Nicky-Nan, Reservist | Page 7

baggage? To start with, I'd be
afeard the Lord'd visit it on me. . . . An' then it came out he'd Known
the whole affair for more than two months. The girl had been to him."
"And he never told? . . . I tell you what, Cherry Oliver! It's my belief
that man would set up a confessional, if he could."
"Don't 'ee tell up such things, Mary-Martha Polsue, or I'll go an' drown
myself!"
"And why not?--he bein' so thick with Parson Steele, that sticks up
'High Mass' 'pon his church door and is well known to be hand-in-glove
with the Pope. I tell you I saw the pair meet this very Wednesday down
by the bridge as I happened to be lookin' out waitin' to scold the
milk-boy: and they shook hands and stood for up-three-minutes
colloguin' together."
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. "You have noticed it, doubtless? . .. Yes, yes--about
Nanjivell . . . it is so good of you to feel concerned. I will talk it over
with the Vicar."
"God forbid!" Mrs Polsue ejaculated.
"One uses up fly-papers almost faster than Mrs Pengelly can supply
them," continued the Minister. "And, moreover, she will sell me but

two or three at a time, alleging that she requires all her stock for her
own shop. I fell back last week upon treacle. Beer, in small glass jars, is
also recommended. I trust that if you ladies see me issuing from the
Three Pilchards to-morrow with a jug of beer, you will make it your
business to protect my character. The purchase will not escape your
knowledge, I feel sure. . . . But we were talking of Nanjivell. I have
some reason to believe that he is a God-fearing man, though his
religion does not take a--er-- congregational turn. Moreover, he is a
sick man."
"H'mph!" Miss Oliver sniffed.
"The amount of disease disseminated by house-flies is, I am told,
incalculable," pursued Mr Hambly. "Yes--as I was saying, or about to
say--it's a pity that, in a small town like Polpier, two ministers of
religion cannot between them keep a general shop to suit all tastes, like
Mrs Pengelly." Mr Hambly's voice dropped as he wound up. "Ah,
if--like Mrs Pengelly--we kept bull's-eyes for the children!"
"And for another year we have to sit under a man like that!" said Mrs
Polsue to Miss Oliver on their way homeward.
Nicky-Nan had one thing in his favour. He came of an old Polpier stock.
It had decayed, to be sure, and woefully come down in the world: but
the town, though its tongue may wag, has ever a soft heart towards its
own. And the Nanjivells had been of good "haveage" (lineage) in their
time. They had counted in the family a real Admiral, of whom
Nicky-Nan had inherited a portrait in oil-colours. It hung in the
parlour-kitchen underneath his bedroom, between two marine paintings
of Vesuvius erupting by day and Vesuvius erupting by night: and the
Penhaligon children stood in terrible awe of it because the eyes
followed you all round the room, no matter what corner you took.
In neighbourliness, then, and for the sake of his haveage, Nicky-Nan's
first welcome home had been kindly enough. His savings were few, but
they bought him a small share in a fishing-boat, besides enabling him
to rent the tenement in the Doctor's House, and to make it habitable
with a few sticks of furniture. Also he rented a potato-patch, beyond the

coastguard's hut, around the eastward cliff, and tilled it assiduously.
Being a man who could do with a very little sleep, he would often be
found hard at work there by nine in the morning, after a long night's
fishing.
Thus, though always on the edge of poverty, he had managed his
affairs--until four years ago, when the trouble began with his leg.
At first he paid little heed to it, since it gave him no pain and little more
than a passing discomfort. It started, in fact, as a small hard cyst low
down at the back of the right thigh, incommoding him when he bent his
knee. He called it "a nut in the flesh," and tried once or twice to get rid
of it by squeezing it between fingers and thumb. It did not yield to this
treatment.
He could not fix, within a month or so, the date when it began to hurt
him. But it had been hurting him, off and on, for some weeks, when