But for a man o' seemin'ly close habits, you're terribly
flippant with your loose gold."

CHAPTER XVIII.

FEATHERS.

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 accent of pity tinged with
gentle contempt. 'There were such men. People back inland, among
various strange avocations, followed this one; at a shilling a-day,
too!' Some months before, as young Seth Minards happened to be
dandering along the western cliff-track, he was met and accosted by
an officer in uniform, who asked him many questions about the coast,
its paths, the coves where a boat might be beached in moderate
weather, &c., and made notes on the margin of a map. "Who was that
tall chap I see'd 'ee in talk with, up by th' Peak?" asked Un' Benny
Rowett later in the day. "A Cap'n Something-or-other," answered
Seth; "I didn't catch his full name." "Walked over from Troy, I
s'pose? Queer how these ship-cap'ns enjoy stretchin' their legs
after a passage--the furriners especially. But there! 'tis nat'ral."
"He wasn' a ship-cap'n." "What? a mine-cap'n?--ay, to be sure, that
accounts for the colour of his clothes. . . . Out o' work, was he?
There's been a lot o' distress down in the Minin' District lately."
"You're wrong again," said Seth: "he's a gun-sojer, or so he told
me." "What, an _army_-cap'n? . . . But I oft to ha' guessed.
Come to think, he didn' look scarcely more 'n that."

Polpier, indeed, had not seen a troop of soldiers since the
Napoleonic era, when (as has been related) the Old Doctor raised a
company of Volunteer Artillery. Here we were, after more than a
hundred years, at war again for what the newspapers called "our
national existence"; and behold within five days Polpier had become a
centre of military activity! The people, who during those five days
had talked more about the career of arms and those who followed it
than in five decades before, had insensibly--or, at least, without
sense of inconsistency--passed from amused contempt to a lively
interest, even though in speech they kept to the old tone of light
cynicism. Nor was this tone affected to cover a right-about-face; it
simply meant that a habit of speech could not quite so quickly as a
habit of thought adapt itself to retreat.

Of a sudden, and almost before it could own to this nascent interest,
Polpier found itself flattered