“Nay, now,” put in good-natured Mrs. Blanchard, “I’m sure everybody, high and low, the gentry and sich as we together, all d’ seem to think the world o’ the soldiers. And it be quite natural as you should feel a bit proud, Mrs. Stuckhey, my dear, seeing as your son is the only soldier as comes fro’ this here village. Why, we was a-prayin’ for the soldiers to-week, Mrs. Woolridge, so I can’t think as war can be anyways wicked.”
“E-es, indeed,” agreed Susan Stuckhey, addressing herself pointedly to the last speaker, for she had been somewhat hurt by Mrs. Woolridge’s remarks. “I d’ ’low I could very near ha’ cried o’ Sunday, when the service was gi’ed out for the soldiers, seein’ as all the prayers in this place was a-goin’ up for my Joe. I went round to the rectory afterwards, and I did thank the Reverend. ‘’Tis very kind o’ ye, I’m sure, sir,’ says I, ‘to take so much trouble for my son.’ ‘What trouble, Susan?’ says he, looking a bit dazy like. ‘Why, the service, sir,’ says I. ‘All the long prayers, and the collect, and all—for our soldiers, you know. My Joe be the only soldier from Riverton.’ So now when he do meet me he do al’ays ax, ‘Any noos, Susan, from our only soldier?’ That reminds me, postman be late to-day, bain’t he? The mail do come in from abroad to-day, d’ye see, and I’m on the look-out for a letter.”
Mrs. Blanchard and Mrs. Stuckhey craned their heads once more, peering anxiously up the road; but Mrs. Woolridge remained ostentatiously immovable.
“I thought that was what fetched you out,” she remarked ungraciously. “I suppose you’ll ’low as postmen be o’ some use. It d’ seem to me as they d’ serve their country just so well as soldiers; and there’s others as serves their country too. I reckon as my son Robert d’ serve his country better nor any soldier. What ’ud the country do wi’out trains?”
Mrs. Stuckhey smiled pityingly, and replied in a tone of dignified amusement, “They be useful too, no doubt, in their way; but ye’ll hear different to your notion, Mrs. Woolridge. ‘Soldiers of the Queen,’ you know: they stand high, d’ye see—more partic’lar jest now. ‘Your country’s love to you!’—nobody wouldn’t go for to say that to a postman, would they now? nor yet to a man what was workin’ on the line.”
“And that’s true,” agreed Mrs. Blanchard.
Mrs. Woolridge tossed her head.
“Well, I think there’s a deal too much fuss made about them soldiers,” she said—“not meanin’ your son in partic’lar, Mrs. Stuckhey, but the lot of ’em; and I can’t think as the Lard’s blessin’ can rest on this here war. It d’ stand to reason as it can’t—sendin’ up the price o’ everythin’, and makin’ it so hard for the poor to live. Why, the very price o’ coal be doubled very near. Don’t tell me as the A’mighty can approve o’ that.”
A faint colour overspread the sallow cheek of the soldier’s mother, and there is no knowing how severe might have been her retort had not the long-expected form of the one-armed postman chanced to round the corner at this juncture, escorted by some five or six juvenile Blanchards.
As he drew near he was observed to fumble in his bag, and presently halted before the group of matrons, his face wreathed with smiles.