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And as a Polpier woman, born and bred, I'd like to be one of the first to wish you joy of your good fortune." Nicky-Nan's face did not flush. On the contrary, it turned to an ashen grey, as he stood before her and leant for support on his stick. He was making inarticulate sounds in his throat. "Who told you?" he gasped hoarsely. Recollecting himself, he hastily changed the form of the question.
Then one-an'-three and one is two-an'-three, an' two two's four, two-an'-seven, screws and staples two two's, two-an'-eleven. If you ask my opinion we're in for settled weather." Nicky-Nan's business had taken time some twenty minutes in excess of his calculations, as a glance at the sky informed him. On entering the parlour he drew a breath of relief. No one had visited it, to disturb it.
This and other abuses of the old system had been abolished when the Admiralty decided that every reservist must put in his annual spell of training at sea. The trick at the time had lain heavily upon Nicky-Nan's conscience: but with time he had forgotten it.
The soldier holding the spool on the far side of the dip finished winding the tape very leisurably; which gave it the movement and appearance of a long snake crawling back to him across Nicky-Nan's potato-tops and over Nicky-Nan's fence. Then, shutting the spool with a click, he turned away and followed his officer.
"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 button 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."
Her face blanched as she looked around the bedroom; at Builder Gilbert, standing, wash-jug in hand; at Mr Pamphlett, kneeling, examining the cupboard; at Policeman Rat-it-all, kneeling also, but on one knee, while on the other he supported Nicky-Nan's inert head and bathed a cut on the right temple, dipping a rag of a towel into the poor chipped basin on the ground beside him.
Yet she had either missed to hear or, hearing, had missed to understand Varco's call up the stairs. At Nicky-Nan's footstep she turned, with a face white and set. "Sam's got to go," she said. Her lips twitched. "Nonsense, woman! Some person's playin' a trick 'pon the town." "They start from the bridge at ten-thirty. There's no trick about it. Go an' see for yourself." She motioned with her hand.
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.
When these two ladies joined forces to attack Mr Hambly on the subject of Nicky-Nan's atheism, presumed upon his neglect to attend public worship, the Minister's lack of interest became fairly exasperating. He arose and opened the window. "Astonishing plague of house-flies we are suffering from this year," he observed.
Nicky-Nan pulled his wits together and stumbled forward, terror in his heart. Could he reach the 'taty-patch and snatch his treasure before these invaders descended upon it? The cliff-track crossed a sharp knoll and brought you upon it suddenly. Nicky-Nan's heart beat fast, and unconsciously he accelerated his hobble almost to a run.
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