THE 'TATY-PATCH.
Nicky-Nan went back to his parlour, closed the door carefully,
mounted the platform again, and resumed his plastering. He felt
vexed with himself over that little speech of bravado. It had been
incautious, with all those women listening.
Still it might be explained away, and easily enough. That woman
Polsue put everybody's back up. His words had been just a piece of
bluff to get rid of her.
He had succeeded, too. He chuckled, recalling Mrs Polsue's
discomfiture; how with a final sniff she had turned and passed out
between the ironical files that drew aside for her in the porchway.
. . . For a burden had fallen from his heart: his little mistake,
just now, weighed as nothing against the assurance that Dr Mant
would write a certificate and settle these meddlesome idiots at the
Troy Custom-house. . . . Moreover Dr Mant, who passed for a
knowledgeable fellow in his profession, had as good as assured him
that his leg was nothing to die of; not just yet anyway. Well, he
would have it attended to, sometime; his life was valuable now.
But he wasn't going to hurry about it, if a sound leg meant his being
taken and ordered off to this dam-fool War. Nicky-Nan pursed up his
lips as he worked, whistling to himself a cheerful, tuneless ditty.
Some one tapped on the door. "Who's there?"
"It's me," answered the voice of Mrs Penhaligon. "Can I come in?"
"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?"
She hesitated a moment. "'Tis a hard thing for a woman to say. . . .
But maybe 'tis turnin' out you are?" she suggested brightly.
"Turnin' out?"
"That would simplify things, o' course. And everybody knowin' that
Pamphlett's served you with a notice to quit--"
But thereupon Nicky-Nan exploded. "Served me with a notice, did he?
Pamphlett! . . . Well, yes he did, if you want to know. 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. But I have
my reputation to think about; an' the children, God bless 'em!
I grant that Polsue body to be a provokin' woman. She 'ave a way
with her that drives me mad as a sheep. But, if you don't mind me
tellin' 'ee, you men have no sense--not a mother's son of 'ee. Not a
doubt my Sam'd ha' spoke up just as fierce as you did. But then, you
see, he's my Sam."
"Very like 'tis my dulness, ma'am," said Nicky-Nan, still delicately
scraping his jaw-bristles with the trowel; "but I don't catch your
drift, even now."
"Then I'll speak plainer. Where was the sense to blurt out afore a
lot o' naybours as _you_'d see I didn' come to want? Be I the kind
o' woman to take any help but my own man's?--even if you had it to
give, which 'tis well be-known as you haven't."
"Oh, damn!" He swore as if a wasp had stung him: and indeed he had
jabbed the point of the trowel into his jaw. After a pause he added,
"The naybours know--do they?--as I couldn' act up to what I promised
that woman, not if I tried. Very well, then. Where's the harm done?
. . . I cleared her out, anyway."
Mrs Penhaligon eyed him with pity for a moment. "Yes," she sighed,
"that's just the plumb-silly way my Sam would talk: and often enough
he've a-driven me just wild with it. Men be all of one mould. . . .
Mr Nanjivell, you've no great experience o' women. But did 'ee ever
know a woman druv to the strikes[1] by another woman? An' did 'ee
ever know a woman, not gone in the strikes, that didn' keep some wit
at the back of her temper? . . . _I_ was dealin' with Mrs Polsue,
don't you make any mistake."
"It struck me that she had been distressin' you, an' you'd be glad to
get the rids of her."
"So I _was_ in distress. But I had th' upper hand, 'specially wi'
those women hearkenin' and every one hatin' her. . . . What must
happen, but forth you steps with a 'Leave this to me. _I_'ll look
after Mrs Penhaligon. _I_'ll see _she_ don't come to want'--all as
bold as a fire-hose. '_I_'ll clear 'ee out o' this house, which is
_our_ house,' says you--or to that effect. I wasn' so mad but, when
I heard 'ee, there was time to glimpse mother Climoe's face.
Oh yes! I know what you'll be sayin'. 'Talk, is it?' you'll be
sayin', just like my Sam: an' 'Let them talk. What's talk?'--an'
talk, all the time, two-thirds of every decent woman's life!"
"I never heard such dratted nonsense in all my born days."
"That's because you was never married. 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."
At this point Nicky-Nan fairly lost command of his temper.
"So you're one wi' the rest, eh? All in one blasted conspiracy to
turn me to doors! One comes threatenin', t'other comes carneyin',
but all endin' in the same lidden.[2] 'Your health ben't the best,
Nanjivell: let me recommend a change of air.' 'Nanjivell, you're a
fine upstandin' fellow, an' young for your age. Why don't 'ee leg it
off to the War?' 'These be hard times, Nanjivell; so I'm forced to
ask 'ee for your rent, or out you go.' An' now along you come wi'
the latest. 'Would you mind makin' yourself scarce, Mr Nanjivell, to
oblige a lady as has lost confidence in her repitation?' Now look
'ee here, ma'am--what I said to that woman Polsue, just now, is no
more than I'm able to abide by. If the shoe pinches at any time, you
can come to me, and I'll reckon up wi' Sam Penhaligon when he comes
back. What's more--though, to be sure, 'tis no affair o' mine--I
reckon Sam Penhaligon's the only chap alive, savin' yourself,
consarned in this repitation you've started to make such a fuss
about. But you're playin' Pamphlett's game, ma'am, to turn me out,"
wound up Nicky-Nan wrathfully, turning away: "that's what you're
doin': and I'll see you--"
He closed the oath upon a slam of the door.
"There was never a man in this world," sighed Mrs Penhaligon as she
regained her own kitchen, "but hisself came afore all the world." She
arrested her hand on the cover of the flour-barrel.
"He talked so confident of his money, too. . . . Funny thing if
Nicky-Nan, that we've been pityin' all this time, should turn out to
be a miser!"
An hour later, in the full light of the afternoon sunshine, Nicky-Nan
emerged from the old house with a shovel on his arm and a bundle
dangling from it. He had heard 'Bert Penhaligon say that the Boy
Scouts were employed by night only for coast-watching. By day the
pilots with their telescopes habitually commanded this whole stretch
of coast, nor could the periscope of a submarine push itself above
the inshore water and not be detected.
At the corner of the Warren, where the cliff turns eastwardly with a
sharp bend, Nicky-Nan almost ran into Policeman Rat-it-all, who
pulled himself up for a chat as usual.
"I don't know what _you_ think," observed the Policeman, "but to my
mind this here War gives us a great sense o' brotherhood. I read
that on the newspaper this mornin', and it struck me as one o' the
aptest things I'd seen for a long while."
"You said something o' the sort last time we met," answered
Nicky-Nan.
"You're wrong there." Rat-it-all seemed to be slightly hurt in his
feelings; "because I read it on the paper only this morning.
'Against War in the abstrac' much may be urged,' it said. 'But 'oo
will deny as it begets a sense o' Brotherhood if it does nothin'
else?' That was the expression."
"I don't take much truck in this War, for my part," said Nicky-Nan,
quartering on the narrow footpath to let Rat-it-all pass: "but it'll
do a dam sight else afore we're through with it, if you want my
opinion."
"To a man in the Force," said Rat-it-all pensively, "an expression
like that, mixed up with photographs in the 'Daily Mirror,' strikes
HOME. A man in the Force, as I'll put it, is in some ways unlike
other men." He paused to let this sink in.
"Take your time," said Nicky-Nan. "But I'm not contradictin' 'ee."
"If they're a species, he's a specie--a man set apart, like a parson.
A parson tells you how you ought to behave, and I take you in charge
if you don't."
"Like Satan," Nicky-Nan suggested.
"Rat it all! Not a bit like Satan!" said the Constable angrily.
"You've not been followin'. I never heard so foolish an interruption
in all my born days. . . . What be you carryin' in that there bundle,
makin' so bold?"
Nicky-Nan felt his heart stand still. "Just my waskit an' a few odds
an' ends," he answered with affected nonchalance. Forcing himself to
meet Rat-it-all's gaze, and perceiving it to be dreamy rather than
suspicious, he added, "What makes 'ee ask?"
"Nothin', . . . nothin'. . . . Only you reminded me of a song I used
to sing, back in the old days. It was called 'Off to Philadelphia in
the mornin'.' A beautiful voice I used to have: tenor. I shouldn'
wonder if I had it yet; only"--with a wistful sigh--"in the Force you
got to put that sort o' thing behind you, . . . which brings me back
to what I was saying. In an ordinary way, a police-constable's life
is like a parson's: they see more'n most men o' what's goin' on, but
they don't _belong_ to it. You can't properly hobnob with a chap
that, like as not, you'll be called on to marry or bury to-morra, nor
stand him a drink--nor be stood--when, quite as like, next time
you'll be servin' a summons. There's a Jane on both sides."
"A who?"
"'Tisn' a ''oo,' 'tis an 'it': bein' an expression I got off an
Extension Lecturer they had down to Bodmin, one time. I'd a great
hankerin', in those days, to measure six foot two in my socks afore I
finished growin', and I signed on for his lectures in that hope.
With a man callin' his-self by that name and advertisin' as he'd
lecture on 'Measure for Measure,' I thought I'd a little bit of all
right. But he ran right off the rails an' chatted away about the
rummiest things, such as theatricals. I forget what switched 'en off
an' on to that partic'lar line: but I well remember his openin'
remark. He said, 'To measure the true stature of a great man we must
go down to the true roots. A certain Jane is bound to overtake us if
we dig too long among the common 'taturs with their un-stopp'd lines
an' weak endings and this or that defective early quest. Oh! all
profitable, no doubt, an' worth cultivatin' so long as we do not look
for taste.' When I woke up at the end 'twas with these words printed
in mind same as they've remained. But I couldn' figure out how this
here Jane got mixed up in the diet. So, bein' of a practical mind
then, in my 'teens, same as I be to-day, I stopped behind and asked
him--takin' care to look bright and intelligent--who might be this
Jane he'd allooded to. If you'll believe me, it turned out to be no
person at all, but a way the gentry have of sayin' they're
uncomfortable; same as, through some writin' chap or other, all the
papers was talkin' of your belly as your Little Mary."
"Mine?"
"When I say 'yours,' o' course I mean to say 'ours'--that's to say,
every one's." Rat-it-all made a semicircular sweep of the hand in
front of his person.
"Something of a liberty, I should say, however many you include.
What I object to in these newspapers is the publicity. . . . But, if
you ask my opinion, that Extension fellow made a start with pullin'
your leg."
"You're wrong, then. For I tried the expression 'pon Parson Steele
only two days ago. 'This here war, sir,' I took occasion to say,
'fairly gives me the Jane.' He reckernised the word at once, an'
lugged out his note-book. 'Do you know, constable,' says he,
'that you're talkin' French, an' it's highly interestin'?'
'I make no doubt as 'twould be, sir,' says I, 'if I was to hold on
with it.' 'You don't understand,' says he. 'These Gallic turns o'
speech'--which, 'tween you an' me, I'd always thought o' Gallic as a
kind of acid--'these Gallic turns o' speech,' says he, 'be engagin'
the attention of learned men to such an extent that I think o'
writin' a paper upon 'em myself,' says he, 'for the Royal Institution
o' Cornwall at their next Summer Meetin'.' . . . I was considerably
flattered, as you may well understand. . . . But that brings me back
to my point. Parsons an' constables, as I see the matter, be men set
apart, an' lonely. So when I reads 'pon the paper that this here war
has made us all brothers, it strikes HOME, an' I feel inclined to
stop an' pass the time o' day with anybody. I don't care who he may
be."
"Then why waste time danderin' along the cliffs, here?"
Policeman Rat-it-all lowered his voice. "Between you an' me, again,"
he confessed, "I got to do my four miles or so every day, for the
sake o' my figger."
"'Tis unfortunate then," said Nicky-Nan, taking heart of grace and
lying hardily: "for you've missed a lovely dog-fight."
"Where? Whose?" Rat-it-all panted, suddenly all alive and
inquisitive.
"Dog-fights don't concern me. . . . It may ha' been Jago's
bull-terrier an' that Airedale o' Latter's. Those two seldom meet
without a scrap."
"Is it over?" A sudden agitation had taken hold of Rat-it-all's
legs.
"Very like," lied Nicky-Nan, now desperately anxious to be rid of
him. "I heard somebody callin' for snuff or a pot o' pepper--either
o' which they tell me--"
"An' you've kept me dallyin' all this while how-de-doin'?" Rat-it-all
made a bolt down the path.
Nicky-Nan watched his disappearing figure, and collapsed upon a
thyme-scented hillock in sudden revulsion from a long strain of
terror.
He sat there for a good five minutes, staring out on the open waters
of the Channel. An armed cruiser, that had been practising gunnery
at intervals during the day, was heading home from Plymouth. A tug
had come out and was fetching back her targets. Nicky-Nan arose very
deliberately, made for his 'taty-patch in the hollow beyond the pilot
house, laid his bundle on the ground, and began to dig in and cover
his golden coins, fetching a handful at a time. 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.
"Well, between you an' me," announced young 'Bert, who during the
last week had seemed to put on stature with confidence, "there's a
company of Royal Engineer Territorials ordered over from Troy to dig
theirselves in an' camp here."
[1] Hysterics.
[2] Monotonous burthen.