Nicky-Nan, Reservist Part 8

The light in the window-pane had been growing darker for some minutes. The morning had broken squally, with intervals of suns.h.i.+ne.

A fierce gust came howling up the little river between its leaning houses and broke in rain upon the bottle-gla.s.s quarrels of the window.

Nicky-Nan started, as though it were a hand arresting him.

CHAPTER VI.

TREASURE TROVE.

The rain--the last, for many weeks, to visit Polpier--cleared up soon after midday. At one o'clock or thereabouts Nicky-Nan, having dined on a stale crust and a slice of bacon, and recovered somewhat from his first alarm (as even so frugal a meal will put courage into a man), ventured to the porch again for a look at the weather.

The weather and the set of the wind always come first in a Polpier man's interest. They form the staple of conversation on the Quay-side. Fish ranks next: after fish, religion: after religion, clack about boats and persons; and so we come down to politics, peace and war, the manner of getting to foreign ports and the kind of people one finds in them.

Nicky-Nan could read very few signs of the weather from his dark little parlour. The gully of the river deflected all true winds, and the overhanging houses closed in all but a narrow strip of sky, prolonged study of which was apt to induce a crick in the neck.

To be sure, certain winds could be recognised by their voices: a southerly one of any consequence announced itself by a curious droning note which, if it westered a little, rose to a sharp whistle and, in anything above half-a-gale, to a scream. But to _see_ what the weather was like, you must go to the front porch.

Nicky-Nan went to the front porch and gazed skyward. The wind--as the saying is--had "catched in," and was blowing briskly from the north-west, chasing diaphanous clouds across the blue zenith.

The roofs still shone wet and dazzling, and there were puddles in the street. But he knew the afternoon was going to be a fine one.

He took pleasure in this when, a few moments later, his ear caught the thudding of a distant drum. . . . Yes, yes--it was Bank Holiday, and the children would be a.s.sembling, up the valley, for the Anniversary Treat of the Wesleyan Sunday School. There would be waggons waiting to convey them up-inland to Squire Tresawna's pleasure-grounds--to high shaven lawns whereon, for once in the year, they could enjoy themselves running about upon the level.

(In Polpier, as any mother there will tell you, a boy has to wear out his exuberance mostly on the seat of his breeches and bring it to a check by digging in his heels somewhere. And the wastage at these particular points of his tailoring persists when he grows up to manhood; for a crabber sits much on the thwart of a boat and drives with his heels against a stretcher. Thus it happens that three-fourths of Billy Bosistow's cobbling is devoted to the "trigging" of boot-heels, while the wives, who mend all the small clothes, have long ago and by consent given up any pretence of harmonising the patch with the original garment. At Troy and at St Martin's they will tell you that every Polpier man carries about his home-address on his person, and will rudely indicate where.

Mrs Penhaligon put it one day in more delicate proverbial form.

"In a rabbit-warren," she said, "you learn not to notice scuts.")

While Nicky-Nan--who, as we have said, had a fondness for children-- stood and eyed the weather with approval, Mrs Penhaligon came bustling out, with her bonnet on.

"Lord sakes!" she exclaimed. "Be that the drum already? What a whirl one does live in!--and if there's one thing I hate more'n another, 'tis to be fussed."

"What about the children, ma'am?"

"The children? . . . Gone on this half-hour, I should hope.

'Beida's a good gel enough, when once ye've coaxed her into her best things. It sobers her you can't think. She'll look after 'Biades an' see that he don't put 'Lead us, Heavenly Father, lead us' into his mouth, though 'tis where he puts most things."

"But you're goin' to the Treat yourself, ma'am?" Nicky-Nan suggested.

"What, in _this_ rig-out? Catch me!" answered Mrs Penhaligon, not with literal intention but idiomatically. "No, I'm but goin' up to see 'em off decent. But I wonder at you liggin' behind, when 'tis the only Bank Holiday randivoo this side o' Troy. . . ."

"'Tidn' for want o' will," Nicky-Nan answered ruefully and truthfully, with a downward glance, which reminded Mrs Penhaligon to be remorseful.

"Eh, but I forgot . . . and you with that leg on your mind!

But you'll forgive a body as has been these two days in a stirabout.

And if you're fittin' to take a stroll before I get back, maybe you'll not forget to lock the house up."

Nicky-Nan promised. (He and the Penhaligons had separate keys of the main door.) He watched the good woman as she hurried on her way, tying her bonnet-strings as she went.

It occurred to him that, leg or no leg, he felt lonely, and would be all the better for a stroll. So, having fetched his stick and locked the house-door behind him, he dandered down towards the Quay.

The street was empty, uncannily silent. "It's queer now," thought Nicky-Nan, "what a difference childern make to a town, an' you never noticin' it till they're gone." All the children had departed--the happy little Wesleyans to climb on board the waggons, the small Church of England minority to watch them, and solace their envy with expectation of their own Treat, a more select one, promised for this-day-fortnight. Then would be _their_ turn, and some people would live to be sorry that they went to Chapel. But a fortnight is a long time, and weather in the West is notoriously uncertain.

Of course you cannot eat your cake and have it: but Mrs Penhaligon arrived just in time to stop a fight between 'Bert and Matthey Matthew's ugly boy, who sang in the Church choir, and hoped it would rain. (_Odium theologic.u.m_.)

The most of the mothers had departed also, either to "a.s.sist" at the Treat or to watch the embarkation: while those of the men whom the War had not claimed had tramped it over to Troy, which six weeks ago--and long before the idea of a European War had occurred to any one--had advertised a small regatta for Bank Holiday, with an afternoon's horse-racing.

The tunding of the drum up the valley seemed to Nicky-Nan to emphasise the loneliness all about him. But down by the Quay-head he came in sight of Policeman Rat-it-all (so named from his only and frequent expletive), seated on a bollard and staring up at the sky.

Nicky-Nan hesitated: hung, indeed, for a moment, on the edge of flight. This was Bank Holiday, and until to-morrow's sunrise a constable was powerless as Satan in a charmed circle. Still, the man might have the ejectment order in his pocket--would, if not already furnished with it, almost certainly know about it. On the other hand there was a chance--it might be worth while--to discover how much Rat-it-all knew. Forewarned is forearmed. Moreover, when your country is at war, and silence holds the city, there is great comfort in a chat. Nicky-Nan advanced with a fine air of nonchalance.

"Lookin' at the sky?" said he. "Wind's back in the nor'-west again.

Which, for settled weather, I'd rather it took off-sh.o.r.e a bit later in the afternoon. It'll last though, for all that, I shoudn'

wonder."

Policeman Rat-it-all withdrew his gaze from the firmament.

"I wasn' thinkin' of the wind," said he. "I take no account of the elements, for my part. Never did; and now never shall--havin' been born up to Bodmin, where the prison is."

"Oh!" said Nicky-Nan suspiciously. "What's it like?"

"Bodmin?" Policeman Rat-it-all seemed to reflect for a moment.

"Well, I wouldn't just say it's altogether _like_ any place in particular. There's a street, of course, . . . and there's the prison, and the barracks, and an asylum where they keep the lunatics, and a workhouse and what-not. But if you put to me, in so many words, what it's _like_--"

"I--I meant the prison," explained Nicky-Nan; that being the only feature of Bodmin in which he felt any instant concern.

"It's a place," answered Policeman Rat-it-all with painful lucidity, "where they shut people up. Sometimes there's an execution. But not often; not very often; once in a while, as you might say. There's a monument, too,--upon a hill they call the Beacon. I'm very fond of Bodmin. It's the County Town, you know; and with these little things going on, in one way and another, why, that enlarges the mind."

"Does it so?" asked Nicky-Nan, a trifle puzzled.

"It do indeed," the constable a.s.sured him with conviction. "Take _me_, now, at this present moment, for instance. You comes upon me suddent, and what do you catch me doin'? You catches me,"--here his voice became impressive--"you catches me lookin' up at the sky.

And why am I lookin' up at the sky? It is to say to you, 'Nicholas Nanjivell, the wind is sot in the sou'-west?'"

"Not if you expect me to believe 'ee. 'Tisn' a point off north-an-by-west."

"--Or," the constable continued, lifting a hand, "is it to say to you, 'It is sot in the _north-west_,' as the case may be? Or is it I was wastin' the day in idleness, same as some persons I could mention in the Force if there wasn' such a thing as discipline? Not so. I was lookin' up in the execution of my duty. An' what do you suppose I was lookin' for?"

"I'm sure I can't tell 'ee," answered Nicky-Nan after a painful effort at guessing. "It couldn' be for obscene language; nor yet for drunks."

Policeman Rat-it-all leant forward and touched him on the top b.u.t.ton of his waistcoat.

"Zepp-a-lins!" he said mysteriously.

"Eh?"

"Zepp-a-lins!"

"Oh!"--Nicky-Nan's brow cleared--"You mean them German balloon things the papers make so much fuss about."

"Die-rigitable," added Rat-it-all. "That's the point."

"Well? . . . Have 'ee seen any?" Nicky-Nan lifted his gaze skyward.