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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.
"No, you can't!" he shouted. "Here, wait a minute! . . . And what might be the matter now?" he asked, as he opened the door a very little way. "I'm sorry, ma'am, that I can't ask 'ee to step inside; but there's a tidyin'-up goin' forward." "I'd as lief speak to 'ee here, in the passage. Indeed I'd rather," said Mrs Penhaligon as he emerged, trowel in hand. "Well, what is it?"
"It doesn't seem to trouble yours," retorted Mrs Polsue, at bay and vicious; "or maybe it has, and that's why you're not with the Reserve." Nicky-Nan flushed to the roots of his hair. But he answered pacifically "Until I go, ma'am, you may take it from me that Mrs Penhaligon shan't want. I fixed all that up with her husband afore he left.
But never you fret: I'm upsides with Pamphlett. This is my house, ma'am: an' here I bide till it pleases me to quit." "O-oh!" sighed Mrs Penhaligon dejectedly, "then it puts me in a very awkward position, if you don't mind my sayin' so." "How is it awkward, ma'am?" asked Nicky-Nan, rubbing his unshaven chin with the point of the trowel. "Well, Mr Nanjivell, I dare say you meant it well enough.
He had buried them all, and was returning at shut of dusk, when he met young 'Bert Penhaligon coming up the path. "This is the last night for us here," proclaimed young 'Bert, "and I can't say as I'm sorry. But maybe they'll move us." "How so?" asked Nicky-Nan.
He opened the door with great caution, peered out into the passage, and found to his great relief that Mrs Penhaligon, that discreet woman, had withdrawn to her own premises. He would have reconnoitred farther, but in the porch at the end of the passage Lippity-Libby stood in plain view, with the street full of sunshine behind him.
Nicky-Nan, startled, raised himself upright on his knees and called in a tremor "No admittance!" As he staggered up and made for the door, to press his weight against it, Mrs Penhaligon spoke on the other side. "Mr Nanjivell!" "Ma'am?" "The postman, with a letter for you! I'll fetch it in, if you wish: but the poor fellow 'd like a clack, I can see."
"How should it be Samuel Penhaligon, when you know as well as I do that he's gone to the War? No: the man, I regret to say, was Nicholas Nanjivell." "Nicky-Nan? . . . Oh, come, ma'am, I say! Why, what capers could he been cuttin'?" "I feel justified in speaking of him as her partner, seeing that he avowed as much.
You'd have heard it from a wife, half your time: though I dare say" Mrs Penhaligon sighed "'twould ha' been with you like the rest. . . . 'A nice cauch Mr Nanjivell's made of it, said I to myself, getting back to the kitchen: 'but he's under notice to quit: and if he quits quick an' delicate, mebbe there's no great harm done. So I came along to ask you about it."
Prompt upon this came a flutter and scurry of wings in water, and a wild quacking, as a bevy of ducks dashed for shore. A casement window was thrust open on the far side of the stream. A woman's voice shrilled "That's you, is it? Oh, yes you Penhaligon children!
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