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Nicky-Nan, Reservist, a novel by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch |
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Chapter 18. Feathers |
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_ 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."
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." _ |
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