The Manchester journal. [volume] (Manchester, Vt.) 1861-current, 1917-05-24
THE MAN WITHOUT A COUNTRY
CONTINUED from page u

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sec the door. And whatever else HI
ate or drank be ate or drank alone
Sometimes. when the marines or sail
ors had any special publication, they
acre permitted TO invite plain But
tons, ms they called him. They called
him plain Buttons" because, while he
always chose 10 wear a regulation
army uniform, he was not permitted
TO wear the army button, for the reas-
on that il bore either the initials or
the insignia Of the country he had dis.
owned.
| remember soon after joined the
navy. Some one 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 at the best hung
heavy, and everybody was permitted
TO lend him books if they were not
published in America and made no
allusion To IL He had almost all the
foreign papers that came into the ship
sooner or later, only somebody must
go over them first and cut out any
advertisement or stray paragraph that
alluded to America. Phillips told me
a story Of something which happened
at the Cape of Good Hope on Nolan's
first voyage, and it is the only thing
| ever knew of that voyage. Phillips
had borrowed lot of English books
from an officer, which in those days,
as indeed in these, was quite wind
fall. Among them, as the devil would
order, was the Lay Of the Last Min
strel," which they had all of them
heard of, but which most of them had
never seen. think it could not have
been published long. Well, nobody
thought there could be any risk of
anything national in that, so Nolan
was permitted to join the circle one
afternoon when a lot of them sat on
deck smoking and reading aloud.
Nolan took the book and read to the
others, and he read very well, as J
know. Nobody in the circle knew a
line of the poem, only it was all magic
and border chivalry and was 10000
years ago. Poor Nolan read steadily
through the fifth canto, stopped min
ute and drank something and then
began, without thought of what was
coming;
"Breathes there the man with soul so
dead
Who never to himself hath said,
"'This is my own, my native land 2"
Then they all saw something was to
pay, but he expected to get through, !
suppose, turned little pale, bu.
plunged on:
Whose heart hath ne'er within him
burned
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him
we'll"
By this time the men were 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 a little,
colored crimson and staggered on:
"For him no minstrel raptures swell,
High though his titles, proud his name
Boundless his wealth as wish can
claim,
Despite these titles, power and pelf,
The wretch, concentrated all in self
And here the poor fellow choked.
,ould not go on, but started up, swung
he book into the sea, vanished into
his stateroom, "and, by Jove," said
Phillips, I'VE did not see him for two
months again. And had to make up
'ome beggarly story to that English
surgeon why did not return his Wal
err Scott to him."
That story shows about the time
When Nolan's braggadocio must have
,roken down. At first they said he
ook a very high tone, considered his
mere farce, affected to
njoy the voyage, and all that, but
Phillips said that after he came out
( his stateroom he never was the
anne man again. He never read aloud
gain unless it was the Bible or
shakespeare or something else he was
ure of. He was always shy after
ard when | knew him---very seldom
poke unless he was spoken TO, except
, a very few friends. He lighted up 7
but generally he had the b
ervous, tired look Of heart wound t
4 man.
Nolan's transfer at sea TO the War e
IN was the first Of some twenty such \
-ansfers, which brought him sooner S
r later into half our best vessels, but a