"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.
CHAPTER XX.
MISS OLIVER PROFFERS ASSISTANCE.
Although this narrative has faintly attempted to trace it here and there in operation, no one can keep tally with rumour in Polpier, or render any convincing account of its secret ways. It were far easier to hunt thistledown.
The Penhaligon family were packing, preparing for the great move into Aun' Bunney's derelict cottage. 'Bert and 'Beida had been given to understand—had made sure in fact—that the move would be made, at earliest, in the week before Michaelmas Day. For some reason or other Mrs Penhaligon had changed her mind, and was hurrying things forward almost feverishly. 'Beida—who for a year or so had been taken more and more into her mother's confidence—suddenly found herself up against a dead wall of mystery and obstinacy. The growing girl was puzzled—driven to consult 'Bert about it; and a Polpier woman is driven far before she seeks advice from husband or brother.
She might have spared herself the humiliation, too. For 'Bert, when she cornered him, gave no help at all. Yet he was positive enough. [It takes some experience to discover what painted laths men are.]
"Some woman's rot!" decided 'Bert with a shrug of his shoulders. "Father bein' away, she's worryin', an' wants to get it over. She don't consult me, so I've no call to tell her to take things cooler." The trumpet, after thus uttering no uncertain sound, tailed off upon the word 'females.'
"Get along with your 'females'!" fired up 'Beida, springing to arms for her sex. "I'd like to know where the world'd be without us. But don't you see that 'tisn' like Mother to be so daggin' to quit the old house?"
"She wants to get the grievin' over, I tell you," 'Bert maintained.
As for 'Biades, he was rather more—certainly not less—of a nuisance than children of his age usually are when a family intends a move. He asked a thousand questions, wandered among packing-cases as in a maze, and, if his presence were forgotten for a moment, sat down and howled. On being picked up and righted he would account for his emotion quite absurdly yet lucidly and in a way that wrung all hearts. On the second day of packing he looked out from a zareba of furniture under which he had contrived to crawl, and demanded— "What's a Spy?"
"A Spy?" his mother echoed after he had repeated the question three or four times. "A Spy is a wicked man: worse nor a Prooshian."
"What's a Prooshian?"
"A Prooshian," said Mrs Penhaligon, inverting one bedroom chair on another, "is a kind o' German, and by all accounts the p'isonest. A Spy is worse nor even a Prooshian, because he pretends he isn't till he've wormed hisself into your confidence, an' then he comes out in his true colours, an' the next thing you know you're stabbed in the back in the dark." Mrs Penhaligon might miss to be lucid in explanation, but never to be vivid.
"What's your 'confidence'?" asked 'Biades, after a digestive pause.
His sister 'Beida turned about while she bumped herself up and down in a sitting posture on the lid of an old sea-chest overfilled with pillows, bed-curtains, and other "soft goods."
"It isn't your stummick, on which you're crawlin' at this moment like Satan in the garden. And only yesterday your askin' to be put into weskits on the ground of your age! A nice business 'twould be to keep your front in buttons!" While admonishing 'Biades, 'Beida continued to bump herself on the sea-chest, her speech by consequence coming in short interrupted gushes like water from a pump. "A Spy," she continued, "is a man what creeps in a person's belongings same as you're doin' at this moment, an' then goes off an' gets paid for writin' to Germany about it: which if we didn' know from bitter experience as you couldn't spell a, b, 'ab,' we should be feelin' nervous at this moment, the way you're behavin'."
"How can you tell a Spy?" persisted 'Biades after another pause, ignoring reproof. "Does he go about with a gamey leg, like Mr Nanjivell? Or what?"
"Don't you set up to laugh at gamey legs or any such infirmity," his mother warned him, "when there's an All-seein' Eye about; an', for all we know, around the corner at this moment gettin' ready to strike you comical."
"There's no way to tell a Spy at first," added 'Beida; "an' that's why they're so dangerous. The usual way is that first you have your suspicions, an' then, some day when he's not lookin', you search his premises an' the fat's in the fire."
"What's an infirmity?" asked 'Biades. Getting no answer, after half a minute he asked, "What's premises?"
Still there was no answer. With a sigh he wriggled backwards out of his shelter. Seizing the moment when his sister had at length pressed down the lid and his mother was kneeling to lock it, he slipped out of the room and betook himself to the water-side, where he fell into deep thought.
This happened on Tuesday. During Wednesday and the morning of
Thursday the child was extraordinarily well-behaved. As Mrs
Penhaligon observed to her daughter—
"You kept warnin' me he'd be a handful, messin' about an' unpackin' things as soon as they was packed. Whereas if he'd been his own father, he couldn' ha' been more considerate in keepin' out o' the way. 'Tis wonderful how their tender intellec's turn steady when there's trouble in the family."
"But there isn't."
"Well, you know what I mean. For the last two days the blessed child might not ha' been in existence, he's such a comfort."
"Well," said 'Beida, "you may be right. But I never yet knowed 'Biades quiet for half this time 'ithout there was somebody's bill to pay at the end o't."
That same afternoon as Miss Charity Oliver came down the hill on her first errand as Relief Visitor, at the corner by Mrs Pengelly's she happened on young 'Biades, posted solitary before the shop-window. There was something queer in this: for the elder children had started a game of tig, down by the bridge—that is to say, within earshot— and as a rule any such game attracted 'Biades fatally to its periphery, where he would stand with his eyes rounded and his heart sick for the time when he would be grown up and invited to join in. To-day his back was turned to the fun.
Miss Oliver, however, knew no more of 'Biades ways than that on her approach as a rule he either fled precipitately or, if no retreat offered itself, stood stock-still, put a finger in his mouth, and seemed to be calling on some effort of the will to make him invisible. To-day he met her accost easily, familiarly, even with what in a grown male might have been taken for a drunken leer.
"Well, my little man!" said Miss Oliver. "And what might you be doing here, all by yourself?"
"Choosin'," answered 'Biades. Reluctantly he withdrew his eyes again from gloating on Mrs Pengelly's miscellaneous exhibits. "I 'spect it'll end in peppermint lumps, but I'd rather have trousers if a whole penny would run to 'em."
He held out his palm, exhibiting a coin over which his fingers quickly closed again.
"What's that money you have?" asked Miss Oliver sharply.
"A penny," answered the child. "A whole penny. I like peppermint lumps, but they smell so strong in your breath that 'Bert and 'Beida would find out an' want to share. Of course trousers are found out quite as easy, or easier. But you can't go shares in trousers: not," added 'Biades thoughtfully, "if you try ever so."
"May I see the pretty penny?" coaxed Miss Oliver: for in the glimpse allowed her it had seemed an extraordinarily bright and yellow one.
"You mustn' come no nearer than you are now," said 'Biades, backing a little. After an inward struggle he opened his fingers and disclosed the coin.
"Where did you get that?" Miss Oliver's eyes were notoriously sharp. Her voice rapped out the question in a way that made 'Biades blink and clasp the coin again as he cast a desperate look behind him in search of retreat.
"Mr Nanjivell gave it to me."
"Mr Nanjivell! . . . He couldn't!" Miss Oliver took a step forward.
'Biades lowered his head.
"If you come a step closer I'll butt 'ee!" He threatened. "Mr Nanjivell gave it to me," he repeated, and, seeing her taken aback, soared upon the wing of falsehood. "Mother's changing houses, an' Mr Nanjivell said I'd behaved so quiet I deserved a penny if ever a boy did in this world."
"A penny?" Miss Oliver echoed. "But where did he—how did he come across that kind of penny? Such a bright penny, I mean."
"He spat upon it, an' rubbed it on his trousers," answered 'Biades with a glibness that astonished himself, 'peeking' between his fingers to make sure that they really held the prize. Inspiration took the child, once started, and he lied as one lifted far above earth. "Mr Nanjivell said as it might help me to forget Father's bein' away at the War. Mr Nanjivell said as I couldn' learn too early to lay by against a rainy day, and I was to take it to Missis Pengelly's and if it took the form of trousers he didn' mind. Mother wanted me to put it in the savings bank, but he wouldn' hear of it. He said they weren't to be trusted any longer—not savings banks. He said—"
"But where did he get it?"
'Biades blinked, and set his face hardily. He had the haziest notions of how money was acquired. But from infancy he had perforce attended chapel.
"He took up a collection."
"What?"
"He took up a collection, Miss: the same as Mr Pamphlett does on
Sunday. Back-along, when he was at sea—"
"Alcibiades," said Miss Oliver on a sudden impulse, feeling for her purse. "What would you say if I gave you two pennies for your bright new one? Two pennies will buy twice as much as one, you know."
"O' course I know that," said 'Biades cunningly. "But what for?"
"Because you have told me such a pretty story."
'Biades hesitated. He had been driven—in self-defence, to be sure— into saying things at the bare thought of which he felt a premonitory tingling in the rearward part of his person. But somehow the feel of the coin in his hand seemed to enfranchise him. He had at once a sense of manly solidity, and of having been floated off into a giddy atmosphere in which nothing succeeded like success and the law of gravity had lost all spanking weight. He backed towards Mrs Pengelly's shop door, greedy, suspicious, irresolute.
Miss Oliver produced two copper coins, and laid them in his palm. As the exchange was made he backed upon Mrs Pengelly's shop door, and the impact set a bell clanging. The sense of it shot up his spine of a sudden, and at each stroke of the clapper he felt he had sold his soul to the devil. But Miss Oliver stood in front of him, with a smile on her face that seemed to waver the more she fixed it: and at this moment the voice of Mrs Pengelly—a deep contralto—called—
"Come in!"
Some women are comfortable, others uncomfortable. In the language of Polpier, "there be bitter and there be bowerly." Mrs Pengelly was a bowerly woman, and traded in lollipops. Miss Oliver—
Anyhow, the child 'Biades turned and took refuge in the shop, hurling back the door-flap and its clanging bell.
This left Miss Oliver without, in the awkwardest of situations: since she had a conscience as well as curiosity. In her palm lay a guinea-piece: which meant that (at the very least, or the current rate of exchange) she had swindled a child out of twenty shillings and tenpence. This would never do, of course. . . . Yet she could not very well follow in at this moment and explain to Mrs Pengelly.
Moreover, here was a mystery connected with Nanjivell. In the midst of her embarrassment she felt a secret assurance that she was in luck; that she held a clue; that she had in her grasp something to open Mrs Polsue's eyes in envy.
"The first thing," she decided, "is to take this piece of gold to the child's mother, and instanter."
But, as fate would have it, she had scarcely reached the porch of the Old Doctor's house when Nicky-Nan himself emerged from it: and at the sight of him her fatal curiosity triumphed.
"Mr Nanjivell!" she called.
Nicky-Nan turned about. "Good mornin', Miss. Was that you a-callin'?"
Having yielded to her impulse, Miss Oliver suddenly found herself at a loss how to proceed. Confusion and the call to improvise an opening movement mantled her cheeks with that crimson tint which her friend Mary-Martha so often alleged to be unbecoming.
"I stopped you," she answered, stammering a little, "because, with all our little differences in Polpier, we're all one family in a sense, are we not? We have a sort of fellow-feeling—eh?—whether in trouble or prosperity. And as a Polpier woman, born and bred, I'd like to be one of the first to wish you joy of your good fortune."
Nicky-Nan's face did not flush. On the contrary, it turned to an ashen grey, as he stood before her and leant for support on his stick. He was making inarticulate sounds in his throat.
"Who told you?" he gasped hoarsely. Recollecting himself, he hastily changed the form of the question. "What lies have they been tellin' up about me now?"
Miss Oliver had meant to disclose the guinea in her palm, and tell him of her meeting with the child 'Biades. But now she clutched the coin closer, and it gave her confidence—a feeling that she held her trump card in reserve.
"Why, of course, they have been putting up lies, as you say," she answered cunningly. "There was never such a place as Polpier for tittle-tattle. They've even gone so far as to set it about that it came from Germany: which was the reason you haven't joined up with the colours."
"What came from Germany?"
"And of course it is partly your own fault, isn't it?—if you will make such a secret of the thing? . . . Yet, I'm sure I don't blame you. Living the solitary life you do must make it specially trying to feel that every one is canvassing your affairs. For my part, I said, 'If it does come from Germany,' I said, 'you may be sure 'tis through one of those lotteries.'" On a swift thought she added, "But that tale is all nonsense, of course: because the Germans wouldn't pay in guineas, would they?"
"'Guineas'?" repeated Nicky-Nan, as the solid earth seemed to fail beneath his feet and his supporting stick.
Miss Oliver, grasping the advantage of his evident distress, decided in a flash (1) that here, before her, stood the wreck of a well-connected man, cleanly in person, not ill to look upon; and (2) that she would a little longer withhold disclosure of the guinea.
"Well, I heard it took the form of guineas, Mr Nanjivell. But of course I don't wish to be inquisitive."
"That devil Pamphlett has been talkin'," muttered Nicky-Nan to himself.
"I only suggest," Miss Oliver went on, "that if 'twas known—I don't seek to know the amount: but if I had your authority to say that 'twas all in good coin of this realm—with my opportunities I might hush up half this silly talk about your being a spy and in German pay—"
"What? . . . ME, a German spy?" The words seemed fairly to strangle him.
"It's a positive fact, I assure you. I mean it's a positive fact somebody has been putting that story about."
"If I knawed the critter, male or female—" Nicky-Nan gripped his stick.
Miss Oliver could not help admiring his demeanour, his manly indignation. The man had fine features, too—a touch of ancestry. She grew bolder.
"Well, I rather think I do know the creature, as you put it-though I am not going to tell you," she added almost archly. Then, of a sudden, "Has Constable Rat-it-all been paying you any attention lately?"
"Well . . . I'll be danged!"
Miss Oliver laughed pleasantly. "The fact is, Mr Nanjivell, you want a woman's wit to warn you, as every man does in your position. And just now it took me of a sudden, happening upon you in this way and knowing how you were surrounded by evil tongues, that I'd cast prudence to the winds and speak to you openly for your good, as a neighbour. You don't think the worse of me, I hope?"
"Why, no, Miss Oliver. Contrariwise I ought to be—if you hadn' taken me so sudden!" he concluded lamely.
"We'll say no more about that. All I suggest is that, until you find some one worthier of your confidence, if you care to count on me as an old friend and neighbour—"
"Good Lord!" Nicky-Nan cast a hand to his brow. "You'll excuse my manners, Miss—but if you'll let me go off an' think it over—"
He turned as if to flee into the house. Then, as if headed off by the noise of hammering within, he faced about and made across the bridge for the quay-head and his favourite bollard. There, as a man in a dream, he found a seat, and vainly for ten minutes strove to collect and arrange his thoughts. Suspicion, fear, wild anger wove dances in his brain—witch-dances immingled with cursings upon the heads of Pamphlett and Policeman Rat-it-all. . . . Of a sudden he sat up and stiffened with a new fright.
"By the manner of her conversation, that woman was makin' love to me!"
Left to herself, and as Nicky-Nan passed out of sight around the corner beyond the bridge, Miss Charity Oliver warily opened her palm and examined the guinea.
"By rights," she mused, "I ought to take this in to Mrs Penhaligon at once, and caution her about Alcibiades. . . . No, I won't, though. I'll call first and have it out with Mary-Martha. She thinks she knows everything, and she has a way of making others believe it. But she has proved herself a broken reed over this affair: and," said Miss Oliver to herself with decision, "I rather fancy I'll make Mary-Martha sensible of it."
CHAPTER XXI.
FAIRY GOLD.
"So you see, Mary-Martha, that for once in a way you were wrong and I was right."
"You're too fond of sweepin' statements, Charity Oliver. I doubt your first, and your second I not only doubt but deny. So far as I remember, I said the man was probably in German pay, while you insisted that he'd won the money in a lottery."
"I didn't insist: I merely suggested. It was you who started to talk about German money: and I answered you that, even if the money was German, there might be an innocent way of explaining it before you took upon yourself to warn the police."
Mrs Polsue glanced at her friend sharply. "You seem to be gettin' very hot over it," was her comment. "Why, I can't think. You certainly wouldn't if you gave any thought to your appearance."
"I'm not hot in the least," hotly protested Miss Oliver. "I'm simply proving to you that you've made a mistake: which you could never in your life bear to be told. The money is English gold, with King George the Something's head on it: and that you can't deny, try as you may."
"All the more reason why it shouldn't come through a German lottery," replied Mrs Polsue, examining the coin.
"I tell you for the last time that I only threw lotteries out as a suggestion. There's many ways to come into a fortune besides lotteries. You can have it left to you by will, for instance—"
"Dear, dear! . . . But never mind: go on. How one lives and learns!"
"And the other day the papers were full of a man who came into tens of thousands through what they call a Derby sweep. I remember wondering how cleaning chimneys—even those long factory ones—could be so profitable in the north of England, until it turned out that a sweep was some kind of horse-race."
"The Derby, as it is called," said Mrs Polsue, imparting information in her turn, "is the most famous of horse-races, and the most popular, though not the most fashionable. It is called the Blue Ribbon of the Turf."
"Indeed? Now that's very gratifying to hear," said Miss Oliver.
"I didn't know they ran any of these meetings on teetotal lines."
"As I was saying," her friend continued, "the gowns worn are not so expensive as at Ascot, and I believe there is no Royal Enclosure. But the Derby is nevertheless what they call a National Institution. As you know, I disapprove of horse-racing as a pastime: but my brother-in-law in the Civil Service used to attend it regularly, from a sense of duty, with a green veil around his hat."
"I suppose he didn't want to be recognised?" Miss Oliver hazarded.
"He didn't go so far as to say that Government Officials were compelled to attend: though he implied that it was expected of him. There's an unwritten law in most of these matters. . . . But after what I've told you, Charity Oliver, do you look me in the face and suggest that the Derby horse-race—being run, as every one knows, early in the London season and somewhere towards the end of May, if my memory serves me—can be made to account for a man like Nanjivell, that humanly speaking shouldn't know one end of a horse from another, starting to parade his wealth in the month of August?"
"You've such a knack of taking me up before I'm down, Mary-Martha! I never said nor implied that Mr Nanjivell had won his money on a horse-race. I only said that some people did."
"Oh, well, if that's your piece of news," said Mrs Polsue with her finest satirical air, "it was considerate of you to put on your bonnet and lose no time in telling me. . . . But how long is it since we started 'Mister'-ing Nanjivell in this way?"
Miss Oliver's face grew crimson. "It seems to me that now he has come into money—and being always of good family, as everybody knows—" She hesitated and came to a halt. Her friend's eyes were fixed on her, and with an expression not unlike a lazy cat's.
"Oho!" thought Mrs Polsue to herself, and for just a moment her frame shook with a dry inward spasm; but not a muscle of her face twitched. Aloud she said: "Well, in your place I shouldn't be so hot, at short notice, to stand up for a man who on your own showing is a corrupter of children's minds. Knowing what I've told you of the relations between this Nanjivell and Mrs Penhaligon, and catching this Penhaligon child with a gold coin in his hand, and hearing from his own confession that the man gave it to him, even you might have drawn some conclusion, I'd have thought."
"I declare, Mary-Martha, I wouldn't think so uncharitably of folks as you do, not if I was paid for it. You're annoyed—that's what you are—because you got Mr—because you got Nanjivell watched for a German spy, and now I've proved you're wrong and you can't wriggle out of that!"
"Your godfather and godmothers did very well for you at your baptism, Charity Oliver. Prophets they must have been. . . . But just you take a chair and compose yourself and listen to me. A minute ago you complained that I took you up before you were down. Well, I'll improve on that by taking you down before you're up—or up so far as you think yourself. Answer me. This is a piece of gold, eh?"
"Why, of course. That's why I brought it to you."
"What kind of a piece of gold?"
"A guinea-piece. My father used to wear one on his watch-chain, and
I recognised the likeness at once."
"Quite so. Now when your father happened to earn a sovereign, did he go and hang it on his watch-chain?"
"What a silly question!"
"It isn't at all a silly question. . . . Tell me how many sovereigns you've seen in your life, and how many guineas?"
"O-oh! . . . I think I see what you mean-"
"I congratulate you, I'm sure! Now, I won't swear, but I'm morally certain that guineas haven't been what they call in circulation for years and years and years."
"You're always seeing them in subscription lists," Miss Oliver objected. "Take our Emergency Fund—'Charles Pendarves Tresawna, Esq., J.P., twenty-five guineas.'"
"I seem to remember that the Squire paid by cheque," said Mrs Polsue drily.
"But the guineas must have been there, in the Bank. . . . Oh, I see!
You mean that a guinea being worth twenty-one shillings—"
"That's right: you're getting at it. Though I declare, Charity Oliver, there are times when I don't know which is furthest behind the times—your head, or the coquelicots you insist on wearing upon it. But now I hope you'll admit I was right, and there's a mystery about Nanjivell. Whether 'tis mixed up with his immorality or separate I won't pretend to decide, or not at this stage."
"But anyway you can't make out a guinea-piece to be German," maintained Miss Oliver with a last show of obstinacy.
"I don't say 'yes' or 'no' to that just yet," Mrs Polsue replied. "The newspapers tell us the Germans have been hoarding gold for a very long time. But you mentioned the Bank a moment ago—or did I? Never mind: it was a good suggestion anyway. Wait while I send across for Mr Pamphlett."
"Why, to be sure," said Mr Pamphlett, "it's a guinea—a George the Second guinea." He pushed back a corner of the cloth and rang the coin on the table. "Sound . . . and not clipped at all. There's always its intrinsic value, as we say: and one of these days it will have an additional value as a curiosity. But as yet that is almost negligible. Oddly enough—" He broke off, fumbled in his waistcoat pocket, and produced a guinea almost precisely similar. Miss Oliver gasped: it was so like a conjuring trick.
"Where did Miss Oliver get this one?" asked Mr Pamphlett, laying his right forefinger upon the guinea on the table while still holding the other displayed in the palm of his left hand.
"I got it," confessed Miss Oliver, "off that youngest child of Samuel Penhaligon's, who told me it had been given him as a present by Mr—by Nicholas Nanjivell."
"WHAT?"
She blanched, as Mr Pamphlett stared at her. "His eyes," as she explained later, "were round in his head-round as gooseberries."
"Well, I suppose I oughtn't to have taken it from the child. . . . But seeing that he didn't know its value, and there being something of a mystery in the whole business—as Mary-Martha here will explain, though she will have it that the man is a German spy—"
"Stuff and nonsense, ma'am! . . . I beg your pardon: you're quite right: there is a mystery here, though it has nothing to do with German spies. I rather fancy I'm in a position to get to the bottom of it."
On Saturday, almost at blink of dawn, the Penhaligons started house-moving. Mrs Penhaligon had everything ready—even the last box corded—more than thirty-six hours earlier. But she would neither finish nor start installing herself on a Friday, which was an unlucky day.
The discomfort of taking their meals on packing-cases and sleeping on mattresses spread upon the bare floor weighed as nothing with the children in comparison with the delightful sense of adventure. Neither 'Bert nor 'Beida, when they came to talk it over, could understand why their mother was in such a fever to quit the old house. Scarcely ten days before she had kept assuring them, almost angrily, that there was no hurry before Michaelmas. It was queer, too, that not only had she forbidden them to accept even the smallest offer of help from Nicky-Nan when he showed himself willing (as he expressed it) for any light job as between neighbours, but on 'Bert's attempting to argue the point with her she had boxed 'Biades' ears for a quite trifling offence and promptly collapsed and burst into tears with no more preparation than that of throwing an apron over her head.
"She's upset," said 'Bert.
"If you learn at this rate, you'll be sent for, one of these days, by the people up at Scotland Yard," said 'Beida sarcastically. But you cannot glean much intelligence from a face which is covered by an apron.
"She's upset at leavin' the house. Women are like that—always—when it comes to the point," 'Bert persisted.
"Are they? I'll give you leave to watch me. And I'll bet you sixpence."
"You're not a woman yet. When the time comes you may start cryin' or you mayn't. But I'll take even money you box 'Biades' ears."
'Beida's glance travelled to that forlorn child. "I'll not take any bet," she announced; "when you know that it may be necessary at any moment—he's that unaccountable." She lifted her voice so that the innocent culprit could not avoid hearing. "I don't speckilate on a thief," she added with vicious intention.
"Hush—hush!" said 'Bert, and glanced anxiously at his sobbing parent.
Nicky-Nan was the worst puzzled of them all. He had promised Sam
Penhaligon to do his best when the family shifted quarters: and now
Mrs Penhaligon would not hear of his lifting so much as a hand.
He spent most of the day out on the cliffs, idly watching the military.
Mrs Penhaligon had invoked the aid of Farmer Best; and Farmer Best (always a friend of the unfriended) had sent down two hay waggons to transport the household stuff. By four in the afternoon, or thereabouts, the last load had been carried and was in process of delivery at Aunt Bunney's cottage.
At a quarter to five Nicky-Nan returned to the desolate house. The front door stood open, of course. So (somewhat to his surprise) did the door of the Penhaligons' kitchen.
"They're all behindhand," thought Nicky-Nan. "Better fit the good woman hadn' been so forward to despise my helpin'."
He peered in cautiously. The room was uninhabited; stark bare of furniture, save for the quadrant key left to hang from the midmost beam; the "hellen "-slated floor clean as a new pin.
Nicky-Nan heaved a sigh. "So they've gone," he thought to himself; "an' so we all pass out, one after another. A decent, cleanly woman, with all her kinks o' temper. Much like my own mother, as I remember her."
He passed into his parlour, laid down hat and walking-staff, and of a sudden pulled himself upright, rigid.
Footsteps were treading the floor overhead.
For a moment it shook him almost to faintness. Then, swiftly, wrath came to his aid, and snatching up his staff again he stumped out to the foot of the stairway.
"Who's that, up there?"
"Ha! . . . Is that you, Nanjivell," answered the voice of Mr Pamphlett. "A domiciliary visit, and no harm intended." The figure of Mr Pamphlett blocked the head of the landing.
Nicky-Nan raised his stick and shook it in a fury.
"You get out within this minute, or I'll have the law of 'ee."
"Gently, my friend," responded Mr Pamphlett soothingly. "I have the Constable here with me, besides Mr Gilbert the builder. And here's my Ejectment Order, if you drive me to it."
"When you promised me—" stammered Nicky-Nan, escalading the stairs and holding his staff before him as if storming a breach.
"But,"—Mr Pamphlett waved a hand,—"we need not talk about ejectment orders. By the terms of your lease, if you will examine them, the landlord is entitled to examine his premises at any reasonable hour. You won't deny this to be a reasonable hour. . . . Well, constable? What about that cupboard?"
Nicky-Nan, reaching the doorway, gave a gasp. Across the room Rat-it-all, on hands and knees, had pulled open the door of the fatal cupboard, and had thrust in head and shoulders, exploring.
"There's a loose piece of flooring here, Mr Pamphlett. New, by the looks of it."
There was a sound of boards being shaken and thrown together in a heap.
"Queer old cache here below. . . . Steady, now . . . wait till I turn my bull's-eye on it! Lucky I brought the lantern, too!"
"You dare!" screamed Nicky-Nan, rushing to pull him backward by the collar.
The constable, his head in the bowels of the hiding-place, neither heard him nor saw Mr Pamphlett and Builder Gilbert interpose to hold Nicky-Nan back.
"But 'tis empty," announced Policeman Rat-it-all.
"Empty?"
EMPTY?
Nicky-Nan, bursting from the two men, gripped Rat-it-all by the collar, flung him back on the floor, snatched his bull's-eye, and diving as a rabbit into its burrow, plunged the lantern's ray into the gulf.
Rat-it-all had spoken truth. The treasure—every coin of it—had vanished!
Nicky-Nan's head dropped sideways and rattled on the boards.
CHAPTER XXII.
SALVAGE.
"Mister Nanjivell! Mis-ter Nanjivell!"
It was the child 'Beida's voice, calling from below.
"Are you upstairs, Mister Nanjivell? I want to see you—in such a hurry!"
Following up her summons, she arrived panting at the open doorway. "O-oh!" she cried, after a catch of the breath. Her face blanched as she looked around the bedroom; at Builder Gilbert, standing, wash-jug in hand; at Mr Pamphlett, kneeling, examining the cupboard; at Policeman Rat-it-all, kneeling also, but on one knee, while on the other he supported Nicky-Nan's inert head and bathed a cut on the right temple, dipping a rag of a towel into the poor chipped basin on the ground beside him.
"What are you doin' to him?" demanded 'Beida, her colour coming back with a rush.
Mr Pamphlett had slewed about on his knees. "Here, you cut and run!" he commanded sharply. But his posture did not lend itself to authority, and he showed some embarrassment.
"What are you doin' to him?" the child demanded again.
"He've had a fit," explained Builder Gilbert, holding out the ewer. "Here, run downstairs and fetch up some more water, if you want to be useful."
'Beida stared at the ewer. She transferred her gaze to Rat-it-all and his patient: then, after a shiver, to Mr Pamphlett. She had courage. Her eyes grew hard and fierce.
"Is that why Mr Pamphlett's pokin' his nose into a cupboard?"
"Rat it all!" the constable ejaculated, casting a glance over his shoulder and dipping a hand wide of the basin.
"Fetch up some water, my dear," suggested Builder Gilbert. "When a man's in a fit 'tis no time to ask questions, as you'll learn when you grow up." Again he proffered the ewer.
'Beida ignored it. "When a man's in a fit, do folks help by pokin' their noses into his cupboards?" she demanded again, not removing her eyes from Mr Pamphlett.
"Pack that child out!" commanded Mr Pamphlett, standing up and addressing Rat-it-all. "Do you hear me?"
"I hear, sir," answered Rat-it-all. "But situated as I be—" He cast a helpless glance at the child, who seemed to grow in stature as, lifting her forefinger and pointing it at Mr Pamphlett, she advanced into the room and shrilled—
"You've come to steal his money, the three of 'ee! An' you can't take me in nor frighten me, not one of 'ee!"
The high treble voice, or the word "money," or both, fetched
Nicky-Nan back to consciousness. He opened his eyes and groaned.
"The money—where's the money?" he muttered. His eyes opened wider. Then of a sudden his brain cleared. He sat up with a wild cry, almost a scream; and, thrusting Rat-it-all backwards with all the force of one hand, with the other groped on the floor for his walking-staff—which lay, however, a couple of yards from him and close by Mr Pamphlett's feet.
"My money!—Rogues! Cheats!—" He broke down and put a hand to his head in momentary faintness. "Where be I?" Then taking his hand away and catching sight of the blood on it, he yelled out "Murder! Where's my money? Murder! Thieves!"
"Hush 'ee, Mister Nanjivell." 'Beida dropped on her knees beside him. "Hush 'ee now, co! Here, let me take the towel an' bathe your poor head," she coaxed him. "You've had a fall, an' cut yourself— that's what happened. An' these men weren't murderin' 'ee, nor shan't while I am here. No, nor they han't stole your money, neither—though I won't say they weren't tryin'."
He submitted, after a feeble convulsive struggle. "Where's my money?" he persisted.
"Your money's all right. Safe as if 'twas in the Bank—safer, I reckon," she added, with an unfriendly glance at Mr Pamphlett.
"What money is this you're talking about?" asked that gentleman, stepping forward. He had no children of his own: and when he spoke to children (which was not often) his tone conveyed that he thought very little of them. He used that tone now: which was sheer blundering folly: and he met his match.
"The money you were huntin' for," answered 'Beida, quick as thought.
"You mustn't speak to me like that. It's naughty and—er— unbecoming."
"Why? Weren't you lookin' for it?" Her eyes sought Rat-it-all and questioned him.
Mr Pamphlett made haste before his ally could speak. "The Policeman was acting in the execution of his duty." This was a fine phrase, and it took 'Beida aback, for she had not a notion what it meant. But while she sought for a retort, Mr Pamphlett followed up his advantage, to crush her, and blundered again. "You don't understand that, eh?"
"Not rightly," she admitted.
"Then don't you see how foolish it is for little girls to mix themselves in grown-up people's affairs? A policeman has to do many things in what is called the execution of his duty, For instance," continued Mr Pamphlett impressively, "sometimes he takes little girls when they're naughty, and locks them up."
"Fiddlestick!" said 'Beida with a sigh of relief. "Now I know you're gassin'. . . . Just now you frightened me with your talk of executions, which is what they do to a man when he's murdered some person: and o' course if Nicky—if Mr Nanjivell had been doin' anything o' that sort—which he hasn', o' course. . . . But when you go on pretendin' as Rat-it-all can lock me up, why then I see your game. Tryin' to frighten me, you are, because I'm small."
"If you were a child of mine," threatened Mr Pamphlett, very red in the gills, "do you know what I'd do to you?"
"No," replied 'Beida; "I can't think. . . . But I reckon 'twould be something pretty mean. Oh, I'm sick an' tired of the gentry!—if you call yourself gentry. First of all you turn Father an' Mother out to find a new home. An' then, as if that wasn' enough, you must come nosin' in after Mr Nanjivell's small savin's. . . . Gentry!" she swung round upon Builder Gilbert. "Here, Mr Gilbert, you're neither gentry nor perlice. When I tell you about Miss Charity Oliver, that calls herself a lady! What must she do but, happenin' on 'Biades— that's my younger brother, an' scarce turned four—outside o' Mrs Pengelly's, with a bit of gold money in his hand that Mr Nanjivell gave to him in a moment o' weakness,—what must she do (an' callin' herself a lady, no doubt, all the while) but palm off two bright coppers on him for a swap? . . . That's a fact," 'Beida wound up, dabbing the towel gently, but with an appearance of force, against Nicky-Nan's temple, "for I got it out o' the child's own mouth, an' work enough it was. That's your gentry!"
"Hey?" Nicky-Nan pushed her hand aside. "What's this you're tellin', now?"
"Ask him!" she answered, nodding towards Mr Pamphlett. "He knows all about it, an' 'tis no use for him to pretend he don't."
"Me give your small brother—?" began Nicky, but broke off with a groan and felt his brow again. "Oh, where's the head or tail to this? Where's the sense? . . . Give me my money—that's all I ask. Stop talkin' all of 'ee, an' fetch me what you've stole, between 'ee, an' leave me alone!"
Mr Pamphlett shifted his ground. "You're right, Nanjivell.
What's become of your money?—that's the main point, eh?"
"O' course 'tis the main point," growled Nicky. "Though I'm damned if I see how it consarns you."
"Maybe I can enlighten you by-and-by. For the present you want to know what has become of the money: and I've a strong suspicion this child can tell us, if she chooses to confess. If not—" he raised a minatory forefinger and shook it at 'Beida—"well, it's fortunate I brought the constable, who will know how to act."
"Will I?" said Rat-it-all, scratching his head.
"No, you won't," 'Beida answered him stoutly, and turned again to
Nicky-Nan.
"Mr Nanjivell," she pleaded, "tell me—didn't you find these three turnin' your room inside out?"
"'Course I did." Nicky-Nan cast a malignant glance around.
"Was they doin' it with your leave?"
"'Course they wasn't. Why, look at the state o' my head!"
"You cut it yourself, fallin' against the scurtin'-board by the cupboard," put in Builder Gilbert.
'Beida noted his nervousness.
"You say so!" she rapped on him. "Maybe when Mr Nanjivell has you up before Squire Tresawna, you'll all swear to it in league." Again she turned to Nicky. "Struck your head, did you?—fallin' against the cupboard, when they was huntin' for your money: which they can't deny. Did you want Mr Pamphlett to find your money?"
"Him?" said Nicky-Nan bitterly. "Him? as I wouldn' trust not ha'f so far as a man could fling him by his eyebrows!"
"Well, I've got your savin's—'Bert an' me, every bit of it—stowed an' put away where they can't find it, not if they hunted for weeks. I came upstairs to tell about it, and where we've stowed it. Now be you goin' to put 'Bert and me to prison for that?"
"My dear"—Nicky-Nan spread out his hands—"not if you was a thief an' had really stole it, I wouldn'. But behavin', as you have, like an angel slap out o' Heaven—" He staggered up and confronted Mr Pamphlett. "Here, you clear out o' this!" he threatened, pointing to the door. "You're done, my billies. Tuck your tails atween your legs an' march!"
"A moment, if you please," put in Mr Pamphlett suavely. "You will allow that, not being accustomed to little girls and not knowing therefore how a pert child should properly be chastised and brought to book, I have been uncommonly patient with this one. But you are mistaken, the pair of you, in taking this line with me: and your mistake, though it comes from ignorance of the law, may happen to cost you both pretty dearly." He paused, while Nicky-Nan and 'Beida exchanged glances.
"Don't you heed him," said 'Beida encouragingly. "He's only gassin' again." But she faced up for a new attack.
"I have reason to believe," continued Mr Pamphlett, ignoring her and wagging his forefinger at Nicky; "I have evidence going far to convince me that this money of which we are talking is not yours at all: that you never earned it by your own labour, nor inherited it, nor were left it in any legitimate way. In other words, you were just lucky enough to find it."
"What's that to you?"
"It concerns me to this extent. By the-common law of England all such money, so discovered, belongs to the Crown: though I understand it is usually shared equally among the Crown, the finder, and the lord of the manor on which it was hidden. Therefore by concealing your knowledge of this money you are illegally defrauding His Majesty, and in fact (if you found it anywhere in Polpier) swindling me, who own the manor rights of Trebursey and Trethake, which together cover every square inch of this town. I bought them from Squire Tresawna these ten years since. And"—he turned upon 'Beida— "any one who hides, or helps to hide, such money is an accomplice, and may go to prison for it. Now what have you to say?"
But Mr Pamphlett had missed to calculate Nicky-Nan's recklessness and the strength of old hatred.
"'Say'?" Nicky shook with passion. "I say you're tellin' up a parcel o' lies you can't prove. Do I step into your dam Bank an' ask where you picked up the coin?—No? Well then, get out o' this an' take your Policeman with 'ee. Fend off, I say!" he snapped, as Rat-it-all touched him by the arm.
"No offence, Mr Nanjivell," said the Policeman coaxingly. "But merely as between naybours, if I might advise. Mr Pamphlett is a very powerful gentleman: or, as I might put it better, he has influence, unknown to you or me, an' knowledge—"
"He's a very powerful skunk."
"'Beida! . . . 'Beida!" called a voice from the foot of the stairs. 'Beida, after a start of joy, answered with the Penhaligon war-whoop, as her brother came charging up.
"Have you told him?" burst in young 'Bert, and drew back at gaze, a foot within the threshold.
"Yes, I've told him," answered 'Beida. "No, you needn' stare so," she went on hurriedly, catching him on the edge of confusion. "It'll be all right if you just answer up an' tell the truth. . . . When we was movin' this afternoon, you an' me took Mr Nanjivell's savin's away, the last thing—didn' we?"
"Then what have you done with them?" thundered Mr Pamphlett.
"Don't you answer him that," said 'Beida sweetly. "But answer everything else. An' don't you be afraid of him. I ben't."
"What d'ee want me to tell?" asked 'Bert, a trifle uneasily.
"Everything: 'cept you may leave out 'Biades. He's but a child o' four, an' don't count."
"Well," said 'Bert, addressing Mr Pamphlett—and his face, though pale, was dogged—"if 'Beida's willin', I'd as lief get it off my mind. . . . The first thing, sir, was P'liceman Rat-it-all's comin' to me, Tuesday evenin': an' he said to me, 'What be you doin' to occupy yourself as a Boy Scout, now that this here coast-watchin's off?'—"
"I didn' say 'off,'" interrupted Rat-it-all. "I didn' use no such low and incorrect expression. My words was 'Now that this here coast-watchin' has come to a ontimely end.'"
"I dessay that was the way you put it," 'Bert admitted. "When you starts talkin' Lun'on, all I can follow is the sense—an' lucky if that."
"Bodmin," corrected Rat-it-all modestly. "I don't pretend to no more than the Provinces as yet: though Lord knows where I may end."
"Get on with the story, boy," Mr Pamphlett commanded.
"Well, sir, I owned to him that I was left pretty well at a loose end, with nothin' on hand but to think out how to do a Kind Action every day, as is laid down in the Scout Rules: and it may come easy enough to you, sir," added 'Bert with unconscious irony, "but I got no invention. An' his manner bein' so friendly, I told him as how I was breakin' my heart for a job. 'Would 'ee like to catch a Spy—a real German one?' says he. 'Get along with 'ee, pullin' my leg!' says I. 'I ben't pullin' your leg,' says he. 'I be offerin' what may turn out to be the chance o' your life, if you're a smart chap an' want promotion.' 'What is it?' said I. 'Well, I mention no names,' said he, 'but you live in the same house with Nicholas Nanjivell.' 'We're turnin' out this week,' said I. 'All the more reason why you should look slippy an' get to work at once,' says he. Then I told him, sir," went on 'Bert, gathering confidence from the sound of his own voice, "that I was fair sick o' plannin' to do Kind Actions, which was no business of anybody's in War time, and a bad let-down after coast-watchin'. 'But,' said I,"—here he turned upon Nicky-Nan—"'if 'tis a Kind Action for Mr Nanjivell, I'd as lief do it upon him as upon anybody: for you might almost call him one o' the family,' I said. 'Kind Action?' says he. 'I don't want you to do him no kinder action than to catch him out for a German spy. I name no names,' says he, 'but from information received, he's in the Germans' pay, an' Mrs Polsue is ready to swear to it.'"
Nicky-Nan gripped his walking-staff and stood erect, as if to spring on Mr Pamphlett. But of a sudden the enormity of the charge seemed to overcome him, and he passed a hand over his eyes.
"That's the second time," he muttered. "An' me, that—God help me!— scarce bothered myself about its bein' a War at all: bein' otherwise worried, as you'd know, sir." His straight appeal to his inveterate enemy had a dignity more convincing than any violent repudiation. But Mr Pamphlett waved it aside.
"Let the boy tell his story. . . . Well, boy, and what was your answer to the constable?"
"I told him," said 'Bert stolidly, "to get along for a silly fat-head. Didn't I, now?" 'Bert appealed to the recipient of that compliment to confirm its textual accuracy.
"He did so," corroborated Rat-it-all. "He is right to that extent. Which it gave me such a poor opinion of the whole Boy Scout movement that I've treated it thenceforth as dirt beneath my feet. There was a time when I thought pretty tolerably of Baden-Powell. But when it comes to fat-heads—"
"But you see, sir," 'Bert went on, "this put me in mind that I'd seen Rat-it-all for two days past behavin' very silly behind walls an' fuzz-bushes, an' 'most always in the wake o' Nicky-Nan—of Mr Nanjivell, I mean: which I'd set it down that it was a game between 'em, an' Mr Nanjivell just lendin' himself for practice, havin' time on his hands. First along I'd a mind to join in an' read the man one or two Practical Hints out o' the sixpenny book; for worse shadowin' you couldn' see. But when it turned out he was doin' it in earnest against Mr Nanjivell I allowed as I'd give him a taste o' the real article, which is what they call 'Scoutin' for Scouts' in the Advanced Course; whereby he called on Mr Gilbert here, yesterday afternoon; an' Mr Gilbert's back parlour window bein' open because o' the hot weather, and me bein' behind the water-butt at the corner—"
"You tarnation imp!" exclaimed the builder.
"Which," continued 'Bert stolidly, "he was askin' if he reckoned by chance th' Old Doctor's House had any secret hidin' places, an' would he oblige the landlord Mr Pamphlett by comin' along to-morrow an' bringin' a hammer? Which I went straight home an' borryed mother's, an'—an'—"
"An' you've told quite enough," put in 'Beida. "By no means," objected Mr Pamphlett. "What have you children done with the money?"
"Oh," said 'Beida wearily, "we're back on the old question, are we?"
But here Nicky-Nan broke in. "Mr Pamphlett," he said, "you tell that, as landlord, you've a right to walk in an' see to the repairs. Very well. I don't know the law: but I doubt if the law, when I look it up, 'll say that the said landlord has power to bring along a Bobby and a Speckilative Builder. It may be so, o' course. Any way, you've taken it so, an' walked in; an' the next thing you'll do is Walk Out." He pointed with his staff to the door. "Me—a German spy! Forth the three of 'ee!"
Mr Pamphlett saw no way but to comply. "You will hear more of this,
Nanjivell," he threatened, turning about in the doorway.
"Gas, again!" said 'Beida. Nicky-Nan stood silent, pointing.
The retreat was not dignified.
"But, o' course," said 'Beida, "the bottom of it all was 'Biades."
"'Biades?"
"He'd caught up with some chatter about your bein' a spy. Oh, bless your soul, everybody's talkin' about it!" she assured Nicky-Nan cheerfully. "But little pitchers have the longest ears; an' mother an' me bein' so busy with the packin', he got ahead of us. He's a clivver child, too, but"—'Beida shook her head—"I'm harried in mind about 'en. Quite in a tricksy way he wormed it out o' mother what a spy was, an' how the way to go to work was to s'arch his cupboards; an' then quick as snuff he started 'pon yours, not sayin' a word to anybody. Pretty clivver for four years' old—an' what's clivverer, he found the money too!"
"Damn the young viper! . . . No, I asks your pardon. Bless his tender heart, I s'pose I ought to say, seein' as how providential—"
"You can put it which way you like. I dessay God A'mighty has the right an' wrong of it clear; an' 'Bert an' I allowed we'd leave 'Biades to a Higher Power after we'd made him sensible, on the seat of his breeches, of the way his conduc' appealed to us. For I take shame to own it, Mr Nanjivell, but at sight o' that boundless gold Satan whispered in the poor mite's ear, an' he started priggin'. . . . The way we found it out was, he came home from Mrs Pengelly's stinkin' o' peppermints: an' when we nosed him an' asked how he came to be favoured so, all he could say on the ground hop was that he'd met a shinin' Angel unexpected in Cobb's Ally: an' the Angel had stopped him and pulled out a purse an' said, 'Alcibiades Penhaligon, the Lord has been much interested of late in your goin's-out an' your comin's-in, an' what a good boy you've a-been. Here is 2d. for you in gold o' the purest water. Go thou an' carry it to Our good friend Missis Pengelly, who will doubtless reckernise and exchange it in peppermint cushions.' Which was too thin. So we were forced to beat him till the truth came out. An' then he brought us here, an' showed what he'd a-found: an' with the furnitcher movin' an' mother so busy, 'Bert and I managed the rest. We weren't goin' to let that Pamphlett snatch it. If you'll come around by Aun' Bunney's back-garden into Mother's kitchen you shall count it out, every penny."
"'Bert," said Nicky-Nan after a pause, "you've done a Kind Action this day, if you never do another."
"But the clivverness started with 'Biades," insisted 'Beida. "I hope you'll bear that in mind, though I say nothing against the child's sinfulness."
"You're the best friends, all three, I ever met in this world," said
Nicky-Nan gratefully.
On his homeward road, and half-way up the hill, Mr Pamphlett at the same moment turned, looked aloft, and accused Providence.
"What blisters me," said Mr Pamphlett to the welkin, "is the thought that I subscribed no less than two guineas to the Boy Scouts Movement!"
CHAPTER XXIII.
ENLIGHTENMENT, AND RECRUITING.
"Was there ever a woman on this earth so tried?" demanded Mrs Penhaligon, lifting her eyes to two hams and a flitch of bacon she had just suspended from the rafters, and invoking them as Cleopatra the injurious gods. "As if 'twasn' enough to change the best kitchen in all Polpier for quarters where you can't swing a cat, but on top of it I must be afflicted with a child that's taken wi' the indoors habit; and in the middle of August month, too, when every one as means to grow up a comfort to all concerned is out stretchin' his legs an' makin' himself scarce an' gettin' a breath o' nice fresh air into his little lungs."
"What's lungs?" asked 'Biades.
"There was a boy in the south of Ireland somewhere," his mother answered, collecting a few wash-cloths she had hung to dry on the door of the cooking apparatus, "as took to his bed with nothing the matter at the age o' fourteen. Next day, when his mother called him to get up, he said he wasn't took very well. An' this went on, day after day, until now he's forty years old an' the use of his limbs completely gone from him. That's a fact, for I read it on the newspaper with names an' dates, and only three nights ago I woke up dreamin' upon that poor woman, workin' her fingers to the bone an' saddled with a bed-riding son. Little did I think at the time—"
Mrs Penhaligon broke off and sighed between desperation and absent-mindedness.
"I like this stove," answered 'Biades. "It's got a shiny knob on the door, 'stead of a latch."
"How the child does take notice! . . . Yes, a nice shiny knob it is, and if you won't come out to the back-yard an' watch while I pin these things on the clothes-line, you must stay here an' study your disobedient face in it. The fire's out, so you can't tumble in an' be burnt to a coal like the wicked children in Nebuchadnezzar: which is a comfort, so far as it goes. Nor I can't send you out to s'arch for your sister, wi' the knowledge that it'll surely end in her warmin' your little sit-upon. . . . I'd do it myself, this moment,"— the mother grew wrathful only to relent,—"if I could be sure you weren't sickenin' for something. You're behavin' so unnatural." She eyed him anxiously. "If it should turn out to be a case o' suppressed measles, now, I'd hate to go to my grave wi' the thought that I'd banged 'em in."
So Mrs Penhaligon, having picked up her clothes, issued forth into the sunlight of the back-yard. 'Biades watched her through the narrow kitchen window. He watched her cunningly.
As soon as he saw her busy with the clothes-pegs, Master 'Biades crept to a small iron door in the wall, a foot or two from the range, and stealthily lifted the latch. The door opened on a deep, old-fashioned oven, disused since the day when the late Mrs Bunney (misguided woman) had blocked up her open hearth with a fire-new apparatus.
The child peered ("peeked" as they say in Polpier) into the long narrow chamber, so awesomely dark at its far end, and snatched a fearful joy. In that cavity lay the treasure. Gold—untold gold!
He thrust his head into the aperture, and gloated. But it was so deep that even when his eyes became used to the darkness he could see nothing of the hoard. He wanted to gloat more.
Tingling premonitions ran down his small spine; thrills that, reaching the region of the lower vertebrae, developed an almost painful activity. . . . None the less, 'Biades could never tell just how or at what moment his shoulders, hips, legs, found themselves inside the oven; but in they successively went, and he was crawling forward into the pitch-gloom on hands and knees, regretting desperately (and too late) that he had forgotten to sneak a box of matches, when afar behind him he heard a sound that raised every hair on the nape of his young neck—the lifting of the back-door latch and the letting-in of voices.
"You never did!" said the voice of 'Bert.
"Leave me to tell her," said the voice of 'Beida. "The way you're goin', she'll have the palpitations afore you begin. . . . Mother, dear—if you'll but take a seat. Is't for the tenth or the twelfth time we'm tellin' 'ee that father's neither killed nor wounded?"
"Then what is it, on earth?" demanded the voice of Mrs Penhaligon.
"An' why should Mr Nanjivell be followin' you, of all people?
An' where's my blessed latest, that has been a handful ever since you
two left me, well knowin' the straits I'm put to?"
"If I'm introodin', ma'am—" said the voice of Nicky-Nan.
"Oh, no . . . not at all, Mr Nanjivell!—so long as you realise how
I'm situated. . . . An' whoever left that oven door open, I'll swear
I didn't."
'Beida stepped swiftly to the oven, swung the door wide enough to allow a moment's glance within, and shut with a merciless clang.
She lifted her voice. "Mebbe," she announced, "'twas I that left it on the hasp before runnin' out. I was thinkin' what a nice oven 'twas, an' how much better if you wanted to make heavy-cake in a hurry, to celebrate our movin'-in. 'Bert agreed with me when I told him," she continued, still lifting her voice, "and unbeknown to you we cut an' fetched in a furze-bush, there bein' nothin' to give such a savour to bread, cake, or pie. So if you're willin', Mother, we'll fire it up while Mr Nanjivell tells his business."
"What's that?" asked Mrs Penhaligon, sitting erect, as her ears caught the sound of a howl, muffled but prolonged.