towards five o'clock, which is Polpier's Sunday
hour for tea. On a tussock of thyme above Nicky-Nan's freshly
cleared patch--the very tussock on which Corporal Sandercock had
rested that morning--young Obed Pearce, the farmer's son, sat and
sucked at a pipe of extinct tobacco. Hunger of heart had dragged him
down to have a look at the camp: then, coming in full sight of it, he
had halted as before the presence of something holy, to which he
dared approach no nearer.

He had arrived somewhat late in the afternoon, as the thick of the
crowd was dispersing. He had no young woman to bring with him, to
allay her curiosity. Farmers' sons marry late, and are deliberate in
choosing. It is the traditional rule. Young fishermen, on the other
hand, claim their sweethearts early and settle down to a long
probation of walking-out, waiting their turn while, by process of
nature, old people die and cottages fall empty.

Such is economic law in Polpier: and in accordance with it young Obed
Pearce sat and drew at his pipe alone: whereas when young Seth
Minards, by two years his junior, came along at a slow walk with
hands deep in his trouser-pockets and no maiden on his arm or by his
side, Obed felt no incongruity in challenging him.

"Hullo, young Seth! Not found a maid yet?"

"No: nor likely to." Young Seth halted. If he had not found a damsel
it was not for lack of good looks. He had a face for a Raphael to
paint; the face of a Stephen or a Sebastian; gloomed over just now,
as he halted with his shoulders to the sunset. "I can't think o'
such things in these times, Mr Obed."

"Nor me," said the farmer's son, discovering that his pipe was out
and feeling in his pocket for a box of matches.

"There's no hurry for you, Mr Obed." "Isn't there? . . . Well, I
suppose not, thank goodness! Here, take a fill o' baccy an' tell me
what you think of it. I mean, o' course"--with a jerk of his hand
towards the camp--"what you think o' that there?"

"I wish I could tell 'ee offhand," answered Seth after a pause,
carefully filling his pipe. "I was puzzlin' it over as I came
along."

"I see nothing to puzzle, for a man placed as you be," said Obed,
drawing hard on his pipe. "If you had a father and a mother, now,
both draggin' hard on your coat-tails--My God!" he broke off, staring
at the sappers moving on the hillside. "What wouldn't I give to be
like any o' those?"

"If you feel it like that," Seth encouraged him, "the