Chapter I: SEEM to have wandered a long way from Eileen, but it was really she (4)

Here is absolute quiet of spirit, but never silence. The trees are seldom still; all day and all night the wind upon these hills sways the tall, lithe tops of the larches to and fro, to and fro; the leaves and the catkins of the birches are for ever fluttering; the vibrant branches of the pines hum and sing in the breezes, summer or winter; the music of it all never ceases though it varies in volume according to the season. On the hottest summer days the grasses still sigh; the bees hum all day long in the clover; the blue-tits tweet and twitter as they swing about the birches, and their cousins the coal-tits keep up an endless run of comment in the larches. In May the nightingale comes into the grove to sing; in June rival chaffinches perch on the top spikes of certain spruce trees—always the same bird on the same spike—and defy each other and the world in general. The stock-dove croons over its nest in the tallest firs, and the reddy-brown squirrel scolds you severely if you are coming too near his own particular chosen tree.

* * * * *

Inside the wood-house you may find many things; some you are prepared for, some you are not. In theory, it is sacred to the use of the Head of Affairs, a sort of play-house and workshop combined, wherein no handy man is supposed to set foot, and no prying eyes are supposed to discover that the owner is working in a jersey, with no qualms over the absence of waistcoat and stiff collar.

But I often go in when I am anxious to be alone and wanting many things that one cannot put down in words. And knowing this, the Head of Affairs doesn’t keep his best saws there!—not the splendid big “Farmer’s Saw,” with its doubly notched teeth, that run through big fir trunks with amazing ease; nor the finer tools that deal with the short snappy branches. No, the saw that is left for such emergencies is a nondescript article that has now a wavy—very wavy—edge, and a few of its teeth doubled over; a saw that seems as though you can never get it well into the wood, and once you have got it in, it can’t be got out again, much less be made to move with soft purring motion.

You see, I have individuality where sawing is concerned, but it is useless to talk about it, for I’ve come to the conclusion that whatever other moral improvements a woman may manage to effect in the man she marries, it is a lifework to get him to a proper appreciation of her method of goffering a saw!

But I must beg you not to picture the wood-house as the home of the miscellaneous collection of nondescript oddments so indescribably dear to every masculine heart. There is an outhouse elsewhere that accommodates short lengths of chain, pieces of wire netting, old locks, bits of copper wire, staples and hooks, broken hinges (that _might_ be made do duty again, if any one ever has a gate that prefers its hinges to be broken), oil cans, a piece of lead pipe, various lengths of iron rods, broom handles, stale putty, old keys, a couple of invalided padlocks, and—well, you know the type of things that every self-respecting man likes to gather around him, and keep handy, in case he might need them at any moment.

Unfortunately one of the many blighting influences of town-life, for ever hindering the full flowering of one’s better nature, is the lack of the necessary space to stock such useful items. But in the country one is not so hampered, and one’s private marine store grows apace, and differs only according to the temperament of the collector. Indeed, I have come to the conclusion that country air develops in man and woman alike that tendency to hoard, which is so noticeable in early childhood, when the small girl collects buttons and clippings from her mother’s sewing-room, and the small boy bulges the blouse of his sailor suit with string and “conquers” and coloured chalks, and old penknives and young frogs.

In town a woman’s only outlet, as a rule, is the bargain counter or annual sale or remnant day. These dissipations are denied us in the country, but we make up for it in many other directions. My own particular weakness is jam-jars, and the way I pounce on any round pot, be it glass or earthenware, that looks as though it might be made to hold jelly or jam, is quite a study in efficiency. And, like all expert collectors, my collection has sub-divisions, or perhaps you would call them ramifications; cups that have lost their handles, jugs ditto, glasses that once held a rolled tongue, or fish paste, are all included; and friends, as they bring round a portmanteau full of empty jars at Christmas or on my birthday, say, “It is so nice in your case that one knows what you actually want; so much better to give anyone what they really like, and will use, rather than some useless bit of jewellery.” And I quite agree.

There was one moment when I feared my jars would have to go in the general rending asunder of domestic life caused by the War, even though I had determined to stick to them as long as I could. But when that “one clear call” came for jam-pots, naturally I couldn’t be a traitor to my country, and I decided the jars at least must go, even though I might perhaps retain the handleless cups and jugs. So I told Abigail to let me know when the grocer called.

I interviewed the young lady wearing high white kid boots and an amethyst pendant on her bare chest, who brought my next large consignment of groceries, that had to be bought in order to secure a little sugar. But when she heard that there were jam-jars to go back, she looked at me coldly from the doorstep, and hurriedly pushing her basket further up her arm (lest I should attempt to force them into it, I presume), the Abyssinian gold bracelets clanking the while, haughtily informed me that her motor was for delivery only, not for the cartage of empties, and suggested that I should write the manager and see if he would consent to receive them.

I’m only human after all, and naturally any woman’s temperature would rise in the face of such spurning of her free-will offerings. I didn’t write, and I’m using the jam-jars still. The nation doesn’t seem any the worse off—though Virginia points out to me that the War _might_ have ended sooner had I insisted on handing them over; she says every little helps, as is proved by the fact that the very week she put her first 15_s._ 6_d._ into Exchequer Bonds the Government got the first “tank.”

At any rate, as I never eat preserves myself, I can still, even with a restricted sugar allowance, enjoy the peculiar pleasure that arises within a woman’s soul when she is occasionally able to say, quite casually as it were, to a friend: “Would you care to have a pot of my new gooseberry and cinnamon jam? They say it’s rather good, though of course—etc.” And the friend replies: “Oh, I should _love_ it, dear; _such_ a treat; that jar of ginger marmalade I took home last time was positively _delicious_. Everyone said—etc.”

One favourite item for collection among the cottagers is old bottles, and the stock you will see in some of their outhouses is often most extensive and varied. On one occasion an old man who was doing some odd days’ work for me about the garden, in the absence of the handyman, was deploring the way the rabbits devastated the cabbages.

“I’ll get rid on ’em for ’ee if you’ll leave ’em to me!” he assured me. I said I only wished he would, as they are a real plague at times.

Imagine my horror a few days later when I took some friends along to see the vegetables, to discover a legion of empty whisky bottles, labels intact, neck downwards in the soil, and dotted about the vegetable garden in all directions. The old man explained that they were put there to skeer they rabbits, as they was dreadful frit of bottles! But my friends refused to believe that so honest-looking an old Amos could have brought them with him!

* * * * *

The inside of the wood-house is as aloof as are the hills from our machinery-driven, smoke-begrimed, petrol-flavoured twentieth century. Even when work is in progress, here is no hustle; there are no short cuts to the other side of a larch log; the saw must go steadily, patiently, almost slowly, if it hopes to get through the tree at one standing.

To step from the hot noonday glare, on a summer day, into the cool seclusion of these thick stone walls, is to enter a haven of peace and quiet that would seem to belong to the forest primeval rather than to this noise-stricken age.

The window opening to the north excludes the fierce sun, but the yellow-washed walls give light and cheeriness. And the ivy, that ubiquitous plant that scorns all disadvantages, and overcomes every obstacle, has crept in under the red tiles and hangs in festoons from the dark rafters; while in other places its pale green shoots have found for themselves a way clean through the thickness of the wall, pushing along crevices and around the stones, till at last they have come to light on the inner side, where they immediately proceed to drape lopped trunks and big branches standing in the corner.

It is no mere accumulation of timber and sticks that is housed within these rough old walls. The very spirit of the forest seems to permeate the place; everything is part and parcel of the big outside—the stones that pave the floor; the heap of cones in one corner, waiting to brighten up smouldering winter fires and set them all aglow; the solid sections of some sturdy oak, cut to just the right height for seats; the bark stripped from a birch-tree, silver white even now, with grey and pinkish paper-like peelings and black breathing marks; and the great brown branches of larch, a tracery of studded twigs and stems and cones, that have been placed across the end of the wood-house, and sweep the rafters at the top, looking, as you enter the door, like some wonderful rood-screen, dark brown with age, shutting off an ancient, yellow-washed chancel—though such a screen no mortal hand could ever carve!

The larch is always in evidence, and gives a resinous odour to the place, as does the sawdust by the bench, a rich brown pile, for very little of our hillside wood is white; most of it ranges from reddish-brown to mahogany colour. Though here is a small creamy-white gate in course of construction—merely a little wicket to keep the calves out of the orchard—that is made of straight, round branches, slit down the centre, so that one side of each is flat and the other semicircular. The design is simplicity itself, some uprights with a few cross-pieces to hold them together and suggest a trellis; yet the rich cream colour and the satiny surface of the wood make it a thing of distinct beauty. This is only a branch of the lime-tree, with the bark peeled off.

In an ordinary way we seldom have a chance to notice the intrinsic beauty of wood itself. Of course we see it in its polished perfection when it comes to us in some choice piece of furniture, or panelling; but this is not exactly the beauty to which I refer. Each branch, each tree trunk, has, in its unpolished state, definite characteristics of its own, quite distinct from those we see in the finished product civilization regards as the one end to be aimed for. These characteristics may be rough, and are frequently rugged; but their appeal is often all the stronger for this fact.

Look at the wonderful ribbing on the rind of this Spanish chestnut; what is it that wakes up in you when you study its lines and formation? You cannot say, yet you respond to it in an indefinable manner. These branches of apple-wood, only gnarled old things, twisted and crooked and all out of shape some people would say; yet you know that they would not have been nearly so lovely had they been straight as a dart. The larches with their strong bark showing grey and red and green, and furrowed like the sea sand—isn’t there something in this that calls to you from back recesses of your being, and reminds you of the time when you—no, not you, but your ancestors, centuries ago, lived not so much in cities and houses made with hands, as out of doors, finding mystery in the green-roofed aisles and the cathedral dimness of forests long since felled?

To those of us who spend much time among these hills, each tree within the wood-house comes as a friend, with a definite personality and distinct association, and we regret its individual “going out,” even though we know it to be inevitable.

This giant, that leans against the outside wall, with no possibility of ever getting inside the door until it has been sawn in half, is a big fir (where a squirrel nested) that heeled right over in a blizzard. Here is the tall cherry-tree that died of a hollow heart, so beloved of the birds that they left us never a one if we got up later than half-past four the morning the cherries were ripe. This is the bough from the big plum-tree that broke down last August under its weight of fruit. These branches of old apple-trees are some of the winter wreckage that was strewn about the orchards; see the lichen that covers them, could anything be more satisfying to look upon? And these are some of the birches that seemed so frail as they bent to the wind on the slopes, with purple twigs and green leaves always moving; until you have actually handled them you scarcely realize the strength and toughness of the delicate-looking bark, and you henceforth take a much more personal interest in Hiawatha and his canoe, even though his tree was another member of the family. And that convenient stump you are sitting upon is part of a hoary pear, that used annually to clothe itself in white—and then contribute more gallons of perry than it does to think of in these more sober days!

But no mere catalogue of contents can describe the charm of this little wind-swept place. To realise it you must first of all stand in need of quiet and retreat. When the craving comes upon you that impels us all, at one time or another, to get away from “things” and be alone with ourselves and Nature that we may re-discover our souls, take a book if you will (it matters not what, for you won’t read it, but to some it is essential that a book be in the hand if they are to sit still for a moment!) and climb the hill to that wood-house.

Take a seat on the beech log by the door, and let yourself absorb some of the spirit of your environment. Keep quite still when the squirrel trails his bushy tail down the path, he won’t inquire after your National Registration card; neither will the pheasant, even though he raises his head with a suspicious jerk as he is feeding among the grass. Little rabbits will dart in and out of their burrows among the bracken; the woodpecker will mock at you from a tree that waves above the roof; a robin will streak down from nowhere, like a flash, and stand as erect as a drill-sergeant on the corner of the work-bench while he inquires—but, there is an interruption; he excuses himself for a moment while he goes off to thrash his wife who ventured to peep in at the window. Let them all have their way, they are as much a part of the general atmosphere of the place as the sweet scent of the evening dew upon the grass, and the ceaseless soughing of the wind in the branches; moreover, this is home to them.

The little folk of the forests are so companionable when you know them; even the same butterflies will come again and again. I recently spent two hours a day for a fortnight in this spot, and all the time apparently the same butterfly hovered about the door, resting every few minutes on the warm rock among the stone-crop and fiercely chasing off any other butterfly that came within its evidently marked-out domain. And the little folk never bore you with their boastings, nor weary you with platitudes. They are content to let you think your own thoughts, to take you as you are, if you will but recollect that theirs are ancient privileges that have descended to them as a world-old heritage. It is you who, helpless in the grip of civilisation, sold your forest “hearth-rights” long since, and are now but a stranger, or at best a passing guest, in this out-door world that was man’s first home.

* * * * *

Gradually quiet possesses you, and you hear the trees talking of things that have far outstripped the clash and turmoil of modernity. What is it they say, those swaying boughs and branches that throb with every wind, and these that stand around you, silently, waiting their last service to man, each with some final sacrificial offering—the apple-wood giving in incense, the oak giving in strength, and the laurel giving in flame?

Theirs is a blessing rather than a message; a lifting of a load from the over-burdened heart rather than the teaching of stern lessons. And as you shake off some of the dust of earth that has clogged your soul, you find yourself sending out thoughts in directions long forgotten; the things of earth take on new proportions, the first being often last, and the last becoming first.

* * * * *

The ministry of the forest trees can never be entirely explained; but one remembers with reverence that our Lord Himself worked in some such little wood-house, where He touched the trees and fashioned the timber with His sacred Hands.

Haply He left His Benediction when He passed that way.

XIII

Abigail’s “Lonely Sailor”

I’M sure I didn’t start my career of usefulness with any intention of adopting a “lonely sailor.” It was Abigail who bestowed him upon me.

So far as I remember, it was something like this.

Abigail had joined “The Domestic Helpers’ Branch” of a Guild, organised by some well-meaning souls, for the purpose of befriending those men in the Army and Navy who are supposed to be without feminine kith or kin of any description to take an interest in them.

She had been lured to a Guild meeting by her friend Pamela.

Pamela, it should be explained, was my parlour-maid, originally, but when the national trumpet sounded for the reduction of one’s staff of employees, she had moved a little further along the road, to “The Gables,” a household that fancied they needed a parlour-maid worse than I did.

We were mutually quite satisfied with the transference; she had recently had a sister enter the service of a ducal family, and I had found the effort necessary to keep pace with the duchess exceedingly wearing. Kind hearts may be more than coronets, but they don’t always show to such advantage, since one has to wear them inside.

As we had parted with no recriminations on either side, naturally I begged Pamela to make my house “a home away from home” whenever she pleased, which she accordingly did; and it was on one of her many “runs in” that she had expatiated on the Guild in question, and induced Abigail to sample it.

* * * * *

And thus, Abigail had returned from the meeting moved to the very core of her kind heart by the harrowing details the speaker had related of fine, daring, courageous, and magnificent specimens of British and Colonial manhood, left desolate and uncared for, pining for a word of sympathy and understanding from someone in the home-land—a word that never came, alas!

Abigail said it had quite put her off her supper that night, thinking of all those brave men, defending us and our homes right up to their very last breath—and yet, never a woman to get them a clean pair of socks or a hot meal when all was over; not a letter of sympathy, nor a card with a line on it (here cook told her that funeral cards had quite gone out), not so much as a word of encouragement from any relative under the sun, every woman at home selfishly engaged with her own concerns—— Why, it was a disgrace to the country that our heroes should be neglected and put upon by the women of the land in any such way! And please would I mind her sending off a cake as soon as possible? as of course she had adopted a lonely sailor, wouldn’t have it on her conscience not to; and cook was quite willing to make it, there was plenty of dripping, and we still had a fair amount of carraway seeds left, and they wouldn’t come as expensive as currants—cook’s cousins at the Crystal Palace liked carraways _quite_ as well as currants if plenty of spice and peel was put in. The fried potatoes had nearly _choked_ her, when she was telling cook about it all . . . no, not because she was talking with her mouth full; she meant that the very thought of those poor lonely men was like eating sawdust. The speaker at the meeting had said he was sure each one present had only to ask her employer, and permission would be given immediately and gladly for a cake or potted meat or some other little delicacy to be sent once a week, as a sign of sympathy and understanding, to one of these grand yet lonely souls.

Of course I immediately and gladly gave permission for the concrete sympathy to be sent once a week, but stipulated that it was to be a cake; five shillings’ worth of meat, as per my butcher’s charges, goes positively nowhere when “potted.” I reckoned that a good dripping cake would give the desolate one a deal more sympathy for the money.

(At the same time, to keep our rations properly balanced I cut off the small plate of spice buns, our only cake luxury, which had been in the habit of adorning our Sunday afternoon tea-table.)

And oh! the care with which we sewed up that first box of sympathy in a remnant of cretonne, carefully putting it on wrong side out (to preserve its beauty), and hoping that when he undid it he would notice what a charming pattern of purple dahlias and blue roses was on the inside, and how the cretonne was just a nice size to make up into a boot bag if he chanced to be needing a new one.

* * * * *

I pass over the next few weeks while we waited anxiously for the “lonely sailor” to materialise. He was engaged on board H.M.S. “The North Sea,” and sailors, we know, are subject to wind and weather. Abigail said she almost wished now that she had selected a lonely soldier; she could have had one if she had liked; but she had chosen a sailor because she thought he might wear better. The German sailors didn’t seem so pigheadedly bent on fighting as the German soldiers were.

We did our best to keep the time from hanging idly on our hands by devising as much variety as possible for future menus, discussing the respective merits of cinnamon _versus_ cocoanut as a flavouring, and wondering whether after all we shouldn’t be more likely to buck up his desolate spirits (and more particularly his pen) if we sent a sultana cake next week, rather than gingerbread.

I never before knew Abigail so prompt in her attendance upon the postman’s knock as she was during those blank weeks that accompanied the first half-dozen cakes. And then, when she was in a very slough of dark despondency, and constantly wondering who _had_ eaten them, since they had evidently never reached _him_, a letter arrived, and forthwith Abigail trod upon air—figuratively, I mean, not literally; in reality I never heard her so noisy; she went up and down, up and down the stairs past my study door where I was working, as though she had lost a step and was looking for it! Finally, when I heard her singing “Days and moments quickly flying” as she O-cedar-mopped some neighbouring polished boards, I knew something must have happened, and I opened the door and asked if anything was the matter? Whereupon she produced the letter from the bib of her apron—would have brought it before, only knew I liked everything to be perfectly quiet when I was working—and didn’t I think it was a lovely letter?

Though the handwriting wasn’t much to boast of, and the spelling even worse, it was a straightforward, man-like letter; he was evidently very pleased to have the cakes, and quite touched that the young lady should have been so kind as to think of him. He said his people were too far off to send him anything like that: his father and mother had gone out to Canada when he was ten years old. No one had sent him a _parcel_ so far, therefore it was quite a surprise packet when the first one came. It was kind of her to ask if he would like some more; all he could say was—“the more the merrier,” if the young lady felt like it.

And he signed himself, her faithful friend, Dick.

After that Dick’s name became so all-insistent in our midst that the whole household appeared to exist solely for the purpose of revolving round him. So constantly was it wafted on the four winds of heaven, that I remarked to the Head of Affairs: it seemed for all the world as though we had adopted a pet canary, and were everlastingly wondering if his seed glass had been replenished.

* * * * *

There was only one slight shadow falling athwart the sunshine. Pamela (who was a great authority on “How to tell your character by your handwriting,” having had her own delineated by her favourite penny weekly) had declared that Dick was anæmic and delicate; she knew, because his handwriting sloped downwards—a sure sign; it was also cramped and irregular, an unfailing indication of a mean and grasping nature; while the heavy downstrokes and the absence of punctuation proved as plain as plain could be that he was unreliable.

Poor Pamela had had her own disappointments in life, and had been warped a little thereby.

Of course Abigail said she did not believe a word of such rubbish, and she rather liked the funny-shaped letters, and thought the black strokes looked particularly strong and healthy.

Nevertheless, it was surprising how that trifle of seed, carelessly dropped, took root in our minds, and how from that date onwards we all regarded Dick as anæmic and in need of strenuous nourishment; while if more than a month elapsed between his communications, we couldn’t help just wondering whether, after all, he might not be a _little_ mean and grasping, and six weeks demonstrated with absolute certainty that he was unreliable!

* * * * *

A month after we received his first letter, there came another, and of course we all fluttered with excitement.

Dick still approved of the cakes, I was glad to hear; and since the young lady had asked if there was anything else she could send, he wasn’t one to cadge for himself, but there was his mate Mick; he wanted to put in a word for him. Mick, it appeared, was even more lonely, more ignored by the world of women, more in need of sympathetic understanding than he was; and—what was more to the point—was badly in want of a large scarf. Not that Mick would have asked for it himself, very independent Mick was; but since he had so enjoyed half of every cake, and the nights were very cold this time of the year, and he had been his pal for years, why, he felt sure the young lady wouldn’t mind his just mentioning it, as he couldn’t think of telling her how short he was of socks himself.

_Mind!_ Why, we all regarded Dick as a public benefactor! Abigail discovered that Dick and Mick rhymed, and as she said, you didn’t have poetry like that brought to the door _every_ day! She suddenly developed the airs of a society belle; she borrowed my copy of “The Modern Knitting Book;” and, might she just run out for an hour in the afternoon to get some wool—you needed thicker wool for scarves than for socks—as the shops were so dark at night?

Cook, with her numerous cousins on H.M.S. “Crystal Palace” (a near neighbour of ours), was given to understand that she could now take a second place! There was no getting away from the fact that Mr. Dick and Mr. Mick were actually engaged in the defence of the realm, while cook’s cousins appeared to do nothing more than take joy-rides in motor-lorries to and fro along our road.

Pamela alone was sceptical; she said she should go cautiously, you never knew! But then, she had every reason to be a pessimist; even her “lonely soldier” had been sent out to China, and, naturally, you can’t sympathise so understandingly with anyone when it takes a couple of months before you get an answer to your letter (if even he should chance to write by return), as when he is only across the Straits of Dover. She said she got tired of keeping copies of her letters, so that she might know what he was talking about when he wrote back—only he never did!

Surmising that Abigail would have her hand over-full if she took on the wants of both men, I said to her, “I think _I_ had better adopt Mr. Mick, as I am sure you will have enough to do to provide et-ceteras for Mr. Dick! You can take all the credit for it, and write the letters, but I will settle the bills.”

And having some socks and a large muffler all ready for dispatch to some needy man, I gave them to her and said I would pay the postage, if she would save me the trouble of doing them up and taking them to the post office. I also added that a cake had better be sent once a week to Mr. Mick in addition to the one sent to Mr. Dick. I know something of the appetite of the Navy—and what is one simple cake between two hearty men!

Abigail was effusively grateful, took it quite as a personal favour; you might have thought I was settling an annuity on her own father! She explained that naturally she felt more interest in Dick, and was more anxious to spend her money on him; at the same time, she should certainly mention my name to Mr. Mick; it wouldn’t be fair to take all the credit to herself.

So we left it at that.

I consulted with cook on the subject of securing ample and pleasing variety, combined with unquestionable nourishment; and judging by the amount of information she was able to give me as to what “they” like, you would have thought she had reared a whole family of husbands!

Forthwith, the house was steeped in a perpetual aroma of baking cakes (of course the cousins couldn’t be neglected either), till I got nervous lest the Food Controller should make it his business to call. Upstairs we not only went cakeless, but in order to make sugar-ends meet, we drank unsweetened tea and coffee, a trial to all of us! And stewed fruit requiring sugar was also taboo.

On second consideration, I am inclined to think that it was not, first and foremost, my benevolence that led me to adopt Mick: it was primarily a matter of self-interest! Even in war time it is necessary to have a _little_ work done, if only occasionally, in the home; and if the household helpers were to take on yet another outside responsibility, in addition to the many already on their hands, I didn’t see where my work would come in at all—and I can’t do _everything_ in the evening, after I get home from town. As it was, we were already knitting morning, noon, and night, for every branch of the Services!

* * * * *

I put the collection of figures and capital letters that represented Mick’s address, into my pocket-book with other similar data. Periodically I handed Abigail pairs of socks or mittens, a body-belt, handkerchiefs, and similar utilities; and when any sea-going event, such as a raid on a submarine base, or a “scrap” in the North Sea, or a warship mined, brought the Navy specially to my mind, I would go into the Stores and order a parcel to be sent to Mick, adding one for Dick also, if the occasion happened to be a harrowing one. At such times one feels one cannot do enough for our men; and Dick and Mick little knew how often they benefited by the misfortunes of others.

The first time I received a letter from my devoted friend Michael McBlaggan, I admit I was a trifle bewildered, as I couldn’t for the moment “place” any member of the McBlaggan family; but when I read the document through and noted how kind he considered it that my friend Miss Abigail should have introduced us, light dawned, and I sent him a post-card saying I hoped he would always let me know if he wanted anything further in the way of woollens.

And thus the months wore on, punctuated by laboriously written communications from Dick, with an occasional card from Mick, who kept more in the background. The great attraction, undoubtedly, was Dick. He entered into personal details, asked if the young lady had made the cakes herself. Here I understand cook was not too absorbed in her own relations to insist that full credit should be given to the right person; and Abigail wrote explaining that as she was very much occupied, and too busy to attend to the cooking, a friend who lived with her always made the cakes. Whereupon by return post _I_ received a sloping, heavy-downstroked letter of thanks from the dutiful Dick!

On another occasion, Dick sent his photo (after being asked for it times out of number, I believe). It was not as satisfactory as it might have been, because it was an amateur snapshot group, and you know how easy it is to decipher the features when the hand camera has stood a quarter of a mile away (so as to include as much of the landscape as possible), and everyone’s face is in black shadow under a hat brim that has been tilted forward to exclude the full glare of the sun.

Unfortunately he omitted to put a =X= against himself, and as there were a dozen men in the group all in slouch hats and farm attire (to say nothing of the women and children), there was little to help us!

But he did say that, as Abigail had told him Canada was the one place above all others that she longed to see, and how she was hoping to go there as soon as the war was over, he had sent his picture taken on a Canadian farm. It was just a little gathering photographed on someone’s birthday.

Still, as he hadn’t given us any help in the matter, we had to decide ourselves which was the lonely sailor (though, as Abigail commented, she couldn’t understand how, with such a large collection of friends, he could ever have come to be so alone in the world). We picked out a thin, anæmic-looking young man, who was standing beside a comfortable, matronly woman in a shady hat and a big apron; and as her age might have been anything from thirty to sixty, we decided she was his mother, and I remarked what a nice homely soul she looked in her checked apron, and no wonder he was devoted to her, and how proud she must be of the dear lad—all of which Abigail accepted as a personal compliment.

* * * * *

Winter gave way to spring, and in like rotation mince pies were superseded by Swiss roll (to make which eggs were struck off our breakfast menu), and marmalade replaced the figs and dates in the parcels that went out to some unknown spot on the world’s ocean-spaces, all of which our wonderful Navy now controls.

Likewise, cretonne gave place to unbleached calico, my remnants being exhausted.

Existence downstairs fluctuated between heights of excitement and depths of gloom. The Crystal Palace authorities had a most unreasonable way of shipping men off to Mesopotamia, Salonika, Hongkong, Archangel, or anywhere else where they thought the air would prove salubrious, without a single word of inquiry as to whether the transfer met with cook’s approval. Hence, there was a series of constantly recurring blanks to mar what would otherwise have been a life of unsullied joyousness; and at such times of depression cook darkly hinted that punching tram tickets and ordering people to “move up a little on that side, please,” would be a deliriously exhilarating occupation compared with the monotony of cake-making for nobody-knows-who!

As every gift-giver is aware, there is invariably a grey hiatus between the sending off of the gift and the arrival of the recipient’s gratitude; hence, the bustle and excitement of getting off each parcel of eatables and pair of socks and tin of tobacco was always followed by a spell of wistful longing, while the postal authorities, out of sheer perversity (we presumed), held back the letter that would have meant so much to Abigail.

Moreover, Pamela was doing anything but contribute to the gaiety of nations! She was often in with Abigail on her spare evenings; and seemed to devote the time to perpetual croaks, on one occasion ending with the assurance that, for _her_ part, she should have nothing to do with a man who was merely a common sailor; self-respect, if nothing else, would make her look for something better than that.

I am glad to say Abigail had sufficient spirit left to retort that if he was good enough to fight for her, he was good enough for the bestowal of a cake. Nevertheless, a decided coolness sprang up between them; and for a week or two after this exchange of confidences, Abigail appeared to be sinking in a rapid “decline” (as they used to call it), and I felt I was positively inhuman to expect her to do a hand’s turn in the house.

Yet life was not entirely bereft of purple patches. The gloom consequent upon the Silence of the Navy lifted occasionally. As, for instance, when we had a bomb drop in our road. Yes, in our very road!—or, at any rate, it was only just round the corner; and, as everybody knows, one affectionately appropriates as one’s own all neighbouring roads (quite irrespective of the rentals, too) if they chance to possess a bomb. And, in any case, it _would_ have dropped in our road if only it had been a hundred yards nearer this way.

Ours was quite an up-to-date bomb, one of the sort that “went clean through the wood pavement to the depth of a couple of feet, and made a hole large enough to bury a man in, and not a sound window within a mile radius.” That’s the kind of bomb _ours_ was! And it was trimmed in the latest fashion, with a policeman, and a cord right round it, and two gentlemen with pickaxes who scratched the surface of the wood blocks occasionally in the intervals of looking important. They were wearing them like that in London at the time.

Of course we, in common with the whole parish, swelled with pride; for a while all social distinction was waived, rich and poor alike took the same interest in the bomb, or at least in the hole it had made; the bomb itself was removed so quickly that no local eye save that of the police and the pickaxe gentlemen ever saw it; though the milkman averred that, as he was driving to the station in the early dawn, he saw a van going in the opposite direction; he couldn’t see what was in it, hence it certainly was carrying away the bomb.

For the rest of us, however, we had to be content with a brave effort to get as near to the cord as we could, and crane our heads above our shorter brethren in order to catch a glimpse of the gaping void, while a thrill went down every spine, irrespective of bank balances.

And we might have remained in that splendidly democratic frame of back unto this day (no one being anxious to have any closer acquaintance than his neighbour with the bomb), had it not been that a piece of shrapnel was discovered in the garden next us. Whereupon the owner developed much upliftedness, and his servants bragged amain.

My own staff took it even more to heart than I did; and it was amazing how much time it was necessary for all hands to spend in the garden in order to cut a cabbage or gather three sprigs of parsley. Between them they didn’t leave an inch of the garden unexplored, and it is a fair-sized one.

Then the following morning Abigail rushed in excitedly with the news that she had discovered a piece of shrapnel in the bonfire débris. I went down to inspect, and was shown an oblong piece of curved iron, wider at one end than the other, and with a sharp spike at the wider end. I confess that to me it was wonderfully reminiscent of the old trowel that had lost its wooden handle and had lain unhonoured and unsung for a year in the leaf-heap; but I said nothing about _that_. Whatever its origin, it was crumpled up a bit with heat, one could see—not surprising either, as we had had a roaring bonfire two days running and burnt up all the pile of dead leaves.

When I was devising plans for its removal, they said, Hadn’t it better wait there till the master came home?

But the Head of Affairs is celebrated for his truthfulness; and he and that old trowel had lived on terms of unalloyed friendship for years (till the split came over the handle), and—well, I merely said I thought we would deal with it at once; no need to add to the master’s many worries.

Cook said: Oughtn’t it to be immersed in a pail of water? Her cousin at the Crystal Palace had told her that——, etc.

So we got a pail of water; I bade them stand well out of harm’s way, while I put it in. Of course they feebly offered to do it for me, but seemed relieved when I insisted on taking all risks; one ran to one side of the garden and one to the other, and then decided they should feel safer if they both stood close together.

Just as I was about to pick it up, cook shrieked out to me not to touch it with my hands, as it might be poisoned. I said I would take it up with a pair of tongs; but she said she thought it ought to be insulated with china. It might be electrified with the shock; you never knew what inventions those fiends were up to, and one of her cousins who was in the electricians’ corp (or something like that) had told her that——, etc.

So we compromised with a large china soup ladle and a big wooden spoon, which I used like chop sticks, and at last got the shrapnel into the water. Of course it was disappointing when it dropped heavily to the bottom without so much as a sizzle, much less a bang. Still—we had the comfortable feeling that we were on the safe side now.

Eventually I had it in my study. I said it would be safer there. But though the neighbourhood was thus debarred from seeing and handling it, the fame of it spread with amazing rapidity; and the lady across the road arrived quite early in the afternoon, having heard from her housemaid, who had heard it from her gardener, who had heard it from the road-sweeper, who had heard it from the grocer’s man, who had heard it from my cook, that I had a huge shell weighing half-a-hundredweight, covered with venomous spikes, all deadly poison, that had dropped down the chimney right into the centre of the kitchen fire, where it had been found, still hissing, when they went to rake out the ashes in the morning.

I didn’t display the fragment to my neighbour, nor to subsequent callers; it is such a pity to rob people of happiness. I merely said I thought it better to keep it well away from all vibration, as so far it hadn’t exploded. And one and all assured me I was very wise, and remembered pressing engagements elsewhere.

I reached the zenith of my fame when a police inspector, accompanied by a subordinate, rang the front door bell, and understood that I had in my possession a portion of a Zeppelin that had foundered on my lawn. It appeared that he had been up all night, and had worn out miles of shoe leather, hunting for the missing half of that Zeppelin; and had I the gondola as well? He seemed to suspect that I might be holding that back in order to have it stuffed and put under a glass shade in the drawing-room.

He looked disappointed when I showed him the fragment of iron; said they had plenty of bits that size; but he admitted that none of them had a spike like that at one end, and darkly hinted that it might be just the missing link they were looking for. Then he and the subordinate tenderly carried it away between them.

We all intend to visit the War Museum later on. Personally, I’m very keen to see what they ticket it.

* * * * *

Nevertheless, when each little excitement subsided, reaction set in, and Abigail’s spirits promptly dropped to zero. But at length a post card arrived in time to save her (and us) from utter collapse, and the bath-taps were once more polished to the tune of “Days and moments quickly flying.”

Thus, as I have already stated, winter merged into spring; and then spring made way for early summer (as I’ve known it do before), and we racked our brains to find a suitable substitute for pork pie.

Oh, yes, we had departed months ago from the “nothing but cake” rule. We decided that a thin, anæmic-looking young man (as per the photographic group) needed still more feeding up, and there wasn’t a sufficiency of body-building material in modern cake, as everyone knows who has sampled war-flour, even with currants _as well_ as carraways. So the Head of Affairs and I stoically relinquished the one thin slice of breakfast bacon that we had shared between us each morning, and devoted the proceeds to pork pies for the Navy—in accordance with the highest ideals of the Food Controller.

But, as every good housewife knows, you mustn’t feed your family—let alone your friends—on pork pie when there isn’t an R in the month; and with April nearing its end, and May looming, what was to take its place? As cook said, you are so dreadfully handicapped when you have to sew up your parcel in calico; you can’t send soused mackerel, or Welsh rabbit with Red Tape tied round you like that!

Abigail suggested potted shrimps; but cook scornfully reminded her that seafaring men, living in the midst of shrimps and salt fish all their days, weren’t likely to hanker after it at meal times. We compromised on savoury cheese patties—a come-down after the pork pie, we admitted; only we could think of nothing else equally nutritive and seasonable.

Unfortunately, when I ordered extra cheese to be sent weekly to meet the naval demands (and up to that time I hadn’t seen any rules for rationing cheese), the Stores “greatly regretted,” etc., but there was a scarcity at the moment; they could let me have a tin of golden syrup, however, or, they had a fair stock of candles.

So we removed cheese from our upstairs dietary, consoling ourselves with the thought that, at best, it was only half a course.

Meanwhile it was pleasant to know that the fleet had voted the cheese patties “A 1,” due, so cook said, to the fact that she had told Dick to put the patties into a _slow_ oven for ten or twelve minutes before eating, as “it made all the difference.”

* * * * *

I was beginning to get nervy with the strain of it all. You see, if a letter delayed in coming, then the question arose: Did they like the last parcel? or, had we sent, by chance, something they didn’t care for? And then my household assistants looked darkly at me; _I_ was to blame for ever having suggested lemon curd tartlets. As Abigail said, probably lemon didn’t agree with Dick, it didn’t always with thin people.

Cook acquiesced, adding that you never can tell! There was her eldest sister’s husband, a perfect terror for temper; yet look what he saved her in doctor’s bills—he might have had epileptic fits instead!

On the other hand, there was her uncle (no relation to her really, only her aunt’s husband, and second husband at that), do what you would, you couldn’t rouse him to take an interest in his food or anything else. Her poor aunt had spent a little fortune on medicine; and as bright a house as you could want, not shut off with a whole lot of garden like my house, but nice and close on to the pavement, with heaps of traffic going by. And exactly opposite, the broken railings that the motor-van ran into and killed the driver; heaps of people came to look at the place Sunday afternoons. But her uncle never took a bit of notice of it.

No, you _never_ can tell!

* * * * *

All the same, I felt guilty, and began to wonder how long I should be able to hold out! And then——

It was a lovely Saturday in May. We had just got up from a late lunch when there came a violent ring at the door bell. The Head of Affairs was in the hall at the moment, and he opened the door—to find two big sailor-men on the doorstep, each carrying a parcel. They inquired for me.

Now, like most other households, khaki and navy blue always find a welcome at our door for the sake of our own who are away, serving their country, and those who have already laid down their lives in the cause of Right and Justice.

So the Head of Affairs walked them straight in upon me, without waiting to ask for their birth certificates.

Did I say they were big? That isn’t the word for it! They were more than that, they were massive; tall, broad, well-made, and tough-looking, with beaming, round, red faces; they ought to have been pictured, just as they were, for a naval recruiting poster.

They looked a little confused, for the moment, at finding themselves precipitated into an unexpected drawing room; but they made straight for me, with that large, rolling stride inseparable from the British sailor. Fortunately the room isn’t beset in the orthodox fashion with a multitude of bric-à-brac obstacles in the way of small chairs and tables, for they seemed to sweep the decks fore and aft as they strode over the carpet, and I thought I should never find my hand again after they had both given it a hearty shake.

As I looked at the big, burly fellows, both of them well on to forty I should say, I knew instinctively that these were our two forlorn sailor-lads—our poor anæmic, lonely Dick, and desolate, unsympathised-with Mick. And I must say I never saw two men bear neglect more bravely!