I frankly confess I have never cut less ice
with any woman--especially one who decidedly attracted me.
In a few minutes her father returned and said to her:
"John Howiseon has cried off to-night. I must go myself."
She started up with a word of expostulation, but he merely smiled in his
grim way, nodded at her (not at me, I noticed) and was gone. With a
little sigh she sat down again and plunged into her book, but my
curiosity had been roused and in a moment I enquired,
"Is your father going out for long?"
Her concern seemed to have broken down her reticence
"All night," she said. "I wish he wouldn't!"
"What's the matter?" I asked.
"The coast patrol," said she.
"The coast patrol!" I exclaimed. "What's that?"
She seemed to look at me for an instant a little doubtfully before
she answered,
"The Admiralty have asked all the Justices of Peace to have the coast
patrolled."
"By whom?"
"Anybody they can get. We have the whole island mapped out into beats and
the different; farmers take it night about."
For the moment I only half believed her. Such an amateur way of keeping
watch and ward in such a vital area seemed hardly credible, but I learned
afterwards that in those early days of the war that was one of the things
which actually happened. Another fact also made me doubtful.
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