I-SPY-HI!
At certain decent and regular intervals of time (we need not indicate
them more precisely) Mrs Polsue was accustomed to order in from the
Three Pilchards a firkin of ale. A firkin, as the reader probably
knows, is the least compromising of casks, and Mr Latter regularly
attended in person to "spile" it. Mrs Polsue as regularly took care
to watch the operation.
"The newspaper tells me," said she, "that this is likely to be a
teetotal War."
"Tell me another, ma'am!" answered Mr Latter in his unconventional
way.
"It would be an excellent thing for our troops in the field: and, if
you ask my opinion, a little mortifying of the spirit would do the
working classes of this country a deal of good. I take a glass of
ale myself, under medical advice, because cold water disagrees with
me, and I've never yet had the aerated drink recommended that wasn't
followed by flatulence."
"There's neither mirth nor music in 'em" agreed Mr Latter.
"I do not seek either mirth or music in the little I make use of,"
Mrs Polsue corrected him; "and on general grounds I agree with total
abstinence."
[In this the lady said no more than the truth. She had lamented,
scores of times, an infirmity of the flesh which, forbidding her to
chastise the indulgence of moderate drinking, protected a truly
enormous class of fellow-creatures from her missionary disapproval.
Often and often she had envied Charity Oliver, who could consume tea
with hot sausages and even ham rashers. "To have the stomach of an
ostrich must be a privilege indeed," she had once assured her friend;
"though to be sure it tells on the complexion, forcing the blood to
the face; so that (from a worldly point of view) at a distance a
different construction might be put on it."]
"Tea with sausages, for instance!"
"The same here--Poison!" Mr Latter agreed, delicately indicating
where "here" lay for him.
"My father ever kept a generous table, which he was in a position to
afford." Mrs Polsue sighed, and added with resignation, "I suppose
we must say that the fathers have eaten sour grapes and the
children's teeth are set on edge."
"I wouldn' put it just like that, ma'am-not from what I've heard of
the old gentleman's knowledge o' liquor."
"It will bear hardly on you, Latter, if the King and Parliament
should put the country under Prohibition?"
["Drabbet the old cat!" murmured Mr Latter to himself.
"She's fishing to get at my banking account, and a lot she'd
interfere if 'twas the workhouse with me to-morrow."]
Aloud he said, rubbing his thumb on the edge of the augur and
preparing to make incision upon the cask, "Well, ma'am, I reckon as
the Lord will provide mortification enough for us before we're out o'
this business, without our troublin' to get in ahead. The way I
looks at it is, 'Let's be cheerful.' In my experience o' life there's
no bank like cheerfulness for a man to draw upon, to keep hisself fit
and industrious. What's more--if I may say it--'most every staid
man, afore he gets to forty, has pretty well come to terms with his
innards. He knows--if you'll excuse the figger o' speech, ma'am--
what's the pressure 'pon the boiler, an' how to stoke it.
There's folks," said Mr Latter delicately, "as can't stoke hot tea
upon sossiges: an' likewise there's folks as'll put forth their best
on three goes o' whisky. So why not live an' let live?"
"They say," answered Mrs Polsue, "that the Czar has been advised to
prohibit the sale of vodka throughout his vast dominion."
"What's the beverage, ma'am? I don't seem to know it."
"Vodka."
"Oh, well: very likely he has his reasons. . . . It sounds a long way
off."
"But that," Mrs Polsue persisted, reproducing what she had
assimilated from her newspaper,--"_that_ is what folks in Polpier
cannot be made to understand. At this moment the Germans are nearer
than we are to London, as the crow flies; and here are our working
classes living on honey and roses, like a City of the Plain.
What are our young men thinking about?"
"Why, ma'am," said Mr Latter, by this time busy with the cask,
"they're takin' it slow, I'll own, an' they don't say much. To begin
with, 'tis their natur'; an' next, 'tis a bit more they risk than you
or me, if I may make bold to say so. Then there's the mothers an'
sweethearts pullin' 'em back."
"Tut! If _I_ had a sweetheart--"
"Oh, certainly, ma'am!" agreed Mr Latter. "That if wars there had
been, you'd have driven him to the nearest, I make no doubt at all;
though your departed--if I may make so bold--was never the sort to
hurt a fly. . . . Though, by God," wound up Mr Latter in an inaudible
murmur as he blew the sawdust from the vent-hole, "the man must have
had pluck, too, in his way!"
"There's worse bein' done by Polpier women than holding the men back.
_I_ call it worse, at any rate, to send your wedded husband off to
fight for his country and then pick up with another man for
protection."
"Can such goin's-on go on in our midst, ma'am, and nothing about in
the shape o' fire and brimstone?"
"I am not retailing gossip, Mr Latter. I tell you no more than was
openly said to me, and brazenly, before witnesses, by one of the
parties involved. As one of the Relief Committee appointed to see
that none of our reservists' families are suffering want, I called
the other day upon Samuel Penhaligon's wife. From the first the
woman showed no sense of our respective positions; and after a
question or two she became so violent that it drew quite a small
crowd around the door. In the midst of her tirading out steps her
partner--"
"What? Sam?"
"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. She was living under his protection, he said, and he
would see that she didn't come to want. He had even the effrontery
to assure me that he had made an arrangement with Penhaligon.
But that, I feel sure, was a shameless lie, and my ears tingle to
hear myself repeating it. 'Twas hard enough to keep one's temper
with the man standing there and talking big as my lord, when the
Almighty knows if for these two years he's seen the colour of a
sovereign. . . . Eh? What ails you?" she demanded, as Mr Latter, who
had been testing the point of the auger with his thumb, gave a sudden
and violent start.
"Thank 'ee, ma'am--there's no blood drawn, as it happens," said Mr
Latter, "but 'twas nibby-jibby,[1] the way you outed with it, and
took me of a heap. If you'd ever happened now to stand up to a man
and him gettin' his fist full on your wind--no, you _wouldn't_, o'
course. But 'twas a knock-out. . . . 'Nicky-Nan,' says you, 'an'not
a sovereign to bless hisself'--Why the man's fairly _leakin_
sovereigns!--sheddin' 'em about like fish-scales!"
"Mr Latter--are you _intoxicated?_"
"I wish I was, ma'am. 'Twould be some kind of an explanation, though
mebbe not the most satisfactory. . . . When I tell you that the man
walked into my bar, three days since, an' scattered sovereigns all
over my floor! When I tell you he couldn' pull out a han'kerchief to
blow his nose but he _sneezed_ sovereigns!"
Mrs Polsue gasped.
"--When I tell you," Mr Latter pursued, flourishing his auger and
rapping it on the flat of his palm, "that one o' these soldiers--a
Corporal too, and named Sandercock--was talkin' in my bar not two
hours ago, an' says he, 'You've a man called Nanjivell lives here by
the bridge.' 'Ay,' says I. 'Bit of an eccentric?' says he. 'How?'
says I. 'The way he drops his gold about,' says the Corporal.
'Ho?' says I, prickin' up my ears, but not choosin' to be talkative
with a stranger. 'So folks have been tellin' you that story
already?' says I. '_Tellin_ me?' says he. 'Why, I see'd it with my
own eyes!' 'Come,' thinks I to myself, 'this fellow's a bra' bit of
a liar, wherever he hails from.' 'With my own eyes,' he repeats.
'I see'd 'en drop a sovereign in gold, up by that 'taty-patch of his
where the Company's runnin' a trench: an' later on, as I started
clearin' his crop, I came on two more in the soil, just where he'd
been standin'. 'Hullo!' thinks I, 'this ben't the same story, but
another one altogether.' I didn't say that aloud, though. What I
said aloud was, 'You mustn't take notice of everything you see
Nicky-Nan do. 'Tis only his tricks.' 'Tricks?' says the Corporal.
'If a man behaved like that down to Penryn we should call 'en an
eccentric.' That's the tale, ma'am: an' the best part o' last night,
what with puttin' two an' two together an' makin' neither head nor
tail of it, I scarce closed an eye in my head."
"I saw the man,"--Mrs Polsue, after a sharp intake of breath, said it
slowly in a hushed tone of surmise. "On Sunday, on my way home from
service, I saw him hand the money over. I wasn't near enough to
catch all that passed in the way of conversation. But the soldiers
were delivering a quantity of potatoes they had dug up in the man's
patch, and I concluded that Government, in its wasteful way, was
paying him some sort of compensation over and above saving his crop
for him. I remember saying to Miss Oliver that somebody ought to
write to the War Office about it. . . . A man that already takes the
taxpayers' money for pretending to be a Reservist, and then, when war
breaks out, prefers to skulk at home in open sin or next door to it!"
"I wouldn't go so far as all that, ma'am," said Mr Latter. "In fact,
I b'lieve you're under some mistake about Mrs Penhaligon, who is
reckoned as vartuous a woman as any in the parish; while 'tis known
that no doctor'd pass Nanjivell for service. But if you ask me, I've
a great idea the man has come into a legacy, or else struck a store
of gold--"
The landlord checked his tongue abruptly. Some phrase about a
'taty-patch floated across his memory. Had the phrase been his own,
or Nicky-Nan's? He must give himself time to think this out, for it
might well be the clue. The Corporal had spoken of finding two of
the three sovereigns under the soil. . . . While Mr Latter's brain
worked, he cast a quick glance at Mrs Polsue, in fear that he had
gone too far.
But, although she had heard him, it happened that Mrs Polsue's mind
was working on a widely divergent scent. She also was preoccupied
with something that haunted her memory: a paragraph in that morning's
newspaper. She, too, had no present intention of unveiling her
surmise.
"Nonsense!" she said. "Folks don't happen on buried treasure in
Polpier; and you can't have a legacy without its getting into the
papers."
Mr Latter had no sooner departed than she put on her bonnet and paid
a call on her friend Miss Charity Oliver.
"If Mr Pamphlett were only a magistrate--" said Mrs Polsue, after
telling her story. "He was as good as promised it before the
Unionists went out of office, as his services to the party well
deserved. _This_ Government appoints none but its own creatures.
. . . And Squire Tresawna living three miles away--with the chance,
when you get there, of finding he's not at home--"
"You might send him a letter," suggested Miss Oliver.
"One has to be very careful what one puts down on paper," said Mrs
Polsue. "I don't want to compromise myself unnecessarily, even for
the sake of my country. A personal interview is always more
advisable . . . But, apart from the distance, I don't fancy the idea
of consulting the Squire. He dislikes hearing ill of anybody. Oh, I
quite agree!--If he takes that line, he has no business on the Bench.
What else is a magistrate _for?_"
"Well, dear, I don't know much about the law. But I've heard it laid
down as a rule that every man is supposed to be innocent until you
prove that he's guilty--"
"And I never could understand why," Mrs Polsue interjected; "seeing
that five out of every six persons charged are found guilty. To my
mind the law would be more sensible if it learnt by experience and
took some account of the odds."
"There's a good deal to be said for that, no doubt," Miss Oliver
agreed. "But the Squire--or any other magistrate, for that matter--
will look on the law as it stands; and if you are going to lay
information against Nicholas Nanjivell--"
"Who said I wanted to lay information? Why should any private person
undertake such unpleasantness, when it's the plain duty of the
police, and in fact what they're paid for."
"Then why not leave it to Rat-it-all?"
"I believe I will, after giving him a hint. . . . But you don't seem
to _see_, Charity Oliver!" her friend exploded. "What you are
arguing may do well enough for ordinary times. These are not
ordinary times. With all the newspapers declaring that our country
is riddled with German spies--positively riddled--"
"I don't believe the man's capable of it, even if he had the will."
"Then, perhaps, if you're so clever, you'll suggest a likelier
explanation?"
"He may have won the money in a lottery," Miss Oliver suggested
brightly. "One of those Hamburg affairs--if you insist that the
money's German."
"I don't insist on anything," snapped Mrs Polsue. "I only say,
first, there's a mystery here, and you can't deny it. Secondly,
we're at war,--you'll agree to that, I hope? That being so, it's
everybody's business to take precautions and inform the authorities
of _anything_ that looks suspicious. The more it turns out to be
smoke without fire, the more obliged the man ought to be to us for
giving him the chance to clear his character."
"Well, I hope you won't start obliging _me_ in that way," Miss Oliver
was ever slow at following logic. "Because I never put a shilling
into a lottery in my life, though I've more than once been in two
minds. But in those days Germany always seemed so far off, and their
way of counting money in what they call Marks always struck me as so
unnatural. Marks was what you used to get at school--like sherbet
and such things."
"Charity Oliver--may the Lord forgive me, but sometimes I'm tempted
to think you no better than a fool!"
"The Vicar doesn't think so," responded Miss Oliver complacently.
"He called this morning to ask me if I'd add to my public duties by
allowing him to nominate me on the Relief Committee, which wants
strengthening."
"Did he say _that?_" Mrs Polsue sat bolt erect.
"Well, I won't swear to the words. . . . Let me see. No, his actual
words were that it wanted a little new blood to give it tact. I will
say that Mr Steele has a very happy way of putting things. . . .
So you really _are_ going to lay information, Mary-Martha? If you
see your duty so clear, I can't think why you troubled to consult
me."
"I shall do my duty," declared Mrs Polsue. "Without taking further
responsibility, I shall certainly put Rat-it-all on the look-out."
That same evening, a little before sunset, Nicky-Nan took a stroll
along the cliff-path towards his devastated holding, to see what
progress the military had made with their excavations. The trench,
though approaching his boundary fence, had not yet reached it.
Somewhat to his surprise he found Mr Latter there, in the very middle
of his patch, examining the turned earth to right and left.
"Hullo!" cried Nicky-Nan, unsuspecting. "_You_ caught the war-fever
too? I never met 'ee so far afield afore. What with your sedentary
figure an' the contempt I've heard 'ee use about soldiers--"
Mr Latter, as he straightened himself up, appeared to be confused.
He was also red in the face, and breathed heavily. Nicky-Nan noted,
but innocently misread, these symptoms.
"Good friable soil you got here," said Mr Latter, recovering a
measure of self-possession. "Pretty profitable little patch, unless
I'm mistaken."
"It was," answered Nicky. "But though, from your habits, you're
about the last man I'd have counted on findin' hereabouts, I'm main
glad, as it happens. A superstitious person might go so far as to
say you'd dropped from heaven."
"Why so?"
Nicky-Nan cast a glance over his shoulder. "We're neighbours here?"
"Certainly," agreed Mr Latter, puzzled, and on his defence.
"Noticed anything strange about Rat-it-all, of late?"
"Rat-it-all?"
"You wish friendly to him, eh? . . . I ask because, as between the
police and licensed victuallers--" Nicky-Nan hesitated.
"You may make your mind easy," Mr Latter assured him. "Rat-it-all
wouldn't look over a blind. I've no complaint to make of Rat-it-all,
and never had. But what's happened to him?"
"I wish I knew," answered Nicky-Nan. "I glimpsed him followin' me,
back along the path; an' when I turned about for a chat, he dodged
behind a furze-bush like as if he was pouncin' on some valuable
butterfly. 'That's odd,' I thought: for I'd never heard of his
collectin' such things. But he's often told me how lonely a
constable feels, an' I thought he might have picked up wi' the habit
to amuse himself. So on I walked, waitin' for him to catch me up;
an' by-an'-by turned about to look for en. There he was, on the
path, an' be damned if he didn' dodge behind another bush! I wonder
if 'tis sunstroke? It always seemed to me those helmets must be a
tryin' wear."
"I dunno. . . . But here he is! Let's ask him," said Mr Latter as
Policeman Rat-it-all appeared on the ridge with body bent and using
the gait of a sleuth-hound Indian. [There is no such thing as a
sleuth-hound Indian, but none the less Rat-it-all was copying him.]
"Hullo, Rat-it-all!"
The constable straightened himself up and approached with an affected
air of jauntiness.
"Why, whoever would ha' thought to happen on _you_ two here?" he
exclaimed, and laughed uneasily.
"Sure enough the man's manner isn't natural," said Mr Latter to
Nicky-Nan. "Speakin' as a publican, too," he confided, "I'd be sorry
if anything happened to the chap an' we got a stranger in his place."
"What's the matter with 'ee, Rat-it-all?" asked Nicky-Nan
sympathetically. "By the way you've been behavin' all up the hill--"
"You noticed it?"
"_Noticed_ it!"
"Rat it all!--I mean, I was hopin' you wouldn't. I begin to see as it
will take more practice than I allowed." He cast a glance back at
the ridge as he seated himself on the turf. "Either of you got a
pinch o' baccy?"
"Then you _are_n't afflicted in any way?" exclaimed Nicky-Nan with
relief. "But what was the matter with 'ee, just now, that you kept
behavin' so comical?"
"Got such a thing as a match? . . . Well, I didn' believe it from the
first. You must make allowance," said he as he puffed, "that a
constable has communications in these times, of a certain nature,
calculated to get on his Nerves. For my part, I hate all this
mistrustfulness that's goin'. 'Confidence'--that's my motto--
'as betwix' man an' man.'"
[1] A close shave.