sojers messin' about a spot
like this!" he added with scorn. "It affronts a decent man's
understandin'. But 'tis always the same wi' sojers. In the Navy,
when I belonged it, we had a sayin'--'A messmate afore a ship-mate, a
ship mate afore a dog, an' a dog afore a sojer.'"
"To judge by your appearance," said the corporal with no sign of
umbrage, "that was some time ago, afore they started the Territorial
movement. . . . Ever study what they call Stradegy? No?--I thought
not. Stradegy means that down below your patch there's a cove o'
sorts: where there's a cove there's a landin'-place; where you can
get a light gun ashore you can clear the shore till you find a spot
to land heavy guns. Once you've landed heavy guns you've a-took
Plymouth in the rear. You follow me?" Corporal Sandercock stood up
and picked up a crumb or two of tobacco from the creases of his
tunic. "I'll go fetch a fatigue party to harvest these spuds o'
yours," said he. "There'll be compensation for disturbance. If you
like, you can come along an' bargain it out wi' the O.C."
"No," said Nicky-Nan, snatching at this happy chance. "I'm a lame
one, as you see. What must be, must, I suppose: but while you step
along I'll bide here."
"So long, then!"
The corporal had no sooner turned his back than Nicky began to unwrap
his bundle in a fumbling haste. He watched the rotund figure as it
waddled away over the rise; and so, dropping on his knees, fell to
work furiously. The sun was already making its warmth felt. In less
than five minutes the sweat trickled off his forehead and dropped on
his wrists as he dug with his unhandy trowel and grabbed at the soil.
Something more than a quarter of an hour had passed when, looking up
for the fiftieth time, he spied the corporal returning down the
grassy slope, alone. By this time his job was nearly done; and after
finishing it he had the presence of mind to dig up a quart or so of
potatoes and spread them over the gold coins in his sack.
"What in thunder's your hurry?" demanded the corporal, halting for a
moment on the crest of the rise and gazing down. "I told you as I'd
fetch a party to clear the patch for you; an', what's more, the spuds
shall be delivered to your door sometime this very day. But the
Captain can't spare a man this side o' nine o'clock, an' so I was to
tell you." He descended the slope, mopping his brow. "Pretty good
tubers?"
Nicky-Nan hypocritically dived a hand into the sack, drew forth a
fistful, and held them out in his open palm.
"Ay, and a very tidy lot," the corporal nodded. "And what might be
the name of 'em?"
"_Duchess o' Cornwall_ they're called: one o' the new Maincrops, an'
one o' the best. East-country grown. You may pull half a dozen or
so for yourself if you'll do me the favour to accept 'em."
"Thank 'ee, friend. There's nothin' I relish more than a
white-fleshed 'taty, well-grown an' well-boiled. Not a trace o'
disease anywhere," observed the corporal, running his eye over the
rows and bringing it to rest on the newly-turned soil at his feet.
"Eh? Hullo!"
He stooped and picked up a sovereign.
"That's mine!" Nicky-Nan claimed it hastily. "I must ha' dropped
it--"
"Well, _I_ didn', anyway--an' that's honest." The corporal handed it
over with just a trace of reluctance. "But it only shows," he added,
eyeing Nicky-Nan thoughtfully, "as there's nothing in this world so
deceptive as appearances."
CHAPTER XVII.
THE SECOND SERMON.
"For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's
sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth
as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that
burneth."
". . . And thou shalt be called by a new name. . . . Thou shalt
no more be termed _Forsaken_; neither shall thy land be termed
_Desolate_: but thou shalt be called _Hephzi-bah_, and thy land
_Beulah_: for the Lord delighteth in thee, and thy land shall
be married. . . ."
". . . I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which
shall never hold their peace day nor night."
". . . The Lord hath sworn by his right hand, and by the arm
of his strength, 'Surely I will no more give thy corn to be
meat for thine enemies; and the sons of the stranger shall not
drink thy wine, for the which thou hast laboured. But they
that have gathered it shall eat it, and praise the Lord; and
they that have brought it together shall drink it . . . in the
courts of my holiness.'"
"Go through, go through the gates; prepare ye the way of the
people; cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones;
lift up a standard for the people."
"Behold, the Lord hath proclaimed unto the end of the world,
'Say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh;
behold, his reward is with him,' and his work before him.
And they shall call them 'The Holy People, the Redeemed of the
Lord,' and thou shalt be called, '_Sought out, A City Not
Forsaken_.'"
Mr Hambly closed the great Book upon the cushion and leaned forward,
resting his arms over it.
"I want you," said he after a pause, very solemnly and slowly,
"to apply those words not only to ourselves, of whom we are
accustomed to think, too particularly and too complacently, as a
chosen people; but to the whole as the free peoples of Western
Europe, with whom to-day we stand in alliance and as one. If you
apply them at all particularly, let France and Belgium be first in
your minds, with their harvest-fields and vineyards, as you listen to
the Lord's promise, '_By the arm of my strength, surely I will no
more give thy corn to be meat for thine enemies, and the sons of the
stranger shall not drink thy wine for which thou hast laboured_.'
"For our own land, England, if we are really to vindicate it out of
this struggle as Beulah--that is, 'married,' the bride of the Lord--I
wish you to consider how far the God of this noble oath has advanced
upon the old bloodthirsty Jehovah of the book of Joshua. He is not
yet, in Isaiah, the all-living, all-comprehending God the Father of
the Gospel: but if we halt on Him here, we are already a long way
advanced from that tribal and half-bestial conception of the Deity
which Joshua invoked and (as it seems to me) the German Emperor
habitually invokes.
"I see no harm in priding ourselves that we have advanced beyond the
German Emperor's schoolboyish conception of Jehovah. As a greater
and far more highly bred and educated Emperor--an Emperor of Rome--
once warned us, 'The best part of revenge is not to be like them.'
"Well, that is the point on which I would specially caution you this
morning. When an adversary suddenly and brutally assaults us, his
ferocity springing from the instinct of a lower civilisation--as when
a farm-dog leaps upon us in the road--our first instinct is to fall
back and meet him on the ground of his own savagery, to give him an
exact tit for his tat. But can you not see that, as we do this, and
in proportion as we do it, we allow him to impose himself on us and
relinquish our main advantage? It is idle to practise a higher moral
code, if we abandon it hurriedly as soon as it is challenged by a
lower.
"Bearing this in mind, you will not in the next few minutes say to
yourselves, 'Our minister has ill chosen his time--now, with the
enemy at our gates--to be preaching to us that we should be
confirming what little hold we have on the divine purpose, to advance
upon it; to counsel our striving to pierce further into the mind of
God; when all the newspapers tell us that, for success in war, we
should enter into the minds of our enemies.'
"For, let me tell you, all knowledge is one under God; and the way of
theology--which should be the head and crown of the sciences--not
different from the way of what we call the 'natural' sciences, such
as chemistry, or geology, or medicine. Of wisdom we may say with
Ecclesiasticus: _The first man knew her not perfectly, neither shall
the last man find her out_. But that does not matter. What matters
for us, in our generation, is that we improve our knowledge and use
it to make ourselves _comparatively_ wiser--comparatively, that is,
with our old selves as well as with our enemies. 'Knowledge,' they
say, 'is power'; which, if it mean anything, must mean that A, by
knowing a little more than B, has made himself, to that extent, more
powerful than B.
"Now by saying that the way of all the sciences is one, I mean just
this: that the true process of each is to refer effects to their real
causes, not to false ones, and in the search to separate what is
relevant from what is irrelevant and--so far as we can discover--
quite accidental. For example, when a pestilence such as typhoid
fever broke out in Polpier five or six hundred years ago, your
forefathers attributed it to the wrath of God visiting them for their
sins: and to be sure it is good that men, under calamity, should
reflect on their sins, but only because it is good for them to
reflect on their sins at all times and under any circumstance.
Nowadays you would have your well-water analysed and ask what the
Sanitary Inspector had been about. Or, again, if a fire were to
devastate our little town, we should not smite our breasts in the
manner of those same forefathers, and attribute it to what there is
amongst us of sloth and self-indulgence, to God's wrath upon our
drinking habits or our neglect of Sunday observance: we should trace
it to a foul chimney and translate our discovery into a Bye-law,
maybe into a local Fire Brigade. That is how men improve their
knowledge, and, through their knowledge, their wellbeing--by sifting
out what is relevant.
"Do you suppose that irrelevances account for this war any more than
they account for a fire or a pestilence; or that they will any more
help us to grapple with it? Truly it would seem so," sighed Mr
Hambly. "A great deal of fervid stuff was uttered in England last
Sunday by archbishops, bishops, presidents of this and that Free
Church; and the 'religious newspapers' have been full of these
utterances. God forgive my presumption that, as I walk the streets
of Polpier, I seem to hear all these popular men preaching with
acceptance about nothing in particular!
"They all start by denouncing or deploring Germany's obvious sins:
her exaltation of Might against Right, her lust of world-dominion,
the ruthlessness of her foreign policy, the vainglorious boastings of
her professors. No great harm in this!--for all these have
contributed to bring this war about, and are therefore relevant.
But when the preacher turns to the examination--for us so much more
profitable--of _our own sins_, what has the preacher to say? Why,
always in effect that, though it passeth comprehension why Germany
should be chosen to punish us (being so much worse than ourselves),
we deserve punishment somehow for our drinking, swearing, and
gambling habits, for the state of the poor in our cities, for our
worship of wealth, for having a Liberal Government. . . .
"Absurd as it may seem, that last gets nearest to sense; for wars are
made, or at any rate accepted by, governments; and in a democratic
country the government of the day represents the nation, or the
nation is to blame. But believe me, my friends, God does not punish
in this haphazard way. He punishes scientifically; or rather he
allows men to punish themselves, by reaping the evil from the cause
they have planted or neglected to remove: and the harvest comes true
to the seed.
"The War as yet is scarcely a week old. It came upon us like a thief
in the night, and as yet none of us can tell how far we are
blameworthy. We have not the evidence.
"There will be time enough, when we have it, to search out the true
reasons for national penitence. I do not believe in being penitent
at haphazard: I have too much respect for that spiritual exercise.
Still less do I believe in running up to God's mercy-seat with a
lapful of unassorted sins and the plea, 'Dear Lord, we are doubtless
guilty of all these. Being in affliction, we are probably right in
believing that one or more of them has provoked Thy displeasure, and
are ready to do penance for any if it will please Thee to specify.
Meanwhile, may we suggest horse-racing or profane language?'
We may be sure, _then_, that the sin suggested, as a conjurer forces
a card, is not a relevant one. We may be fairly sure also that it is
one with which some neighbour is more chargeable than are we
ourselves. The priests of Baal were foolish to cut themselves with
knives, but it is to be set to their credit that they used real ones.
"You will observe that Isaiah constantly, in his words of highest
promise to her, speaks of Zion as to be redeemed, and her glory as
something to be restored: which implies that her bliss will lie, not
in acquiring some new possession, but in regaining a something she
has lost or forfeited. Have we of England in our day built such a
Jerusalem that merely _to have it again_ is our dearest hope for the
end of this War?
"I come back to my main proposition, and will conclude with one word
of immediate practical advice--the best I can offer, as a plain man,
in these days when the minds of all are confused.
"My main proposition is that, all knowledge being one in its process,
our best chance of reading God's mind lies in thinking just as
practically, rationally, relevantly about divine things as scientific
men take care to do about scientific things, and as you or I should
take care to do about the ordinary things of life. If we only
thought of God as _important_ enough, we should do that as a matter
of course. If _we then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to
our children_ . . . We in England to-day are as yet a long way off
the philosophy of Jesus Christ. That is too hard for us altogether,
it seems. But we ought to be abreast with Isaiah, which is a long
way ahead of Joshua and the German Emperor.
"For my word of practical advice--I counsel you, as a people, not to
waste time in flurried undiscriminating repentance; not to _fuss_, in
short, until, having learnt where and how you ought to repent, you
can repent effectually. That knowledge may come soon: more likely it
will come late. Meanwhile the danger is instant. Every man in this
church," concluded Mr Hambly, "has a strong sense--a conviction,
which I share--that the cause of England is right, that she is
threatened and calls to him as he has never heard her call in his
lifetime: and the call is to fight for her, but as men not straying
to learn a new gospel of hate, remembering rather what at the best
our Country has been, and proud to vindicate that."
"Silly old rigmarole," commented Miss Oliver on the way home.
"If you can tell me what it was all about!"
"If 'twas no worse than silly there'd be no harm done. When it comes
to hinting that the Almighty hasn't a purpose of His own for typhoid
fever, in my opinion it's time some one made a public protest."
"I don't see what good that would do. On his own showing it 'd lie
between the Lord an' Scantlebury, the Sanitary Inspector. He'd no
business to speak so pointed: an' I always hate personalities for my
part. But I daresay Scantlebury won't mind, if it comes to his ears
even--"
"Scantlebury!" exclaimed Mrs Polsue with a sniff. "He only got the
job through his son's being a local preacher and him a freemason.
Do you think Scantlebury could make typhoid fever, if he tried?"
"Well, no; if you put it in that way. A Board School was as high as
ever his parents could afford to send him: and then he went into the
greengrocery, and at one time was said to be going to fail for over
three hundred, when this place was found for him. A fair-spoken
little man, but scientific in no sense o' the word."
There was a pause.
"The silly man collected himself towards the end," said Mrs Polsue.
"There was sense enough in what he said about every man's duty just
now--that it was to fight, not to argue; though, after his manner, he
didn't pitch it half strong enough. . . . I've been thinking that
very thing over, Charity Oliver, ever since the Vicarage meetin', and
it seems to me that if we're to be an Emergency Committee in anything
better than name, our first business should be to stir up the young
men to enlist. The way these tall fellows be hangin' back, and their
country callin' out for them! There's young Seth Minards, for
instance; an able-bodied young man if ever there was one. But I
don't mind telling you I'm taking some steps to stir up their
consciences."
"I did hear," said her friend sweetly, "that you had been stirring up
the women. In fact it reached me, dear, that Mrs Penhaligon had
already chased you to the door with a besom--and she the mildest
woman, which no doubt you reckoned on for a beginning. But if you
mean to tackle the young men as well--though I can't call to mind
that the Vicarage meetin' set it down as any part of your duties--"
"I don't take my orders from any Vicarage meeting," snapped Mrs
Polsue; "not at any time, and least of all in an emergency like
this, when country and conscience call me together to a plain duty.
As for Mrs Penhaligon, you were misinformed, and I advise you to be
more careful how you listen to gossip. The woman was insolent, but
she did _not_ chase me--as you vulgarly put it, no doubt repeating
your informant's words--she did _not_ chase me out of doors with a
besom. On the contrary, she gave me full opportunity to say what I
thought of her."
"Yes; so I understood, dear: and it was after that, and in
consequence (as I was told) that she--"
"If you are proposing, Charity Oliver, to retail this story to
others, you may drag in a besom if you will. But as a fact Mrs
Penhaligon resorted to nothing but bad language, in which she was
backed up by her co-habitant, or whatever you prefer to call him, the
man Nanjivell."
"Yes, I heard that he took a hand in it." "There you are right. He
took a hand in it to the extent of informing me that Mrs Penhaligon
was under his charge, if you ever heard anything so brazen. . . .
I have often wondered," added Mrs Polsue, darkly musing, "why Polpier
has not, before this, become as one of the Cities of the Plain."
"Have you?" asked Miss Oliver. "If I let such a thought trouble my
head, I'd scarce close an eye when I went to bed."
"But what puzzles me," went on Mrs Polsue, "is how that Nanjivell
found the pluck. Every one knows him for next door to a pauper: and
yet he spoke up, as if he had pounds an' to spare."
"Perhaps you irritated him," suggested Miss Oliver. "Everybody knows
that, poor as folks may be, if you try to set them right beyond a
certain point--"
The two ladies, in this amiable converse, had drawn near to the
bridge-end. They were suddenly aware of a party of six soldiers in
khaki, headed by a corporal, advancing over the bridge in file.
Each pair of soldiers carried between them a heavy sack, swinging it
slowly as they marched.
The ladies drew aside, curious. The soldiers halted in front of the
Old Doctor's House. The corporal--a stout man--walked into the
porch-way and knocked.
Mrs Penhaligon answered the knock, and after a short colloquy was
heard to call back into the passage summoning Mr Nanjivell.
In half a minute Nicky-Nan hobbled out. Meanwhile, their passage
over the bridge being clear ahead, our two ladies had no good excuse
for lingering. Yet they lingered. When all was said and done, no
such sight as that of seven soldiers in khaki had been witnessed in
Polpier within living memory. The child population of Polpier was
indoors, expectant of dinner; and the squad missed the compliment of
attention that would certainly have been paid it ten minutes earlier
or an hour later.
"Here are your spuds," announced Corporal Sandercock, "with the
Commandin' Officer's compliments." He paused, seemingly in wrestle
with an inward reluctance. He plunged his right hand into his
breeches pocket. "And here," said he, "be two sovereigns picked up
in addition to the one you dropped this mornin'. It softens my
surprise a bit," Corporal Sandercock added, "now that I see the house
you occupy, and," with a glance at Mrs Penhaligon--"the style you
maintain. But for a man o' seemin'ly close habits, you're terribly
flippant with your loose gold."
CHAPTER XVIII.
FEATHERS.
When Polpier folk had occasion to talk of soldiers and soldiering--a
far-away theme to which the mind seldom wandered--their eyes would
become pensive and their voices take an accent of pity tinged with
gentle contempt. 'There were such men. People back inland, among
various strange avocations, followed this one; at a shilling a-day,
too!' Some months before, as young Seth Minards happened to be
dandering along the western cliff-track, he was met and accosted by
an officer in uniform, who asked him many questions about the coast,
its paths, the coves where a boat might be beached in moderate
weather, &c., and made notes on the margin of a map. "Who was that
tall chap I see'd 'ee in talk with, up by th' Peak?" asked Un' Benny
Rowett later in the day. "A Cap'n Something-or-other," answered
Seth; "I didn't catch his full name." "Walked over from Troy, I
s'pose? Queer how these ship-cap'ns enjoy stretchin' their legs
after a passage--the furriners especially. But there! 'tis nat'ral."
"He wasn' a ship-cap'n." "What? a mine-cap'n?--ay, to be sure, that
accounts for the colour of his clothes. . . . Out o' work, was he?
There's been a lot o' distress down in the Minin' District lately."
"You're wrong again," said Seth: "he's a gun-sojer, or so he told
me." "What, an _army_-cap'n? . . . But I oft to ha' guessed.
Come to think, he didn' look scarcely more 'n that."
Polpier, indeed, had not seen a troop of soldiers since the
Napoleonic era, when (as has been related) the Old Doctor raised a
company of Volunteer Artillery. Here we were, after more than a
hundred years, at war again for what the newspapers called "our
national existence"; and behold within five days Polpier had become a
centre of military activity! The people, who during those five days
had talked more about the career of arms and those who followed it
than in five decades before, had insensibly--or, at least, without
sense of inconsistency--passed from amused contempt to a lively
interest, even though in speech they kept to the old tone of light
cynicism. Nor was this tone affected to cover a right-about-face; it
simply meant that a habit of speech could not quite so quickly as a
habit of thought adapt itself to retreat.
Of a sudden, and almost before it could own to this nascent interest,
Polpier found itself flattered and exalted to military importance.
That Sunday afternoon the whole town pretermitted its afternoon nap
and flocked up past the Warren to view the camp. As Miss Oliver
observed, "It was an object-lesson: it brought home some of the
realities of war to you."
"_Some_," agreed Mrs Polsue. "If I was you, dear, I wouldn' gush
over such things, but rather pray the Lord against sendin' too many
of 'em. It wouldn' altogether surprise me," she added darkly, "if
the after-consequences of this was worse than any Revival Meetin'."
The O.C. had very wisely let it be known that, though in future it
would be necessary to draw lines about his encampment, station
guards, and allow entrance only by written permit, on this first day
the public were welcome to roam among the tents and satisfy their
curiosity. His company might be stationed here for some months to
come, and he wished to start on neighbourly terms. He had been told,
moreover, that Polpier as a recruiting-ground was virgin soil.
His sappers were instructed, therefore, to make every one welcome,
and especially any likely-looking young men who asked questions or
otherwise showed an interest.
Curiously enough--and strangely, unless you know Polpier and
West-country people--it was the likely-looking young men who hung
back and showed least interest that afternoon. A few of them who had
sweethearts were jealous, perhaps: it is not pleasant when the girl
you love suddenly abstracts from you the Sunday attention on which
you have come to count and transfers it enthusiastically--even if
generally--to a number of young strangers, artlessly surrendering to
a certain glamour in them because they are doing what never occurred
to you.
But in the main these young men hung back just because they were
interested; because, being interested, they were shy. This camp
spoke, or should speak, to _them_: its business, its proper meaning,
could only be for _them_. They could not lay full account with the
feeling. But these old men conning the gear and shaking heads so
wisely--these middle-aged Sabbath couples pacing around and hanging
on heel to wonder how the soldiers packed themselves at night into
quarters so narrow, or advancing and peering among utensils of
cookery--most of all the young women giggling while they wondered at
this, that, or the' other,--all were impertinent to the scene.
Whatever War signified, it was a mystery for men, and for young men.
The crowd thinned towards five o'clock, which is Polpier's Sunday
hour for tea. On a tussock of thyme above Nicky-Nan's freshly
cleared patch--the very tussock on which Corporal Sandercock had
rested that morning--young Obed Pearce, the farmer's son, sat and
sucked at a pipe of extinct tobacco. Hunger of heart had dragged him
down to have a look at the camp: then, coming in full sight of it, he
had halted as before the presence of something holy, to which he
dared approach no nearer.
He had arrived somewhat late in the afternoon, as the thick of the
crowd was dispersing. He had no young woman to bring with him, to
allay her curiosity. Farmers' sons marry late, and are deliberate in
choosing. It is the traditional rule. Young fishermen, on the other
hand, claim their sweethearts early and settle down to a long
probation of walking-out, waiting their turn while, by process of
nature, old people die and cottages fall empty.
Such is economic law in Polpier: and in accordance with it young Obed
Pearce sat and drew at his pipe alone: whereas when young Seth
Minards, by two years his junior, came along at a slow walk with
hands deep in his trouser-pockets and no maiden on his arm or by his
side, Obed felt no incongruity in challenging him.
"Hullo, young Seth! Not found a maid yet?"
"No: nor likely to." Young Seth halted. If he had not found a damsel
it was not for lack of good looks. He had a face for a Raphael to
paint; the face of a Stephen or a Sebastian; gloomed over just now,
as he halted with his shoulders to the sunset. "I can't think o'
such things in these times, Mr Obed."
"Nor me," said the farmer's son, discovering that his pipe was out
and feeling in his pocket for a box of matches.
"There's no hurry for you, Mr Obed." "Isn't there? . . . Well, I
suppose not, thank goodness! Here, take a fill o' baccy an' tell me
what you think of it. I mean, o' course"--with a jerk of his hand
towards the camp--"what you think o' that there?"
"I wish I could tell 'ee offhand," answered Seth after a pause,
carefully filling his pipe. "I was puzzlin' it over as I came
along."
"I see nothing to puzzle, for a man placed as you be," said Obed,
drawing hard on his pipe. "If you had a father and a mother, now,
both draggin' hard on your coat-tails--My God!" he broke off, staring
at the sappers moving on the hillside. "What wouldn't I give to be
like any o' those?"
"If you feel it like that," Seth encouraged him, "the way's plain,
surely? Father nor mother--no, nor wife nor child, if I had 'em--
could hinder me."
"What hinders you then, lucky man?" Seth smoked for a while in
silence. "I don't think as I'd answer 'ee," he said at length
quietly, "if I thought my answerin' would carry weight in your mind.
_You_ to call me lucky!--when your way's clear, and all you want is
the will."
"We'll pass that," said Obed. "To you, that have none at home to
hinder, ben't the way clear?"
"Since you ask me, 'tis not; or if clear, clear contrary."
"How should that be, in God's name?"
"I'd rather you didn' ask."
"But I do. . . . Look here, Seth Minards, I'm in trouble: and I don't
know how 'tis, but you're the sort o' chap one turns to. Sit down,
now, like a friend."
Seth seated himself on the turf. "It's a strange thing, is War,"
said he after a pause. "All my life I've abominated it--yes, the
very thought of it."
"All my life," said Obed, "I've reckoned it--I can't tell you why--
the only test of a man."
"'Tis an evil thing; yes, to be sure, and a devilish," said Seth,
musing. "Men killing one another--and the widows left, an' the
orphans, on both sides. War's the plainest evil in all the world;
and if I join in it, 'tis to help evil with my eyes open. All my
life, sir, I've held by the Sermon on the Mount."
"I've read it," said Obed Pearce. "Go on."
"Without it I'm lost. Then along comes this very worst evil," he
gazed towards the camp on the slope, "and here it is, callin' me in
the name o' my Country, tauntin', askin' me why I can't make up my
mind to be a man!" Seth checked a groan. "You see," he went on, "we
looks at it, sir, in different ways, but they both hurt. I be main
sorry if my own trouble o' mind adds any weight to your'n. But th'
Bible says that, though one man's burden be 'most as heavy as
another's, the pair may halve the whole load by sharin' it--or that's
as I read the tex'."
Young Obed ground his teeth. "Maybe you haven't to endure _this_
sort o' thing!" On a fierce impulse he pulled an envelope from his
pocket, seemed to repent, then hardened his courage, and slowly drew
forth--three white feathers, "It came to me this morning, anonymous."
His face was crimson.
"Maybe I have," answered Seth tranquilly, and produced an envelope
containing three feathers precisely similar. "But what signifies a
dirty trick o' that sort? It only tells what be in some other
unfort'nate person's mind. It don't affect what's in my own,"
"Hullo!" hailed a voice behind them. "Comparin' love-letters, you
young men?"
The speaker was Nicky-Nan, come to survey the desolation of his
'taty-patch. Young Obed hastily crammed his envelope into his
pocket. But Seth Minards turned about with a frank smile.
"You may see mine, Mr Nanjivell. Look what some kind friend sent me
this mornin'!"
"Well, I s'wow!" exclaimed Nicky-Nan, after a silence of
astonishment. "If _I_ didn' get such another Prince o' Wales's
plume, an' this very mornin' too!"
"You?" cried the two young men together. "See here"--Nicky in his
turn pulled forth an envelope. "But what do it signify at all?
'Tis all a heathen mystery to me."
"Well, and how are we getting along?" asked the Vicar two days later,
as he entered the morning-room where his wife sat busily addressing
circulars and notices of sub-committee meetings.
She looked up, with a small pucker on her forehead. "I suppose it is
drudgery; but do you know, Robert," she confessed, "I really believe
I could get to like this sort of thing in time?"
He laughed, a trifle wistfully. "And do you know, Agatha, why it is
that clergymen and their wives so seldom trouble the Divorce Court--
in comparison, we'll say, with soldiers and soldiers' wives? . . .
No, you are going to answer wrong. It isn't because the parsons are
better men--for I don't believe they are."
"Then it seems to follow that their wives must be better women!"
"You're wrong again. It's because the wife of a parish priest, even
when she has no children of her own"--here the Vicar winced, flushed,
and went on rapidly--"nine times out of ten has a whole parish to
mother--clothing-clubs, Sunday-school classes, mothers' meetings,
children's outings, choir feasts,--it's all looking after people,
clothing 'em, feeding 'em, patting 'em on the head or boxing their
ears and telling 'em to be good--which is just the sort of business a
virtuous woman delights in. _She riseth also while it is yet night,
and giveth meat to her household and a portion to her maidens_.
'A portion to her maidens'; you see she used to measure out the
butter in Solomon's time."
"It wouldn't do in this parish," she said with a laugh. "They'd give
notice at once."
"God forgive me that I brought you to this parish, Agatha!"
"Now if you begin to talk like that--when I've really made a
beginning!" She pointed in triumph to the stacks of missives on the
writing-table.
"It's I who bungled, the other day, when I suggested your giving Mrs
Polsue a duplicate list of the names and addresses. I thought it
would please her and save you half the secretarial labour; and now it
appears that you _like_ the secretarial labour!"
"What has happened?" Mrs Steele asked. "Well, young Obed Pearce rode
over to see me yesterday. He's in great distress of mind, poor
fellow; dying to enlist and serve his country, but held back by his
parents, who won't hear of it. As if this wasn't torture enough, in
the midst of it he gets an envelope by post--addressed in a feigned
hand, and with no letter inside, but just three white feathers."
"Oh, hateful! Who could be so wicked?"
"I met Lippity-Libby at the gate this morning. 'Look here,' I said;
'this is a pretty poison you are sowing on your rounds': and I showed
him the feathers which young Obed had left with me. 'I know you
can't help it,' said I, 'but if the Post Office can stop and open
suspected circulars, surely it can refuse to help this abomination!'
'I've delivered pretty well a score, sir,' said he; 'and I wish you
or some person would write to the papers and stop it.' 'Well,' I
said, 'it's not for me to ask if you have a guess who sends this sort
of thing about?' He rubbed his chin for a while and then answered:
`No, Parson; nor 'tisn't for me to tell 'ee if I do: but if you
_should_ happen to be strollin' down t'wards the Quay, you might take
a look at Mrs Polsue's Cochin-China hens. The way them birds have
been moultin' since the War started--'"
"Robert! You don't tell me that woman plucks the poor things alive!"
"Ay: and takes the bleeding quills to draw more blood from young
men's hearts."
CHAPTER XIX.
I-SPY-HI!
At certain decent and regular intervals of time (we need not indicate
them more precisely) Mrs Polsue was accustomed to order in from the
Three Pilchards a firkin of ale. A firkin, as the reader probably
knows, is the least compromising of casks, and Mr Latter regularly
attended in person to "spile" it. Mrs Polsue as regularly took care
to watch the operation.
"The newspaper tells me," said she, "that this is likely to be a
teetotal War."
"Tell me another, ma'am!" answered Mr Latter in his unconventional
way.
"It would be an excellent thing for our troops in the field: and, if
you ask my opinion, a little mortifying of the spirit would do the
working classes of this country a deal of good. I take a glass of
ale myself, under medical advice, because cold water disagrees with
me, and I've never yet had the aerated drink recommended that wasn't
followed by flatulence."
"There's neither mirth nor music in 'em" agreed Mr Latter.
"I do not seek either mirth or music in the little I make use of,"
Mrs Polsue corrected him; "and on general grounds I agree with total
abstinence."
[In this the lady said no more than the truth. She had lamented,
scores of times, an infirmity of the flesh which, forbidding her to
chastise the indulgence of moderate drinking, protected a truly
enormous class of fellow-creatures from her missionary disapproval.
Often and often she had envied Charity Oliver, who could consume tea
with hot sausages and even ham rashers. "To have the stomach of an
ostrich must be a privilege indeed," she had once assured her friend;
"though to be sure it tells on the complexion, forcing the blood to
the face; so that (from a worldly point of view) at a distance a
different construction might be put on it."]
"Tea with sausages, for instance!"
"The same here--Poison!" Mr Latter agreed, delicately indicating
where "here" lay for him.
"My father ever kept a generous table, which he was in a position to
afford." Mrs Polsue sighed, and added with resignation, "I suppose
we must say that the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the
children's teeth are set on edge."
"I wouldn' put it just like that, ma'am-not from what I've heard of
the old gentleman's knowledge o' liquor."
"It will bear hardly on you, Latter, if the King and Parliament
should put the country under Prohibition?"
["Drabbet the old cat!" murmured Mr Latter to himself.
"She's fishing to get at my banking account, and a lot she'd
interfere if 'twas the workhouse with me to-morrow."]
Aloud he said, rubbing his thumb on the edge of the augur and
preparing to make incision upon the cask, "Well, ma'am, I reckon as
the Lord will provide mortification enough for us before we're out o'
this business, without our troublin' to get in ahead. The way I
looks at it is, 'Let's be cheerful.' In my experience o' life there's
no bank like cheerfulness for a man to draw upon, to keep hisself fit
and industrious. What's more--if I may say it--'most every staid
man, afore he gets to forty, has pretty well come to terms with his
innards. He knows--if you'll excuse the figger o' speech, ma'am--
what's the pressure 'pon the boiler, an' how to stoke it.
There's folks," said Mr Latter delicately, "as can't stoke hot tea
upon sossiges: an' likewise there's folks as'll put forth their best
on three goes o' whisky. So why not live an' let live?"
"They say," answered Mrs Polsue, "that the Czar has been advised to
prohibit the sale of vodka throughout his vast dominion."
"What's the beverage, ma'am? I don't seem to know it."
"Vodka."
"Oh, well: very likely he has his reasons. . . . It sounds a long way
off."
"But that," Mrs Polsue persisted, reproducing what she had
assimilated from her newspaper,--"_that_ is what folks in Polpier
cannot be made to understand. At this moment the Germans are nearer
than we are to London, as the crow flies; and here are our working
classes living on honey and roses, like a City of the Plain.
What are our young men thinking about?"
"Why, ma'am," said Mr Latter, by this time busy with the cask,
"they're takin' it slow, I'll own, an' they don't say much. To begin
with, 'tis their natur'; an' next, 'tis a bit more they risk than you
or me, if I may make bold to say so. Then there's the mothers an'
sweethearts pullin' 'em back."
"Tut! If _I_ had a sweetheart--"
"Oh, certainly, ma'am!" agreed Mr Latter. "That if wars there had
been, you'd have driven him to the nearest, I make no doubt at all;
though your departed--if I may make so bold--was never the sort to
hurt a fly. . . . Though, by God," wound up Mr Latter in an inaudible
murmur as he blew the sawdust from the vent-hole, "the man must have
had pluck, too, in his way!"
"There's worse bein' done by Polpier women than holding the men back.
_I_ call it worse, at any rate, to send your wedded husband off to
fight for his country and then pick up with another man for
protection."
"Can such goin's-on go on in our midst, ma'am, and nothing about in
the shape o' fire and brimstone?"
"I am not retailing gossip, Mr Latter. I tell you no more than was
openly said to me, and brazenly, before witnesses, by one of the
parties involved. As one of the Relief Committee appointed to see
that none of our reservists' families are suffering want, I called
the other day upon Samuel Penhaligon's wife. From the first the
woman showed no sense of our respective positions; and after a
question or two she became so violent that it drew quite a small
crowd around the door. In the midst of her tirading out steps her
partner--"
"What? Sam?"
"How should it be Samuel Penhaligon, when you know as well as I do
that he's gone to the War? No: the man, I regret to say, was
Nicholas Nanjivell."
"Nicky-Nan? . . . Oh, come, ma'am, I say! Why, what capers could _he_
been cuttin'?"
"I feel justified in speaking of him as her partner, seeing that he
avowed as much. She was living under his protection, he said, and he
would see that she didn't come to want. He had even the effrontery
to assure me that he had made an arrangement with Penhaligon.
But that, I feel sure, was a shameless lie, and my ears tingle to
hear myself repeating it. 'Twas hard enough to keep one's temper
with the man standing there and talking big as my lord, when the
Almighty knows if for these two years he's seen the colour of a
sovereign. . . . Eh? What ails you?" she demanded, as Mr Latter, who
had been testing the point of the auger with his thumb, gave a sudden
and violent start.
"Thank 'ee, ma'am--there's no blood drawn, as it happens," said Mr
Latter, "but 'twas nibby-jibby,[1] the way you outed with it, and
took me of a heap. If you'd ever happened now to stand up to a man
and him gettin' his fist full on your wind--no, you _wouldn't_, o'
course. But 'twas a knock-out. . . . 'Nicky-Nan,' says you, 'an'not
a sovereign to bless hisself'--Why the man's fairly _leakin_
sovereigns!--sheddin' 'em about like fish-scales!"
"Mr Latter--are you _intoxicated?_"
"I wish I was, ma'am. 'Twould be some kind of an explanation, though
mebbe not the most satisfactory. . . . When I tell you that the man
walked into my bar, three days since, an' scattered sovereigns all
over my floor! When I tell you he couldn' pull out a han'kerchief to
blow his nose but he _sneezed_ sovereigns!"
Mrs Polsue gasped.
"--When I tell you," Mr Latter pursued, flourishing his auger and
rapping it on the flat of his palm, "that one o' these soldiers--a
Corporal too, and named Sandercock--was talkin' in my bar not two
hours ago, an' says he, 'You've a man called Nanjivell lives here by
the bridge.' 'Ay,' says I. 'Bit of an eccentric?' says he. 'How?'
says I. 'The way he drops his gold about,' says the Corporal.
'Ho?' says I, prickin' up my ears, but not choosin' to be talkative
with a stranger. 'So folks have been tellin' you that story
already?' says I. '_Tellin_ me?' says he. 'Why, I see'd it with my
own eyes!' 'Come,' thinks I to myself, 'this fellow's a bra' bit of
a liar, wherever he hails from.' 'With my own eyes,' he repeats.
'I see'd 'en drop a sovereign in gold, up by that 'taty-patch of his
where the Company's runnin' a trench: an' later on, as I started
clearin' his crop, I came on two more in the soil, just where he'd
been standin'. 'Hullo!' thinks I, 'this ben't the same story, but
another one altogether.' I didn't say that aloud, though. What I
said aloud was, 'You mustn't take notice of everything you see
Nicky-Nan do. 'Tis only his tricks.' 'Tricks?' says the Corporal.
'If a man behaved like that down to Penryn we should call 'en an
eccentric.' That's the tale, ma'am: an' the best part o' last night,
what with puttin' two an' two together an' makin' neither head nor
tail of it, I scarce closed an eye in my head."
"I saw the man,"--Mrs Polsue, after a sharp intake of breath, said it
slowly in a hushed tone of surmise. "On Sunday, on my way home from
service, I saw him hand the money over. I wasn't near enough to
catch all that passed in the way of conversation. But the soldiers
were delivering a quantity of potatoes they had dug up in the man's
patch, and I concluded that Government, in its wasteful way, was
paying him some sort of compensation over and above saving his crop
for him. I remember saying to Miss Oliver that somebody ought to
write to the War Office about it. . . . A man that already takes the
taxpayers' money for pretending to be a Reservist, and then, when war
breaks out, prefers to skulk at home in open sin or next door to it!"
"I wouldn't go so far as all that, ma'am," said Mr Latter. "In fact,
I b'lieve you're under some mistake about Mrs Penhaligon, who is
reckoned as vartuous a woman as any in the parish; while 'tis known
that no doctor'd pass Nanjivell for service. But if you ask me, I've
a great idea the man has come into a legacy, or else struck a store
of gold--"
The landlord checked his tongue abruptly. Some phrase about a
'taty-patch floated across his memory. Had the phrase been his own,
or Nicky-Nan's? He must give himself time to think this out, for it
might well be the clue. The Corporal had spoken of finding two of
the three sovereigns under the soil. . . . While Mr Latter's brain
worked, he cast a quick glance at Mrs Polsue, in fear that he had
gone too far.
But, although she had heard him, it happened that Mrs Polsue's mind
was working on a widely divergent scent. She also was preoccupied
with something that haunted her memory: a paragraph in that morning's
newspaper. She, too, had no present intention of unveiling her
surmise.
"Nonsense!" she said. "Folks don't happen on buried treasure in
Polpier; and you can't have a legacy without its getting into the
papers."
Mr Latter had no sooner departed than she put on her bonnet and paid
a call on her friend Miss Charity Oliver.
"If Mr Pamphlett were only a magistrate--" said Mrs Polsue, after
telling her story. "He was as good as promised it before the
Unionists went out of office, as his services to the party well
deserved. _This_ Government appoints none but its own creatures.
. . . And Squire Tresawna living three miles away--with the chance,
when you get there, of finding he's not at home--"
"You might send him a letter," suggested Miss Oliver.
"One has to be very careful what one puts down on paper," said Mrs
Polsue. "I don't want to compromise myself unnecessarily, even for
the sake of my country. A personal interview is always more
advisable . . . But, apart from the distance, I don't fancy the idea
of consulting the Squire. He dislikes hearing ill of anybody. Oh, I
quite agree!--If he takes that line, he has no business on the Bench.
What else is a magistrate _for?_"
"Well, dear, I don't know much about the law. But I've heard it laid
down as a rule that every man is supposed to be innocent until you
prove that he's guilty--"
"And I never could understand why," Mrs Polsue interjected; "seeing
that five out of every six persons charged are found guilty. To my
mind the law would be more sensible if it learnt by experience and
took some account of the odds."
"There's a good deal to be said for that, no doubt," Miss Oliver
agreed. "But the Squire--or any other magistrate, for that matter--
will look on the law as it stands; and if you are going to lay
information against Nicholas Nanjivell--"
"Who said I wanted to lay information? Why should any private person
undertake such unpleasantness, when it's the plain duty of the
police, and in fact what they're paid for."
"Then why not leave it to Rat-it-all?"
"I believe I will, after giving him a hint. . . . But you don't seem
to _see_, Charity Oliver!" her friend exploded. "What you are
arguing may do well enough for ordinary times. These are not
ordinary times. With all the newspapers declaring that our country
is riddled with German spies--positively riddled--"
"I don't believe the man's capable of it, even if he had the will."
"Then, perhaps, if you're so clever, you'll suggest a likelier
explanation?"
"He may have won the money in a lottery," Miss Oliver suggested
brightly. "One of those Hamburg affairs--if you insist that the
money's German."
"I don't insist on anything," snapped Mrs Polsue. "I only say,
first, there's a mystery here, and you can't deny it. Secondly,
we're at war,--you'll agree to that, I hope? That being so, it's
everybody's business to take precautions and inform the authorities
of _anything_ that looks suspicious. The more it turns out to be
smoke without fire, the more obliged the man ought to be to us for
giving him the chance to clear his character."
"Well, I hope you won't start obliging _me_ in that way," Miss Oliver
was ever slow at following logic. "Because I never put a shilling
into a lottery in my life, though I've more than once been in two
minds. But in those days Germany always seemed so far off, and their
way of counting money in what they call Marks always struck me as so
unnatural. Marks was what you used to get at school--like sherbet
and such things."
"Charity Oliver--may the Lord forgive me, but sometimes I'm tempted
to think you no better than a fool!"
"The Vicar doesn't think so," responded Miss Oliver complacently.
"He called this morning to ask me if I'd add to my public duties by
allowing him to nominate me on the Relief Committee, which wants
strengthening."
"Did he say _that?_" Mrs Polsue sat bolt erect.
"Well, I won't swear to the words. . . . Let me see. No, his actual
words were that it wanted a little new blood to give it tact. I will
say that Mr Steele has a very happy way of putting things. . . .
So you really _are_ going to lay information, Mary-Martha? If you
see your duty so clear, I can't think why you troubled to consult
me."
"I shall do my duty," declared Mrs Polsue. "Without taking further
responsibility, I shall certainly put Rat-it-all on the look-out."
That same evening, a little before sunset, Nicky-Nan took a stroll
along the cliff-path towards his devastated holding, to see what
progress the military had made with their excavations. The trench,
though approaching his boundary fence, had not yet reached it.
Somewhat to his surprise he found Mr Latter there, in the very middle
of his patch, examining the turned earth to right and left.
"Hullo!" cried Nicky-Nan, unsuspecting. "_You_ caught the war-fever
too? I never met 'ee so far afield afore. What with your sedentary
figure an' the contempt I've heard 'ee use about soldiers--"
Mr Latter, as he straightened himself up, appeared to be confused.
He was also red in the face, and breathed heavily. Nicky-Nan noted,
but innocently misread, these symptoms.
"Good friable soil you got here," said Mr Latter, recovering a
measure of self-possession. "Pretty profitable little patch, unless
I'm mistaken."
"It was," answered Nicky. "But though, from your habits, you're
about the last man I'd have counted on findin' hereabouts, I'm main
glad, as it happens. A superstitious person might go so far as to
say you'd dropped from heaven."
"Why so?"
Nicky-Nan cast a glance over his shoulder. "We're neighbours here?"
"Certainly," agreed Mr Latter, puzzled, and on his defence.
"Noticed anything strange about Rat-it-all, of late?"
"Rat-it-all?"
"You wish friendly to him, eh? . . . I ask because, as between the
police and licensed victuallers--" Nicky-Nan hesitated.
"You may make your mind easy," Mr Latter assured him. "Rat-it-all
wouldn't look over a blind. I've no complaint to make of Rat-it-all,
and never had. But what's happened to him?"
"I wish I knew," answered Nicky-Nan. "I glimpsed him followin' me,
back along the path; an' when I turned about for a chat, he dodged
behind a furze-bush like as if he was pouncin' on some valuable
butterfly. 'That's odd,' I thought: for I'd never heard of his
collectin' such things. But he's often told me how lonely a
constable feels, an' I thought he might have picked up wi' the habit
to amuse himself. So on I walked, waitin' for him to catch me up;
an' by-an'-by turned about to look for en. There he was, on the
path, an' be damned if he didn' dodge behind another bush! I wonder
if 'tis sunstroke? It always seemed to me those helmets must be a
tryin' wear."
"I dunno. . . . But here he is! Let's ask him," said Mr Latter as
Policeman Rat-it-all appeared on the ridge with body bent and using
the gait of a sleuth-hound Indian. [There is no such thing as a
sleuth-hound Indian, but none the less Rat-it-all was copying him.]
"Hullo, Rat-it-all!"
The constable straightened himself up and approached with an affected
air of jauntiness.
"Why, whoever would ha' thought to happen on _you_ two here?" he
exclaimed, and laughed uneasily.
"Sure enough the man's manner isn't natural," said Mr Latter to
Nicky-Nan. "Speakin' as a publican, too," he confided, "I'd be sorry
if anything happened to the chap an' we got a stranger in his place."
"What's the matter with 'ee, Rat-it-all?" asked Nicky-Nan
sympathetically. "By the way you've been behavin' all up the hill--"
"You noticed it?"
"_Noticed_ it!"
"Rat it all!--I mean, I was hopin' you wouldn't. I begin to see as it
will take more practice than I allowed." He cast a glance back at
the ridge as he seated himself on the turf. "Either of you got a
pinch o' baccy?"
"Then you _are_n't afflicted in any way?" exclaimed Nicky-Nan with
relief. "But what was the matter with 'ee, just now, that you kept
behavin' so comical?"
"Got such a thing as a match? . . . Well, I didn' believe it from the
first. You must make allowance," said he as he puffed, "that a
constable has communications in these times, of a certain nature,
calculated to get on his Nerves. For my part, I hate all this
mistrustfulness that's goin'. 'Confidence'--that's my motto--
'as betwix' man an' man.'"
[1] A close shave.
CHAPTER XX.
MISS OLIVER PROFFERS ASSISTANCE.
Although this narrative has faintly attempted to trace it here and
there in operation, no one can keep tally with rumour in Polpier, or
render any convincing account of its secret ways. It were far easier
to hunt thistledown.
The Penhaligon family were packing, preparing for the great move into
Aun' Bunney's derelict cottage. 'Bert and 'Beida had been given to
understand--had made sure in fact--that the move would be made, at
earliest, in the week before Michaelmas Day. For some reason or
other Mrs Penhaligon had changed her mind, and was hurrying things
forward almost feverishly. 'Beida--who for a year or so had been
taken more and more into her mother's confidence--suddenly found
herself up against a dead wall of mystery and obstinacy. The growing
girl was puzzled--driven to consult 'Bert about it; and a Polpier
woman is driven far before she seeks advice from husband or brother.
She might have spared herself the humiliation, too. For 'Bert, when
she cornered him, gave no help at all. Yet he was positive enough.
[It takes some experience to discover what painted laths men are.]
"Some woman's rot!" decided 'Bert with a shrug of his shoulders.
"Father bein' away, she's worryin', an' wants to get it over.
She don't consult me, so I've no call to tell her to take things
cooler." The trumpet, after thus uttering no uncertain sound, tailed
off upon the word 'females.'
"Get along with your 'females'!" fired up 'Beida, springing to arms
for her sex. "I'd like to know where the world'd be without us.
But don't you see that 'tisn' _like_ Mother to be so daggin' to quit
the old house?"
"She wants to get the grievin' over, I tell you," 'Bert maintained.
As for 'Biades, he was rather more--certainly not less--of a nuisance
than children of his age usually are when a family intends a move.
He asked a thousand questions, wandered among packing-cases as in a
maze, and, if his presence were forgotten for a moment, sat down and
howled. On being picked up and righted he would account for his
emotion quite absurdly yet lucidly and in a way that wrung all
hearts. On the second day of packing he looked out from a zareba of
furniture under which he had contrived to crawl, and demanded--
"What's a Spy?"
"A Spy?" his mother echoed after he had repeated the question three
or four times. "A Spy is a wicked man: worse nor a Prooshian."
"What's a Prooshian?"
"A Prooshian," said Mrs Penhaligon, inverting one bedroom chair on
another, "is a kind o' German, and by all accounts the p'isonest.
A Spy is worse nor even a Prooshian, because he pretends he isn't
till he've wormed hisself into your confidence, an' then he comes out
in his true colours, an' the next thing you know you're stabbed in
the back in the dark." Mrs Penhaligon might miss to be lucid in
explanation, but never to be vivid.
"What's your 'confidence'?" asked 'Biades, after a digestive pause.
His sister 'Beida turned about while she bumped herself up and down
in a sitting posture on the lid of an old sea-chest overfilled with
pillows, bed-curtains, and other "soft goods."
"It isn't your stummick, on which you're crawlin' at this moment like
Satan in the garden. And only yesterday your askin' to be put into
weskits on the ground of your age! A nice business 'twould be to
keep your front in buttons!" While admonishing 'Biades, 'Beida
continued to bump herself on the sea-chest, her speech by consequence
coming in short interrupted gushes like water from a pump. "A Spy,"
she continued, "is a man what creeps in a person's belongings same as
you're doin' at this moment, an' then goes off an' gets paid for
writin' to Germany about it: which if we didn' know from bitter
experience as you couldn't spell a, b, 'ab,' we should be feelin'
nervous at this moment, the way you're behavin'."
"How can you tell a Spy?" persisted 'Biades after another pause,
ignoring reproof. "Does he go about with a gamey leg, like Mr
Nanjivell? Or what?"
"Don't you set up to laugh at gamey legs or any such infirmity," his
mother warned him, "when there's an All-seein' Eye about; an', for
all we know, around the corner at this moment gettin' ready to strike
you comical."
"There's no way to tell a Spy at first," added 'Beida; "an' that's
why they're so dangerous. The usual way is that first you have your
suspicions, an' then, some day when he's not lookin', you search his
premises an' the fat's in the fire."
"What's an infirmity?" asked 'Biades. Getting no answer, after half
a minute he asked, "What's premises?"
Still there was no answer. With a sigh he wriggled backwards out of
his shelter. Seizing the moment when his sister had at length
pressed down the lid and his mother was kneeling to lock it, he
slipped out of the room and betook himself to the water-side, where
he fell into deep thought.
This happened on Tuesday. During Wednesday and the morning of
Thursday the child was extraordinarily well-behaved. As Mrs
Penhaligon observed to her daughter--
"You kept warnin' me he'd be a handful, messin' about an' unpackin'
things as soon as they was packed. Whereas if he'd been his own
father, he couldn' ha' been more considerate in keepin' out o' the
way. 'Tis wonderful how their tender intellec's turn steady when
there's trouble in the family."
"But there isn't."
"Well, you know what I mean. For the last two days the blessed child
might not ha' been in existence, he's such a comfort."
"Well," said 'Beida, "you _may_ be right. But I never yet knowed
'Biades quiet for half this time 'ithout there was somebody's bill to
pay at the end o't."
That same afternoon as Miss Charity Oliver came down the hill on her
first errand as Relief Visitor, at the corner by Mrs Pengelly's she
happened on young 'Biades, posted solitary before the shop-window.
There was something queer in this: for the elder children had started
a game of tig, down by the bridge--that is to say, within earshot--
and as a rule any such game attracted 'Biades fatally to its
periphery, where he would stand with his eyes rounded and his heart
sick for the time when he would be grown up and invited to join in.
To-day his back was turned to the fun.
Miss Oliver, however, knew no more of 'Biades ways than that on her
approach as a rule he either fled precipitately or, if no retreat
offered itself, stood stock-still, put a finger in his mouth, and
seemed to be calling on some effort of the will to make him
invisible. To-day he met her accost easily, familiarly, even with
what in a grown male might have been taken for a drunken leer.
"Well, my little man!" said Miss Oliver. "And what might you be
doing here, all by yourself?"
"Choosin'," answered 'Biades. Reluctantly he withdrew his eyes again
from gloating on Mrs Pengelly's miscellaneous exhibits. "I 'spect
it'll end in peppermint lumps, but I'd rather have trousers if a
whole penny would run to 'em."
He held out his palm, exhibiting a coin over which his fingers
quickly closed again.
"What's that money you have?" asked Miss Oliver sharply.
"A penny," answered the child. "A whole penny. I like peppermint
lumps, but they smell so strong in your breath that 'Bert and 'Beida
would find out an' want to share. Of course trousers are found out
quite as easy, or easier. But you can't go shares in trousers: not,"
added 'Biades thoughtfully, "if you try ever so."
"May I see the pretty penny?" coaxed Miss Oliver: for in the glimpse
allowed her it had seemed an extraordinarily bright and yellow one.
"You mustn' come no nearer than you are now," said 'Biades, backing a
little. After an inward struggle he opened his fingers and disclosed
the coin.
"Where did you get _that?_" Miss Oliver's eyes were notoriously
sharp. Her voice rapped out the question in a way that made 'Biades
blink and clasp the coin again as he cast a desperate look behind him
in search of retreat.
"Mr Nanjivell gave it to me."
"Mr Nanjivell! . . . He couldn't!" Miss Oliver took a step forward.
'Biades lowered his head.
"If you come a step closer I'll butt 'ee!" He threatened.
"Mr Nanjivell gave it to me," he repeated, and, seeing her taken
aback, soared upon the wing of falsehood. "Mother's changing houses,
an' Mr Nanjivell said I'd behaved so quiet I deserved a penny if ever
a boy did in this world."
"A penny?" Miss Oliver echoed. "But where did he--how did he come
across that kind of penny? Such a bright penny, I mean."
"He spat upon it, an' rubbed it on his trousers," answered 'Biades
with a glibness that astonished himself, 'peeking' between his
fingers to make sure that they really held the prize. Inspiration
took the child, once started, and he lied as one lifted far above
earth. "Mr Nanjivell said as it might help me to forget Father's
bein' away at the War. Mr Nanjivell said as I couldn' learn too
early to lay by against a rainy day, and I was to take it to Missis
Pengelly's and if it took the form of trousers he didn' mind.
Mother wanted me to put it in the savings bank, but he wouldn' hear
of it. He said they weren't to be trusted any longer--not savings
banks. He said--"
"But where did _he_ get it?"
'Biades blinked, and set his face hardily. He had the haziest
notions of how money was acquired. But from infancy he had perforce
attended chapel.
"He took up a collection."
"_What?_"
"He took up a collection, Miss: the same as Mr Pamphlett does on
Sunday. Back-along, when he was at sea--"
"Alcibiades," said Miss Oliver on a sudden impulse, feeling for her
purse. "What would you say if I gave you two pennies for your bright
new one? Two pennies will buy twice as much as one, you know."
"O' course I know _that_," said 'Biades cunningly. "But what for?"
"Because you have told me such a pretty story."
'Biades hesitated. He had been driven--in self-defence, to be sure--
into saying things at the bare thought of which he felt a premonitory
tingling in the rearward part of his person. But somehow the feel of
the coin in his hand seemed to enfranchise him. He had at once a
sense of manly solidity, and of having been floated off into a giddy
atmosphere in which nothing succeeded like success and the law of
gravity had lost all spanking weight. He backed towards Mrs
Pengelly's shop door, greedy, suspicious, irresolute.
Miss Oliver produced two copper coins, and laid them in his palm.
As the exchange was made he backed upon Mrs Pengelly's shop door, and
the impact set a bell clanging. The sense of it shot up his spine of
a sudden, and at each stroke of the clapper he felt he had sold his
soul to the devil. But Miss Oliver stood in front of him, with a
smile on her face that seemed to waver the more she fixed it: and at
this moment the voice of Mrs Pengelly--a deep contralto--called--
"Come in!"
Some women are comfortable, others uncomfortable. In the language of
Polpier, "there be bitter and there be bowerly." Mrs Pengelly was a
bowerly woman, and traded in lollipops. Miss Oliver--
Anyhow, the child 'Biades turned and took refuge in the shop, hurling
back the door-flap and its clanging bell.
This left Miss Oliver without, in the awkwardest of situations: since
she had a conscience as well as curiosity. In her palm lay a
guinea-piece: which meant that (at the very least, or the current
rate of exchange) she had swindled a child out of twenty shillings
and tenpence. This would never do, of course. . . . Yet she could
not very well follow in at this moment and explain to Mrs Pengelly.
Moreover, here was a mystery connected with Nanjivell. In the midst
of her embarrassment she felt a secret assurance that she was in
luck; that she held a clue; that she had in her grasp something to
open Mrs Polsue's eyes in envy.
"The first thing," she decided, "is to take this piece of gold to the
child's mother, and instanter."
But, as fate would have it, she had scarcely reached the porch of the
Old Doctor's house when Nicky-Nan himself emerged from it: and at the
sight of him her fatal curiosity triumphed.
"Mr Nanjivell!" she called.
Nicky-Nan turned about. "Good mornin', Miss. Was that you
a-callin'?"
Having yielded to her impulse, Miss Oliver suddenly found herself at
a loss how to proceed. Confusion and the call to improvise an
opening movement mantled her cheeks with that crimson tint which her
friend Mary-Martha so often alleged to be unbecoming.
"I stopped you," she answered, stammering a little, "because, with
all our little differences in Polpier, we're all one family in a
sense, are we not? We have a sort of fellow-feeling--eh?--whether in
trouble _or_ prosperity. And as a Polpier woman, born and bred, I'd
like to be one of the first to wish you joy of your good fortune."
Nicky-Nan's face did not flush. On the contrary, it turned to an
ashen grey, as he stood before her and leant for support on his
stick. He was making inarticulate sounds in his throat.
"Who told you?" he gasped hoarsely. Recollecting himself, he hastily
changed the form of the question. "What lies have they been tellin'
up about me now?"
Miss Oliver had meant to disclose the guinea in her palm, and tell
him of her meeting with the child 'Biades. But now she clutched the
coin closer, and it gave her confidence--a feeling that she held her
trump card in reserve.
"Why, of course, they have been putting up lies, as you say," she
answered cunningly. "There was never such a place as Polpier for
tittle-tattle. They've even gone so far as to set it about that it
came from Germany: which was the reason you haven't joined up with
the colours."
"_What_ came from Germany?"
"And of course it is partly your own fault, isn't it?--if you _will_
make such a secret of the thing? . . . Yet, I'm sure I don't blame
you. Living the solitary life you do must make it specially trying
to feel that every one is canvassing your affairs. For my part, I
said, 'If it _does_ come from Germany,' I said, 'you may be sure 'tis
through one of those lotteries.'" On a swift thought she added,
"But that tale is all nonsense, of course: because the Germans
wouldn't pay in guineas, would they?"
"'Guineas'?" repeated Nicky-Nan, as the solid earth seemed to fail
beneath his feet and his supporting stick.
Miss Oliver, grasping the advantage of his evident distress, decided
in a flash (1) that here, before her, stood the wreck of a
well-connected man, cleanly in person, not ill to look upon; and (2)
that she would a little longer withhold disclosure of the guinea.
"Well, I _heard_ it took the form of guineas, Mr Nanjivell. But of
course I don't wish to be inquisitive."
"That devil Pamphlett has been talkin'," muttered Nicky-Nan to
himself.
"I only suggest," Miss Oliver went on, "that if 'twas known--I don't
seek to know the amount: but if I had your authority to say that
'twas all in good coin of this realm--with my opportunities I might
hush up half this silly talk about your being a spy and in German
pay--"
"What? . . . ME, a German spy?" The words seemed fairly to strangle
him.
"It's a positive fact, I assure you. I mean it's a positive fact
_somebody_ has been putting that story about."
"If I knawed the critter, male or female--" Nicky-Nan gripped his stick.
Miss Oliver could not help admiring his demeanour, his manly
indignation. The man had fine features, too--a touch of ancestry.
She grew bolder.
"Well, I rather think I _do_ know the creature, as you put it-though
I am not going to tell you," she added almost archly. Then, of a
sudden, "Has Constable Rat-it-all been paying you any attention
lately?"
"Well . . . I'll be danged!"
Miss Oliver laughed pleasantly. "The fact is, Mr Nanjivell, you want
a woman's wit to warn you, as every man does in your position.
And just now it took me of a sudden, happening upon you in this way
and knowing how you were surrounded by evil tongues, that I'd cast
prudence to the winds and speak to you openly for your good, as a
neighbour. You don't think the worse of me, I hope?"
"Why, no, Miss Oliver. Contrariwise I ought to be--if you hadn'
taken me so sudden!" he concluded lamely.
"We'll say no more about that. All I suggest is that, until you find
some one worthier of your confidence, if you care to count on me as
an old friend and neighbour--"
"Good Lord!" Nicky-Nan cast a hand to his brow. "You'll excuse my
manners, Miss--but if you'll let me go off an' think it over--"
He turned as if to flee into the house. Then, as if headed off by
the noise of hammering within, he faced about and made across the
bridge for the quay-head and his favourite bollard. There, as a man
in a dream, he found a seat, and vainly for ten minutes strove to
collect and arrange his thoughts. Suspicion, fear, wild anger wove
dances in his brain--witch-dances immingled with cursings upon the
heads of Pamphlett and Policeman Rat-it-all. . . . Of a sudden he sat
up and stiffened with a new fright.
"By the manner of her conversation, that woman was makin' love to
me!"
Left to herself, and as Nicky-Nan passed out of sight around the
corner beyond the bridge, Miss Charity Oliver warily opened her palm
and examined the guinea.
"By rights," she mused, "I ought to take this in to Mrs Penhaligon at
once, and caution her about Alcibiades. . . . No, I won't, though.
I'll call first and have it out with Mary-Martha. She thinks she
knows everything, and she has a way of making others believe it.
But she has proved herself a broken reed over this affair: and,"
said Miss Oliver to herself with decision, "I rather fancy I'll make
Mary-Martha sensible of it."
CHAPTER XXI.
FAIRY GOLD.
"So you see, Mary-Martha, that for once in a way you were wrong and I
was right."
"You're too fond of sweepin' statements, Charity Oliver. I doubt
your first, and your second I not only doubt but deny. So far as I
remember, I said the man was probably in German pay, while you
insisted that he'd won the money in a lottery."
"I didn't insist: I merely suggested. It was you who started to talk
about German money: and I answered you that, even if the money _was_
German, there might be an innocent way of explaining it before you
took upon yourself to warn the police."
Mrs Polsue glanced at her friend sharply. "You seem to be gettin'
very hot over it," was her comment. "Why, I can't think.
You certainly wouldn't if you gave any thought to your appearance."
"I'm not hot in the least," hotly protested Miss Oliver. "I'm simply
proving to you that you've made a mistake: which you could never in
your life bear to be told. The money is English gold, with King
George the Something's head on it: and _that_ you can't deny, try as
you may."
"All the more reason why it shouldn't come through a German lottery,"
replied Mrs Polsue, examining the coin.
"I tell you for the last time that I only threw lotteries out as a
suggestion. There's many ways to come into a fortune besides
lotteries. You can have it left to you by will, for instance--"
"Dear, dear! . . . But never mind: go on. How one lives and learns!"
"And the other day the papers were full of a man who came into tens
of thousands through what they call a Derby sweep. I remember
wondering how cleaning chimneys--even those long factory ones--could
be so profitable in the north of England, until it turned out that a
sweep was some kind of horse-race."
"The Derby, as it is called," said Mrs Polsue, imparting information
in her turn, "is the most famous of horse-races, and the most
popular, though not the most fashionable. It is called the Blue
Ribbon of the Turf."
"Indeed? Now that's very gratifying to hear," said Miss Oliver.
"I didn't know they ran _any_ of these meetings on teetotal lines."
"As I was saying," her friend continued, "the gowns worn are not so
expensive as at Ascot, and I believe there is no Royal Enclosure.
But the Derby is nevertheless what they call a National Institution.
As you know, I disapprove of horse-racing as a pastime: but my
brother-in-law in the Civil Service used to attend it regularly, from
a sense of duty, with a green veil around his hat."
"I suppose he didn't want to be recognised?" Miss Oliver hazarded.
"He didn't go so far as to say that Government Officials were
compelled to attend: though he implied that it was expected of him.
There's an unwritten law in most of these matters. . . . But after
what I've told you, Charity Oliver, do you look me in the face and
suggest that the Derby horse-race--being run, as every one knows,
early in the London season and somewhere towards the end of May, if
my memory serves me--can be made to account for a man like Nanjivell,
that humanly speaking shouldn't know one end of a horse from another,
starting to parade his wealth in the month of August?"
"You've such a knack of taking me up before I'm down, Mary-Martha!
I never said nor implied that Mr Nanjivell had won his money on a
horse-race. I only said that some people did."
"Oh, well, if _that_'s your piece of news," said Mrs Polsue with her
finest satirical air, "it was considerate of you to put on your
bonnet and lose no time in telling me. . . . But how long is it since
we started 'Mister'-ing Nanjivell in this way?"
Miss Oliver's face grew crimson. "It seems to me that now he has
come into money--and being always of good family, as everybody
knows--" She hesitated and came to a halt. Her friend's eyes were
fixed on her, and with an expression not unlike a lazy cat's.
"Oho!" thought Mrs Polsue to herself, and for just a moment her frame
shook with a dry inward spasm; but not a muscle of her face twitched.
Aloud she said: "Well, in your place I shouldn't be so hot, at short
notice, to stand up for a man who on your own showing is a corrupter
of children's minds. Knowing what I've told you of the relations
between this Nanjivell and Mrs Penhaligon, and catching this
Penhaligon child with a gold coin in his hand, and hearing from his
own confession that the man gave it to him, even _you_ might have
drawn some conclusion, I'd have thought."
"I declare, Mary-Martha, I wouldn't think so uncharitably of folks as
you do, not if I was paid for it. You're annoyed--that's what you
are--because you got Mr--because you got Nanjivell watched for a
German spy, and now I've proved you're wrong and you can't wriggle
out of _that!_"
"Your godfather and godmothers did very well for you at your baptism,
Charity Oliver. Prophets they must have been. . . . But just you
take a chair and compose yourself and listen to me. A minute ago you
complained that I took you up before you were down. Well, I'll
improve on that by taking you down before you're up--or up so far as
you think yourself. Answer me. This is a piece of gold, eh?"
"Why, of course. That's why I brought it to you."
"What kind of a piece of gold?"
"A guinea-piece. My father used to wear one on his watch-chain, and
I recognised the likeness at once."
"Quite so. Now when your father happened to earn a sovereign, did he
go and hang it on his watch-chain?"
"What a silly question!"
"It isn't at all a silly question. . . . Tell me how many sovereigns
you've seen in your life, and how many guineas?"
"O-oh! . . . I think I see what you mean-"
"I congratulate you, I'm sure! Now, I won't swear, but I'm morally
certain that guineas haven't been what they call in circulation for
years and years and years."
"You're always seeing them in subscription lists," Miss Oliver
objected. "Take our Emergency Fund--'Charles Pendarves Tresawna,
Esq., J.P., twenty-five guineas.'"
"I seem to remember that the Squire paid by cheque," said Mrs Polsue
drily.
"But the guineas must have been there, in the Bank. . . . Oh, I see!
You mean that a guinea being worth twenty-one shillings--"
"That's right: you're getting at it. Though I declare, Charity
Oliver, there are times when I don't know which is furthest behind
the times--your head, or the coquelicots you insist on wearing upon
it. But now I hope you'll admit I was right, and there's a mystery
about Nanjivell. Whether 'tis mixed up with his immorality or
separate I won't pretend to decide, or not at this stage."
"But anyway you can't make out a guinea-piece to be German,"
maintained Miss Oliver with a last show of obstinacy.
"I don't say 'yes' or 'no' to that just yet," Mrs Polsue replied.
"The newspapers tell us the Germans have been hoarding gold for a
very long time. But you mentioned the Bank a moment ago--or did I?
Never mind: it was a good suggestion anyway. Wait while I send
across for Mr Pamphlett."
"Why, to be sure," said Mr Pamphlett, "it's a guinea--a George the
Second guinea." He pushed back a corner of the cloth and rang the
coin on the table. "Sound . . . and not clipped at all. There's
always its intrinsic value, as we say: and one of these days it will
have an additional value as a curiosity. But as yet that is almost
negligible. Oddly enough--" He broke off, fumbled in his waistcoat
pocket, and produced a guinea almost precisely similar. Miss Oliver
gasped: it was so like a conjuring trick.
"Where did Miss Oliver get this one?" asked Mr Pamphlett, laying his
right forefinger upon the guinea on the table while still holding the
other displayed in the palm of his left hand.
"I got it," confessed Miss Oliver, "off that youngest child of
Samuel Penhaligon's, who told me it had been given him as a present
by Mr--by Nicholas Nanjivell."
"WHAT?"
She blanched, as Mr Pamphlett stared at her. "His eyes," as she
explained later, "were round in his head-round as gooseberries."
"Well, I suppose I oughtn't to have taken it from the child. . . .
But seeing that he didn't know its value, and there being something
of a mystery in the whole business--as Mary-Martha here will explain,
though she will have it that the man is a German spy--"
"Stuff and nonsense, ma'am! . . . I beg your pardon: you're quite
right: there _is_ a mystery here, though it has nothing to do with
German spies. I rather fancy I'm in a position to get to the bottom
of it."
On Saturday, almost at blink of dawn, the Penhaligons started
house-moving. Mrs Penhaligon had everything ready--even the last
box corded--more than thirty-six hours earlier. But she would
neither finish nor start installing herself on a Friday, which was an
unlucky day.
The discomfort of taking their meals on packing-cases and sleeping on
mattresses spread upon the bare floor weighed as nothing with the
children in comparison with the delightful sense of adventure.
Neither 'Bert nor 'Beida, when they came to talk it over, could
understand why their mother was in such a fever to quit the old
house. Scarcely ten days before she had kept assuring them, almost
angrily, that there was no hurry before Michaelmas. It was queer,
too, that not only had she forbidden them to accept even the smallest
offer of help from Nicky-Nan when he showed himself willing (as he
expressed it) for any light job as between neighbours, but on 'Bert's
attempting to argue the point with her she had boxed 'Biades' ears
for a quite trifling offence and promptly collapsed and burst into
tears with no more preparation than that of throwing an apron over
her head.
"She's upset," said 'Bert.
"If you learn at this rate, you'll be sent for, one of these days, by
the people up at Scotland Yard," said 'Beida sarcastically. But you
cannot glean much intelligence from a face which is covered by an
apron.
"She's upset at leavin' the house. Women are like that--always--when
it comes to the point," 'Bert persisted.
"Are they? I'll give you leave to watch _me_. And I'll bet you
sixpence."
"You're not a woman yet. When the time comes you may start cryin' or
you mayn't. But I'll take even money you box 'Biades' ears."
'Beida's glance travelled to that forlorn child. "I'll not take any
bet," she announced; "when you know that it may be necessary at any
moment--he's that unaccountable." She lifted her voice so that the
innocent culprit could not avoid hearing. "I don't speckilate on a
_thief_," she added with vicious intention.
"Hush--hush!" said 'Bert, and glanced anxiously at his sobbing
parent.
Nicky-Nan was the worst puzzled of them all. He had promised Sam
Penhaligon to do his best when the family shifted quarters: and now
Mrs Penhaligon would not hear of his lifting so much as a hand.
He spent most of the day out on the cliffs, idly watching the
military.
Mrs Penhaligon had invoked the aid of Farmer Best; and Farmer Best
(always a friend of the unfriended) had sent down two hay waggons to
transport the household stuff. By four in the afternoon, or
thereabouts, the last load had been carried and was in process of
delivery at Aunt Bunney's cottage.
At a quarter to five Nicky-Nan returned to the desolate house.
The front door stood open, of course. So (somewhat to his surprise)
did the door of the Penhaligons' kitchen.
"They're all behindhand," thought Nicky-Nan. "Better fit the good
woman hadn' been so forward to despise my helpin'."
He peered in cautiously. The room was uninhabited; stark bare of
furniture, save for the quadrant key left to hang from the midmost
beam; the "hellen "-slated floor clean as a new pin.
Nicky-Nan heaved a sigh. "So they've gone," he thought to himself;
"an' so we all pass out, one after another. A decent, cleanly woman,
with all her kinks o' temper. Much like my own mother, as I remember
her."
He passed into his parlour, laid down hat and walking-staff, and of a
sudden pulled himself upright, rigid.
Footsteps were treading the floor overhead.
For a moment it shook him almost to faintness. Then, swiftly, wrath
came to his aid, and snatching up his staff again he stumped out to
the foot of the stairway.
"Who's that, up there?"
"Ha! . . . Is that you, Nanjivell," answered the voice of Mr
Pamphlett. "A domiciliary visit, and no harm intended." The figure
of Mr Pamphlett blocked the head of the landing.
Nicky-Nan raised his stick and shook it in a fury.
"You get out within this minute, or I'll have the law of 'ee."
"Gently, my friend," responded Mr Pamphlett soothingly. "I have the
Constable here with me, besides Mr Gilbert the builder. And here's
my Ejectment Order, if you drive me to it."
"When you promised me--" stammered Nicky-Nan, escalading the stairs
and holding his staff before him as if storming a breach.
"But,"--Mr Pamphlett waved a hand,--"we need not talk about ejectment
orders. By the terms of your lease, if you will examine them, the
landlord is entitled to examine his premises at any reasonable hour.
You won't deny this to be a reasonable hour. . . . Well, constable?
What about that cupboard?"
Nicky-Nan, reaching the doorway, gave a gasp. Across the room
Rat-it-all, on hands and knees, had pulled open the door of the fatal
cupboard, and had thrust in head and shoulders, exploring.
"There's a loose piece of flooring here, Mr Pamphlett. New, by the
looks of it."
There was a sound of boards being shaken and thrown together in a
heap.
"Queer old cache here below. . . . Steady, now . . . wait till I turn
my bull's-eye on it! Lucky I brought the lantern, too!"
"You dare!" screamed Nicky-Nan, rushing to pull him backward by the
collar.
The constable, his head in the bowels of the hiding-place, neither
heard him nor saw Mr Pamphlett and Builder Gilbert interpose to hold
Nicky-Nan back.
"But 'tis empty," announced Policeman Rat-it-all.
"Empty?"
EMPTY?
Nicky-Nan, bursting from the two men, gripped Rat-it-all by the
collar, flung him back on the floor, snatched his bull's-eye, and
diving as a rabbit into its burrow, plunged the lantern's ray into
the gulf.
Rat-it-all had spoken truth. The treasure--every coin of it--had
vanished!
Nicky-Nan's head dropped sideways and rattled on the boards.
CHAPTER XXII.
SALVAGE.
"Mister Nanjivell! Mis-ter Nanjivell!"
It was the child 'Beida's voice, calling from below.
"Are you upstairs, Mister Nanjivell? I want to see you--in _such_ a
hurry!"
Following up her summons, she arrived panting at the open doorway.
"O-oh!" she cried, after a catch of the breath. Her face blanched as
she looked around the bedroom; at Builder Gilbert, standing, wash-jug
in hand; at Mr Pamphlett, kneeling, examining the cupboard; at
Policeman Rat-it-all, kneeling also, but on one knee, while on the
other he supported Nicky-Nan's inert head and bathed a cut on the
right temple, dipping a rag of a towel into the poor chipped basin on
the ground beside him.
"What are you doin' to him?" demanded 'Beida, her colour coming back
with a rush.
Mr Pamphlett had slewed about on his knees. "Here, you cut and run!"
he commanded sharply. But his posture did not lend itself to
authority, and he showed some embarrassment.
"What are you doin' to him?" the child demanded again.
"He've had a fit," explained Builder Gilbert, holding out the ewer.
"Here, run downstairs and fetch up some more water, if you want to be
useful."
'Beida stared at the ewer. She transferred her gaze to Rat-it-all
and his patient: then, after a shiver, to Mr Pamphlett. She had
courage. Her eyes grew hard and fierce.
"Is that why Mr Pamphlett's pokin' his nose into a cupboard?"
"Rat it all!" the constable ejaculated, casting a glance over his
shoulder and dipping a hand wide of the basin.
"Fetch up some water, my dear," suggested Builder Gilbert. "When a
man's in a fit 'tis no time to ask questions, as you'll learn when
you grow up." Again he proffered the ewer.
'Beida ignored it. "When a man's in a fit, do folks help by pokin'
their noses into his cupboards?" she demanded again, not removing her
eyes from Mr Pamphlett.
"Pack that child out!" commanded Mr Pamphlett, standing up and
addressing Rat-it-all. "Do you hear me?"
"I hear, sir," answered Rat-it-all. "But situated as I be--"
He cast a helpless glance at the child, who seemed to grow in stature
as, lifting her forefinger and pointing it at Mr Pamphlett, she
advanced into the room and shrilled--
"You've come to steal his money, the three of 'ee! An' you can't
take me in nor frighten me, not one of 'ee!"
The high treble voice, or the word "money," or both, fetched
Nicky-Nan back to consciousness. He opened his eyes and groaned.
"The money--where's the money?" he muttered. His eyes opened wider.
Then of a sudden his brain cleared. He sat up with a wild cry,
almost a scream; and, thrusting Rat-it-all backwards with all the
force of one hand, with the other groped on the floor for his
walking-staff--which lay, however, a couple of yards from him and
close by Mr Pamphlett's feet.
"My money!--Rogues! Cheats!--" He broke down and put a hand to his
head in momentary faintness. "Where be I?" Then taking his hand
away and catching sight of the blood on it, he yelled out "Murder!
Where's my money? Murder! Thieves!"
"Hush 'ee, Mister Nanjivell." 'Beida dropped on her knees beside
him. "Hush 'ee now, co! Here, let _me_ take the towel an' bathe your
poor head," she coaxed him. "You've had a fall, an' cut yourself--
that's what happened. An' these men weren't murderin' 'ee, nor
shan't while I am here. No, nor they han't stole your money,
neither--though I won't say they weren't tryin'."
He submitted, after a feeble convulsive struggle. "Where's my
money?" he persisted.
"Your money's all right. Safe as if 'twas in the Bank--safer, I
reckon," she added, with an unfriendly glance at Mr Pamphlett.
"What money is this you're talking about?" asked that gentleman,
stepping forward. He had no children of his own: and when he spoke
to children (which was not often) his tone conveyed that he thought
very little of them. He used that tone now: which was sheer
blundering folly: and he met his match.
"The money you were huntin' for," answered 'Beida, quick as thought.
"You mustn't speak to me like that. It's naughty and--er--
unbecoming."
"Why? _Weren't_ you lookin' for it?" Her eyes sought Rat-it-all and
questioned him.
Mr Pamphlett made haste before his ally could speak. "The Policeman
was acting in the execution of his duty." This was a fine phrase,
and it took 'Beida aback, for she had not a notion what it meant.
But while she sought for a retort, Mr Pamphlett followed up his
advantage, to crush her, and blundered again. "You don't understand
that, eh?"
"Not rightly," she admitted.
"Then don't you see how foolish it is for little girls to mix
themselves in grown-up people's affairs? A policeman has to do many
things in what is called the execution of his duty, For instance,"
continued Mr Pamphlett impressively, "sometimes he takes little girls
when they're naughty, and locks them up."
"Fiddlestick!" said 'Beida with a sigh of relief. "Now I know you're
gassin'. . . . Just now you frightened me with your talk of
executions, which is what they do to a man when he's murdered some
person: and o' course if Nicky--if Mr Nanjivell had been doin'
anything o' _that_ sort--which he hasn', o' course. . . . But when
you go on pretendin' as Rat-it-all can lock _me_ up, why then I see
your game. Tryin' to frighten me, you are, because I'm small."
"If you were a child of mine," threatened Mr Pamphlett, very red in
the gills, "do you know what I'd do to you?"
"No," replied 'Beida; "I can't think. . . . But I reckon 'twould be
something pretty mean. Oh, I'm sick an' tired of the gentry!--if you
call yourself gentry. First of all you turn Father an' Mother out to
find a new home. An' then, as if that wasn' enough, you must come
nosin' in after Mr Nanjivell's small savin's. . . . Gentry!" she
swung round upon Builder Gilbert. "Here, Mr Gilbert, you're neither
gentry nor perlice. When I tell you about Miss Charity Oliver, that
calls herself a lady! What must _she_ do but, happenin' on 'Biades--
that's my younger brother, an' scarce turned four--outside o' Mrs
Pengelly's, with a bit of gold money in his hand that Mr Nanjivell
gave to him in a moment o' weakness,--what must she do (an' callin'
herself a lady, no doubt, all the while) but palm off two bright
coppers on him for a swap? . . . That's a _fact_," 'Beida wound up,
dabbing the towel gently, but with an appearance of force, against
Nicky-Nan's temple, "for I got it out o' the child's own mouth, an'
work enough it was. That's your gentry!"
"Hey?" Nicky-Nan pushed her hand aside. "What's this you're
tellin', now?"
"Ask _him!_" she answered, nodding towards Mr Pamphlett. "He knows
all about it, an' 'tis no use for him to pretend he don't."
"_Me_ give your small brother--?" began Nicky, but broke off with a
groan and felt his brow again. "Oh, where's the head or tail to
this? Where's the _sense?_ . . . Give me my money--that's all I ask.
Stop talkin' all of 'ee, an' fetch me what you've stole, between 'ee,
an' leave me alone!"
Mr Pamphlett shifted his ground. "You're right, Nanjivell.
What's become of your money?--that's the main point, eh?"
"O' course 'tis the main point," growled Nicky. "Though I'm damned
if I see how it consarns _you_."
"Maybe I can enlighten you by-and-by. For the present you want to
know what has become of the money: and I've a strong suspicion this
child can tell us, if she chooses to confess. If not--" he raised a
minatory forefinger and shook it at 'Beida--"well, it's fortunate I
brought the constable, who will know how to act."
"Will I?" said Rat-it-all, scratching his head.
"No, you won't," 'Beida answered him stoutly, and turned again to
Nicky-Nan.
"Mr Nanjivell," she pleaded, "tell me--didn't you find these three
turnin' your room inside out?"
"'Course I did." Nicky-Nan cast a malignant glance around.
"Was they doin' it with your leave?"
"'Course they wasn't. Why, look at the state o' my head!"
"You cut it yourself, fallin' against the scurtin'-board by the
cupboard," put in Builder Gilbert.
'Beida noted his nervousness.
"You say so!" she rapped on him. "Maybe when Mr Nanjivell has you up
before Squire Tresawna, you'll all swear to it in league." Again she
turned to Nicky. "Struck your head, did you?--fallin' against the
cupboard, when they was huntin' for your money: which they can't
deny. Did you _want_ Mr Pamphlett to find your money?"
"_Him?_" said Nicky-Nan bitterly. "_Him?_ as I wouldn' trust not
ha'f so far as a man could fling him by his eyebrows!"
"Well, _I_'ve got your savin's--'Bert an' me, every bit of it--stowed
an' put away where they can't find it, not if they hunted for weeks.
I came upstairs to tell about it, and where we've stowed it. Now be
you goin' to put 'Bert and me to prison for that?"
"My dear"--Nicky-Nan spread out his hands--"not if you was a thief
an' had really stole it, I wouldn'. But behavin', as you have, like
an angel slap out o' Heaven--" He staggered up and confronted Mr
Pamphlett. "Here, you clear out o' this!" he threatened, pointing to
the door. "You're done, my billies. Tuck your tails atween your
legs an' march!"
"A moment, if you please," put in Mr Pamphlett suavely. "You will
allow that, not being accustomed to little girls and not knowing
therefore how a pert child should properly be chastised and brought
to book, I have been uncommonly patient with this one. But you are
mistaken, the pair of you, in taking this line with me: and your
mistake, though it comes from ignorance of the law, may happen to
cost you both pretty dearly." He paused, while Nicky-Nan and 'Beida
exchanged glances.
"Don't you heed him," said 'Beida encouragingly. "He's only gassin'
again." But she faced up for a new attack.
"I have reason to believe," continued Mr Pamphlett, ignoring her and
wagging his forefinger at Nicky; "I have evidence going far to
convince me that this money of which we are talking is not yours at
all: that you never earned it by your own labour, nor inherited it,
nor were left it in any legitimate way. In other words, you were
just lucky enough to find it."
"What's that to _you?_"
"It concerns me to this extent. By the-common law of England all
such money, so discovered, belongs to the Crown: though I understand
it is usually shared equally among the Crown, the finder, and the
lord of the manor on which it was hidden. Therefore by concealing
your knowledge of this money you are illegally defrauding His
Majesty, and in fact (if you found it anywhere in Polpier) swindling
me, who own the manor rights of Trebursey and Trethake, which
together cover every square inch of this town. I bought them from
Squire Tresawna these ten years since. And"--he turned upon 'Beida--
"any one who hides, or helps to hide, such money is an accomplice,
and may go to prison for it. _Now_ what have you to say?"
But Mr Pamphlett had missed to calculate Nicky-Nan's recklessness and
the strength of old hatred.
"'Say'?" Nicky shook with passion. "I say you're tellin' up a
parcel o' lies you can't prove. Do _I_ step into _your_ dam Bank an'
ask where you picked up the coin?--No? Well then, get out o' this
an' take your Policeman with 'ee. Fend off, I say!" he snapped, as
Rat-it-all touched him by the arm.
"No offence, Mr Nanjivell," said the Policeman coaxingly.
"But merely as between naybours, if I might advise. Mr Pamphlett is
a very powerful gentleman: or, as I might put it better, he has
influence, unknown to you or me, an' knowledge--"
"He's a very powerful skunk."
"'Beida! . . . 'Beida!" called a voice from the foot of the stairs.
'Beida, after a start of joy, answered with the Penhaligon war-whoop,
as her brother came charging up.
"Have you told him?" burst in young 'Bert, and drew back at gaze, a
foot within the threshold.
"Yes, I've told him," answered 'Beida. "No, you needn' stare so,"
she went on hurriedly, catching him on the edge of confusion.
"It'll be all right if you just answer up an' tell the truth. . . .
When we was movin' this afternoon, you an' me took Mr Nanjivell's
savin's away, the last thing--didn' we?"
"Then what have you done with them?" thundered Mr Pamphlett.
"Don't you answer him that," said 'Beida sweetly. "But answer
everything else. An' don't you be afraid of him. _I_ ben't."
"What d'ee want me to tell?" asked 'Bert, a trifle uneasily.
"Everything: 'cept you may leave out 'Biades. He's but a child o'
four, an' don't count."
"Well," said 'Bert, addressing Mr Pamphlett--and his face, though
pale, was dogged--"if 'Beida's willin', I'd as lief get it off my
mind. . . . The first thing, sir, was P'liceman Rat-it-all's comin'
to me, Tuesday evenin': an' he said to me, 'What be you doin' to
occupy yourself as a Boy Scout, now that this here coast-watchin's
off?'--"
"I didn' say 'off,'" interrupted Rat-it-all. "I didn' use no such
low and incorrect expression. My words was 'Now that this here
coast-watchin' has come to a ontimely end.'"
"I dessay that _was_ the way you put it," 'Bert admitted. "When you
starts talkin' Lun'on, all I can follow is the sense--an' lucky if
that."
"Bodmin," corrected Rat-it-all modestly. "I don't pretend to no more
than the Provinces as yet: though Lord knows where I may end."
"Get on with the story, boy," Mr Pamphlett commanded.
"Well, sir, I owned to him that I was left pretty well at a loose
end, with nothin' on hand but to think out how to do a Kind Action
every day, as is laid down in the Scout Rules: and it may come easy
enough to _you_, sir," added 'Bert with unconscious irony, "but _I_
got no invention. An' his manner bein' so friendly, I told him as
how I was breakin' my heart for a job. 'Would 'ee like to catch a
Spy--a real German one?' says he. 'Get along with 'ee, pullin' my
leg!' says I. 'I ben't pullin' your leg,' says he. 'I be offerin'
what may turn out to be the chance o' your life, if you're a smart
chap an' want promotion.' 'What is it?' said I. 'Well, I mention no
names,' said he, 'but you live in the same house with Nicholas
Nanjivell.' 'We're turnin' out this week,' said I. 'All the more
reason why you should look slippy an' get to work at once,' says he.
Then I told him, sir," went on 'Bert, gathering confidence from the
sound of his own voice, "that I was fair sick o' plannin' to do Kind
Actions, which was no business of anybody's in War time, and a bad
let-down after coast-watchin'. 'But,' said I,"--here he turned upon
Nicky-Nan--"'if 'tis a Kind Action for Mr Nanjivell, I'd as lief do
it upon him as upon anybody: for you might almost call him one o' the
family,' I said. 'Kind Action?' says he. 'I don't want you to do
him no kinder action than to catch him out for a German spy. I name
no names,' says he, 'but from information received, he's in the
Germans' pay, an' Mrs Polsue is ready to swear to it.'"
Nicky-Nan gripped his walking-staff and stood erect, as if to spring
on Mr Pamphlett. But of a sudden the enormity of the charge seemed
to overcome him, and he passed a hand over his eyes.
"That's the second time," he muttered. "An' me, that--God help me!--
scarce bothered myself about its bein' a War at all: bein' otherwise
worried, as you'd know, sir." His straight appeal to his inveterate
enemy had a dignity more convincing than any violent repudiation.
But Mr Pamphlett waved it aside.
"Let the boy tell his story. . . . Well, boy, and what was your
answer to the constable?"
"I told him," said 'Bert stolidly, "to get along for a silly
fat-head. Didn't I, now?" 'Bert appealed to the recipient of that
compliment to confirm its textual accuracy.
"He did so," corroborated Rat-it-all. "He is right to that extent.
Which it gave me such a poor opinion of the whole Boy Scout movement
that I've treated it thenceforth as dirt beneath my feet. There was
a time when I thought pretty tolerably of Baden-Powell. But when it
comes to fat-heads--"
"But you see, sir," 'Bert went on, "this put me in mind that I'd seen
Rat-it-all for two days past behavin' very silly behind walls an'
fuzz-bushes, an' 'most always in the wake o' Nicky-Nan--of Mr
Nanjivell, I mean: which I'd set it down that it was a game between
'em, an' Mr Nanjivell just lendin' himself for practice, havin' time
on his hands. First along I'd a mind to join in an' read the man one
or two Practical Hints out o' the sixpenny book; for worse shadowin'
you couldn' see. But when it turned out he was doin' it in earnest
against Mr Nanjivell I allowed as I'd give him a taste o' the real
article, which is what they call 'Scoutin' for Scouts' in the
Advanced Course; whereby he called on Mr Gilbert here, yesterday
afternoon; an' Mr Gilbert's back parlour window bein' open because o'
the hot weather, and me bein' behind the water-butt at the corner--"
"You tarnation imp!" exclaimed the builder.
"Which," continued 'Bert stolidly, "he was askin' if he reckoned by
chance th' Old Doctor's House had any secret hidin' places, an' would
he oblige the landlord Mr Pamphlett by comin' along to-morrow an'
bringin' a hammer? Which I went straight home an' borryed mother's,
an'--an'--"
"An' you've told quite enough," put in 'Beida. "By no means,"
objected Mr Pamphlett. "What have you children done with the money?"
"Oh," said 'Beida wearily, "we're back on the old question, are we?"
But here Nicky-Nan broke in. "Mr Pamphlett," he said, "you tell
that, as landlord, you've a right to walk in an' see to the repairs.
Very well. I don't know the law: but I doubt if the law, when I look
it up, 'll say that the said landlord has power to bring along a
Bobby and a Speckilative Builder. It _may_ be so, o' course.
Any way, you've taken it so, an' walked in; an' the next thing you'll
do is Walk Out." He pointed with his staff to the door. "_Me_--a
German spy! Forth the three of 'ee!"
Mr Pamphlett saw no way but to comply. "You will hear more of this,
Nanjivell," he threatened, turning about in the doorway.
"Gas, again!" said 'Beida. Nicky-Nan stood silent, pointing.
The retreat was not dignified.
"But, o' course," said 'Beida, "the bottom of it all was 'Biades."
"'Biades?"
"He'd caught up with some chatter about your bein' a spy. Oh, bless
your soul, _everybody's_ talkin' about it!" she assured Nicky-Nan
cheerfully. "But little pitchers have the longest ears; an' mother
an' me bein' so busy with the packin', he got ahead of us. He's a
clivver child, too, but"--'Beida shook her head--"I'm harried in mind
about 'en. Quite in a tricksy way he wormed it out o' mother what a
spy was, an' how the way to go to work was to s'arch his cupboards;
an' then quick as snuff he started 'pon yours, not sayin' a word to
anybody. Pretty clivver for four years' old--an' what's clivverer,
he found the money too!"
"Damn the young viper! . . . No, I asks your pardon. Bless his
tender heart, I s'pose I ought to say, seein' as how providential--"
"You can put it which way you like. I dessay God A'mighty has the
right an' wrong of it clear; an' 'Bert an' I allowed we'd leave
'Biades to a Higher Power after we'd made him sensible, on the seat
of his breeches, of the way his conduc' appealed to us. For I take
shame to own it, Mr Nanjivell, but at sight o' that boundless
gold Satan whispered in the poor mite's ear, an' he started priggin'.
. . . The way we found it out was, he came home from Mrs Pengelly's
stinkin' o' peppermints: an' when we nosed him an' asked how he came
to be favoured so, all he could say on the ground hop was that he'd
met a shinin' Angel unexpected in Cobb's Ally: an' the Angel had
stopped him and pulled out a purse an' said, 'Alcibiades Penhaligon,
the Lord has been much interested of late in your goin's-out an' your
comin's-in, an' what a good boy you've a-been. Here is 2d. for you
in gold o' the purest water. Go thou an' carry it to Our good friend
Missis Pengelly, who will doubtless reckernise and exchange it in
peppermint cushions.' Which was too thin. So we were forced to beat
him till the truth came out. An' then he brought us here, an' showed
what he'd a-found: an' with the furnitcher movin' an' mother so busy,
'Bert and I managed the rest. We weren't goin' to let that Pamphlett
snatch it. If you'll come around by Aun' Bunney's back-garden into
Mother's kitchen you shall count it out, every penny."
"'Bert," said Nicky-Nan after a pause, "you've done a Kind Action
this day, if you never do another."
"But the clivverness started with 'Biades," insisted 'Beida. "I hope
you'll bear that in mind, though I say nothing against the child's
sinfulness."
"You're the best friends, all three, I ever met in this world," said
Nicky-Nan gratefully.
On his homeward road, and half-way up the hill, Mr Pamphlett at the
same moment turned, looked aloft, and accused Providence.
"What blisters me," said Mr Pamphlett to the welkin, "is the thought
that I subscribed no less than two guineas to the Boy Scouts
Movement!"
CHAPTER XXIII.
ENLIGHTENMENT, AND RECRUITING.
"Was there ever a woman on this earth so tried?" demanded Mrs
Penhaligon, lifting her eyes to two hams and a flitch of bacon she
had just suspended from the rafters, and invoking them as Cleopatra
the injurious gods. "As if 'twasn' enough to change the best kitchen
in all Polpier for quarters where you can't swing a cat, but on top
of it I must be afflicted with a child that's taken wi' the indoors
habit; and in the middle of August month, too, when every one as
means to grow up a comfort to all concerned is out stretchin' his
legs an' makin' himself scarce an' gettin' a breath o' nice fresh air
into his little lungs."
"What's lungs?" asked 'Biades.
"There was a boy in the south of Ireland somewhere," his mother
answered, collecting a few wash-cloths she had hung to dry on the
door of the cooking apparatus, "as took to his bed with nothing the
matter at the age o' fourteen. Next day, when his mother called him
to get up, he said he wasn't took very well. An' this went on, day
after day, until now he's forty years old an' the use of his limbs
completely gone from him. That's a fact, for I read it on the
newspaper with names an' dates, and only three nights ago I woke up
dreamin' upon that poor woman, workin' her fingers to the bone an'
saddled with a bed-riding son. Little did I think at the time--"
Mrs Penhaligon broke off and sighed between desperation and
absent-mindedness.
"I like this stove," answered 'Biades. "It's got a shiny knob on the
door, 'stead of a latch."
"How the child does take notice! . . . Yes, a nice shiny knob it is,
and if you won't come out to the back-yard an' watch while I pin
these things on the clothes-line, you must stay here an' study your
disobedient face in it. The fire's out, so you can't tumble in an'
be burnt to a coal like the wicked children in Nebuchadnezzar: which
is a comfort, so far as it goes. Nor I can't send you out to s'arch
for your sister, wi' the knowledge that it'll surely end in her
warmin' your little sit-upon. . . . I'd do it myself, this moment,"--
the mother grew wrathful only to relent,--"if I could be sure you
weren't sickenin' for something. You're behavin' so unnatural."
She eyed him anxiously. "If it should turn out to be a case o'
suppressed measles, now, I'd hate to go to my grave wi' the thought
that I'd banged 'em in."
So Mrs Penhaligon, having picked up her clothes, issued forth into
the sunlight of the back-yard. 'Biades watched her through the
narrow kitchen window. He watched her cunningly.
As soon as he saw her busy with the clothes-pegs, Master 'Biades
crept to a small iron door in the wall, a foot or two from the range,
and stealthily lifted the latch. The door opened on a deep,
old-fashioned oven, disused since the day when the late Mrs Bunney
(misguided woman) had blocked up her open hearth with a fire-new
apparatus.
The child peered ("peeked" as they say in Polpier) into the long
narrow chamber, so awesomely dark at its far end, and snatched a
fearful joy. In that cavity lay the treasure. Gold--untold gold!
He thrust his head into the aperture, and gloated. But it was so
deep that even when his eyes became used to the darkness he could see
nothing of the hoard. He wanted to gloat more.
Tingling premonitions ran down his small spine; thrills that,
reaching the region of the lower vertebrae, developed an almost
painful activity. . . . None the less, 'Biades could never tell just
how or at what moment his shoulders, hips, legs, found themselves
inside the oven; but in they successively went, and he was crawling
forward into the pitch-gloom on hands and knees, regretting
desperately (and too late) that he had forgotten to sneak a box of
matches, when afar behind him he heard a sound that raised every hair
on the nape of his young neck--the lifting of the back-door latch and
the letting-in of voices.
"You never _did!_" said the voice of 'Bert.
"Leave me to tell her," said the voice of 'Beida. "The way you're
goin', she'll have the palpitations afore you begin. . . . Mother,
dear--if you'll but take a seat. Is't for the tenth or the twelfth
time we'm tellin' 'ee that father's neither killed nor wounded?"
"Then what is it, on earth?" demanded the voice of Mrs Penhaligon.
"An' why should Mr Nanjivell be followin' you, of all people?
An' where's my blessed latest, that has been a handful ever since you
two left me, well knowin' the straits I'm put to?"
"If I'm introodin', ma'am--" said the voice of Nicky-Nan.
"Oh, no . . . not at all, Mr Nanjivell!--so long as you realise how
I'm situated. . . . An' whoever left that oven door open, I'll swear
I didn't."
'Beida stepped swiftly to the oven, swung the door wide enough to
allow a moment's glance within, and shut with a merciless clang.
She lifted her voice. "Mebbe," she announced, "'twas I that left it
on the hasp before runnin' out. I was thinkin' what a nice oven
'twas, an' how much better if you wanted to make heavy-cake in a
hurry, to celebrate our movin'-in. 'Bert agreed with me when I told
him," she continued, still lifting her voice, "and unbeknown to you
we cut an' fetched in a furze-bush, there bein' nothin' to give such
a savour to bread, cake, or pie. So if you're willin', Mother, we'll
fire it up while Mr Nanjivell tells his business."
"What's _that?_" asked Mrs Penhaligon, sitting erect, as her ears
caught the sound of a howl, muffled but prolonged.
'Beida set her back firmly against the oven. "Bread takes longer
than cakes," she announced, making her voice carry. "Cakes is
soonest over. We might try the old place first with a heavy cake, if
Mr Nanjivell don't mind waitin' for a chat, an' will excuse the
flavour whatever it turns out."
"We're bewitched!" cried Mrs Penhaligon starting to her feet as the
wailing was renewed, with a faint tunding on the iron door.
'Beida flung it open. "Which I hope it has been a lesson to you,"
she began, thrusting herself quickly in front of the aperture, and
heading off the culprit before he could clamber out and run to his
mother's lap. "No, you don't! The first thing _you_ have to do, to
show you're sorry, is to creep back all the way you can go, an' fetch
forth what you can find at the very end."
"You won't shut the door on me again?" pleaded 'Biades.
"That depends on how slippy you look. I make no promises," answered
'Beida sternly. "'Twas you that first stole Mr Nanjivell's money,
and if you ben't doin' it again, well I can only say as appearances
be against him--eh, 'Bert?"
"Fetch it out, you varmint!" 'Bert commanded.
"But I don't understand a word of this!" protested the mother.
"My precious worm! What for be you two commandin' him to wriggle up
an' down an oven on his tender little belly like a Satan in Genesis,
when all the time I thought he'd taken hisself off like a good boy,
to run along an' mess his clothes 'pon the Quay. . . . Come 'ee
forth, my cherub, an' tell your mother what they've a-been doin' to
'ee? . . . Eh? Why, what's that you've a-got clinched in your hand?"
"Sufferin's!" sobbed 'Biades, still shaken by an after-gust of
fright.
"_What?_"
"Sufferin's!" echoed 'Beida excitedly. "Real coined an' golden
sufferin's! Unclinch your hand, 'Biades, an' show the company!"
As the child opened his palm, Mrs Penhaligon fell back, and put out a
hand against the kitchen table for support.
"The good Lord in Heaven behear us! . . . Whose money be this, an'
where dropped from?"
"There piles of it--" panted 'Beida.
"Lashin's of it--" echoed 'Bert.
"An' it all belongs to Mr Nanjivell, that we used to call Nicky-Nan,
an' wonder if we could get a pair o' father's old trousers on to him
with a little tact--an' him all the while as rich as Squire
Tresawna!"
"--Rich as Squire Tresawna an' holy Solomon rolled into one,"
corroborated 'Bert, nodding vigorously. "Pinch it 'tween your
fingers, mother, if you won't believe."
But to her children's consternation Mrs Penhaligon, after a swift
glance at the gold, turned about on Nicky-Nan as he backed
shamefacedly to the doorway, and opened on him the vials of
unintelligible fury.
"What d'ee mean by it?" she demanded. "As if I hadn' suffered enough
in mind a'ready, but you must come pokin' money into my oven and
atween me an' my children! Be you mad, or only wicked? Or is it
witchcraft you'd be layin' on us? . . . Take up your gold, however
you came by it, an' fetch your shadow off my doorstep, or I'll--"
She advanced on poor Nicky-Nan, who backed out to the side gate and
into the lane before her wrath, and found himself of a sudden taken
on both flanks: on the one by Mrs Climoe, who had spied upon his
visit and found her malicious curiosity too much for her; on the
other by gentle old Mr Hambly returning from a stroll along the
cliffs.
"Hullo! Tut--tut--what is this?" exclaimed Mr Hambly.
"A neighbours' quarrel, and between folks I know to be so
respectworthy? . . . Oh, come now--come, good souls!"
"A little nigher than naybours, Minister," put in Mrs Climoe.
"That is if you had eyes an' ears in your head."
Nicky-Nan swung about on her: but she rested a hand on either hip and
was continuing. "'Naybours,' you said, sir? 'Naybours'?
Him accused by public talk for a German spy--"
"Hush, Mrs Climoe! Of all the Commandments, ma'am, the one most in
lack of observance hereabouts, to my observation, is that which
forbids bearing false witness against a neighbour. To a charitable
mind that includes hasty witness."
"There's another, unless I disremember," snapped Mrs Climoe, "that
forbids 'ee to covet your naybour's wife."
While Mr Hambly sought for a gentle reproof for this, Mrs Penhaligon,
pale of face, rested a hand against her gate-post, and said she very
gently but in a white scorn--
"What is this talk of naybours, quarrelin' or comfortin' or
succourin' or bearin' witness? There be naybours, an'"--she pointed
a finger at Mrs Climoe--"there be livers-by. Now stroll along, the
lot of 'ee, and annoy somebody else that lives unprotected!"
She said it so quietly and decisively, standing motionless, that
Lippity-Libby, coming around the corner of the lane with paste-pot
and brush, and with a roll of bills tucked in his armpit, mistook the
group for a chance collection of cheerful gossips. He drew up,
lowered his pail, and began in a business-like way to slap paste upon
the upper flap of a loft-door across the way, chatting the while over
his shoulder.
"Good evenin', naybours! Now what (says you to yourselves) might I
be carryin' here under my arm in the cool o' the day. Is it a
Bye-Law? No, it is not a Bye-Law. Or is it a Tender? No, it is not
a Tender. Or is it a Bankrup' Stock, or a Primrose Feet, or at the
worst a Wesleyan Anniversary? Or peradventure is it a Circus? . . .
Sold again! 'Tis a Recruitin' Meetin', an' for Saturday."
Having slapped on the paste, he unfolded a bill and eyed it
critically.
"'YOUR KING AND COUNTRY WANT YOU.'--That's pretty good for Polpier,
eh? Flatterin', one might almost say."
His cheerfulness held the group with their passions arrested.
Nicky-Nan turned about and stared at the placard as Lippity-Libby
smoothed it over the paste, whistling.
At that moment Un' Benny Rowett, hands in trouser-pockets, came
dandering along. He, too, taking the geniality of every one for
granted, halted, spread his legs wide and conned the announcement.
"Oh!" said he after a pause, wheeling about. "Still harpin' on they
Germans? Well, Mr Hambly, sir, I don't know how it strikes you, but
I'm sick an' tired of them dismal blackguards."
"I can't bear it," said Mrs Steele, walking to and fro in her
drawing-room. She ceased wringing her handkerchief, and came to a
halt confronting the Vicar, who stood moodily leaning an arm on the
mantelshelf.
"I believe," he answered after a pause, "you would find it worse to
bear in a month or so if I hadn't offered."
"Why didn't you consult me?"
"I wrote to the Bishop--"
"The 'Bishop!' Well . . . what did _he_ advise?"
"Oh, of course he temporised. . . . Yes, I know what you are going to
say. My consulting him was a momentary throw-back of loyalty.
The official Churches--Roman Catholic, Greek, Anglican, the so-called
Free--are alike out of it in this business. Men in England, France,
Russia--Germany and Austria, too--are up against something that
really matters."
"What can matter comparable with the saving of a soul?"
"Losing it, sweetheart; or, better still, forgetting it--just seeing
your job and sticking it out. It is a long, long way to Tipperary,
every Tommy knows; and what (bless him!) he neither knows nor recks
about is its being a short cut to Heaven."
"Robert, will you tell me that our Faith is going down in this
horrible business?"
"Certainly not, my dear. But I seem to see that the Churches are
going down. After all, every Church--even the Church Catholic--is a
means to an end, not an end in itself. Where I've differed from four
out of five of my clerical brethren (oh, drat the professional
lingo!)--from the majority of the clergy hereabouts, is that while
they look on the Church and its formularies as something even more
sacred than the Cross itself, I have believed in it as the most
effective instrument for teaching the Cross." Mr Steele pulled a wry
mouth. "At this moment I seem to be the bigger fool. They _may_ be
right: the Church _may_ be worth a disinterested idolatry: but as a
means to teach mankind the lesson of Christ it has rather patently
failed to do its business. Men are not fools: or rather they _are_
fools, but not fools enough in the long-run to pay for being taught
to be foolish. They pay us ministers of religion, Agatha, a tidy lot
of money, if you take all Europe over: and we are not delivering the
goods. In their present frame of mind they will soon be discovering
that, for any use we are, they had better have saved the cash and put
it into heavy artillery."
"All we have lived, worked, hoped for in this parish--we two, almost
alone--"
"And now," said the Vicar ruefully, "I am leaving you quite alone.
Yes, you have a right to reproach me. . . . Old Pritchard, from St
Martin's, will take the duty. His Vicar will be only too glad to get
rid of him."
"Oh, don't let us talk of that silly old man!" said Mrs Steele
impatiently. "And as for reproaches, Robert, I have only one for
you--that you did this without consulting me."
"Yes, I know: but you see, Agatha--"
"No, I do not see." She faced him, her eyes swimming. "I might have
argued a little--have cried a little. But why--oh, why, Robert?--did
you deny me the pride to say in the end, 'Go, and God bless you'?"
The Recruiting Meeting was held in the Council Schoolroom, on
Saturday evening, at 7 o'clock. [Public meetings in Polpier are
invariably fixed for Saturday, that being the one week-night when the
boats keep home.] Schoolmaster Rounsell and his daughter (back from
her holiday) had decorated the room, declining outside assistance.
It was a rule of life with Schoolmaster Rounsell and his daughter to
be very stiff against all outside assistance. They took the line
that as State-employed teachers of the young,--that is to say, Civil
Servants,--they deserved more social respect than Polpier habitually
showed them. In this contention, to be sure, they were wholly right.
Their mistake lay in supposing that in this dear land of ours
prejudice can be removed by official decree, or otherwise than by the
slow possession of patience, tact, and address. Mr Rounsell,
however, was less stiff than usual, since the Vicar had asked him to
second a vote of thanks at the end of the meeting. He and his
daughter spent a great part of the afternoon in arranging the
platform and decorating the back wall with a Union Jack, two or three
strings of cardpaper-flags that had not seen the light since
Coronation Day, and a wall-map of Europe with a legend below it in
white calico letters upon red Turkey twill,--"DO GOOD AND FEAR NOT."
It had served to decorate many occasions and was as appropriate to
this as to any of them.
By 6.45 the room was crowded with an audience numbering two hundred
and more. They sat very quietly in the odour of the evil-smelling
oil lamps, expectant of oratory. For Squire Tresawna (who pleaded an
attack of gout as an excuse for not attending) had not only assured
the committee of his personal sympathy, but at his own cost had
engaged a speaker recommended by a political association (now turned
non-political) in London. There was promise of oratory, and every
Cornish audience loves oratory.
In the Squire's absence Farmer Best took the chair. Punctually at
seven o'clock he mounted the platform, followed by the orator from
London (a florid gentleman in a frock-coat and dingy white
waistcoat), the Vicar, Mr Hambly, Mr Pamphlett, Dr Mant, and Mr
Rounsell. As they entered, Miss Rounsell, seated at the piano at the
far end of the platform, struck the opening chords of "God Save the
King." It seemed to take the audience by surprise: but they shuffled
to their feet and, after a few bars, sang the anthem very creditably.
When they had settled themselves, Farmer Best opened the meeting.
"Ladies and Gentlemen, Naybours all," he said,--"I don't suppose
these here proceedin's will conclude much afore ten o'clock: after
which it'll take me the best part of an hour to get home; an' what
with one thing and another I doubt it'll be far short o' midnight
afore my missus gets me to bed. Whereby, knowin' my habits, you'll
see that I reckon this to be summat more than an ord'nary occasion:
the reason bein', as you know, that pretty well the hull of Europe's
in a state o' War: which, when such a thing happens, it behoves us.
I'll say no more than that, as Britons, it behoves us. It was once
said by a competent observer that Britons never, never--if Miss
Rounsell will oblige?"
This was a rehearsed effect. Miss Rounsell, taking her cue, struck
the key-board, and as Miss Charity Oliver (in the front row)
testified next morning, "the effect was electric." All sprang to
their feet and sang the chorus of _Rule, Britannia!_ till the windows
shook.
"Thenk 'ee, friends," continued Farmer Best, as the tumult and the
singers subsided. "There's no more to say but that most of 'ee's
heard tell, in one way or another at some time of his life, of
Armygeddon. Well, this here's _of_ it; an' if you ask my opinion o'
that fellow they call the Kaiser, I say I wouldn' sleep in his bed
for a million o' money. And with these few remarks I will no longer
stand between 'ee and Mr Boult, who is a speaker all the way from
London, an' will no doubt give us a Treat an' persuade many of our
young friends in front to join up."
Mr Boult arose amid violent applause. He pulled the lappels of his
frock-coat together. He spoke, and from the first moment it was
clear that he held at command all the tricks of the hired orator.
He opened with an anecdote from the life of President Garfield, and a
sentimental application that made the Vicar wince. He went on to
point out, not unimpressively, that Armageddon ("as you, sir, have so
aptly and so strikingly termed it") had actually broken upon the
world. Farmer Best, flattered by this acknowledgment of copyright in
the word, smiled paternally.
"It has burst like a thunderstorm upon the fields of Belgium; but the
deluge it discharges is a deluge of blood intermingled with human
tears. And where, my friends, is Belgium? How far distant lie these
trodden and wasted fields, these smoking villages, these harvests
where men's bodies crush the corn and their blood pollutes the food
they planted to sustain it? Listen: those fields lie nearer London
than does your little village: men are dying--yes, and women and
little children are being massacred--far nearer London than you are
peacefully sitting at this moment."
"Come!" thought the Vicar, "this fellow is talking sense after all,
and talking it rather well." Mr Rounsell stood up and pointed out
the positions of Liege and Polpier on the wall-map, and their
relative distances from London. A moment later the Vicar frowned
again as Mr Boult launched into a violent--and as it turned out, a
lengthy--invective against the German Emperor; with the foulness of
whose character and designs he had, it seemed, been intimately
acquainted for a number of years. "Who made the War?" "Who had been
planning it and spying for the opportunity to gratify his unbridled
lust of power?" "Who would stand arraigned for it before the awful
tribunal of God?" &c. The answer was "the Kaiser," "the Kaiser,"
"the Kaiser Wilhelm"--Mr Boult pronounced the name in German and
threw scorn into it.
--"Which," mused the Vicar, "is an argument _ad invidiam_; and, when
one comes to think of it, rather a funny one. The man is still
talking sense, though: only I wish he'd talk it differently."
Then for a quarter of an hour Mr Boult traced the genesis of the War,
with some ability but in special-pleader style and without a particle
of fairness. He went on to say that he, personally, was not in
favour of Conscription. [As a matter of fact he had spoken both for
and against Compulsory Service on many public platforms.] He believed
in the Voluntary Principle: and looking on the many young men
gathered in the body of the hall, and more particularly at the back
["excellent material" he called them, too], he felt convinced there
would be no hanging back that night; but to-morrow, or, rather,
Monday, when he returned to London he would be able to report that
the heart of Polpier was sound and fired with a resolve to serve our
common country. Mr Boult proceeded to make the Vicar writhe in his
seat by a jocular appeal to "the young ladies in the audience" not to
walk-out with any young man until he had clothed himself in khaki.
He wound up with one of his most effective perorations, boldly
enlisting John Bright and the Angel of Death; and sat down amid
tumultous applause. It takes all sorts to make a world, and this
kind of speech.
Farmer Best called upon the Vicar.
"I wish," said Mr Steele, "to add just a word or two to emphasise one
particular point in Mr Boult's speech; or, rather, to put it in a
somewhat different light. And I shall be brief, lest I spoil the
general effect on your minds of his very powerful appeal.
"I address myself to the women in this room. . . . With _you_ the
last word lies, as it rightly should. It is to _you_ that husband,
son, brother, wooer, will turn for the deciding voice to say,
'Go, help to save England--and may God prosper and guard you';
because it is your heart that makes the sacrifice, as it is your
image the man will carry away with him; because the England he goes
to defend shapes itself in his mind as 'home,' as the one most sacred
spot, though it be but a cottage, in which his imagination or his
memory installs you as queen; in which your presence reigns, or is to
reign.
"Do you realise your strength, O ye women? . . . The age of chivalry
is not dead. Nothing so noble that has once so nobly taken hold of
men's minds can ever die, though the form of it may change. Now the
doctrine of chivalry was this, for the Man and the Woman--
"For the man, that every true soldier went forth as a knight:"
'And no quarrell a knight he ought to take
But for a Truth or for a Woman's sake.'
"And our soldiers to-day fight for both: for the truth that Right is
better than Might, and for the sake of every woman who reigns or
shall reign in an English home; that not only shall she be
safeguarded from the satyr and the violator, but that she shall be
secured in every inch of dignity she has known in our days; as queen
at the hearth where her children obey her, and in her doorway to
which the merchants of all the earth bring their wares.
"For the Woman, chivalry taught that she, who cannot herself fight,
is always the Queen of Tournay, the president of the quarrel, the
arbitress between the righteous and the unrighteous cause, the
dispenser of reward to him who fights the good fight. . . . So, and
as each one of you is the braver to speak the word--'Go, though it
break my heart: and God bring you safely home to me!'--she shall with
the heavenlier right tender her true soldier his crown when he
returns and kneels for a blessing on his victory."
When the speeches were ended and Farmer Best arose to invite
intending recruits to step up to the platform, Mr Boult had an
unhappy inspiration. "If you'll excuse me, Mr Chairman," he
suggested, "there's a way that I tried this day week in Holloway with
great effect. . . . I take out my watch an' count ten, very slowly,
giving the young men the chance who shall rush up before the counting
is over. It acted famously at Holloway."
"Oh, very well," said Farmer Best doubtfully, taken off his guard.
"The gen'leman from London," he announced, "will count ten slowly,
an' we're to watch out what happens. He says it acted very well at
Holloway last week."
On the instant, as Mr Boult drew out his watch, the audience hushed
itself, as for a conjuring seance. Mr Hambly passed a hand over his
brow, and sighed.
"One--two--three--" counted Mr Boult, and a mortuary silence
descended on all.
"--four--five--six--seven--"
"Pray on, brother Boult! 'Tis workin', 'tis workin'," squeaked up a
mock-religious voice from the back.
Some one tittered audibly, and the strain broke in a general shout of
laughter. Old men, up to now profoundly serious, lay back and held
their sides. Old women leaned forward and searched for their
handkerchiefs, their bonnets nodding. Mr Boult pocketed his watch,
and under his breath used ferocious language.
"I don't wonder!" said Farmer Best with a forced attempt at sympathy.
Then he, too, broke down and cast himself back in his chair
haw-hawing.
There was a sudden stir in the crowd at the back, and young Obed
Pearce came thrusting his way through the press.
"Well--I don't care who laughs, but I'm _one!_" growled young Obed,
half defiantly, half sullenly, and tossed his cap on to the platform
like a challenger in a wrestling ring.
"And I'm another!" announced the clear quiet voice of Seth Minards,
thrilling the room as the hush fell.
"Aw, 'tis Seth!" "Seth's a beautiful speaker once he gets goin'."
"But what's the meanin'?" "Seth, of all the boys!" "Let Seth
speak!"
"Ha! What did I promise you?" proclaimed Mr Boult triumphantly,
reaching down a hand. "Here, clamber up to the platform, my lad,
an' give 'em a talk. . . . You can talk, they're saying.
Strike while the iron's hot."
Seth took his hand and vaulted to the platform; but dropped it on the
instant and turned to the meeting. "I come here, friends," he
announced, "because Mr Obed's offered himself, an' I don't see no way
but I must go too. . . . That's it: I don't agree wi' the ha'af
that's been said to-night, but I don't see no other way. We've got
to go, because--" his voice sank here, as though he were communing
with himself: it could scarcely be heard, "--because--" he swung
about upon the elders on the platform and swept them with an accusing
finger. "We've got to go because _you_'ve brought this thing about,
or have let it come about! It don't matter to _me_, much. . . .
But we've to wipe up the mess: an' if the young men must go an' wipe
it up, an' if for them there's never to be bride-ale nor children,
'tis your doin' an' the doin' o' your generation all over Europe.
A pretty tale, too, when up to a fortni't ago your talk was o' peace
an' righteousness! . . . Forgi'e me, Mr Best . . . I'll fight well
enough, maybe, when it comes to't. But _why_ were we brought up one
way, to be tortured turnin' our conscience to another?"
There were no other recruits. "A great disappointment," said Mr
Boult. "That earnest young fool spoilt it all."
"He made the best speech of the evening," answered the Vicar.
"Well, anyway he's enlisted. He'll find the Army a fine discipline
for the tongue."
"Indeed," said the Vicar viciously. "I did not know that you had
experience of the Service."
As Seth Minards thrust his way out of the insufferably stuffy room,
in the porchway he felt a hand laid on his shoulder; and, turning
about, recognised Nicky-Nan by the dim starlight.
"God bless 'ee, my son!" said Nicky heartily, to his utter surprise.
"I can't stay to talk now, havin' to force my way in an' catch Dr
Mant. But maybe we'll both be seein' this War from to-morrow; an'
maybe we'll meet in it, or maybe we will not. But you've let in
light 'pon an older skull than your own; an' I thank 'ee, an' I'll
pray th' Almighty every night on my knees that you may fight well an'
be preserved through it all, to come home an' testify."
CHAPTER XXIV.
THE FIRST THREE.
Mr Pamphlett had breakfasted, and had gone upstairs to put on his
frock-coat and array himself for Divine service.
The servant girl announced Mr Nanjivell.
"Sorry to trouble 'ee, sir, and upon such a day," said Nicky-Nan,
drawing up his sound leg to "attention," as his enemy entered the
parlour: "but my business won't wait. I saw Doctor Mant after the
meetin' last night, an' this mornin' I was up early an' had a talk
wi' the Minister--wi' Mr Hambly. The upshot is, that time presses."
"I do not usually discuss business on the Sabbath," said Mr Pamphlett
stiffly.
"O' course not. Who would?" Nicky-Nan agreed. "But the upshot is
that you an' me havin' been not what you might call friends--"
"I am due at Divine service in less than an hour. State your
business," commanded Mr Pamphlett.
"And I am due away, sir, in about that time. Will you look at this
paper?" Nicky-Nan laid on the table a half-sheet of notepaper
scribbled over with figures in pencil. "Look over that, if you
please; or put it off till you come back from Chapel, if you will:
but by that time I shall be gone. You'll find my address in Plymouth
at the foot."
"If you'd kindly explain--"
"Mrs Penhaligon has the money. I've spoke to Dr Mant: who says I can
be put right, an' the operation, with board and lodging, will be
covered by ten pound. I've taken ten pound, as accounted for on the
paper."
Mr Pamphlett picked up the paper, and felt for his pince-nez.
"Still I don't understand."
"No, you wouldn't. I'm _trustin'_ 'ee--that's what it comes to.
I've had a talk with Mr Hambly besides; and he and Dr Mant'll look
after my interests. . . . You see, I _did_ find a hoard o' money in
the Old Doctor's House, an' stuck to it, not knowin' the law. On the
paper, too, you'll see what I've used of it--every penny accounted
for. Mr Hambly says that anyway the law gives me a share far beyond
anything I've used. So I leave it atween 'ee, to see fair play for
me if ever I come back. If I don't, I've left it to the Penhaligon
children; an' Mr Hambly an' Dr Mant'll see fair play for them. . . .
But you understand, sir"--Nicky-Nan dived into his left
trouser-pocket and showed a palmful of coins--"I've taken ten pound,
for the operation an' sundries."
Mr Pamphlett studied the paper for a moment.
"But, my good man--since you say that you have taken Mr Hambly into
your confidence--"
"Well, sir?"
"Oh, well--you will be back, doubtless, in a few days' time; and then
we can talk. This--this is very--er--honest of you."
"It may be. As for bein' back in a few days' time, if the War should
be over in a few days' time you may expect me. I hope it won't.
God forgive me for sayin' so, but I'll be more comfortable
there. . . . Ay, d'ee hear me, Mr Pamphlett? More _comfortable_ than
here amidst women's tongues an' clerkly men's devices, an', what's
worse, even the set-up whisperin' o' children. God forgive 'em an'
forgive _you!_ I'm a Polpier man, an' the last o' my stock; but I'll
come back, if at all, to finish in Polpier with credit."
"This represents a considerable sum of money," said Mr Pamphlett,
conning the paper, and with a note, which he could not suppress, of
elation in his voice.
"Ay; does it not?" said Nicky-Nan scornfully. "Well, I leave 'ee at
home, to prove how honest you can contrive to be with it.
D'ee _see?_ . . . There's boys, like your nephew, young Obed Pearce,
as goes to fight for their conscience; an' there's boys, like young
Seth Minards, as goes to fight despite their conscience; but for me,
that am growin' elderly, I go, maybe with a touch o' the old country,
in contempt o' my kind."
Mr Pamphlett had seated himself at the table, and with his golden
pencil-holder was at work on the paper making calculations.
Nicky-Nan, going out, turned in the doorway and lifted his hand to
the old remembered naval salute.
A couple of hours later, having given them a two-miles' lift on the
way, Nicky-Nan at the cross-roads dropped young Seth and young Obed
to take their way to the inland barracks. He was for the coast-road,
with the hospital and the operating-theatre at the end of it.
If Heaven willed, he might eventually be of some service on the heave
of the sea, as they in their youth and their strength assuredly would
be in the land campaign.
As his hired trap jolted on, at a twist of the road before it bore
straight-eastwardly, he caught sight of their diminishing figures
side by side and already a goodish way off on a rise of the inland
road. It did not occur to them to turn on the chance of sighting him
and waving a hand. The two were comrades already, sharing talk, on
this their first stage towards the battlefields of Flanders.
FINIS.
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by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
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