"It's done you good," said Joan. "You look every inch the jolly Jack
Tar." He was hard and tanned, and his eyes were marvellously bright.
"Yes," he said, "I love the sea. It's clean and strong."
A fear was creeping over her. "Why have you come back?" she asked.
He hesitated, keeping his eyes upon the ground.
"I don't suppose you will agree with me," he said. "Somehow I felt I had
to."
A Conscientious Objector. She might have guessed it. A "Conchy," as
they would call him in the Press: all the spiteful screamers who had
never risked a scratch, themselves, denouncing him as a coward. The
local Dogberrys of the tribunals would fire off their little stock of
gibes and platitudes upon him, propound with owlish solemnity the new
Christianity, abuse him and condemn him, without listening to him.
Jeering mobs would follow him through the streets. More than once, of
late, she had encountered such crowds made up of shrieking girls and foul-
mouthed men, surging round some white-faced youngster while the
well-dressed passers-by looked on and grinned.
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