Nicky-Nan, Reservist

"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 invokin...

Some ten minutes after the brakes had departed, Mrs Polsue and Miss Oliver, bound for divine service, encountered at the corner where Jolly Hill unites with Bridge Street, and c...

At breakfast, two days later, Dr Mant received a summons to visit Polpier and pronounce upon the symptoms of Boatbuilder Jago's five-year-old son Josey (Josiah), who had been fe...

The rain--the last, for many weeks, to visit Polpier--cleared up soon after midday. At one o'clock or thereabouts Nicky-Nan, having dined on a stale crust and a slice of bacon,...

--The Old Doctor (to whom we have made allusion) had been moved to write an account of his native place, and had contrived to get it published by subscription in a thin octavo v...

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...

"You are short of breath. You should take more exercise." Mrs Polsue eyed her severely. "When an unmarried woman gets to your time of life, she's apt to think that everything ca...

"Boo-oom!" echoed Un' Benny Rowett on the Quay, mocking the noise of the cannonade. "War--bloody war, my hearties! There goes a hundred pound o' taxpayers' money; an' there go a...

Nicky-Nan arose with the dawn after a night of little sleep. Very cautiously, with one hand feeling the wall, and in the other carrying his boots, lest he should wake the Penhal...

At certain decent and regular intervals of time (we need not indicate them more precisely) Mrs Polsue was accustomed to order in from the Three Pilchards a firkin of ale. A firk...

Mrs Steele, the Vicar's wife--a refined, shy little woman, somewhat austere in self-discipline and her own devotional exercises, but incapable of harsh judgment upon any other l...

A moment later Nicky-Nan took a step to the door, half-repentant, on an impulse to call Mrs Penhaligon back and bid her fetch a candle. God knows how much of subsequent trouble...

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 secr...

"For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp...

In the passage he found Mrs Penhaligon standing, alone, rigid as a statue. By her attitude she seemed to be listening. Yet she had either missed to hear or, hearing, had missed...

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,...

"Business as usual!" said Mr Pamphlett heartily to his clerk Mr Hendy, as he let himself in at 9.40 by the side door of the Bank. Mr Hendy lived on the premises, which his wife...

Nicky-Nan went back to his parlour, closed the door carefully, mounted the platform again, and resumed his plastering. He felt vexed with himself over that little speech of brav...

Just about seven o'clock next morning Nicky-Nan, who had breakfasted early and taken post early in the porchway to watch against any possible _ruse_ of the foe--for, Bank Holida...

"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 Germ...

When Polpier folk had occasion to talk of soldiers and soldiering--a far-away theme to which the mind seldom wandered--their eyes would become pensive and their voices take an a...

Nicky-Nan belonged, congenitally and unconsciously, to that happy brotherhood of men--_felices sua si bona norint_--whom a little liquor exhilarates, but even a great deal has n...

During his interview with Mr Pamphlett, Nicky-Nan had been in a fever to get back to his parlour. It had no lock to the door, and goodness knew what the Penhaligon children migh...

"Sorry to trouble 'ee, sir, and upon such a day," said Nicky-Nan, drawing up his sound leg to "attention," as his enemy entered the parlour: "but my business won't wait. I saw D...