s because
Father'll have to fight, o' course."

"I wish they'd put it off till I was a man," said 'Bert stoutly.

At this point the wounded hero behaved as he always did on
discovering life duller than his hopes. He let out a piercing yell
and cried that he wanted his tea. 'Beida dropped her end of the
ambulance, seized him as he slid to the ground, shook him up, and
told him to behave.

"You can't have your tea for another hour: and what's more, if you're
not careful there won't be no amputation till afterwards, when
Mother's not lookin' an' we can get a knife off the table. You bad
boy!"

'Biades howled afresh.

"If you don't stop it,"--'Bert took a hand in threatening,--
"you won't get cut open till Monday; because 'tis Sunday to-morrow.
And by that time you'll be festerin', I shouldn't wonder."

"--And mortification will have set in," promised his sister.
"When that happens, you may turn up your toes. An' 'tis only a
question between oak an' elum."

'Biades ceased yelling as abruptly as he had started. "What's
'fester'?" he demanded.

"You'll know fast enough, when you find yourself one solid scab,"
began 'Bert. But Nicky-Nan interrupted.

"There, there, children! Run along an' don't ee play at trouble.
There's misery enough, the Lord knows--" He broke off on a twinge of
pain, and stared down-stream at the congregated masts in the little
harbour.

Polpier lies in a gorge so steep and deep that though it faces but a
little east of south, all its western flank lay already in deep
shadow. The sunlight slanting over the ridge touched the tops of the
masts, half a dozen of which had trucks with a bravery of gilt, while
a couple wore the additional glory of a vane. On these it flashed,
and passed on to bathe the line of cottages along the eastern shore,
with the coast-guard hut that stood separate beyond them on the round
of the cliff-track--all in one quiet golden glow. War? Who could
think of War? . . . Nicky-Nan at any rate let the thought of it slip
into the sea of his private trouble. It was as though he had hauled
up some other man's "sinker" and, discovering his mistake, let it
drop back plumb.

While he stared, the children had stolen away.

Yet he loitered there staring, in the hush of the warm afternoon,
lifting his eyes a little towards the familiar outline of the hills
that almost overlapped, closing out sight of the sea. A verse ran in
his head--"_I will lift up mine eyes unto