Nollie

“ Noel's face, absorbed and passionate, outside the door of her room on the night when Cyril Morland went away—her instinct had been right!
“He wants you to go up and stay with him, Bob.”
“Why not both of us?”
“He wants Nollie to come down to me; she's not well.” ”

“ She went down at last, and found them both in the drawing-room already; Noel in a frilly evening frock, sitting by the fire with her chin on her hand, while her father was reading out the war news from the evening paper. At sight of that cool, dainty, girlish figure brooding over the fire, and of her father's worn face, the tragedy of this business thrust itself on her with redoubled force. Poor Dad! Poor Nollie! Awful! Then Noel turned, and gave a little shake of her head, and her eyes said, almost as plainly as lips could have said it: 'Silence!' Gratian nodded, and came forward to the fire. ”

“ It's so good for the baby, too, and only fair to him. I do think one must take things as they are, Dad dear. It was impossible to mend Nollie's wing. If she were a fighter, and gloried in it, or if she were the sort who would 'take the veil'—but she isn't either. So it is all right, Dad. She's writing to you herself. I'm sure Leila didn't want Jimmy Fort to be unhappy because he couldn't love her; or she would never have gone away. George sends you his love; we are both very well. And Nollie is looking splendid still, after her harvest work. All, all my love, Dad dear. ”

“ Then the habit of a hundred death-beds helped him. “Come, Nollie! This life is but a minute. We must all die.”
“But not they—not so young!” She clung to his knees, and looked up. “Daddy, I don't want you to go; promise me to come back!”
The childishness of those words brought back his balance.
“My dear sweetheart, of course! Come, Nollie, get up. The sun's been too much for you.”
Noel got up, and put her hands on her father's shoulders. “Forgive me for all my badness, and all my badness to come, especially all my badness to come!”
Pierson smiled. “I shall always forgive you, Nollie ”

“ Kate’s glance wandered from Lilla Gates, the most obvious and least interesting of the group, to Nollie Shriner (one of the “awful” Fourteenth Street Shriners) ; Nollie Shriner first, then Nollie Haverford, wife of a strait-laced Albany Haverford, and now Nollie Tresselton, though she still looked, with her brown squirrel-face and slim little [68] body, like a girl in the schoolroom. Yes, even Nollie seemed to be in a great hurry ”

“ You've been his deliverance, Nollie.”
“But Daddy loves his Church.”
George frowned. “Of course, it'll be a wrench. A man's bound to have a cosey feeling about a place where he's been boss so long; and there is something about a Church—the drone, the scent, the half darkness; there's beauty in it, it's a pleasant drug. But he's not being asked to give up the drug habit; only to stop administering drugs to others. Don't worry, Nollie; I don't believe that's ever suited him, it wants a thicker skin than he's got.” ”

“ Of course it's a bit of a make-shift—twice her age; but he's a genuine man, if not exactly brilliant.”
Gratian answered almost sullenly: “I've always wanted the very best for Nollie.”
George screwed up his steel-coloured eyes, as he might have looked at one on whom he had to operate. “Quite so,” he said. “But you must remember, Gracie, that out of the swan she was, Nollie has made herself into a lame duck. Fifty per cent at least is off her value, socially. We must look at things as they are.” ”

“ If you can get leave for a few days, my dear, I want you at home. I am troubled about Nollie. Ever since that disaster happened to her she has been getting paler; and to-day she fainted. She won't see a doctor, but perhaps you could get her to see George. If you come up, he will surely be able to run up to us for a day or two. If not, you must take her down to him at the sea. I have just seen the news of your second cousin Charlie Pierson's death; he was killed in one of the last attacks on the Somme; he was nephew of my cousin Leila whom, as you know, Noel sees every day at her hospital. ”

“ Gratian gasped. Noel would say things sometimes which made her feel the younger of the two.
“Of course he is,” went on Noel in a hard voice. “She has no men friends; her sort never have, only lovers. Why do you think he knows about me?”
“When he asked after you he looked—”
“Yes; I've seen him look like that when he's sorry for anything. I don't care. Has Monsieur Lavendie been in lately?”
“Yes; he looks awfully unhappy.”
“His wife drugs.”
“Oh, Nollie! How do you know?”
“I saw her once; I'm sure she does; there was a smell; and she's got wandering eyes that go all glassy. ”

“ In the weeks which succeeded Pierson's departure, Gratian and George often discussed Noel's conduct and position by the light of the Pragmatic theory. George held a suitably scientific view. Just as he would point out to his wife—in the physical world, creatures who diverged from the normal had to justify their divergence in competition with their environments, or else go under, so in the ethical world it was all a question of whether Nollie could make good her vagary. ”

“ That wretched boy!”
“'De mortuis.' Come, Gracie! In the midst of death we are in life! Nollie was a plumb little idiot. But it's the war—the war! Your father must get used to it; it's a rare chance for his Christianity.”
“Dad will be as sweet as anything—that's what makes it so horrible!”
George Laird redoubled his squeeze. “Quite right! The old-fashioned father could let himself go. But need he know? We can get her away from London, and later on, we must manage somehow. If he does hear, we must make him feel that Nollie was 'doing her bit.'.rdquo;
Gratian withdrew her hand. “Don't!” ”

“ The song of power that came out of the skid's jets brought a quick, slight smile to her lips. Nolan caught a glimpse of her eyes reflected back at him from the plastic panel. Appreciative eyes.
He averted his look. Would there be another time when he could meet the gaze of a decent girl and answer it?
When Woller's dead, his subconscious answered him. Until then you're not a man, Nolan. You're a weapon!
The skid was climbing, hugging the side of one of the vast foothills to Annihilation Range itself, a hundred-foot chasm on one side and the cliff on the other. ”

“ Nolan shivered, and absently turned up the heat control of his suit. He felt suddenly hopeless. One man against—what? His thoughts, unbidden, reverted to the girl he had left in Avalon, and to the sordid fear that she might be what she seemed. Nolan's cheek muscles drew tight, and his face hardened. Woller, partly protected by his heat suit, undoubtedly had lived through the instant inferno when the pyro charge went off. ”

“ And a tiny voice within his helmet said, "Don't move, Nolan. You can't get away now. You'll die if you try. Next time you play hide-and-seek with me, Nolan—don't leave your helmet radio on!"
If Woller had burned with rage before, now he was frozen. He was a blind man there before Nolan, his eyes swathed in thick white bandages. But the hulking Earthman with the pyro who stood by his side, and lean black Captain Vincennes at the controls, were eyes enough for him. ”

“ His finger was crooked on the spring, when a blow from a whip struck the bow upward and the bolt flew harmless over the Abbey orchard, while the woodman shrank abashed from Nigel Loring's angry eyes.
"Keep your bolts for your weasels!" said he. "Would you take life from a creature whose only fault is that its spirit is so high that it has met none yet who dare control it? You would slay such a horse as a king might be proud to mount, and all because a country franklin, or a monk, or a monk's varlet, has not the wit nor the hands to master him?"
The sacrist turned swiftly on the Squire. ”

“ If Nolan was thirty then, he must have been near eighty when he died. He looked sixty when he was forty. But he never seemed to me to change a hair afterwards. As I imagine his life, from what I have seen and heard of it, he must have been in every sea, and yet almost never on land. He must have known, in a formal way, more officers in our service than any man living knows. He told me once, with a grave smile, that no man in the world lived so methodical a life as he. ”

“ A madness had seized her to go and bring Nolan back or to go and take by the throat the girl that drew him away from her; or to die with him in the storm—in the soft, enfolding, quiet snow which had covered up so many tired pioneers of life.
She did not know quite why she went; but she felt that she must go. Some dark fascination of destiny was on her. The touch of the mystic in her Celtic blood stirred her, absorbed her. She was only conscious that she She was like one who has lost consciousness of life was driving, driving, and forever driving toward Pardon's Drive. ”

“ Woller could die before him now, and he would be avenged. But Woller alive could say the words that would wipe out the banishment, would return him to the green star that was home. Woller could be made to confess—
"I ought to blast you now," he said in a soft, chill tone that was like a whip to Woller, jerking him upright. "I ought to, and I will if I must. But you can live if you want to."
Woller was licking his lips, his face a mask, only his panic-stricken eyes alive.
"You can live," Nolan repeated. "A full statement about the Junta frame, in writing. ”

“ THE CONQUEST OF NOLAND.
It would be impossible to describe the amazement of the people of Nole when the Roly-Rogues came upon them.
Not only was the descent wholly unexpected, but the appearance of the invaders was queer enough to strike terror to the stoutest heart.
Their round bodies were supported by short, strong legs having broad, flattened feet to keep them steady. Their arms were short, and the fingers of their hands, while not long, were very powerful. ”

“ As the sun set she began to listen for Noll’s footfall. The last sunset glow of the eastern heavens passed into the grey twilight; the chill breath of the evening warned her that her frequent roamings to the balcony must cease; she shut the shutters and the window. But the stairs echoed to no sound of Noll’s eager return.
It came to the girl for the first time—selfless as she was—that Noll was finding the sufficient delights of life very well without her ”

“ Nigel looked at her with sparkling eyes. The soul which shone through her dark face had transformed it for the moment into a beauty more lofty and more rare than that of her shallow sister. He bowed before the majesty of the woman, and pressed his lips to her hand. "You are like a star upon my path which guides me on the upward way," said he. "Our souls are set together upon the finding of honor, and how shall we hold each other back when our purpose is the same?" ”

“ The ban which blasts a man's soul is in the keeping of his church, and what have we to place against it? I pray you to speak him fair, Nigel."
"Nay, dear lady, it is both my duty and my pleasure to do what you bid me; but I would die ere I ask as a favor that which we can claim as a right. Never can I cast my eyes from yonder window that I do not see the swelling down-lands and the rich meadows, glade and dingle, copse and wood, which have been ours since Norman-William gave them to that Loring who bore his shield at Senlac. ”

“ But the beauty of the evening—of this old earth, which takes no account of the perishing of men—and Nelly's warm life beside him, hanging upon his, perhaps already containing within it the mysterious promise of another life, had suddenly brought upon him a tremor of soul—an inward shudder. ”

“ The trail's waitin' for ye."
"Nolan Doyle," said the Young Doctor, who understood the assumed indifference—that smooth, outer mask which holds the rough, inner pain—"Nolan, you're wanted now."
"Did ye iver see a finer day!" said Nolan, not able to look the Young Doctor in the eyes, for he knew that trouble of some dark kind was come. "Norah'll be glad it's a day like this—'Happy is the birth that the sun shines on; happy are the dead that the rain rains on,'" he added; but his fingers trembled on the rein he held, as he quickly drew the colt nearer. ”

“ Would the Young Doctor never come out of that clap-board house which soaked the sun like a sponge, and yet was cooled within by the fresh breezes from the prairie? Was the Young Doctor bungling the business, was he—? A man's figure appeared in the doorway, stood for an instant, with head bent and eyes upon the ground, as though to consider something; then there was a quick step to where Nolan stood with the sweating, high-bred colt, which he had mastered. ”

“ The girl—the one from the skid, the one he'd encountered in Annihilation Range! She had no more of a look at him than he at her, and she had been sleep-dazed, staring up at the light. Perhaps she hadn't recognized him—
"Hold still," he hissed—there is no personality to a whisper. "Where's Alan Woller?"
"Who are you?" the girl's voice came, a trifle unsteady. Good—she hadn't recognized him!
Nolan laughed voicelessly. "I'm the man with the gun," he replied. "I ask the questions. Where's Woller?" ”

“ His voice was taut as he spoke. "It's your ship, Woller, but I'm taking it over. Woller—Alan Woller—look at me. Do you know who I am?"
Woller stared deep into the icy eyes confronting him. The doubt flared again in his own. His jaw dropped slack. His brows lifted and he whispered, "Nolan!"
Nolan didn't bother to nod. He said grimly, "Your hands—hold them where they are. You, too, Vincennes. I've come a long way for this and I don't mind killing. You taught me that, Woller. A man's life is nothing. ”