The Soul of Susan Yellam Part 30

"I says to Martin: 'What did 'ee do, old friend?' And he says to me: 'Uncle,' he says, 'I thought my hour was come, but I legs it away so fast as I can to my lodgings....'"

At this point Uncle, being an accomplished _raconteur_, would pause.

Then he would add impressively:

"Neighbours, I don't blame 'un, although speaking for myself, I knows that I should ha' stood still, onless, maybe, I'd seen some nice lil'

ale-house handy. Well, Martin, he legs it homealong so fast as if a hornet's nest were tied to his starn-sheets, and presently he pulls up like to catch his breath. And then he takes a squint upwards. Dang me, 'tis hard to believe some true stories. But Martin Mowland do take his oath to this. He'd run the most of a mile, giving tongue, too, I'll warrant. And when he looks up, as I be a Christian man, that there Zep had follered he, and was slam bang over his head."

"Lard preserve us! Whatever did 'un do?"

Uncle solemnly put the finishing touch to the narrative.

"What did Martin do? He stands stone-still, and puts up his old umbrella."

Many persons in the village believe to this day that Martin Mowland saved his life by putting up his ancient umbrella. Unquestionably Providence had stretched forth a Hand to preserve a worthy man who, as bricklayer, could ill be spared.

During November, it will be remembered, Conscription was admitted to be inevitable, and shirkers were adjured to join up before they were "fetched." Many did so. Near Salisbury was established a vast camp of Canadians, jolly fellows who swung, route-marching, through Nether-Applewhite, winking gaily at the girls, and setting an inspiring example to the young men still clinging to the soil.

Susan Yellam, spectacles upon nose, read all articles in her paper which dealt drastically with recalcitrants.

Would they take William Saint?

This question obsessed her. William was single and of military age. But his usefulness in the village could not be gainsaid, even by Captain Davenant. Of late, William had begun to cough, particularly in his sanded bar-parlour, or when he happened to be talking to Squire or Parson. His yellow gills confirmed the general opinion that he enjoyed poor health. Susan Yellam maintained that Willum was malingering, and deserved such obloquy as descended upon the empty head of Ezekiel Busketts, the brother of the sometime "odd man" at Pomfret Court.

Ezekiel, presenting himself for examination before a medical board, had provided himself with an ancient truss, once the property of a deceased father. Unfortunately, he adjusted the truss so improperly that detection and ridicule fell upon him. Uncle, being distantly of kin to Ezekiel, covered his retreat with no harsher comment than this:

"'Twas a very sad mishap."

Susan, to return to William Saint, asked for a "sign," which, if unfavourable, might be taken to indicate how deeply she had incurred Divine displeasure. Some people, with greater advantages than Mrs.

Yellam, believe devoutly in signs. Lionel Pomfret's slow recovery had been thankfully accepted by Susan as a sign that Satan was not having it all his own way in Nether-Applewhite. If William Saint was removed from the scene of his time-serving activities, Mrs. Yellam felt that a signal victory over the powers of Evil would have been achieved. Such a victory, in a true religious sense, would re-tighten the spiritual fibres that, before the war, had bound her so closely to Omnipotence.

Nay, more; she dared to presume that if Willum went, her Alfred would return, and pick up the scattered parcels of his good business as of yore.

She confided all this to Solomon, but not to Fancy.

Uncle furthered her wishes without any "mumbudgetting" between brother and sister. He disliked Saint, because his ale was watered. But he liked to meet his cronies at the _Sir John Barleycorn_. Being a brave, candid fellow, with a half-interest in the V. C., he told Saint to his face what he thought of the ale.

"I likes my ale, and I bain't ashamed on't. I see eye to eye wi' this yere Horatio Bottomley about they pumpuritans, which I make bold to say includes milkmen" (Saint sold milk) "so well as publicans. Me and Bottomley do think just alike about knaves, hypocrites, and they as grinds the face o' the pore. Much o' what I read in Johnny Bull might ha' been written by me. I comes back to my tankard o' ale."

"You allers do, Uncle."

"What I likes about my first tankard be this. If 'tis good ale, such as used to be set afore a man, I drinks it wi' a grateful heart, a-smackin'

my lips over the tankard to foller. If 'tis wishwash, I nourishes most onChristian feelin's, and loses my thirst."

William Saint would reply imperturbably:

"For a patriotic man, you surprise me, Uncle. The ale is not what it was because good barley is needed for better purposes."

"I knows nothing about that."

"A man with your great knowledge of everything ought to know."

Uncle marked the irony, and resented it. In argument, as he well knew, Saint was too much for him. He began to study the publican and his hollow cough. He noted his manoeuvres: the tiny bit of land ploughed up, the buying of horses for remount agents, the sale of forage to the same interested parties, who might be trusted to speak up, when Conscription came, for an indispensable and indefatigable subject of the King. Uncle pa.s.sed some not disagreeable moments speculating concerning the fouling of a well-lined nest.

As the season of Peace and Goodwill approached, Lionel Pomfret was just able to hobble the length of the terrace with the a.s.sistance of a pair of crutches. His campaigning days were over. It was doubtful whether he would be seen again in the hunting-field. But high spirits remained inalienably his. He plunged with renewed ardour into schemes for the more intensive culture of a thin soil, and displayed remarkable apt.i.tudes fortified by hard grinding at text-books. Hamlin spent many hours with him. In Lionel he seemed to see a type, the son of an ancient house, born with the silver spoon in his mouth, cradled in ease and luxury, popped on a pony to ride through life as soon as he was short-coated, sent to a great public-school, not to acquire learning, but manners and skill at games, pitchforked later into a famous regiment, with a handsome allowance, not to study the stern arts of war, but to hold his own at polo and pig-sticking.

Hamlin had deplored such upbringing. But the results confounded him, forcing him once again to thrust carefully-considered judgments into the melting-pot. The fact bristled in front of him that Lionel, and thousands like him, had "made good" against all odds, vindicating an education which consistently disdained efficiency except at games and sport. What a gulf yawned between Prussian and English officers! The Prussians had sc.r.a.pped everything to attain efficiency. They had got it.

And what an atrocious use had been made of it! But their efficiency had constrained young men like Lionel to an efficiency greater because the inspiration of a fine cause lay behind it. That must be the keystone of any arch--inspiration. Whether for good or evil, it fired men to supreme endeavour.

Out of Hamlin's four sons, three were now in the Army. Teddy, however, was the only one in France. The eldest son, in Orders, was still at Cambridge; the second, after pa.s.sing through the O. T. C., had sailed for Salonika; the third had enlisted as a Bombardier.

Christmas, therefore, seemed likely to be happy, if not merry.

Upon Christmas Eve, Mrs. Yellam heard, officially, that Alfred was wounded.

Upon Christmas Day, at Morning Service, her pew was empty.

CHAPTER XIII

FANCY CONSULTS THE CARDS

On the following Sunday, Mrs. Yellam's pew was empty again, conspicuously so, in the eyes of Hamlin. After luncheon he said to Fancy:

"Is Mrs. Yellam ill?"

"No, sir."

Hamlin guessed what had happened.

"No news is good news, Fancy."

"That's what the men say, sir. It ain't a mort of comfort to us women."

She looked very white, with dark, heavy lines beneath her eyes. Hamlin said a few encouraging words to which she listened attentively, nodding her head. Hamlin felt rea.s.sured. Fancy was unhappy, but she didn't despair. Before she left the study, she said slowly:

"I believe as Alfred will come back."

To the solicitude and sympathy of neighbours Mrs. Yellam exhibited a frigid indifference.

"I be just as well as never was," she remarked, when they enquired after her own health. "Time enough for such as me to fall sick if my Alferd don't come back."

No further news had reached her. To Jane Mucklow, now the village optimist, with George at home on leave for Christmas, Mrs. Yellam spoke with some bitterness. Jane meant well; her sympathy was sincere, but how could she, so high in Divine favour, understand? Nothing could shake Susan's conviction that Alfred lay somewhere in France, mortally wounded, whilst William Saint, the hypocrite and rascal, knelt among the Communicants. To kneel with him, feeling as she did, would be, in her opinion, an act of sacrilege. She reflected miserably that, since confirmation, she had never missed a Christmas Celebration of the Eucharist.

On the Monday, Hamlin came to visit her as parish priest. He had carefully considered what he should say. The faith that burned within this strong man had been a plant of slow growth, watered by suffering, pruned by constant self-a.n.a.lysis, and yet, in its essence, the faith of a child, a faith independent of dogma, soaring high above technicalities, resting securely upon a belief in ultimate good. He could not disguise from himself that the Churches--all of them--had crippled expectation. There had been no renascence, no uplifting movement, no real enthusiasm. Political considerations and expediencies kept the Vatican silent when a voice, thundering as from Sinai, might have awakened millions to a realisation of the issues at stake. The Church of England and the Nonconformists remained almost as stagnant, content, for the most part, with the well-oiled grooves, waiting for and watching Temporal Power, unable or unwilling to take the lead, to speak definitely, to act decisively. With rare exceptions, the gospel of Love had not been authoritatively used to vanquish the gospel of Hate.

Hamlin, need it be said? was no sentimentalist. He believed with Woodrow Wilson that Prussian militarism must be wiped out. He did not believe with Wilson that the German nation, as a whole, could be exonerated from blame. Available evidence justified a different conclusion. l.u.s.t for world-dominion, regardless of consequence, animated and fortified the Central Powers because popular opinion lay behind them, unanimous save for a negligible minority. Non-resistance to a catastrophic policy of aggression, so potent, so meticulously organised threatened not only Christianity but civilisation. To turn the cheek to these smiting Huns was an unthinkable proposition to Hamlin. Nor could he find in the New Testament any injunction of the Master which could be twisted into a golden rule to be applied to States and nationalities. Christ dealt with individuals, preaching and practising the power of love as between man and man, not as between man and mankind. No text that Hamlin could find would justify forbearance towards a nation determined to inflict "Shrecklichkeit" upon the human race. On this point his mind was perfectly clear.

It was not yet, however, so clear upon issues still to be determined, such as "After the War" problems. He could not measure the stride about to be taken, provided militarism was crushed. He wondered constantly, with ever-increasing apprehension, whether love would triumph in the end, as he prayed that it might, creating a new world concerned with the happiness of the many, a world purged of the old insensate vanities and acrimonies.