12 
LAND & WATER 
September 13, 1917 
He W.T5 an old man of fourscore and upwards, and his years 
carri.'d with them tlie prt-rn-ativos wliich a«e always com- 
niands in a rural cnmnnmilv dominated by oral tradition. His 
knuckles were shiny and swollen with rheiunatism. his arms 
brown as a kipix-red herring and mottled, and the skm on 
each side of his neck hung in loose folds— a chronology ot 
age as unmistakable as the rings on a cow's horns. His 
blue eves had a lustreless watery look, and when he laughed 
which "lie did with diflicultv, for his maxillary muscles had 
lo*t their flexibility, the wrinkles round his eyes were, multi- 
plied till they added another ten years to his face, his nose 
drooped towards his chin, and his nut-cracker jaws revealed, as 
thev parted, a solitary tooth which hung at the entrance ot 
his "mouth like a stalactite in a cavern. But he was wise 
with the wisdom of his years, was learned m a homely metero- 
logv and in agrarian histoiT, and could tell you the exact 
year in which the bagging-hook gave way to the binder and 
the scythe to the mowing machine as instruments ot nus- 
bai^dry. Ha sjwke a dialect which was pure Anglo-Saxon, 
enriched by the opulent vocabulary of the Scriptures and the 
liook of Common Prayer, although he could neither read nor 
write Also he had that dignity of manner which is the re- 
ward of a placid old age, and of a life spent in the calm un- 
hurried -tillage of the soil 
For some minutes the party ate contemplatively and no one 
spoke, until the old man's eye alighted on the wooden leg ot 
William Tuck, late of the Wiltshire Regiment, now discharged 
under the King's Regulations from His Majesty's Army as 
permanently disabled. 
■' A tidy piece o£ carpentrj?, that leg o' yourn, W illiam Tuck, 
said the old man. , • , • 
•• It be that." replied William T.uck contemplating his 
anatomy with a feeling of distinction. " But it be strange at 
lirst. very strange it be. D'ye know, neighbours, when I 
;ets a touch o' rheumatics in me thigh I can feel it below 
'he knee in the leg as isn't theer." 
They pondered this statement in silence, until the old man. 
ixin'i "William Tuck with his eye, put a question. 
"that's a ghostly leg to have, a ghostly leg it be. Say, 
young William, did they give that leg o'youm Christian 
burial in France? " 
"No! they've no time for the likes of that." 
" Then take my word for it William Tuck," said the old 
man solemnly " that lonely leg o' yourn be a haunting ye. 
If thee doesn't write to Government asking for that mournful 
leg o' yourn to be buried with th' Sacraments of Holy Church, 
Ihat ieg'll haunt thee to thy dying day. Thee'll have 
to account for that leg at Judgment Day to thy Creator, 
seeing as He made thee in his own Image." 
At this the whole party stared at William Tuck as though 
shocked by his callous want of natural feeling towards the 
departed member, and conscious of their scrutiny he attempted 
to divert the conversation. " I done my bit anyhow," he 
said, with some irrelevance, "which is more than Jacob Fox 
hev done," he added as he caught the eye of that delinquent 
lixed upon him with a look of horrified fascination. 
" Shame on ye, William Tuck," said the old man magisteri- 
ally. " How can ye cast stones at that poor natural. Jacob 
Fox, tell the folk what the medical gentleman said to 'ee. 
Speak the truth, young feller, and shame the devil." 
Jacob, an ai-cemic-looking youth who had a way of moving 
his hands uncertainly as though they did not belong to him, now 
linding himself the centre of attention, blushed with nen,()iis 
trepidation. He had a prominent Adam's apple in his long 
reck which. resembled the " bubble" in the clinometer of a 
field gun in being a kind of index of his equilibrium ..so that 
whenever he was about to speak in company it could be seen 
to wobble agitatedly through his skin. When, after some 
ineffectual attempts' of its owner to swallow it, it returned 
to the horizontal, Jacob found speech. 
" I went into a room — a girt room as big as Farmer Leigh- 
field's barn, and I zeed a lot of young fellers there all standing 
naked wi'out so much as a fig-leaf between 'em, and I thought 
as it was the Judgment Day. And there was a officer gentle- 
man as was a pinching 'em and feeling 'em as though they were 
fat ewes in a pen on market day and 'e a gwine to buy 'em. 
And a soldier called out my name and I says " Here, begging 
your pardon, sir,' and the officer gentleman says 'Jump that 
"fonn ! ' and 1 jumps 'en. Then he says ' Hop on your right 
foot,' and I hops. Then he says ' Open your mouth', and I 
opens it. And he looks at my teeth and I says ' I be twenty- 
two, please sir.' seeing as I thought he was counting my years 
of wisdom in my mouth like a boss. And he looks at me 
with eyes like a sparrer-hawk's and laughs, and then he holds 
a thing like a cider- funnel to my chest and says ' Say ah,' 
and I says'Ah-h' so be as if we were in church, xind he listens 
with hisheadonone side to the works of Nature in my innards 
as though 1 were a watch and he wanted to see if I was still 
a-going. I felt mortal afeard. I do b'lieve, neighbours," 
added Jacob Fo.\ looking round with homeless eyes ' as that 
man could read a body's unlawful thoughts like the Almighty 
— so I tried to think "of the Lord's Frayer whereby he might 
not catch me in carnal meditations." 
" A pious tiling to do and prudent, Jacob," said the old 
man approvingly," though 1 never could mind anything but 
the ' Churching of Women ' when I tries to repeat them holy 
things. " 
" And when I'd got to ' Tlij' Kingdom come ' he took away 
his weapon and began to tap all the bones in my chest, one 
after t'other, same as if he was a bum-bailiff taking a hin- 
\entory, to see if they were all there. And I says ' Begging 
your pardon, sir, I might not have the lawful number, seeing 
as I was born two months afore I was expected in the 
world,^ " . 
" Aye, that you was, Jacob Fox, I do well remember it 
and a" mortal tribulation you was to your poor mother. It 
was nigh six months afore she wur churched." 
" And the medical gentleman says, ' What's that, my man ? ' 
— sharp, like tlmt — and I says, ' Yes, sir, my mother and 
the neighbours do say that that was the reason why I get the 
falling sickness and am so afflicted in my intellects.' And then 
he looks at me hard and qu.-stions me. ' Cross your legs ' he 
says, and I crossed 'em. and he fetched me a clout on the 
kriee-cap. Yes, that ah did. Lordy, the liberties that man 
did take with my person, neighbours, ye would never believe. 
And at last he writes something on a piece of paper and the 
soldjer with the stripes says ' We shan't want you, my man,' 
and he gives me a paper." 
" .\nd was that all he said, Jacob Fox ? 
" Yes, it were. But I did hear him say as I was a wonder- 
ful chap," Jacob added proudly. " He said as I was the most 
half-wittedest fellow as ever he'd zeed.'/ 
" Aye ! that you be," said the patriarch looking round for 
approval as though this were a compliment paid to the whole 
parish. " Yes, we do all know as you be wonderfully half- 
witted." 
At this they all stared at Jacob Fox with a kind of communal 
pride, whereat Jacob blushed confusedly, and, astonished at 
having held the centre of tbe stage so long, retired hurriedly 
into the wings, taking refuge behind the broad back of Daniel 
Newth, the patriarch's son, a hale youth of about fifty-five, 
who in his father's opinion was still merely adolescent. 
" It do mind me of Scriptures," said the old man reflec- 
tively, " this recruiting- do. One shall be taken and t'other 
shall" be left. It do all seem like the Last Day, it do. It were 
never like this before. I mind how they'd 'list fellers in the 
old days — the recruiting sergeant 'ud come round with his 
cap full o' ribbons and talk pleasant like about the wonderful 
life a soldjer 'd hev in foreign parts. Lawk-a-mas?ey ! 
how that feller could talk — like a parson — aw could make 
ye feel as proud as Lucifer telling ye how His .Majesty 
had taken a partic'ler fancy to ye as a likely young feller to 
stand before kings and golden thrones. He got hold of poor 
Jarge Kibblewhite that way and giv 'en three ribbons of many 
colours like Joseph's coat — poor Jarge as was killed at the 
battle of Alma. That recruiting sergeant used to come 
round at hiring-fair. Lady Day and Michaelmas he come 
round, and if he'd see a likely-looking young carter with the 
whipcord plaited round his hat he'd go up to 'en and charm 
the soul out of 'en like witchcraft." 
" D'you remember the Crimea ? " asked one of the 
soldiers. 
" Ah, that I do young feller. I remember a mint o' things 
afore you was conceived in your mother's womb. I be an old 
man. the oldest man in the parish, bain't I, neighliours ? " 
■' Yes, grandfer, that you be. Yen be a terribly ancient 
old man." 
" Yes, I be. I've a buried three wives. And I've never 
once been on the parish. 'S'es, 1 do mind the Crimeer. There 
was thirteen men went from this parish and all on 'em passed 
save one. It was just after our Tontine club had its ' break- 
up,' and we walking two and two with red staves to the ' Goat 
and Compasses.' All of 'em was in the Wiltshires except 
Jude Teagle as joined the Holy Boys, the same regiment as 
sold their Prayer-Books for playing "cards, which was a sinful 
thing to do. "it was a terrible big battle— the battle of .-Mma. 
I do mind as we had a song at harvest home that year after 
we'd carried the last load. 
' There's old Jacky Rooshian 
And a million o' men. 
And there's poor John Bull 
Wi' dree score' and ten....' 
I do forget the rest. They shot down our men like spar* 
rers till we scaled the hill, and then they lain like flocks o 
sheep away from 'em — they do say as it's the same now— 
and Old Boney, who was their head man, as was brought up 
to see 'em drive us into the sea, says, ' Men, we're beaten.' 
And beaten they was." 
" W hy didn't you do your bit along with them?" said one 
i 
