Nicky-Nan, Reservist by Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch


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Page 1

XXI. FAIRY GOLD.

XXII. SALVAGE.

XXIII. ENLIGHTENMENT, AND RECRUITING.

XXIV. THE FIRST THREE.





NICKY-NAN, RESERVIST.




CHAPTER I.


HOW THE CHILDREN PLAYED.

When news of the War first came to Polpier, Nicholas Nanjivell
(commonly known as Nicky-Nan) paid small attention to it, being
preoccupied with his own affairs.

Indeed, for some days the children knew more about it than he, being
tragically concerned in it--poor mites!--though they took it gaily
enough. For Polpier lives by the fishery, and of the fishermen a
large number--some scores--had passed through the Navy and now
belonged to the Reserve. These good fellows had the haziest notion
of what newspapers meant by the Balance of Power in Europe, nor
perhaps could any one of them have explained why, when Austria
declared war on Servia, Germany should be taking a hand. But they
had learnt enough on the lower deck to forebode that, when Germany
took a hand, the British Navy would pretty soon be clearing for
action. Consequently all through the last week of July, when the
word "Germany" began to be printed in large type in Press headlines,
the drifters putting out nightly on the watch for the pilchard
harvest carried each a copy of _The Western Morning News_ or _The
Western Daily Mercury_ to be read aloud, discussed, expounded under
the cuddy lamp in the long hours between shooting the nets and
hauling them.

"When the corn is in the shock,
Then the fish is on the rock."

A very little of the corn had been shocked as yet; but the fields,
right down to the cliffs' edge, stood ripe for abundant harvest.
I doubt, indeed, if in our time they have ever smiled a fairer
promise or reward for husbandry than during this last fortnight of
July 1914, when the crews, running back with the southerly breeze for
Polpier, would note how the crop stood yellower in to-day's than in
yesterday's sunrise, and speculate when Farmer Best or farmer Bate
meant to start reaping. As for the fish, the boats had made small
catches--dips among the straggling advance-guards of the great armies
of pilchards surely drawing in from the Atlantic. "'Tis early days
yet, hows'ever--time enough, my sons--plenty time!" promised Un'
Benny Rowett, patriarch of the fishing-fleet and local preacher on
Sundays. Some of the younger men grumbled that "there was no
tellin': the season had been tricky from the start." The
spider-crabs--that are the curse of inshore trammels--had
lingered for a good three weeks past the date when by all rights they
were due to sheer off. Then a host of spur-dogs had invaded the
whiting-grounds, preying so gluttonously on the hooked fish that,
haul in as you might, three times out of four the line brought up
nothing but a head--all the rest bitten off and swallowed.
"No salmon moving, over to Troy. The sean-boats there hadn't even
troubled to take out a licence." As for lobsters, "they were
becomin' a winter fish, somehow, and up the harbours you started
catchin' 'em at Christmas and lost 'em by Eastertide:" while the
ordinary crabbing-grounds appeared to be clean bewitched.

One theorist loudly called for a massacre of sea-birds, especially
shags and gannets. Others (and these were the majority) demanded
protection from steam trawlers, whom they accused of scraping the
sea-bottom, to the wholesale sacrifice of immature fish--sole and
plaice, brill and turbot.

"Now look 'ee here, my sons," said Un' Benny Rowett: "if I was you,
I'd cry to the Lord a little more an' to County Council a little
less. What's the full size ye reckon a school o' pilchards, now--one
o the big uns? Scores an' scores o' square miles, all movin' in a
mass, an' solid a'most as sardines in a tin; and, as I've heard th'
Old Doctor used to tell, every female capable o' spawnin' up to two
million. . . . No; your mind can't seize it. But ye might be fitted
to grasp that if th' Almighty hadn' ordained other fish an' birds as
well as us men to prey upon 'em, in five years' time no boat'd be
able to sail th' Atlantic; in ten years ye could walk over from
Polpier to Newfoundland stankin' 'pon rotten pilchards all the way.
Don't reckon yourselves wiser than Natur', my billies. . . . As for
steam trawlin', simmee, I han't heard so much open grievin' over it
since Government started loans for motors. Come to think--hey?--
there ben't no such tearin' difference between motors an' steam--not
on principle. And as for reggilations, I've a doo respect for County
Council till it sets up to reggilate Providence, when I falls back on
th' Lord's text to Noey that, boy an' man, I've never known fail.
_While th' earth remaineth, seed-time and harvest shall not cease._
And again," continued Un' Benny Rowett, "Behold, I say unto you,
_Lift up your eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already
to harvest_."

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Books | Photos | Paul Mutton | Fri 29th Mar 2024, 15:21