Iron County record. [volume] (Cedar City, Utah) 1893-1982, 1917-06-01
PAGE THREE

Ipbtil' WHlVn WIS eWncTc Spntlnei, vi
somebody on the watch could see the
door. And whatever else he ate or
drank he ate or drank alone. Some
times, when the marines or sailors had
any special jolliiicetlon, they were per
mitted to invite "Plain.Buttons," as
they called him. Then Nolan was sent
with some officer, and the men were
forbidden to speak of home while he
was there. They called him "Plain.
Buttons" because, while he always
chose to wear IA regulation army uni
form, he was not permitted to wear
the army button, for the reason that
il bore either the initials or the In
sigma of the country he had disowned.
| remember, soon after I joined the
navy | was ON shore with some of the
older officers from our ship and from
the Brandywine, which we had met at
Alexandria. We had leave to make u
party and go up To Cairo and the Pyra-
mids. AS we logged along some Of
the gentlemen fell to talking about No
Ian, and someone told the system
which was adopted from the first about
his books and other reading AS he
was almost never permitted to go on
shore, even though the vessel lay In port
for months, his time, Mt the best,
hung heavy; and everybody was per
mitted 10 lend him books, IL they were
not published in America and made no
allusion to il. These were common
enough in the old days, when people
in the other hemisphere talked of the
United States as little as we do OF
Paraguay. lie had almost all the for
cign papers that came into the ships
sooner or later; only somebody must
go over them first, and cut out any
advertisement or stray paragraph that
alluded to America. Right in the
midst of one of Napoleon's battles, or
one of Canning's speeches, poor Nolan
would find great hole, because on the
back of the page Of that paper there
had been an advertisement of packet
for Mn York, or scrap from the
presidents message. | say this was
the first time | ever heard of this plan,
which afterwards | had enough, and
more than enough, to do with. l re-
member 1t, because poor Phillips, who
was of the party, as soon as the allu-
sion to reading was made, told story
of something which happened mt the
/ Cape of Good Hope on Nolan's first
voyage; and it is the only thing ever
/ knew of that voyage. They had
| touched at the Cape, and had done the
| civil thing with the English admiral
/ and the fleet, and then, leaving for u
| long cruise up the Indian ocean, Phil
lips had borrowed lot of English
books from an officer, which, In those
| days, as indeed in these, was quite
windfall. Among them. as the Devil
! would order, was the Lay of the Last
Minstrel" which they had all of them
heard Of, but which most of them had
never seen. l think 1t could not have
been published long. Well, nobody
thought there could be any risk OF any
thing national In that. though Phillips
swore old Shaw had cut out the
tempest" from Shakespeare before
he let Nolan have It, because he said.
THE Bermudas ought to be ours and,
by Jove, should be one day" SO No
Ian was permitted to join the circle
one afternoon when lot of them sat
on decl. smoking and reading aloud.
People do. not do such things so often
now, but when | was young we got
rid of n great deal of time so. Well,
so 1t happened that In his turn Nolan
took the book and read to the others;
and he read very well, as | know. No
body In the circle knew line sof the
poem, only It was all magic and Dor
der chvnlry and was ten thousand
years ago. Poor Nolan read steadily
through the fifth canto, stopped min
ute and drank something, and then be-
gan, without thought of what was
coming
Breathes there the man, with soul so
who never to himself hath said
1t seems impossible to us that any
body ever heard this for the first time
but all these fellows did then, and
poor Nolan himself went on, still I'M.
consciously or mechanically
This is my own. my native landl
Then they all saw something was
to pay but he expected to get through,
suppose, turned little pale, but
plunged on
Whose heart hath ne'er within him
burned,
AS home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand?-
II such there breathe. go, mark him well
BY this time the men We're all be-
side themselves, wishing there was any
way to make him turn over two pages :;
but he had not quite presence Of mind
for that; he gagged little, colored
crimson, and staggered on:
For him no minstrel rapturys swell
High though his titles, proCl his u...e,
Boundless his wealth as w.-N can cain.
Despite these titles, power ana uyf,
The wretch, CunCcnteru ga all IN stl..--
and here the poor follow chokcd could
, not go on, but started up, swung the
book into the sea, vanished into his
stateroOm, "and by Joye," said Phil
, lips, 1--WE did not see him for two
, months again. And | had to make up
IL, N A.