Nicky-Nan, Reservist. Arthur Quiller-Couch
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