Echoes of the War | Page 5

have spoken to him.'
MRS. MICKLEHAM. 'You lucky woman.'
They might see that she is not looking lucky, but experience has told
them how differently these things take people.
MR. WILLINGS, marvelling more and more as he unfolds his tale,
'Ladies, it is quite a romance, I was in the----' he looks around
cautiously, but he knows that they are all to be trusted--'in the Church
Army quarters in Central Street, trying to get on the track of one or two
of our missing men. Suddenly my eyes--I can't account for it--but

suddenly my eyes alighted on a Highlander seated rather drearily on a
bench, with his kit at his feet.'
THE HAGGERTY WOMAN. 'A big man?'
MR. WILLINGS. 'A great brawny fellow.' The Haggerty Woman
groans. '"My friend," I said at once, "welcome back to Blighty." I make
a point of calling it Blighty. "I wonder," I said, "if there is anything I
can do for you?" He shook his head. "What regiment?" I asked.' Here
Mr. Willings very properly lowers his voice to a whisper. '"Black
Watch, 5th Battalion," he said. "Name?" I asked. "Dowey," he said.'
MRS. MICKLEHAM. 'I declare. I do declare.'
MR. WILLINGS, showing how the thing was done, with the help of a
chair, 'I put nay hand on his shoulder as it might be thus. "Kenneth
Dowey," I said, "I know your mother."'
MRS. DOWEY, wetting her lips, 'What did he say to that?'
MR. WILLINGS. 'He was incredulous. Indeed, he seemed to think I
was balmy. But I offered to bring him straight to you. I told him how
much you had talked to me about him.'
MRS. DOWEY. 'Bring him here!'
MRS. MICKLEHAM. 'I wonder he needed to be brought.'
MR. WILLINGS. 'He had just arrived, and was bewildered by the great
city. He listened to me in the taciturn Scotch way, and then he gave a
curious laugh.'
MRS. TWYMLEY. 'Laugh?'
MR. WILLINGS, whose wild life has brought him into contact with the
strangest people, 'The Scotch, Mrs, Twymley, express their emotions
differently from us. With them tears signify a rollicking mood, while
merriment denotes that they are plunged in gloom. When I had finished
he said at once, "Let us go and see the old lady."'
MRS. DOWEY, backing, which is the first movement she has made
since he began his tale, 'Is he--coming?'
MR. WILLINGS, gloriously, 'He has come. He is up there. I told him I
thought I had better break the joyful news to you.'
Three women rush to the window. Mrs. Dowey looks at her pantry door,
but perhaps she remembers that it does not lock on the inside. She
stands rigid, though her face has gone very grey.
MRS. DOWEY. 'Kindly get them to go away.'
MR. WILLINGS. 'Ladies, I think this happy occasion scarcely requires

you.' He is not the man to ask of woman a sacrifice that he is not
prepared to make himself. 'I also am going instantly.' They all survey
Mrs. Dowey, and understand--or think they understand.
MRS. TWYMLEY, pail and mop in hand, 'I would thank none for their
company if my Alfred was at the door.'
MRS. MICKLEHAM, similarly burdened, 'The same from me. Shall I
send him down, Mrs. Dowey?' The old lady does not hear her. She is
listening, terrified, for a step on the stairs. 'Look at the poor, joyous
thing, sir. She has his letters in her hand.'
The three women go. Mr. Willings puts a kind hand on Mrs. Dowey's
shoulder. He thinks he so thoroughly understands the situation.
MR. WILLINGS. 'A good son, Mrs. Dowey, to have written to you so
often.'
Our old criminal quakes, but she grips the letters more tightly. Private
Dowey descends.
'Dowey, my friend, there she is, waiting for you, with your letters in her
hand.'
DOWEY, grimly, 'That's great.'
Mr. Willings ascends the stair without one backward glance, like the
good gentleman he is; and the Doweys are left together, with nearly the
whole room between them. He is a great rough chunk of Scotland,
howked out of her not so much neatly as liberally; and in his Black
Watch uniform, all caked with mud, his kit and nearly all his worldly
possessions on his back, he is an apparition scarcely less fearsome (but
so much less ragged) than those ancestors of his who trotted with
Prince Charlie to Derby. He stands silent, scowling at the old lady,
daring her to raise her head; and she would like very much to do it, for
she longs to have a first glimpse of her son. When he does speak, it is
to jeer at her.
'Do you recognise your loving son, missis?' ('Oh, the fine Scotch tang
of him,' she thinks.) 'I'm pleased I wrote so often.' ('Oh, but