Nicky-Nan, Reservist Part 26

"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 G.o.d's mercy-seat with a lapful of una.s.sorted 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 G.o.d'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 G.o.d 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 pa.s.sage summoning Mr Nanjivell.

In half a minute Nicky-Nan hobbled out. Meanwhile, their pa.s.sage 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 Sanderc.o.c.k, "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 Sanderc.o.c.k 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 pa.s.sage--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--pa.s.sed 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 Sanderc.o.c.k 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."