"What mean ye, my son?" demanded Un' Benny. "Tell us--you that don't
speak, as a rule, out of your turn."

"I think," answered Seth Minards slowly, "there is going to be War
for certain--a great War--and in a few days."


Three days later the postmistress, Mrs Pengelly (who kept a general
shop), put out two newspaper placards which set all the children at
the Council Schools, up the valley, playing at a game they called
"English and Germans"--an adaptation of the old "Prisoners' Base."
No one wanted to be a German: but, seeing that you cannot well
conduct warfare without an enemy, the weaker boys represented the
Teutonic cause under conscription, and afterwards joined in the
cheers when it was vanquished.

The Schools broke up on the last day of July; and the contest next
day became a naval one, among the row-boats lying inside the old
pier. This was ten times better fun; for a good half of the boys
meant to enter the Navy when they grew up. They knew what it meant,
too. The great battleships from Plymouth ran their speed-trials off
Polpier: the westward mile-mark stood on the Peak, right over the
little haven; and the smallest child has learnt to tell a Dreadnought
in the offing, or discern the difference between a first-class and a
second-class cruiser. The older boys knew most of the ships by name.

Throughout Saturday the children were--as their mother agreed--"fair
out of hand." But this may have been because the mothers themselves
were gossiping whilst their men slumbered. All Polpier women--even