The Soul of Susan Yellam Part 18

"I be afeard they'll hang back. 'Tain't easy to believe that us is at war. My Alferd be doing wonnerful well; trade stimulated as never was."

"I hear that Alfred is engaged to be married. Tell me all about it."

At such moments the Squire was at his best, keenly interested, avid for details, always ready to a.s.sume sponsorial obligations for the unborn, and promising five pounds if the little strangers appeared in couples.

Mrs. Yellam spoke of Fancy.

"Bless my soul! She opened the Vicarage door to me this morning. A very pretty girl, on the thin side, but modest and intelligent. I shall congratulate her. Your Alfred is a very sterling fellow. He deserves the right sort of wife. By the way, we shan't want him. You can tell him so from me."

Mrs. Yellam said gravely:

"Alferd be my only son, and I tells him that others should go first."

"Um! What does he say to that?"

"Nothing--not a word."

"Well, Susan, I want Alfred to help me. As a carrier he is constantly meeting young men and young women. Let him talk to both."

"Yes, Sir Geoffrey. Alferd be a very forcible man, wi' plenty o' brave words and thoughts. Certainly this war be a marrer-stirring affair. I hopes as how Master Lionel be enjoyin' good health, and his dear lady?"

Sir Geoffrey chuckled.

"Captain, Susan, Captain. And only yesterday, I remember, he came sneaking in here, always sure of a bull's-eye." He glanced at his watch.

"Time, confound it, is always hurrying on. I'm due at the Home Farm.

Before I go, one word in your faithful ear. It will travel no further for the present, hey?"

"You knows that, Sir Geoffrey."

They both stood up, a fine couple. The Squire patted Mrs. Yellam's substantial shoulder. Then he lowered his jolly voice:

"You asked about Mrs. Pomfret. After Christmas I am expecting the sort of present I want badly. You understand----?"

"Lard bless 'ee, Sir Geoffrey, and her too. Tis gert news."

"Isn't it? But mum's the word!"

He went on to the Home Farm, whither we need not follow him. But it may be added, incidentally, that the translation of Benoni Fishpingle from the position of butler at Pomfret Court to the more responsible post of Bailiff had worked greatly to the Squire's advantage and happiness. He returned home to luncheon in reasonably high spirits, having prodded the sides of many fat bullocks. He found Lady Pomfret on the terrace facing the park. From her face he divined instantly that something of importance had happened. She came up to him, with her slow, measured walk, holding out a telegram. It was from Lionel.

"Expect Joyce and me to-night. I go to France this day week."

CHAPTER VIII

RECRUITING

The Squire's lecture was an immense success. The village school-house overbrimmed with his "people." With a big blackboard behind him, and chalk in hand, the lecturer talked simply and convincingly upon a subject at that time unfamiliar to his audience, a subject vital to any understanding of military movements. He explained the nature of platoons, companies, battalions, brigades, divisions and army corps. He presented, in short, an army in being. Loud applause greeted this first half of the lecture. The second half was devoted to the urgent cause of recruiting, and was not, perhaps, quite so enthusiastically acclaimed.

The Squire, abandoning chalk and blackboard, thrust his hands in his pockets, and spoke trenchantly. We need not chronicle what he said. Men like him, all over the country, used the same arguments, almost exactly the same words. Such speakers forgot what had been said by Tweedledum and Tweedledee during the piping times of peace. Men and women, herded together, were invited to sc.r.a.p the slow judgments and convictions of their lives. They had been a.s.sured again and again by politicians of variegated complexions that a mighty navy was fully adequate to defend our Empire against attack. Need it be added that such a.s.surance, embodying as it did the acc.u.mulated wisdom and experience of generations, could not be cast incontinently as rubbish to the void.

English politicians--using the word in the strongest ant.i.thesis to statesmen--have never realised the temper of the country towards themselves, the curious and striking indifference of the average man, engrossed in his own avocation, to any policy that he has not the wits or leisure to a.s.similate thoroughly. The confidence of this average man in the government of the moment has always been poignantly touching, a confidence stolidly based upon a belief in the fundamental common sense of the nation as a whole. Upset that belief, and the average man becomes at once helplessly befogged.

After the Squire had spoken, old Captain Davenant said a few words in a more Cambyses' vein. Unhappily, the Captain lacked the geniality and persuasiveness of Sir Geoffrey. He believed in the choleric word, snapped out viciously. He spoke as he had often spoken in the barrack-yard, or in the hunting-field when some heavy-witted yokel had headed a fox. Probably he was shrewd enough to realise that this fox of recruiting might be headed, and governed himself accordingly. The Captain read the lessons on Sunday in the same peremptory tones, raising a rasping voice and glaring at the congregation--a very mirth-provoking performance. Uncle embodied the Nether-Applewhite verdict on such readings of the Scriptures:

"'Tis a rare lark to hear 'un!"

Fancy and Alfred attended the lecture together, and Alfred accompanied his sweetheart to the Vicarage _au clair de la lune_. They had sat at the back of the school-house amongst the younger people, and had listened attentively to sundry comments. Alfred, of course, accepted as gospel whatever the lord of so goodly a manor might be gracious enough to say. Being a carrier, and pa.s.sing daily through many manors, he had made obvious comparisons between his Squire and others to the advantage of Sir Geoffrey Pomfret. Remember, also, that as yet, although he kept silence on the point, he had not considered the possibility of England wanting him, a widow's only son, actively engaged in the prosecution of a business vital to the needs and necessities of a prosperous village.

He hadn't a doubt in his mind, after listening to a burning harangue, that the younger men ought to down tools of peace and shoulder rifles at the word of command. Some of the half-whispered comments disturbed him.

"Are they cowards?" he demanded of Fancy.

"Oh, I can't think that, Alfie."

"You heard them growling like a lot of cantankerous hounds. I'd a strong notion to speak my mind, I had. 'Twas lucky for them that Uncle Habakkuk was sitting quiet and peaceful amongst the quality. I'll be bound he picked up a shilling or two, being the happy father of the hero. George, pore soul, stands higher than I ever expected to see him. 'Tis a sad pity the boy ain't able to hear the brave words as was said to-night by Squire and Captain. He's standing on a giddy pinnacle, to be sure, and I mind me, in cricket-field, how he'd shut both eyes when a ball came at his legs. I see him like that, quavering, on the field of battle."

Alfred chuckled. Fancy squeezed his arm, whispering fears not for George Mucklow, but for a better man:

"Alfie, please don't joke about that."

"Ah, well, Fancy, 'tis a fact that many of our boys are like George.

Shifting manure's their proper job, and they do that so slow that I get weary watching 'em. Young Master Teddy is the real right sort. What he's done, giving up a grand position, fills me nose-high with pride. And too little was said about him,--a very notable oversight."

"That was because Mr. Teddy is quality."

"You're right, my pretty maid. Are you aware, Miss Broomfield, that your fingers are playing the piano on my ribs?"

Love-making put to flight the less agreeable theme.

Mrs. Yellam and Jane Mucklow went home side by side. Jane, as the mother of the hero, maintained an aggressive silence. Susan Yellam said, with a faint inflection of interrogation:

"You be a proud 'ooman to-night, Jane?"

"You be wrong, as usual. I bain't nothing of the sart."

"Squire and old Captain spoke up so handsome about your Garge."

"Be I the old fool they takes me for? 'Twas soft soap, Susan, ladled out in a big spoon; flimflam I calls it. Habakkuk can ha' the pride, and welcome. He be fair swollen wi' that and ale as Garge is payin' for."

"I listen to no ill talk about my brother, Jane."

"Then you'd better walk wi' some one else, Susan Yellam. You sees G.o.d A'mighty's hand i' this; I don't."

She stamped along home in a silence Mrs. Yellam was too wise to break.

Jane was a Christian and a churchgoer. But chronic dyspepsia seemed to have affected her conscience and principles.

She had predicted aright. At the _Sir John Barleycorn_ Uncle was drinking much ale paid for, indirectly, by the hero of the hour. The gaffers and married men, including George's married brothers, listened approvingly. Uncle "understudied" the Squire as he addressed his friends, thrusting his hands into his pockets and standing very upright.

"'Twas a notable evening, neighbours, but not a thing fresh to me, you understand? Me and Squire went over his so heart-stirrin' remarks two days ago, and me and old Captain had talk together this very marning.