Hocken and Hunken / A Tale of Troy

by Arthur Quiller-Couch

CHAPTER VIII.

'BIAS APPROVES.

As they departed and went their way down the coombe, a constrained silence fell between the two friends. Nor did either break it until they came again in sight of the railway station.

"I don't altogether like the air in this valley," announced 'Bias.

"It is a trifle close, now you mention it," Cai agreed.

"Nor I don't altogether cotton to the valley, neither. Pretty enough, you may say; but it gives you a feelin'—like as if you didn't know what was goin' to happen next."

"Places do have that effect with some," Cai assented again, but more dejectedly. Horrid apprehension—if 'Bias should extend his dislike to Troy itself!

"I'm feeling better already," 'Bias continued, answering and allaying this unspoken fear. "Is that the gasworks yonder?"

"Yes. The real scenery's at the other end o' the town."

"The smell's healthy, they tell me." 'Bias halted in the roadway, and casting back his head took a long stare up at the gasometer. "You mustn' hurry me," he said, "I've got to enjoy everything."

"No hurry at all," said Cai, from whose heart the words lifted a burden at least as heavy as the musical box under his arm. "Hullo! here's Bill Tregaskis with his missus! . . . Evenin', William—good evenin', ma'am!" Captain Cai pulled off his hat. "I hope you find your husband none the worse for the voyage?—though, to be sure, 'tisn' fair on him nor on any seamen, the way some folks reproaches us when we get back home."

Mrs Tregaskis dropped a curtsey. "But be sure, sir—what reproaches?"

"Your looks, ma'am—your looks, if I may say so! . . . William married you soon as he could, I'll wager; but, to be fair, that should ha' been ten years afore you married him."

"La, sir!" answered Mrs Tregaskis blushing. "I wonder you never married, yourself—you talk such nonsense! But you're in spirits to-day, as any one can see." She glanced at the broad back of Captain Tobias, who stood a few paces away, with legs planted wide and gaze still wrapped in contemplation of the gasometer. "Makin' so bold, sir, is that your friend we've heard tell so much about?"

"It is, ma'am," Captain Cai turned about to call up 'Bias to be introduced, when Mr Tregaskis gently checked him, laying a hand on the musical box.

"I didn' think it worth mentionin' at the time, sir; but these instruments aren't intended for carryin' about."

"No, no," Captain Cai agreed hastily. "Here, 'Bias! Look around an' see who's the first to welcome ye! Tregaskis, of all men! And this here's his missus."

"How d'e do, Mr Tregaskis," said Captain Tobias, shaking hands. He knew the mate of the Hannah Hoo, and respected him for a capable seaman. "I hope I see you well, ma'am?"

"Nicely, sir, thank you!" Mrs Tregaskis curtseyed and beamed.

But Captain Tobias, though with her, too, he shook hands politely
enough, was plainly preoccupied. "'Tis a wonderful invention," said he.
"You just let the gas run in, an' then it is ready for use at any time.
I hadn't a notion you was so up-to-date here."

Mr Tregaskis looked puzzled. "It don't work by gas. You wind it up with a cog arrangement, which acts on a spring coil, I'm told—just like the inside of a watch. But we can see by liftin' up the lid."

"Eh?" Captain Tobias glanced back over his shoulder.

"But as I was tellin' the boss, 'twas never intended for a country walk. You sets it down at home and calls for a tune—as it might be drinks," continued Mr Tregaskis lucidly.

Captain Cai touched his friend's elbow. "You're talkin' o' different things, you two," he explained in a nervous haste, anxious to get off delicate ground. "Tregaskis was alludin' to—er—this here; which" he concluded, "nobody could have been more taken aback than I was this mornin' . . . when it happened."

"You don't say that's the musical box!" cried Mrs Tregaskis. "Now, don't you agree, sir"—she appealed to Captain Tobias—"with what I said to William at dinner-time, when he told me about the presentation and the speeches? [Here Captain Cai shot a look at his mate, who flushed but kept his eyes averted, pretending carelessness.] I said that for a lot of ignorant seamen 'twas quite a happy thought, an' nobody could say as Captain Hocken didn' deserve it; but, the thing bein' bought in such a hurry—an' knowin' William as I do—ten to one he'd been taken in an' the thing wouldn't work when it came to be tried."

"I told you," put in her spouse, "as the salesman had shown us how to work it, an' it played the most life-like tunes, 'Home Sweet Home' inclooded."

"The salesman!" said Mrs Tregaskis scornfully. "A long way you'll go in the world if you trust a salesman! Why, there was a young man once in Harris's Drapery showed me a bonnet—with humming-birds—perfectly outrageous; I wouldn' ha' been seen in it; and inside o' five minutes he had me there with the tears in my eyes to think I couldn' afford it."

"It works all right indeed, ma'am," Captain Cai assured her.

"Ah, maybe you're cleverer with machinery than William? I don't know how you find him at sea, but I can't trust him to wind the clock."

"I didn' set it goin' myself, ma'am; not personally."

"Well," sighed Mrs Tregaskis, "I wish William had consulted me, anyway, before buying the thing in such a hurry. It's shop-soiled, he has to admit; which I only hope you'll overlook."

"I've told you, my dear," put in Mr Tregaskis patiently, "that the mark was done by a Challenge Cup. The fellow was quite honest about it."

"A more thoughtful man," the lady insisted, "would have consulted his wife—would have brought the thing home, maybe, for a trial, to have her opinion on it. The others wouldn't have raised any objection, I'm sure. And," she concluded with another sigh, "he knows that I fairly dote on music!"

"If that's so, ma'am," began Captain Cai, and hesitated, overtaken by sudden caution, "I might let you have the loan of it, some time."

"You got out o' that very well," said Tobias, as they moved on. "I like this place—" He paused, to scan a bill hoarding. "I likes it the more the further I gets. But the women hereabouts seem more than usual forward. Which an unprejoodiced man might call it a drawback."

"I'm sorry, 'Bias, she would keep talkin' about the darned box. . . . I couldn' prevent the lads, d'ye see—not knowin' they'd any such thing in their minds."

"She as good as invited herself to call an' listen to it," Tobias pursued stolidly. "You headed her off very well. 'Tis possible, o' course, we may get tired o' the tunes in time; an' then she may be welcome to it for a spell. We'll see. Plenty o' time for that when we've done listenin' to it together."

Captain Cai halted and gazed at his friend with an emotion too deep for words. But Tobias did not see: he was staring up at a wire which crossed the street overhead.

"Telephone! What next? . . . You never told me, neither—or not to my recollection—as you went in for speech-makin'."

"But I don't. I—er—the fact is, I had thoughts of takin' a lesson or two. Private lessons, you understand."

"You don't need to, so far as I can see. What was it I heard you tellin' that widow-woman?—'You was made the recipient—of sentiments— which emanated'—that's the way to talk to 'em in public life. I can reckernise the lingo, though I couldn' manage it for worlds, an' don't know as I want to try."

"Troy is my native town, you see," explained Cai, drinking encouragement.

"An' a rattlin' fine one, too!" Tobias halted in front of a wall letter-box. "Look at that, now! 'Hours of Collection' so-an'-so. It do make a difference—fancy a thing o' that sort at sea! . . . D'ye know, although you never expressed yourself that way, I'd always a thought at the back o' my head that you'd end by takin' up with public life in one form or another."

"It has been hinted to me," confessed Cai, colouring. "As one might say, it has been—er—"

"Emanated," his friend suggested.

"It has been emanated, then—that there was a thing or two wanted puttin' to rights."

"We'll make notes as we go along."

"But I don't want you to start by lookin' out our little weaknesses!" cried Cai, suddenly fearful for his beloved town.

Nevertheless he was in the seventh heaven, divining that his friend (so chary of speech as a rule) had been trying to make amends, to sweep away the little cloud that for a moment—no more—had crossed their perfect understanding. 'Bias was here, determined to like Troy: and 'Bias was succeeding. What else mattered?

"Tidy little trade here," commented 'Bias, as they reached the Passage Slip and conned the business reach of the river, the vessels alongside the jetties, the cranes at work, the shipping moored off at the buoys— vessels of all nations, but mostly Danes and Russians, awaiting their turn.

"Twenty thousand tons a-month, my boy! See that two-funnelled craft 'longside the second jetty? Six thousand—not a fraction under. We're things o' the past, you an' me, an' 'twas high time we hauled out o' the competition."

"China clay?"

"All of it."

"I don't know much about china clay," said 'Bias reflectively. "But I never met twenty thousand tons of anything where it wasn' time for somebody to protect the public."

"There's a Harbour Commission here, o' course—bye-laws an' all that sort o' thing."

"Ay; there's one openin' for ye. We'll find others."

They resumed their way. The street—Troy has but one street, but makes up for this by calling various lengths of it by various names—was in places so narrow that to avoid passing vehicles they were forced to take refuge in handy doorways. In three out of four the door stood open, and Captain Cai, popping his head in at kitchen or small parlour, would beg pardon for intruding, pass the time of day with the mistress of the house, inquire for her husband's health—"Do I remember him, I wonder?" —and how many children there were, and what might be their ages? He always wound up by introducing his friend. Nobody resented these salutations, these questions. Indeed how was it possible to be morose with Captain Cai?—he bubbled such transparent gaiety, kindliness, innocence.

"'Tis our way in Troy, you see," he told 'Bias as they dived into a cobbler's shop to escape the omnibus. "You have to be neighbourly if you don't want to be run over. . . . In London, now, you'd waste a lot o' time explainin' that you didn' want your boots mended."

"It's like what I've heard about canvassin' for Parlyment," said 'Bias.
"And that's another suggestion fur ye."

Of the most important shops in the length of thoroughfare known as Fore Street and in Church Square (which is the same street with a corkscrew twist in it) 'Bias showed much appreciation. He was especially allured by the rainbow-tinted goods in Mr Shake Benny's window, and by the cards recommending them for sale. If you admire Lord Rosebery, Now is Your Time—He studied this for some moments.

"Time for what?" he asked, rubbing his ear softly.

"Drinks," suggested Cai, and laughed in pure pleasure of heart. "Come along, man—or you'll be makin' me Prime Minister before we get to the Ship. . . Yes, yon's the church—Established. You can tell by the four spikes an' the weathercock; like-wise by the tombstones. But they bury folks up the hill nowadays." He paused—"That reminds me"—he paused again.

"What of?"

"Oh—er—nothing; nothing particular. . . . Well, if you must know, I was thinkin' about that old hat o' mine."

"You don't tell me you've buried it?"

"No."

"It is time for drinks," said 'Bias with decision. They called at the Ship Inn, where they ascertained that Captain Hunken's chest and parrot-cage had been duly delivered.

"Very decent beer," pronounced 'Bias as they shared a quart.

"When a man has a job to tackle—" began Cai, and glanced at his friend. "You're sure we hadn' better wait till you've had a meal?—till to-morrow mornin' if you like."

'Bias drained his tankard and arose—a giant visibly refreshed.
"I'm a-goin' to see the house, instanter."

"Things," said Cai, "strike different parties from different points o' view. That's notorious. One man's born an' bred in a place, and another isn't. . . . Now if the latter—as we'll call him for argyment's sake—"

But 'Bias, cutting short this parley, had gained the door and was marching forth.

To be sure (and Captain Cai might with better command on his nerves have hailed the omen) Nature could hardly have dressed shore and harbour of Troy in weather more auspicious. The smoke of chimneys arose straight on the "cessile air," making a soft dun-coloured haze through which the light of the declining day was filtered in streams of yellow—pale lemon-yellow, golden-yellow, orange, orange-tawny. On the far shore of the harbour, windows blazed as if cottage after cottage held the core of a furnace intense and steady. The green hillside above them lay bathed in this aureate flush, which permeated too the whole of the southern sky, up to its faint blue zenith.

"Pretty weather," grunted 'Bias, "I see the glass is steady too; leastways if you can trust the one they keep in the Inn parlour."

Cai did not respond: the crucial moment was drawing too near.

"Pretty li'l view, too. . . . A man with a box o' paints, now, might be tempted to have a slap at it."

Well-meant but artless simulation! Captain Hunken had once in his life purchased a picture; it represented Vesuvius by night, in eruption, and he had yielded to the importunity of the Neapolitan artist—or, rather, had excused himself for yielding—on the ground that after all you couldn't mistake the dam thing for anything else.

They came abreast of Harbour Terrace. They were passing by the green front door of Number Two. Still Captain Cai made no sign.

"There's a house, f'r instance—supposin' a man could afford the rental—" 'Bias halted and regarded it. "Hullo, 'tis unoccupied!" He turned about slowly. "You don't—mean—to tell me—as that's of it?"

"That's of it," Cai admitted tremulously. After a long pause,
'"Bias," he stammered, "break it gently."

"I'm tryin' to," said 'Bias, breathing and backing to the railings for a better view. He removed his hat and wiped the top of his head several times around. Then of a sudden—

"Hooray!" he exploded.

"'Bias!" Cai stared, as well he might, for his friend's face was totally impassive.

"Hoo—" began 'Bias again. "Who the devil's this?" he demanded, as the door opened and Tabb's child appeared in the entry.

"I been expectin' you this hour an' more," announced Tabb's child.
"Stoppin' for drinks on the road, I reckon?"

"We did take a drink, now you mention it," stammered Captain Cai, caught aback: "though, as it happens that don't account for our bein' late. But what brings you, here, missy?"

She laid a finger on her lip. "Sh! I've got 'em."

"Got what?"

"Servants for 'ee. They're inside." She pointed back in to the passage mysteriously.

"Who's this child?" demanded Captain 'Bias.

"She's—er—a young friend o' mine—" began Captain Cai. But Fancy interrupted him, dropping a slight curtsey, and addressing his friend straight.

"My name's Fancy Tabb, sir. Which I hope you'll like Troy, and Cap'n Hocken ast me to make myself useful an' find you a pair of servants— woman an' boy."

"Oh, but hold hard!" protested Captain Cai. "We haven't started furnishin' yet."

She nodded. "That's all right. No hurry with either of 'em—not for some weeks, or so long as it suits you. But you'll be safer to bespeak 'em: an' Mrs Bowldler is the chance of a lifetime."

She led the way through to the unfurnished and somewhat dingy kitchen. It had a low window-seat, from the extreme ends of which, as the two skippers entered, two figures—a middle-aged woman and a gawky lad— arose and saluted them; the one with a highly genteel curtsey, the other with an awkward half-pull at his forelock, and much scraping with his feet.

"This is Mrs Bowldler," Fancy nodded towards the middle-aged woman.

"Your servant, sirs," Mrs Bowldler curtseyed again and coughed. "With a
W if you don't object."

"She's quite a good plain cook; and well connected, though reduced in circumstances. Mr Rogers, sir, is often glad to employ her at a pinch."

"At a what?" asked Captain Tobias, breathing hard.

"Which," said Mrs Bowldler with a trembling cough, "the bare thought of taking service again with two strange gentlemen in my state of health is a nordeal, and as such I put it to you." Here she smoothed the front of her gown and turned upon Tobias with unexpected spirit. "You can say to me what you like, sir, and you can do to me what you like, but if you'd been laying awake all night with geese walking over your grave, I'd put myself in your place and say, 'Well, if he don't spit blood 'tis a mercy!'"

"Plain cookin', did you say?" asked Captain Tobias, turning stonily upon the girl.

"And knick-knacks. You mustn't mind her talk, sir; she was brought up to better things and 'tis only her tricks. . . . Now the boy here—his name's Pam, which is short for Palmerston: and I can't conscientiously say more for him, except that he's willin' and tells me he can carry coals."

She might not be able to say more for him, and yet her voice had a wistfulness it had lacked while she commended Mrs Bowldler. Certainly the lad's looks did not take the casual glance. He was coltish and angular, with timid, hare-like eyes. He wore curduroy trousers (very short in the leg), a coat which had patently been made for a grown man, and in place of waistcoat a crimson guernsey which as patently was a piece of feminine apparel. The sleeves of his coat were folded back above his wrists, and in his hand he dangled, by a string of elastic, a girl's sailor hat.

"Healthy?" asked Captain Tobias.

As if at a military command, the boy put out his tongue.

"La!" exclaimed Mrs Bowldler, "look at that for manners!"

"Where does he come from?"

The boy glanced at Fancy in a helpless way. Fancy was prompt. "'Twould save time—wouldn't it?—now that you've seen Mrs Bowldler, if she went round an' had a look at the house?"

"Which I trust," said Mrs Bowldler, "it would not be required of me to sleep in a nattic. It's not that I'm peculiar, but as I said to my sister Martha at breakfast only this morning, 'Attics I was never accustomed to, and if 'tis to be attics at my age, with the roof on your head all the time and not a wink in consequence, Martha,' I said, 'you wouldn't ask it of me, no, not to oblige all the retired gentlemen in Christendom.'"

"You'd better trot along upstairs, then, an' make sure," said Fancy. As soon as the woman was gone she jerked a nod towards the door. "Now we can talk. I didn't want her to know, but Pam comes from the work'ouse. His father was mate of a vessel and drowned at sea, and his mother couldn't manage alone."

"What vessel?" asked Captain Cai. Both skippers were regarding the boy with interest.

"The Tartar Girl—one of Mr Rogers's—with coal from South Shields, but a Troy crew. It happened five years ago; an' last night when you said you wanted a boy it came into my head that one of the Burts would be just about the age. [Pam's other name is Burt, but I didn't tell it just now, not wanting Mrs Bowldler to guess who he was.] So this morning I got Mr Rogers to let me telephone to Tregarrick Work'ouse—an' here he is."

"Do they dress 'em like that in there?" asked

Captain Cai.

"Better fit they did!" said the girl angrily. "They sent him over in a clean corduroy suit with 'Work-'ouse' written all over it: and a nice job I had to rig him up so's Mrs Bowldler shouldn' guess."

At this moment a piercing scream interrupted Fancy's explanation. It came from one of the front rooms, and was followed by another shorter scream—the voice unmistakably Mrs Bowldler's.

Running to the lady's rescue, they found her in the empty parlour— alone, clutching at the mantelshelf with both hands, and preparing to emit another cry for succour.

"What in the world's happened?" demanded Fancy the first to arrive.

"There was a man!" Mrs Bowldler ran her eyes over her protectors and turned them, with a slow shudder, towards the window. "I seen him distinctly. It sent my blood all of a cream."

"A man? What was he doing?" they asked.

"He was a-looking in boldly through the window . . ." Mrs Bowldler covered her face with her hands.

"Well?" Fancy prompted her impatiently, while Captain Cai stepped out to the front door in quest of the apparition.

"He had on a great black hat. I thought 'twas Death itself come after me!"

While Mrs Bowldler paused to take breath and record her further emotions, Captain Cai, reaching the front door, threw it open, looked out into the roadway, and recoiled with a start. Close on his right a man in black stood peering, as Mrs Bowldler had described, but now into the drawing-room window; shielding, for a better view, the brim of a tall hat which Captain Cai recognised with an exclamation—

"Mr Philp!"

Mr Philp withdrew his gaze, turned about and nodded without embarrassment.

"Good evenin', Cap'n. Friend arrived?"

"Funny way to behave, isn't it?" asked Captain Cai with sternness.
"Pokin' an' pryin' in at somebody else's windows—what makes ye do it?"

"I was curious to know what might be goin' on inside."

There was a finality about this which held Captain Cai gravelled for a moment. It hardly seemed to admit of a reply. At length he said—

"Well, you've frightened a woman into hysterics by it, if that's any consolation."

"There, now! Mrs Bosenna?"

"No, it was not Mrs Bosenna. . . . By the way, that reminds me.
I've changed my mind over that hat."

"Hey?"

"I find I've a use for it, after all."

But at this moment 'Bias appeared in the doorway behind him.

"Seen anything?" demanded 'Bias.

"Interduce me," said Mr Philp with majestic calm.

Captain Cai, caught in this act of secret traffic, blushed in his confusion, but obeyed.

"'Bias," said he, "this is the gentleman that caused the mischief inside. His name's Philp, and he'd like to make your acquaintance."

BOOK II.

CHAPTER IX.

FIRST SUSPICIONS.

It was August, and the weather for weeks had been superb. It was also the week of Troy's annual regatta, and a whole fleet of yachts lay anchored in the little harbour, getting ready their riding lights. Two or three belated ones—like large white moths in the grey offing— had yet to make the rendezvous, and were creeping towards it with all canvas piled: for the wind—light and variable all day—had now at sunset dropped almost to a flat calm.

"A few pounds to be picked up out yonder," commented Captain Cai, "if the tugs had any enterprise."

Captain 'Bias reached out a hand for the telescope. "That yawl—the big fellow—'d do better to take in her jib-tops'le. The faster it's pullin' her through the water the more it's pullin' her to leeward. She'd set two p'ints nigher with it down."

"The fella can't make up his mind about it, either: keeps it shakin' half the time."

The two friends sat in 'Bias's summerhouse, the scent of their tobacco mingling, while they discoursed, with the fragrance of late roses, nicotianas, lemon verbenas. "Discoursed," did I say? Well, let the word pass: for their talk was discursive enough. But when at intervals one or the other opened his mouth, his utterance, though it took the form of a comment upon men and affairs, was in truth but the breathing of a deep inward content. On the table between them Captain Cai's musical box tinkled the waltz from "Faust."

They had become house-occupiers early in May, and at first with a few bare sticks of furniture a-piece. But by dint of steady attendance at the midsummer auctions they had since done wonders. Captain Cai had acquired, among other things, a refrigerator, a linen-press, and a set of 'The Encyclopaedia Britannica' (edition of 1881); Captain 'Bias a poultry run (in sections) and a framed engraving of "The Waterloo Banquet,"—of which, strange to say, he found himself possessor directly through his indifference to art; for, oppressed by the heat of the saleroom, he had yielded to brief slumber (on his legs) while the pictures were being disposed of, and awaking at the sound of his own name was aware that he had secured this bargain by an untimely and unpremeditated nod.

Such small accidents, however, are a part of the fun of house-furnishing. On the whole our two friends had bought judiciously, and now looking around them, could say that their experiment had hitherto prospered; that, so far, the world was kind.

Especially were they fortunate (thanks to Fancy Tabb) precisely where bachelor householders are apt to miss good fortune—in the matter of domestic service. The boy Palmerston, to be sure, suffered from a trick—acquired (Fancy assured them) under workhouse treatment and eradicable by time and gentle handling—of bursting into tears upon small provocation or none. But Mrs Bowldler was a treasure. Of this there could be no manner of doubt; and in nothing so patently as in relation with the boy Palmerston did the gold in Mrs Bowldler's nature— the refined gold—reveal itself.

It was suspected that she had once been a kitchen-maid in the West End of London: but a discreet veil hung over this past, and she never lifted it save by whatever of confession might be read into the words, "When we were in residence in Eaton Square,"—with which she preluded all reminiscences (and they were frequent) of the great metropolis. Her true test as a good woman she passed when—although she must have known the truth, being a confirmed innocent gossip—she chose to extend the same veil, or a corner of it, over the antecedents of Palmerston. She said—

"The past is often enveloped. In the best families it is notoriously so. We know what we are, an' may speckilate on what we was; but what we're to be, who can possibly tell? It might give us the creeps."

She said again: "Every man carries a button in his knapsack, by which he may rise sooner or later to higher things. It was said by a Frenchman, and a politer nation you would not find."

Again: "Blood will tell, always supposin' you 'ave it, and will excuse the expression."

Thus did Mrs Bowldler "turn her necessity to glorious gain," colouring and enlarging her sphere of service under the prismatic lens of romance. In her conversation either cottage became a "residence," and its small garden "the grounds," thus:—

"Palmerston, inform Captain Hunken that dinner is served. You will find him in the grounds."

Or, "Where's that boy?" Captain Cai might ask.

"Palmerston, sir? He is at present in the adjacent, cleaning the knives and forks."

She had indeed set this high standard of expression in the very act of taking service; when, being asked what wages she demanded, she answered, "If acceptable to you, sir, I would intimate eighteen guineas—and my viands."

"That's two shilling short o' nineteen pound," said Captain Hunken.

"I thank you, sir"—Mrs Bowldler made obeisance—"but I have an attachment to guineas."

She identified herself with her employers by speaking of them in the first person plural: "No, we do not dress for dinner. Our rule is to dine in the middle of the day, as more agreeable to health." [A sigh.] "Sometimes I wish we could persuade ourselves that vegetables look better on the side-table."

Such was Mrs Bowldler: and her housekeeping, no less vigilant than romantic, protected our two friends from a thousand small domestic cares.

"Committee-meeting, to-night?" asked 'Bias.

"Eight o'clock: to settle up details—mark-boats, handicap, and the like. . . . It's a wonder to me," said Cai reflectively, "how this regatta has run on, year after year. With Bussa for secretary, if you can understand such madness."

"They'll be runnin' you for the next Parish Council, sure as fate."

Cai ignored this. "There's the fireworks, too. Nobody chosen yet to superintend 'em, an' who's to do it I don't know, unless I take over that little job in addition."

"I thought the firm always sent a couple o' hands to fix an let 'em off."

"So it does. They arrived a couple of hours ago—both drunk as Chloe."

"Plenty o' time to sleep it off between this an' then," opined 'Bias comfortably.

"But they're still on the drink. Likely as not we shall find 'em to-morrow in Highway lock-up, which is four miles from here. . . . It happened once before," said Cai with a face of gloom, "and Bussa did the whole display by himself."

"Good Lord! How did it go off?"

"He can't remember, except that it did go off. He was drunk, too— drunk o' purpose: for, as he says very reas'nably, 'twas the only way he could find the courage. The fellow isn' without public spirit, if he'd only apply it the right way. Toy tells me that he, for his part, saw it from his bedroom window—the Town Quay wasn't safe, wi' the rocket-sticks fairly rainin'—an' the show wasn' a bad show, if you looked at it horizontal; but the gentry on the yachts derived next to no enjoyment from it, bein' occupied in gettin' up their anchors."

Before 'Bias could comment on this, a footstep—light, yet audible between the tinkling notes of the musical box—drew the gaze of the pair to a small window on the right, outside of which lay the gravelled approach to their bower.

"May I come in?" asked a voice—a woman's—with a pretty hesitation in its note: and Mrs Bosenna stood in the doorway.

"Please keep your seats," she entreated as both arose awkwardly. She added with a mirthful little laugh, "I heard the musical box playing away, and so I took French leave. Now, don't tell me that I'm an intruder! It is only for a few minutes; and—strictly speaking, you know—the lease says I may enter at any reasonable time. Is this a reasonable time?"

They assured her, but still awkwardly, that she was welcome at any time.
Captain Cai found her a chair.

"So this," she said, looking around, "is where you sit together and talk disparagingly of our sex. At least, that's what Dinah assures me, though I don't see how she can possibly know."

"Ma'am!" said Cai, "we were talkin', this very moment, o' fireworks: nothing more an' nothing less."

"Well, and you couldn't have been talking of anything more to the point," said Mrs Bosenna; "for, as it happens, it's fireworks that brought me here."

'Bias looked vaguely skyward, while "You don't tell me, ma'am, those fellows are making trouble down in the town?" cried Cai.

"Eh? I don't understand. . . . Oh, no," she laughed when he explained his alarm, "I am afraid my errand is much more selfish. You see, I positively dote on fireworks."

She paused.

"Well," said 'Bias, "that's womanlike."

"Hallo!" said Cai. "How do you know what's womanlike?"

"I am afraid it is womanlike," confessed Mrs Bosenna hastily. "And from Rilla Farm you get no view at all on Regatta night. So I was wondering—if you won't think it dreadfully forward of me—"

"You're welcome to watch 'em from here, ma'am, if that's what you mean," said 'Bias.

"Or from my garden, ma'am, if you prefer it," said Cai.

"Why should she?" asked 'Bias.

"Well, 'tis a yard or two nearer, for one thing."

"Anything else?"

"Yes: the other summer-house fronts a bit more up the harbour; t'wards the fireworks, that's to say."

"You ought to know: you chose it. . . . But anyway I asked her first."

"Thank you—thank you both!" interposed Mrs Bosenna, leaving the question open. "And may I bring Dinah too? She's almost as silly about fireworks as I am, poor woman! and life on a farm can be dull." She sighed, and added, "Besides, 'twould be more proper. We mustn't set people talking—eh, Captain Hocken?" She appealed to him with a laugh.

"Cai won't be here," announced 'Bias heavily.

"Who said so?" demanded Cai.

"'Said so yourself, not twenty minutes ago. . . . 'Said you didn' know how the fireworks was ever goin' off without you, or words to that effect. I didn' make no comment at the time. All I say now is, if Mrs Bosenna comes here to see fireworks, she'll expect 'em to go off: an' I leave it at that."

"They'll go off, all right," said Cai cheerfully, putting a curb on his temper. [But what ailed 'Bias to-night?] "I'll get a small Sub-committee appointed this very evening. But about takin' a hand myself, I've changed my mind."

"Indeed, Captain Hocken, I hope you'll not desert the party," said Mrs Bosenna prettily, and laughed again. "Do you know that, having made so bold I've a mind to make bolder yet, and pretend I am entertaining you to-morrow. It's the only chance you give me, you two."

She said this with her eyes on 'Bias, who started as if stung and glanced first at her, then at Cai. But Cai observed nothing, being occupied at the moment in winding up the musical box, which had run down.

Mrs Bosenna smiled a demure smile. She had discovered what she had come to learn; and having discovered it, she presently took her leave, with a promise to be punctual on the morrow.

When she was gone the pair sat for some time in silence. Tink, tink-tink-a-tink, tink, went the musical box on the table. . . . At length Cai stood up.

"Time to be gettin' along to Committee," he said, and stepped to the doorway; but there he turned and faced about. "'Bias—"

"Eh?"

"You don't really think as I chose th' other summer-house because it had a better view?"

"Has it a better view?" asked 'Bias.

"For fireworks, it seems," said Cai sadly. "But I reckoned—though I hate to talk about it—as this one looked straighter out to sea an' by consequence 'd please ye better. That's why. . . . You're welcome to change gardens to-morrow."

"Mrs Bosenna's comin' to-morrow," grunted 'Bias, and then, after a second's pause, swore under his breath, yet audibly.

"What's the matter with ye, 'Bias?"

"I don't know. . . . Maybe 'tis that box o' tunes gets on my temper. No, don't take it away. I didn' mean it like that, an' the music used to be pretty enough, first-along."

"We'll give it a spell," said Cai, stooping and switching off the tune. "I'm not musical myself; I'd as lief hear thunder, most days. But the thing was well meant."

"Ay, an' no doubt we'll pick up a taste for it again—indoors of an evenin', when the winter comes 'round."

"Tell ye what," suggested Cai. "To-morrow, I'll take it off to John
Peter and ask him to put a brass plate on the lid, with an inscription.
He's clever at such things, an' terrible dilatory. . . . An' to-night
Mrs Bowldler can have it in the kitchen. She dotes on it—'I dreamt
that I dwelt' in particular."

"Which," said Mrs Bowldler to Palmerston later on, as they sat drinking in that ditty, one on either side of the kitchen table, "it can't sing, but the words is that I dreamt I dwelt in Marble Halls with Princes and Peers by my si-i-ide—just like that. Princes!" She leaned back in the cheap chair and closed her eyes. "It goes through me to this day. I used to sing it frequent in my 'teens, along with another popular favourite which was quite at the other end of the social scale, but artless—'My Mother said that I never should Play with the gypsies in the wood. If I did, She would say, Tum tiddle, tum tiddle, tum-ti-tay' —my memory is not what it was." Mrs Bowldler wiped her eyes.

"And did you?" asked Palmerston. "Tell me what happened."

Next morning, while the Church bells were ringing in Regatta Day,
Captain Cai tucked the musical box under his arm and called, on his way
to the Committee Ship, upon Mr John Peter Nanjulian (commonly "John
Peter" for short).

John Peter, an elderly man, dwelt with a yet more elderly sister, in an old roomy house set eminently on the cliff-side above the roofs of the Lower Town, approachable only by a pathway broken by flights of steps, and known by the singular name of On the Wall.

The house had been a family mansion, and still preserved traces of ancient dignity, albeit jostled by cottages which had climbed the slope and encroached nearer and nearer as the Nanjulians under stress of poverty had parted with parcel after parcel of their terraced garden. Of the last generation—five sons and three daughters, not one of whom had married—John Peter and his sister "Miss Susan" were now the only survivors, and lived, each on a small annuity, under the old roof, meeting only at dinner on Sundays, and for the rest of the week dwelling apart in their separate halves of the roomy building, up and down the wide staircase of which they had once raced as children at hide-and-seek with six playmates.

John Peter was eccentric, as all these later Nanjulians had been: a lean, stooping man, with a touch of breeding in his face, a weak mouth, and a chin dotted with tufts of gray hair which looked as if they had been affixed with gum and absent-mindedly. He was reputed to be a great reader, and could quote the poetical works of Pope by the yard. He had some skill with the pencil and the water-colour brush. He understood and could teach the theory of navigation; dabbled in chess problems; and had once constructed an astronomical timepiece. His not-too-clean hands were habitually stained with acids: for he practised etching, too, although his plates invariably went wrong. He had considerable skill in engraving upon brass and copper, and was not above eking out his income by inscribing coffin-plates. But the undertaker was shy of employing him because he could never be hurried.

John Peter received Captain Cai in his workshop—a room ample enough for a studio and lit by a large window that faced north, but darkened by cobwebs, dirty, and incredibly littered with odds and ends of futile apparatus. He put a watchmaker's glass to his eye and peered long into the bowels of the musical box.

"The works are clogged with dust," he announced. "Fairly caked with oil and dirt. No wonder it won't go."

"But it does go," objected Captain Cai.

"You don't tell me! . . . Well, you'd best let me take out the works, any way, and give them a bath of paraffin."

"Is it so serious as all that? . . . What I came about now, was to ask you to make a brass plate for the lid—with an inscription." Captain Cai pulled out a scrap of paper. "Something like this, 'Presented to Caius Hocken, Master of the Hannah Hoo, on the Occasion of his Retirement. By his affectionate undersigned': then the names, with maybe a motto or a verse o' poetry if space permits."

"What sort of poetry?"

"Eh? . . . 'Tell ye the truth, I didn' know till this moment that there were different sorts. Well, we'll have the best."

"Why not go to Benny, and get him to fix you up something appropriate?" suggested John Peter. "Old Benny, I mean, that writes the letters for seamen. He's a dab at verses. People go to him regular for the In-Memoriams they put in the newspaper."

"That's an idea, too," said Captain Cai. "I'll consult him to-morrow.
But that won't hinder your getting ahead wi' the plate?" he added; for
John Peter's ways were notorious.

"How would you like it?" John Peter looked purblindly about him, rubbing his spectacles with a thread-bare coat-tail.

"Well, I don't mind," said Cai with promptitude—"Though 'tis rather early in the morning."

"Old English?"

"Perhaps I don't know it by that name."

"Or there's Plain."

"Not for me, thank ye."

"—Or again, there's Italic; to my mind the best of all. It lends itself to little twiddles and flourishes, according to your taste." Old John Peter led him to the wall and pointed with a dirty finger; and Cai gasped, finding his attention directed to a line of engraved coffin-plates.

"That's Italic," said John Peter, selecting an inscription and tracing over the flourishes with his thumb-nail. "'William Penwarne, b. 1837—' that's the year the Queen came to the throne. It's easier to read, you see, than old English, and far easier than what we call Gothic, or Ecclesiastical—which is another variety—though, of course, not so easy as Plain. Here you have Plain—" He indicated an inscription—'Samuel Bosenna, of Rilla, b. 1830, d. 1895."

"Would that be th' old fellow up the valley, as was?—Mrs Bosenna's husband?" asked Cai, somewhat awed.

"That's the man."

"But what's it doing here?"

"'Tis my unfortunate propensity," confessed John Peter with simple frankness. "You see, by the nature of things these plates must be engraved in a hurry—I quite see it from the undertaker's point of view. But, on the other hand, if you're an artist, it isn't always you feel in the mood; you wait for what they call inspiration, and then the undertaker gets annoyed and throws the thing back on your hands." With a pathetic, patient smile John Peter rubbed his spectacles again, and again adjusted them. "Perhaps you'd like Plain, after all?" he suggested. "It usually doesn't take me so long."

"No," decided Cai somewhat hurriedly; "it might remind—I mean, there isn't the same kind of hurry with a musical box."

"It would be much the better for a bath of paraffin," muttered John
Peter, prying into the works. But Cai continued to stare at the plate
on the wall, and was staring at it when a voice at the door called
"Good mornin'!" and Mr Philp entered.

"Ho!" said Mr Philp, "I didn' know as you two were acquainted.
And what might you be doin' here, cap'n?"

"A triflin' matter of business, that's all," answered Cai, who chafed under Mr Philp's inquisitiveness; but chafed, like everybody else, in vain.

"Orderin' your breastplate? . . . It's well to be in good time when you're dealin' with John Peter," said Mr Philp with dreadful jocularity. "As I came along the head o' the town," he explained, "I heard that Snell's wife had passed away in the night. A happy release. I dropped in to see if they'd given you the job."

John Peter shook his head.

"And I don't suppose you'll get it, neither," said Mr Philp; "but I wanted to make sure. Push,—that's what you want. That's the only thing nowadays. Push. . . . You're lookin' at John Peter's misfits, I see," he went on, turning to Cai. "Now, there's a man whose place, as you might say, won't go unfilled much longer—hey?" Mr Philp pointed his walking-stick at the name of the late owner of Rilla, and achieved a sort of watery wink.

"I daresay you mean something by that, Mr Philp," said Cai, staring at him, half angry and completely puzzled. "But be dashed if I know what you do mean."

"There now! And I reck'ned as you an' Cap'n Hunken had ne'er a secret you didn't share!"

'"Bias?" asked Cai slowly. "Who was talkin' of 'Bias?"

"It takes 'em that way sometimes," said Mr Philp, wiping a rheumy eye. "An' the longer they puts it off the more you can't never tell which way it will take 'em. O' course, if Cap'n Hunken didn't tell you he'd been visitin' Rilla lately, he must have had his reasons, an' I'm sorry I spoke."

Cai was breathing hard. "Bias? . . . When?"

"The last time I spied him was two days ago . . . in the late afternoon. Now you come to mention it, I'd a notion at the time he wasn't anxious to be seen. For he came over the fields at the back—across the ten-acre field that Mrs Bosenna carried last week—and a very tidy crop, I'm told, though but moderate long in the stalk. . . . Well, there he was comin' across the stubble—at a fine pace, too, with his coat 'pon his arm—when as I guess he spied me down in the road below and stopped short, danderin' about an' pretendin' to poke up weeds with his stick. 'Some new-fashioned farmin',' thought I; 'weedin' stubble, and in August month too! I wonder who taught the Widow that trick'—for I won't be sure I reckernised your friend, not slap-off. But Cap'n Hunken it was: for to make certain I called and had a drink o' cider with Farmer Middlecoat, t'other side of the hill, an' he'd seen your friend frequent these last few weeks. . . . There now, you don't seem pleased about it!—an' yet 'twould be a very good match for him, if it came off."

Cai's head was whirling. He steadied himself to say, "You seem to take a lot of interest, Mr Philp, in other people's affairs."

"Heaps," said Mr Philp. "I couldn' live without it."

CHAPTER X.

REGATTA NIGHT.

It must be admitted, though with sorrow, that on the Committee Ship that day Captain Cai did not shine. He bungled two "flying starts" by nervously playing with his stop-watch and throwing it out of gear; he fired off winning guns for several hopelessly belated competitors; he made at least three mistakes in distributing the prize-money (and nobody who has not committed the indiscretion of paying out a first prize to a crew which has actually come in third can conceive the difficulty of enforcing its surrender); finally, he provoked something like a free fight on deck by inadvertently crediting two boats each with the other's time on a close handicap. It was the more vexatious, because he had in committee meetings taken so many duties upon himself, virtually cashiering many old hands, whose enforced idleness left them upon the ship with a run of the drinks, and whose resentment (as the day wore on) made itself felt in galling comments while, with no offer to help, they stood by and watched each painful development. The worst moment arrived when Captain Cai, who had replaced the old treasurer by a new and pushing man, and had, further, carried a resolution that prizes for all the major events should be paid by cheque, discovered his protege to be too tipsy to sign his name. This truly terrible emergency Captain Cai met by boldly subscribing his own name to the cheques. They would be drawn, of course, upon his private account, and he trusted the Committee to recoup him, while reading in the eyes of one or two that they had grasped this opportunity of revenge. But Regatta Day happens on a Wednesday, when the banks in Troy close early; and these cheques were accepted with an unflattering show of suspicion.

The longest day, however, has its end. All these vexations served at least to distract our friend's mind from the morning's discovery; and when at length, the last gun fired, he dropped into a boat to be pulled for shore, he was too far exhausted physically—having found scarcely a moment for bite or sup—to load his mind any more than did Walton's milk-maid "with any fears of many things that will never be."

He reached home, washed off the cares of the day and the reek of black gunpowder together in a warm bath, dressed himself with more than ordinary spruceness, and was descending the stair on his way to Bias's garden, when at the foot of them he was amazed to find Mrs Bowldler, seated and rocking herself to and fro with her apron cast over her head. Nay, in the dusk of the staircase he but just missed turning a somersault over her.

"Hullo! Why, what's the matter, missus?"

"Oh—oh!" sobbed Mrs Bowldler. "Bitter is the bread of poverty, deny it who can! And me, that have gone about Troy streets in my time with one pound fifteen's worth of feathers on my hat! Ostrich. And now to be laying a table for the likes of her, that before our reverses I wouldn't have seen in the street when I passed her!"

Captain Cai, already severely shaken by the events of the day, put a hand to his head.

"For goodness' sake, woman, talk sense to me! Who is it you're meanin'?—Mrs Bosenna? And what's this talk about layin' table?"

"Mrs Bosenna?" echoed Mrs Bowldler, who had by this time arisen from the stair. She drew her skirts close with a gesture of dignity. "It is not for me to drag Mrs Bosenna into our conversation, sir—far from it,—and I hope I know my place better. For aught I know, Captain Hocken—if, as a menial, I may use the term—"

"Not at all," said Captain Cai vaguely, as she paused with elaborate humility.

"For aught that I know, sir, Mrs Bosenna may be a Duchess fresh dropped from heaven. I have heard it mentioned in a casual way that she came from Holsworthy in Devon, and (unless my memory deceives me, sir) nothing relative to Duchesses was dropped—or not at the time, at least. But I pass no remarks on Mrs Bosenna. If she chose to marry an old man with her eyes open, it's not for me to cast it up, beyond saying that some folks know on which side their bread's buttered. I never dragged in Mrs Bosenna. You will do me that justice, I hope?"

"Then who the dickens is it you're talkin' about?"

"Which to mention any names, sir, it is not my desire; and the best of us can't help how we was born nor in what position. But farm service is farm service, call it what you please; and if a party as shall be nameless starts sitting down with her betters, perhaps you will tell me when and where we are going to end? That, sir, is the very question I put to Captain Hunken; and with all respect, sir, 'dammit' doesn't meet the case."

"Perhaps not," agreed Captain Cai, but not with entire conviction.

"It was all the answer Captain Hunken gave me, sir. 'Dammit,' he says,
'Mrs Bowldler, go and lay supper as I tell you, and we'll talk later.'"

"Supper? Where?"

"In the summer-house, sir: which it's not for me to talk about taking freaks into your head, and the spiders about, or the size o' them at this time o' the year. Captain Hunken and the lady and the other party are at present in your portion of the grounds, hoping that you'll join them in time for the fireworks; which it all depends if you like mixed company. And afterwards the guests"—Mrs Bowldler threw withering scorn into the word—"the guests is to adjourn to Captain Hunken's summer-house or what not, there to partake of supper. And if I'm asked to wait, sir," she concluded, "I must beg to give notice on the grounds that I'm only flesh and blood."

"O—oh!" said Captain Cai reflectively. It occurred to him that 'Bias had hit on a compromise with some tact. For the moment he was not thinking of Mrs Bowldler, and did not grasp the full meaning of her ultimatum.

She repeated it.

"Tut—tut," said he. "Who wants you to wait table against your will?
The boy'll do well enough."

"Which," said Mrs Bowldler, "I have took the opportunity of sounding
Palmerston, and he offers no objection."

"Very well, then."

Mrs Bowldler was visibly relieved. She heaved a sigh and fired a parting shot.

"I can only trust," she said, "if Palmerston waits as he'll catch up with no low tricks. Boys are so receptive!"

Cai descended to his garden, and at the foot of it found a trio of dark figures by the low fence of the edge of the cliff—'Bias and Mrs Bosenna in talk together, Dinah standing a little apart. "But that," thought he, "is only her place, as I've just been hearing." He had a just mind and was slow to suspect. Even now he could not assimilate the poison of Mr Philp's story. Everybody knew Mr Philp and his propensities. As Mr Toy the barber was wont to say, "Philp don't mean any harm: he just makes mischief like a bee makes honey."

So Cai said, "Cheer-o, 'Bias!"—his usual greeting—hoped he saw Mrs Bosenna well, and fell in on the other side of her by the breast-rail. The sky by this time was almost pitch dark, with a star or two shining between somewhat heavy masses of clouds. He begged Mrs Bosenna to be sure that she was comfortably anchored, as he put it. The rail was stout and secure; she might lean her weight against it without fear. He went on to apologise for his late arrival. The Committee Ship had been at sixes and sevens all day.

"Nobody could have guessed it, from the shore," said Mrs Bosenna graciously, and appealed to 'Bias. "Coming through the town I heard it on all hands."

"Not so bad," agreed 'Bias, and this, from him, was real praise.

"'Not a hitch from first to last—the most successful Regatta we've had for years.' Those were the very expressions that reached me."

"We'll do better next time," Cai assured her, swallowing down the flattery. "Believe it or not, I had trouble enough to keep things straight; and being one to fret when they're not ship-shape—"

"I know!" murmured Mrs Bosenna sympathetically. "You could not bear to come away until you'd seen everything through. Well, as it happens, there are people in Troy who recognise this; and it does me good to hear you talk about 'next time.' Though, to be sure, one can't count next time on such perfect weather."

"There'll be rain in half an hour or less," grunted 'Bias.

"Oh, not before the fireworks, surely?" she exclaimed in pretty dismay.
"Do say, now, Captain Hocken!"

She turned to Cai, and then—

"Oh—oh!" she cried as, far away up the harbour, the signal rocket shot hissing aloft and exploded with a tremendous detonation. The roar of it filled their ears; but Cai scarcely heeded the roar. It reverberated from shore to shore, and the winding creeks took it up, to re-echo it; but Cai did not hear the echoes.

For (it was no fancy!) a small hand had clutched at his arm out of the darkness and was clinging to it, trembling, for protection. . . . Yes, it trembled there yet! . . . He put a hand over it, to reassure it and at the same time to detain it.

He could not see her face. The rocket was of the kind known as "fog detonator," and scattered no light with its explosion. He greatly desired to know whether her gaze was turned towards him or up at the dark sky, and this he could not tell. But the hand lay under cover of his arm, and, as moments went by was not withdrawn. . . .

Half a minute passed thus, and then (oh, drat the fireworks after all!) a salvo of rockets climbed the sky—luminous ones, this time. As they shot up with a wroo—oo—sh! the hand was snatched away, gently, swiftly. . . .

They burst in balls of fire—blue, green, yellow, crimson. They lit up the garden so vividly that each separate leaf on the laurustinus bushes cast its own sharp shadow. "O—oh!" breathed Mrs Bosenna, but now on a very different note, and as though her whole spirit drank deep, quenching a celestial desire. Cai, stealing a look, saw her profile irradiated, her gaze uplifted to the zenith.

The fiery shower died out, was extinct. Across the party hedge the boy Palmerston was heard inquiring if that was the way the angels behaved in heaven.

"Moderately so," responded the polite, high-pitched voice of Mrs Bowldler (who never could resist fireworks). "Moderately so, but without the accompanyin' igsplosion. That is, so far as we are permitted to guess. . . . And highly creditable to them," it wound up, with sudden asperity, "considering the things they sometimes have to look down on!"

"I'd love," aspired the romantic boy, "to go up—an' up—an' up, just like that, an' then bust—bust in red and yellow blazes."

"You will, one o' these days; that is, if you behave yourself. We have that assurance within us."

"I wouldn' mind the dyin' out," ingeminated Palmerston, "so's I could have one jolly good bust."

"In the land of marrow an' fatness we shall be doing of it permanent," Mrs Bowldler assured him for his comfort. "That's to say if we ever get there. But you just wait till they let off the set pieces. There's one of Queen Victoria, you can see the very eyelids. Sixty years Queen of England, come next June: with God Bless Her underneath in squibs like Belshazzar's Feast. And He will, too, from what I know of 'im."

As it turned out, at the distance from which our company viewed them, these set pieces laid some tax on the imagination. They were duly applauded to be sure; and when Mrs Bosenna exclaimed "How lovely!" and 'Bias allowed "Not so bad," their tribute scarcely differed, albeit paid in different coin. The rockets, however, won the highest commendation, and a blaze of coloured fires on the surrounding hills ran the rockets a close second.

Towards the close of the display a few drops of rain began to fall from the overcharged clouds: large premonitory drops, protesting against this disturbance of the upper air.

"That's the fine-alley!" announced 'Bias, as another detonator banged aloft, while a volcano of "fiery serpents" hissed and screamed behind it. "Let's run for shelter!"

He offered his arm. Cai did the same. But Mrs Bosenna—she had not clung to any one this time—very nimbly slipped between them and took Dinah for protector. She was in the gayest of moods, as they all scrambled up the wet steps to the roadway, and so down other flights of wet steps under the pattering rain to the shelter of 'Bias's summer-house.

"Just in time!" she panted, shaking the drops from her cloak. "And I can't remember whenever I've enjoyed myself so much. But—" as she looked about her and over the table—"what a feast!"

It was a noble feast. If Cai had been busy all day, no less had 'Bias been busy. There were lobsters; there were chickens, with a boiled ham; there was a cold sirloin of beef, for grosser tastes; there were jellies, tartlets, a trifle, a cherry pie. There was beer in a nine-gallon jar, and cider in another. There were bottles of fizzy lemonade, with a dash of which Mrs Bosenna insisted on diluting her cider. Her mirth was infectious as they feasted, while the rain, now descending in a torrent, drummed on the summer-house roof.

"How on earth we're ever to get home, Dinah, I'm sure I don't know!
And what's more, I don't seem to care, just yet."

Captain Cai and Captain 'Bias protested in unison that, when the time came, they would escort her home against all perils.

"You can trust me, ma'am, I hope?" blurted 'Bias.

"I can trust both of you, I hope." Mrs Bosenna glanced towards Cai, or so Cai thought.

"The jokes they keep makin'!" Palmerston reported to Mrs Bowldler. (With the utmost cheerfulness he continued running to and fro between summer-house and residence under the downpour.) "When Mrs Bosenna said that about a merrythought I almost split myself."

"There's a medium in all things," Mrs Bowldler advised him. "Stand-offish should be your expression when waiting at table; like as if you'd heard it all before several times, no matter how funny they talk. As for splitting, I shiver at the bare thought."

"Well, I didn't do it, really. I just got my hand over my mouth in time."

"And what did that other woman happen to be doing?" asked Mrs Bowldler.

"I partic'l'ly noticed," said Palmerston. "She was sittin' quiet and toyin' with her 'am."

The rain continuing, 'Bias at the close of supper sensationally produced two packs of cards and proposed that, as soon as Palmerston had removed the cloth, they should play what he called "a rubber to whist." He and Mrs Bosenna cut together; Cai with Dinah. Now the two captains could, as a rule, play a good hand at whist. On this occasion they played so abominably as to surprise themselves and each other. Dinah did not profess to be an expert, and Cai's blunders were mostly lost on her. But 'Bias disgraced himself before his partner, who neither reproached him nor once missed a trick.

"I can't tell what's come over me to-night," he confessed at the end of the second rubber.

"Regatta-day!" laughed Mrs Bosenna, and pushed the cards away. The wedding-ring on her third finger glanced under the light of the hanging lamp. "Dinah shall tell our fortunes," she suggested.

Dinah took the pack and proceeded very gravely to tell their fortunes. She began with Captain Hunken, and found that, a dark lady happening in the "second house," he would certainly marry one of that hue, with plenty of money, and live happy ever after.

She next attempted Captain Hocken's. "Well, that's funny, now!" she exclaimed, after dealing out the cards face uppermost.

"What's funny?" asked Cai.

"Why," said Dinah, after a long scrutiny, during which she pursed and unpursed her lips half a dozen times at least, "the cards are different, o' course, but they say the same thing—dark lady and all—and I can't make it other."

"No need," said Cai cheerfully, drawing at his pipe (for Mrs Bosenna had given the pair permission to smoke). "So long as you let 'Bias and me run on the same lines, I'm satisfied. Eh, 'Bias?"

"But 'tis the same lady!"

"Oh! That would alter matters, nat'ch'rally."

Dinah swept the cards together again and shuffled them. "Shall I tell your fortune, mistress?" she asked mischievously.

"No," said Mrs Bosenna, rising. "The rain has stopped, and it's time we were getting home, between the showers."

Again Captain Cai and Captain 'Bias offered gallantly to accompany her to the gate of Rilla Farm; but she would have none of their escort.

"No one is going to insult me on the road," she assured them. "And besides, if they did, Dinah would do the screaming. That's why I brought her."

She had enjoyed her evening amazingly. She took her departure with a few happily chosen words which left no doubt of it.

After divesting himself of his coat that night, Captain Cai laid a hand on his upper arm and felt it timidly. Unless he mistook, the flesh beneath the shirt-sleeve yet kept some faint vibration of Mrs Bosenna's hand, resting upon it, thrilling it.

"The point is," said Cai to himself, "it can't be 'Bias, anyway. I felt pretty sure at the time that Philp was lyin'. But what a brazen fellow it is!"

Strangely enough, in his bedroom on the other side of the party wall Captain 'Bias stood at that moment deep in meditation. He, too, was rubbing his arm, just below the biceps.

Yet the explanation is simple. You have only to bethink you that Mrs
Bosenna, like any other woman, had two hands.

CHAPTER XI.

MRS BOSENNA PLAYS A PARLOUR GAME.

"We have runned out simultaneous," announced Mrs Bowldler next morning, as the two friends sat at breakfast in Captain Cai's parlour, each immersed (or pretending to be immersed) in his own newspaper. They had slept but indifferently, and on meeting at table had avoided, as if by tacit consent, allusions to last night's entertainment. Each of the newspapers contained a full-column report of the Regatta, with its festivities, which gave excuse for silence. With a thrill of innocent pleasure Cai saw his own name in print. He harked back to it several times in the course of his perusal, and confessed to himself that it looked very well.

But Mrs Bowldler, too, had slept indifferently, if her eyes—which were red and tear-swollen—might be taken as evidence. Her air, as she brought in the dishes, spoke of sorrow rather than of anger. Finding that it attracted no attention, she sighed many times aloud, and at each separate entrance let fall some gloomy domestic news, dropping it as who should say, "I tell you, not expecting to be believed or even heeded, still less applauded for any vigilant care of your interests, but rather that I may not hereafter reproach myself."

"We have runned out simultaneous," she repeated as Captain Cai glanced up from the newspaper. "Which I refer to coals. Palmerston tells me there's not above two-and-a-half scuttlefuls in either cellar, search them how you will." (The search at any rate could not be extensive, since the cellars measured 8 feet by 4 feet apiece.)

"Which," resumed Mrs Bowldler, after a pause and a sigh, "it may be un-Christian to say so of a man that goes about in a bath-chair with one foot in the grave, but in my belief Mr Rogers sends us short weight."

"I'll order some more this very morning, eh, 'Bias?"

'Bias grunted approval.

"And while we're about it, we may as well order in a quantity,—as much as the sheds will hold. We've pretty well reached the end o' summer, an' prices will be risin' before long. . . . If I were you, Mrs Bowldler," added Cai with a severity beyond his wont, "I shouldn't call people dishonest on mere suspicion."

"If you were me, sir—makin' so bold,—you'd ha' seen more of the world with its Rogerses and Dodgerses. There now!" Mrs Bowldler set down a dish of fried potatoes and stood resigned. "Dismiss me you may, Captain Hocken, and this instant. I ask no less. It was bound to come. As my sister warned me, 'You was always high in the instep, from a child, and,' says she, 'high insteps are out of place in the Reduced.'"

"God bless the woman!" Cai laid down the paper and stared. "Who ever talked of dismissin' you?"

"I have rode in my time in a side-saddle: and that, sir, is not easily forgotten. But if you will overlook it, gentlemen," said Mrs Bowldler tearfully, "I might go on to mention that Palmerston have had a misfortune with a tumbler last night."

Cai continued to stare. "I saw a couple performin' in the street yesterday. How did the boy get mixed up in it?"

"He broke it clearin' up the debree in the summer-house after the visitors had gone," Mrs Bowldler explained. "Which being a new departure, I hope you will allow me to pass it by in his case with a caution."

In the course of the forenoon Cai paid a call at Mr Rogers's harbour-side store, where he found Mr Rogers himself superintending, from his invalid-chair, the weighing out of coal. Fancy Tabb was in attendance.

"Hullo!" Mr Rogers greeted him. "Well, the show went very well yesterday, and I see your name in the papers this morning."

Cai confessed that he, too, had seen it.

"And it won't be the last time either, not by a long way. I was wantin' a word with you. Cap'n Hunken,—eh, but that's the sort of friend to have—a man in a thousand—Cap'n Hunken was tellin' me, a few days back, as he'd a mind to see ye in public life."

"Thank'ee," said Cai. "'Bias has been nursin' that notion about me, I know. But I hope I can make up my own mind."

"He said 'twould be a distraction for ye."

"Very likely." Cai was nettled without knowing why. "But supposin' I don't need bein' distracted, not at this present?"

"Not at this present," Mr Rogers agreed. "Your friend allowed that; but he said as, all human life bein' uncertain, he was worried in mind what was goin' to become o' you in the years to come."

"Meanin' after his death?" asked Cai, with a touch of asperity.

"He didn' specify. It might ha' been death he had in mind, or it might ha' been anything you like. What he said was, 'I'd like to see old Cai fixed up wi' summat to while away his latter years.' That's how he said it, in those exact words, an' nothing could have been more kindly put."

"We're the same age, to a hair. I don't see why 'Bias should be in all this hurry, unless between ourselves . . . But you wanted a word with me."

"Yes, on that very question. I'm on the School Board, as it happens, and I'm thinkin'—between you an' me—to send in my resignation, which will create a vacancy."

"Oh?" said Cai, alert; "I didn' know you took an interest in education."

"I don't," Mr Rogers responded frankly. "I hate the damned thing. If it rested with me, I'd have no such freaks in the land. But there's always the rates to be kept down. And likewise there's the coal contract to be considered. Added to which," he wound up, "it gives you a pull in several little ways."

"I see," said Cai after a pause. "But, if that's so, why resign?"

"Because I'm broken in health, an' can't attend the meetings. I'd have resigned six months ago if it hadn't been for Philp."

"Did Mr Philp persuade you to hold on?"

"You bet he didn't!" Mr Rogers grinned. "Philp wants the vacancy, and—well, I don't like Philp. I don't know how he strikes you?"

"To tell the truth," confessed Cai, "I can't say that I like him. He's too—inquisitive, shall we put it?—though I daresay he means it for the best."

"He's suspicious," said Mr Rogers. "You'd scarcely believe it now, but he came down to this very store, one day, and hinted that I gave short weight in coal. 'That's all right,' said I; 'are you come to lay an information?' 'No,' says he; 'I know the cost o' the law, an' I'm here as a friend, to give a fresh order. But,' says he, 'as between friends I'm goin' to see it weighed out.' 'Right again!' says I—'how much?' 'Twelve sacks will meet my requirements for the present,' says he; 'but I'd like 'em full this time, if you don't mind.' I'm givin' you the exact words as they occurred. 'Very well,' says I, 'you shall see 'em weighed an' put into the cart for ye, here an' now.' So I ordered Bill round wi' the cart; an' George, here, I told to pick out twelve o' the best sacks, lay 'em in a row 'long-side o' me, an' start weighin' very careful. When the scales turned the hundred-weight, I said, 'Now put in two great lumps for overplush and sack it up.' So he did, an' Bill took the bag out to the cart. 'Now for the next,' says I. Philp's a greedy fellow: he stuck there lookin' so hard at the weighin'-scoop, wonderin' how much overplush he'd get this go, he didn' see me twitch the tailmost sack out o' the line wi' th' end o' my crutch, nor Bill pick it up casual as he came along an' toss it away into the corner. When George had weighed out the eleven, I says to Philp, 'Well, now, I hope you're satisfied this time?' says I. He turns about, sees that all the sacks have gone, an' says he, 'That's the end, is it?' 'You're a treat, an' no mistake,' says I jokin'. 'We don't sell by the baker's dozen at this store:' for I could see he hadn' counted. 'Well,' says he, 'I must say there's no cause o' complaint this time,' and off drives Bill wi' the load. 'No cause o' complaint'!" Mr Rogers chuckled till the tears gathered in his eyes. He controlled his mirth and resumed, "I believe, though, the poor fool suspected something; for he was back at home before Bill had time to deliver more'n four sacks. But Bill, you see, always carries an empty sack or two to sit upon; so there was no countin' to be done at that end, d'ye see?"

"I see," said Cai gravely. It crossed his mind that he had been over-hasty in rebuking Mrs Bowldler.

"I wonder," put in the child Fancy, "how you can sit there an' tell such a story! That's just the sort o' thing people get put in hell for, as I've warned you again and again. It fairly gives me the creeps to hear you boastin' about it."

"Nothin' o' the sort," said her master cheerfully. He could not resent her free speaking, for she was necessary to him. Besides, it amused him. "You leave old Satan and Johnny Rogers to settle scores between themselves. If he takes me as he finds me I'll do the same by him—an' he knows I'll count the sacks. Cap'n Cai here'll tell you I'd never have put such a trick on Philp if he hadn' shown himself so suspicious. I hate a suspicious man. . . . An' that's one reason, Cap'n, why I want you to decide on takin' my place on the School Board. You see, I can choose my own time for resignin'; the Board itself fills up any vacancy that occurs between Elections: an' I can work the Board for you before Philp or any one else gets wind of it. That is, if I have your consent?"

"It's uncommonly good of you," said Cai. "I'll think it over, an' take advice, maybe."

"You know what advice your friend'll give you, anyway. For, I don't mind tellin' you, when he talked about your enterin' public life I dropped a hint to him."

"'Bias Hunken isn' the only friend I have in the world," answered Cai, with a sudden flush.

"I hope not," said Mr Rogers. "There's me, f'r instance: an' you've heard my opinion. That ought to be good enough for him—eh, child?" he turned to Fancy, who had been watching Cai's face with interest.

"If the Captain wants feminine advice," said Fancy, in a mocking grown-up tone, "we all love public men. It's our well-known weakness."

Cai wished them good-day, and took his leave in some confusion.

That mischievous child had divined his intent, almost as soon as he himself had divined it. Nay, now—or, to be accurate, three minutes later—it is odds that she knew it more surely than he: for he walked towards the Railway Station—that is, in the direction of Rilla Farm— telling himself at first that a stroll was, anyhow, a good recipe for clearing the brain; that Rogers's offer called on him to make, at short notice, an important decision.

He paused twice or thrice on his way, to commune with himself: the first time by the Passage Slip, where 'Bias and he had halted to view the traffic by the jetties. He conned it now again, but with unreceptive eyes. . . . "Rogers talks to me about takin' advice," soliloquised Cai. "It seems to me this is just one of those steps on which a man must make up his own mind. . . ."

He paused again beneath the shadow of the gasometer, possibly through association of ideas, because it suggested thoughts of 'Bias who had so much admired it—"'Bias means well, o' course. But I don't go about, for my part, schemin' how 'Bias is to amuse his latter days. Besides, 'Bias may be mistaken in more ways than one."

He had passed the Railway Station without being aware of it, and arrived in sight of Rilla gate, when he halted the third time. "A man must decide for himself, o' course, when it comes to the point. Still, in certain cases there's others to be considered. . . . If I knew how far she meant it! . . . She must ha' meant something." Yes, he felt the clutch on his biceps again and the small hand trembling under his large enfolding one. "She must ha' meant something. Not, to be sure, that it would seriously influence his decisions! But it seemed hardly fair not to consult her. . . . He would get her opinion, for what it was worth, not betraying himself. In advising him she might go—well, either a little further or a little backward. . . . Yet, once again, she must have meant something; and it wasn't fair, if she meant anything at all, to let old 'Bias go on dwelling in a fool's Paradise. Yes, certainly—for 'Bias's sake—there ought to be some clear understanding, and the sooner the better. . . ."

By the time Cai pressed the hasp of the gate, he had arrived at viewing himself as a man launched by his own strong will on a necessary errand, and carrying it through against inclination, for the sake of a friend.

"I hope it won't be a blow to him, whichever way it turns out," was the thought in Cai's mind as he knocked on the front door.

Dinah answered his knock: and, as she opened, Dinah could not repress a small start, which she hid, almost on the instant, under a demure smile of welcome.

"Captain Hocken? . . . Oh, yes! the mistress was within at this moment and entertaining a visitor. . . . Oh, indeed, no! there was no reason at all"—she turned, quick about, and he found himself following her and found himself, before he could protest, at the parlour door, which she flung open, announcing—

"Captain Hocken to see you, ma'am!"

Mrs Bosenna, seated at the head of her polished mahogany table and engaged upon a game of "spillikins"—which is a solitary trial of skill, and consists in lifting, one by one, with a delicate ivory hook a mass of small ivory pieces tangled as intricately as the bones in a kingfisher's nest—showed no more than a pretty surprise at the intrusion. She had, in fact, seen Captain Hocken pass the window some moments before; and it had not caused her to joggle the tiny ivory hook for a moment or to miss a moment's precision. What native quickness did for her, native stolidity did almost as well for Captain Hunken, who sat in an arm-chair by the fireplace smoking and watching her—and had been sitting and watching her for a good half an hour admiringly, without converse. "Spillikins" is a game during which, though it enjoins silence on the looker-on, a real expert can playfully challenge a remark or tolerate one, now and again. Also, you can make astonishing play with it if you happen to possess a pretty wrist and hand.

I throw in this explanation of "spillikins" to fill up a somewhat long and painful pause during which Cai and 'Bias without speech slowly questioned one another. Neither heeded the pretty tactful clatter with which Mrs Bosenna, after sweeping her ivory toys in a heap and starting up with a little cry of pleasure, held out her hand to the intruder. Cai took it as one in a dream. His eyes were fixed on 'Bias, as 'Bias, who had withdrawn the pipe from his mouth and replaced it, withdrew it again, and asked—

"Well, an' what brings you here?"

For a moment Cai seemed to be chewing down a cud in his throat. He ought to have been quicker, he felt. It is always a mistake to let your adversary (Good Lord! had it come to this?) set up an interrogatory.

"I might ask you the same question," he responded.

"But you didn'," said 'Bias solidly, crossing his legs and reaching for a box of matches from the shelf to relight his pipe. "Well?"

"Well, if you must know, I've called to consult Mrs Bosenna on a private matter of business."

This was a neat enough hint; yet strange to say it missed fire.
'Bias sucked at his pipe without budging, and answered—

"Same here."

"Please be seated, Captain Hocken," said Mrs Bosenna, covering inward merriment with the demurest of smiles. "You shall tell me your business later on—that's to say, if there's no pressing hurry about it?"

"There's no pressin hurry," admitted Cai. "It's important, though, in a way—important to me; and any ways more important than smokin' a pipe an' watchin' you play parlour games."

"That," said 'Bias sententiously, withdrawing his pipe from his lips, "isn' business, but pleasure."

"You may not believe it, Captain Hocken," protested Mrs Bosenna, "but 'spillikins' helps me to fix my thoughts. And you ought to feel flattered, really you ought—"

She laughed now, and archly—"Because, as a fact, I was fixing them on you at the very moment Dinah showed you in!" She threw him a look which might mean little or much. Cai took it to mean much.

"Ma'am,—" he began, but she had turned and was appealing to 'Bias.

"Captain Hunken and I were at that moment agreeing that a man of your abilities—a native of Troy, too—and, so to speak, at the height of his powers—ought not to be rusting or allowed to rust in a little place where so much wants to be done. For my part,"—her eyes still interrogated 'Bias,—"I could never live with a man, and look up to him, unless he put his heart into some work, be it farming, or public affairs, or what else you like. I put that as an illustration, of course: just to show you how it appeals to us women; and we do make up half the world, however much you bachelor gentlemen may pretend to despise us."

"That settles poor old 'Bias, anyhow," thought Cai, and at the same moment was conscious of a returning gush of affection for his old friend, and of some self-reproach mingling in the warm flow.

"Why, as for that, ma'am," said he, "though you put it a deal too kindly—'twas about something o' that natur' I came to consult you."

"School Board?" suggested 'Bias.

"That's right. I knew Rogers had dropped a hint to you about it: but o' course, seein' you here, I never guessed—"

Mrs Bosenna clapped her hands together. "And on that hint away comes Captain Hunken to ask my advice: knowing that I should be interested too. Ah, if only we women understood friendship as men do! . . . But you come and consult us, you see. . . . And now you must both stop for dinner and talk it over."

CHAPTER XII.

AMANTIUM IRAE.

"What I feel about it," said Cai modestly at dinner, "is that I mightn't be equal to the position, not havin' studied education."

"Education!" echoed Mrs Bosenna in a high tone of contempt and with a half vicious dig of her carving-fork into the breast of a goose that Dinah had browned to a turn. (Both Cai and 'Bias had offered to carve for her, but she had declined their services, being anxious to provoke no further jealousy. Also be it said that the operation lends itself, even better than does the game of spillikins, to a pretty display of hands and wrists). "Education! You know enough, I hope, to tell the Board to get rid of their latest craze. You'll hardly believe it," she went on, turning to 'Bias, "but I happened to pass the Girls' School the other day, and if there wasn't a piano going!—yes, actually a piano! When you come to think that the parents of some of those children don't earn sixteen shillings a-week!"

"Mons'rous," 'Bias agreed.

"But I don't understand, ma'am," said Cai, "that the children themselves play the piano. I made inquiries about that, it being a new thing since my day: and I'm told it's for the teachers to use in singin' lessson, an' to help the children to keep time at drill an' what-not."

"The teachers? And who are the teachers, I'd like to know?—Nasty stuck-up things, if they want the children to keep time, what's to prevent their calling out 'One, two—right, left' like ordinary people? But—oh, dear me, no! We're quite above that! So it's tinkle-tum, tinkle-tum, and all out of the rates."

"But 'one, two—right, left' wouldn' carry ye far in a singin' lesson," urged Cai.

"And who wants all this singin'? There's William Skin, my waggoner, for instance—five children, and a three-roomed cottage—all the children attending school, and regular, too. Pleasant life it would be for William, with all five coming home with 'The Sea, the Open Sea' in their mouths and all about the house when he gets home from work! Leastways it would be, if he wasn't providentially deaf."

"Is the woman deaf, too?" asked 'Bias.

"No. She believes in Education," said Mrs Bosenna. "She's bound to believe in anything that takes the children off her hands five days in the week."

Cai puckered his brow. "But," said he, harking back, "I made inquiries, too, who paid for the piano, and was told the teachers had collected the money by goin' round with a subscription-list an gettin' up little entertainments. So it doesn't come out of the rates."

"You appear to have had your eye on this openin' for some time," retorted Mrs Bosenna, with a faint flush of annoyance. She very much disliked being proved in the wrong. "And it's not very polite of you to contradict me!"

Cai was crestfallen at once. "I didn' mean it in that light, ma'am," he stammered; "and I only made inquiries, d'ye see? Bein' ignorant of so many things ashore. You'd be astonished how ignorant 'Bias an' me found ourselves, first-goin' off."

"Speak for yourself," put in 'Bias.

"You should have come to me," said Mrs Bosenna. "I could have told you all about Education, especially the sort that ought to be given to labourers' children; and it's astonishin' to me the way some people will talk on matters they know nothing about. My late husband made a study of the question, having been fined five shillin' and costs, the year before he married me, just for withdrawing a dozen children from school to pick his apples for him. As luck would have it, one of them fell off a tree and broke his leg, and that gave the Board an excuse to take the matter up. My husband argued it out with the Bench. 'The children like it,' he said, 'for it keeps 'em out of doors, and provides 'em with healthy exercise. If Education sets a boy against climbing for apples, why then,' says he, speaking up boldly, 'with your Worships' leave, Education must be something clean against Nature, as I always thought it was. And the parents like it, for the coppers it brings in. And the farmer gets his apples saved. If that's so,' says he, 'here's a transaction that benefits everybody concerned, instead of which the Board goes out of its way to harass me for it.' The chairman, Sir Felix, owned he was right, too. 'Bosenna,' says he, 'I can't answer you if I would. Nothing grieves me more, sitting here, than having to administer the law as I find it. But, as things are, I can't let you off with less.'"

This anecdote, and the close arguments used by Mr Bosenna, plunged Cai in thought; and for the remainder of the meal he sat abstracted, joining by fits and starts in the conversation, now and then raising his eyes to a portrait of the deceased farmer, an enlarged and highly-tinted photograph, which gazed down on him from the opposite wall. The gaze was obstinate, brow-beating, as though it challenged Cai to find a flaw in the defence: and Cai, although dimly aware of a fallacy somewhere, could not meet the challenge. He lowered his eyes again to his plate. He found himself wondering if, in any future circumstances, Mrs Bosenna would consent to hang the portrait in another apartment. . . .

Into so deep an abstraction it cast him, indeed, that when Mrs Bosenna arose to leave them to their wine and tobacco, he scrambled to his feet a good three seconds too late. . . . 'Bias (usually lethargic in his movements) was already at the door, holding it open for her.

What was worse—'Bias having closed the door upon her, returned to his seat with a slight but insufferable air of patronage, and—passed the decanter of wine to him!

"You'll find it pretty good," said 'Bias, dropping into his chair and heavily crossing his legs.

Cai swallowed down a sudden tide of rage. "After you!" said he with affected carelessness. "I've tasted it afore."

"Well—if you won't—" 'Bias stretched out a slow arm, filled his glass, and set down the decanter beside his own dessert plate. "You'll find those apples pretty good," he went on, sipping the wine, "though not up to the Cox's Orange Pippins or the Blenheim Oranges that come along later." He smacked his lips. "You'd better try this port wine. Maybe 'tis a different quality to what you tasted when here by yourself."

"Thank 'ee," answered Cai. "I said 'after you.'"

"Oh?" 'Bias pushed the decanter. "You weren't very tactful just now, were you?" he asked after a pause. "Is it the same wine?"

"O' course it is. . . . When wasn't I tactful?"

"Why, when you upped an' contradicted her like that." 'Bias started to fill his pipe. "Women are—what's the word?—sensitive; 'specially at their own table."

"I didn' contradict her," maintained Cai. "Leastways—"

"There's no reason to lose your temper about it, is there? . . . You gave me that impression, an' if you didn' give her the same, I'm mistaken."

"I'm not losin' my temper."

"No? . . . Well, whatever you did, 'tis done, an' no use to fret. Only I want you and Mrs Bosenna to be friends—she bein' our landlady, so to speak."

"Thank 'ee," said Cai again, holding a match to his pipe with an agitated hand. "If you remember, I ought to know it, havin' had all the early dealin's with her."

"She's very well disposed to you, too," said 'Bias. "Nothing could have been kinder than the way she spoke when I mentioned this School-Board business: nothing. We'd be glad, both of us, to see you fixed up in that job."

"I wonder you didn't think of takin' it on yourself."

"I did," confessed 'Bias imperturbably.

"You? . . . Well, what next?"

"I thought of it. . . . Only for a moment, though. First place, I didn' want to stand in your way; an' next, as you was sayin' just now, 'tis a ticklish matter when a man starts 'pon a business he knows nothing about. But you'll soon pick it up, bein' able to give your whole time to it."

"That might apply to you."

To this 'Bias made no reply. He smoked on, pressing down the tobacco in the bowl of his pipe. The two friends sat in a constrained silence, now and again pushing the wine politely.

"When you are ready?" suggested 'Bias at length—as Cai helped himself to a final half-glassful, measuring it out with exactitude and leaving as much or may be a trifle more at the bottom of the decanter. "Ladies don't like to be kept waitin' too long."

Cai swallowed the wine and stood up, swallowing down also an inward mirth to which his anger had given way. During the last minute or two he had been recalling many things,—his first meeting with Mrs Bosenna; his first call at Rilla; her remarks on that occasion, upon the grace of a cultivated manner in men; some subsequent glances, intimate almost; above all, the clutch upon his protective arm. . . . He felt sorry for 'Bias. Under the rosy influence of Mrs Bosenna's wine he felt genuinely sorry for 'Bias, while enjoying the humorous aspect of 'Bias's delusion. 'Bias—for whose lack of polish he had from the first made Excuse—'Bias laying down the law on what ladies liked and disliked!

They arose heavily and strolled forth to view the livestock. It was wonderful with what ease these two retired seamen, without instruction, dropped into the farm-master's routine. So (if in other words) Dinah remarked, glancing out of the mullioned window of the kitchen as she fetched a fresh faggot for the hearth on which her mistress had already begun to set out the heavy-cake and potato-cake in preparation for tea-time.

"—the afternoon habits, I mean," explained Dinah. "Just glimpsy out o' window, mistress, an' see the pair o' men down there—along studyin' the pigs. Wouldn' know a pig's starn from his stem, I b'lieve, if th' Almighty hadn' clapped on a twiddling tail, same as they put in books to show where a question ends. When they come to that, they're safe. . . . But from their backs, mistress—do 'ee but take a look now, do—you wouldn' guess they weren't just as knowledgeable as th' old master himself, as used to judge pigs for the Royal Cornwall—the poor old angel! I can see him now, after the best part of a bottle o' sherry, strollin' out to the styes."

"Don't, Dinah!" entreated Mrs Bosenna, stealing a glance nevertheless: which Dinah demurely noted. "It's—it's all so recent!"

"Ay," agreed Dinah, and mused, standing boldly before the window, knuckles on hips. "You couldn' say now, takin' 'em separate, what it is that puts me more in mind of th' old master."

"Go about your work, you foolish woman."

"I suppose," said Dinah, withdrawing her gaze reluctantly and obeying, "there's always a something about a man!"

Mrs Bosenna stood by the kitchen-table, patting up another barm-cake. She had a hand even lighter than Dinah's with flour and pastry. . . . The two captains had moved on to the gate of Home Parc, and she could still espy them past the edge of the window. She saw Captain Hunken draw his hand horizontally with a slow explanatory gesture and then drop it abruptly at a right angle.

'Bias was, in fact, at that moment expounding to Cai, point by point and in a condescending way, the right outline of a prize Devon shorthorn. Mrs Bosenna (who had taught him the little he knew) guessed as she watched the exposition, pursing her lips.

"A trifle o' bluffness in the entry don't matter, if you understand me," said 'Bias, retrieving his lesson. "Aft o' that, no sheer at all; a straight line till you come to the rump,—or, as we'll say, for argyment's sake, the counter—an' then a plumb drop, plumb as a quay-punt."

"Where did you pick up all this?" asked Cai.

"I don't make any secret about it," 'Bias owned. "Mrs Bosenna taught me. Though, when you come to think it out, 'tis as straightforward as sizing up a vessel. You begin by askin' yourself what the objec' in question—call it a cow, or call it a brigantine—was designed for. Now what's a cow designed for?"

"Milk, I suppose," hazarded Cai.

"Very well, then, I take you at that: the squarer the cow the more she holds. It stands to reason."

"I don't know." Cai made some show of obstinacy, but, it is feared, rather to test his friend than to arrive at the truth. "A round cow,— supposing there was such a thing—"

"But there isn't. It's out of the question."

"I speak under correction," said Cai thoughtfully; "but looking at what cows I've seen,—end on. And anyway, you can't call a cow's udder square; not in any sense o' the word."

"What beats me, I'll confess," said 'Bias, shifting the argument, "is how these butchers and farmers at market can cast their eye over a bullock an' judge his weight to a pound or two. 'Tis a trick, I suppose; but I'd like to know how it's worked."

"Why?"

"If 'twas a vessel, now, an' tons burden in place o' pounds' weight, you an' me might guess pretty right. But when it comes to a bullock!"

"I don't see," objected Cai, "how it consarns either of us."

"You don't?" asked 'Bias with a look which, for him, was quick and keen.

"To be sure I don't," answered Cai. "If it happened as I wanted to buy a bullock to eat, all at one time—and if so be as I found myself at market in search o' one,—I should be anxious about the weight. That goes without sayin'. An' the odds are I should ask the honestest-lookin' fellow handy to give a guess for me. But with you an' me 'tis a question o' two pounds o' rump steak. I know by the look if 'tis tender, and I can tell by a look at the scales if 'tis fair weight. I don't ask to be shown the whole ox."

"I daresay you're right," said 'Bias, apparently much 'relieved. "It'll save a lot of trouble, anyhow, if you're goin' in for public life. A man in public life can't afford time for details such as weighin' bullocks. But, for my part, I'm beginnin' to take an interest in agriculture."

"And why not?" agreed Cai. "There's no prettier occupation than farmin', so long as a man contents himself with lookin' on an' don't start practising it. Actual farmin' needs capital, o' course."

To this 'Bias made no response, but continued to stare thoughtfully at
Mrs Bosenna's kine.

"After all," pursued Cai cheerfully, "these little interests are the salt of a leisurable man's life. I dare say, f'r instance, as Philp gets quite an amount o' fun out o' funerals, though to me it seems a queer taste. Every man to his hobby; and yours, now, I can understand. When you've finished potterin' around the garden, weedin' an' plantin', —an', by the way, the season for plantin' isn't far off. It's about time we looked up those autumn catalogues we talked so much about back in the spring."

"True," said 'Bias. "It has slipped my mind of late. An' you not mentionin' either—"

"Somehow it had slipped mine too. . . . All that Regatta business, I suppose. . . . And now, if I am to take up with this School Board there'll be more calls on my time. But there! If I turn over both the gardens to you, I reckon you won't object. 'Twill be so much the more occupation,—not o' course," added Cai, "that I want to shirk doin' my share. But, as I was sayin', when you've done your day's job at the garden, an' taken your stroll down to the quay to pick up the evenin' gossip, what healthier wind-up can there be than to stretch your legs on a walk to one of the two-three farms in the parish, an' note how the crops are comin' on, an' the beef an' mutton, so to speak, an' how the cows are in milk; an' maybe drop in for tea an' a chat?—here at Rilla, f'r instance, where you'll always be sure of a welcome."

"You're sure o' that?" asked 'Bias. The words came slowly, heavily charged with meaning.

"Why, o' course you will! . . . 'Twas your own suggestion, mind you. 'Takin' an' interest in agriculture' was your words. I don't promise, o' course, that you'll make much of it, first along. Learnin's half the fun—"

But here Mrs Bosenna's voice called to them, and they turned together almost guiltily to see her climbing the slope above the mow-hay, with springy gait and cheeks charmingly flushed by recent caresses of the kitchen-fire.

"If you care for it," she greeted them, "there's just time for a stroll to Higher Parc and back while Dinah lays tea. A breath of fresh air will do me all the good in the world"—little she looked to be in need of it—"and I don't suppose either of you knows what a glorious view you'll get up there? All the harbour and shipping at your feet, and miles of open Channel beyond! My poor dear Robert used to say there wasn't its equal in Cornwall."

Cai could assure her in all innocence that he had never heard tell of Higher Parc and its famous view; nor did it occur to him to turn and interrogate his friend, who was flushing guiltily.

If Mrs Bosenna saw the flush, she ignored it. She led the way to a stile; clambered over it, declining their help, agile as a maid of seventeen; and struck a footpath slanting up and across a turnip-field at the back of the farmstead. The climb, though not steep, was continuous, and the chimneys of Rilla lay some twenty or thirty feet below them, when they reached a second stile and, overing it, stood on the edge of a mighty field, the extent of which could not be guessed, for it domed itself against the sky, cutting off all view of hedge or limit beyond.

"This is Higher Parc," announced Mrs Bosenna. "Ten acres."

"Oh?" exclaimed Cai with a sudden flash of memory. "And stubble!"

He glanced at 'Bias. But 'Bias, who, if he heard the innuendo, read nothing in it, was gazing up the slope as though he had never set eyes on Higher Parc before in all his life.

They made their way up across the stubble, Mrs Bosenna picking her steps daintily among the sharp stalks that shone like a carpet stiff with gold against the level sunset. The shadows of the three walked ahead of them, stretching longer and longer, vanishing at length over the ridge. . . . And the view from the ridge was magnificent, as Mrs Bosenna had promised. The slope at their feet hid the jetties—or all save the tops of the loading-cranes: but out in midstream lay the sailing vessels and steamships moored to the great buoys, in two separate tiers, awaiting their cargoes. Of the sailing vessels there were Russians, with no yards to their masts, British coasters of varying rig, Norwegians, and one solitary Dutch galliot. But the majority flew the Danish flag—your Dane is fond of flying his flag, and small blame to him!—and these exhibited round bluff bows and square-cut counters with white or varnished top-strakes and stern-davits of timber. To the right and seaward, the eye travelled past yet another tier, where a stumpy Swedish tramp lay cheek-by-jowl with two stately Italian barques—now Italian-owned, but originally built in Glasgow for traffic around the Horn—and so followed the curve of the harbour out to the Channel, where sea and sky met in a yellow flood of potable gold. To the left the river-gorge wound inland, hiding its waters, around overlapping bluffs studded with farmsteads and (as the eye threaded its way into details) peopled here and there with small colonies of farm-folk working hard, like so many groups of ants,—some cutting, others saving, the yellow corn, all busy forestalling night, when no man can work.

Uplands, where the harvesters
Pause in the swathe, shading their eyes, to watch
Or barge or schooner stealing up from sea:
Themselves in twilight, she a twilit ghost
Parting the twilit woods.

. . . While Cai and 'Bias stood at gaze, drinking it all in, Mrs Bosenna—whose senses were always quick—turned, looked behind her, and uttered a little scream.

"Steers! . . . That Middlecoat's steers—they've broken fence again!
Oh—oh! and whatever shall I do?"

Cai and 'Bias, wheeling about simultaneously, were aware of a small troop of horned cattle advancing towards them leisurably, breasting the golden rays on the stubble-field, and spreading as they advanced.

"Do, ma'am?" echoed 'Bias, taking in the situation at a glance.
"Why, turn 'em back, to be sure!" He started off to meet the herd.

"—While you run for the stile," added Cai, preparing to follow as bravely. But Mrs Bosenna caught his arm.

"I'm—I'm so silly," she confessed in a tremulous whisper, "about horned beasts—when they don't belong to me."

"Dangerous, are they?" asked Cai. He lingered, although 'Bias had advanced some twenty paces to meet the herd, three or four of which had already come to a halt, astonished at being thus interrupted in an innocent ramble. "We'll head 'em off while you run."

"No, no!" pleaded Mrs Bosenna; and Cai hung irresolute, for the pressure on his arm was delicious. It crossed his mind for a moment that a lady so timid with cattle had no business to be dwelling alone at Rilla Farm.

"It's different—with my own cows," gasped Mrs Bosenna, as if interpreting and answering this thought in one breath. "I'm used to them—but Mr Middlecoat will insist on keeping these wild beasts!— though he knows I'm a lone woman and they're not to be held by any fences—"

"I'd like to give that Middlecoat a piece of my mind," growled Cai, and swore. His arm by this time was about Mrs Bosenna's waist, and she was yielding to it. But he saw 'Bias still steadily confronting the herd— saw him lift an arm, a hand grasping a hat, and wave it violently—saw thereupon the steers swing about and head back for the gate, heads down, sterns heaving and plunging. Cai swore again and reluctantly loosened his embrace.

"Run, dear!" The word drummed in his ears as he pelted to 'Bias's rescue. 'Bias, as a matter of fact, needed neither rescue nor support. The steers after spreading and scattering before his first onset, were converging again in a rush back upon the open gateway. They charged through it in a panic, jostling, crushing through the narrow way: and 'Bias, still frantically waving his hat, had charged through it after them before Cai, assured now that his friend had the mastery, halted and drew breath, holding a hand to his side.

'Bias had disappeared. Cai heard his voice, at some little distance, still chivvying the steers down the lane beyond the gate. . . . Then, as it seemed, another voice challenged 'Bias's, and the two were meeting in angry altercation.

"Mr Middlecoat!" gasped a voice close behind him. Cai swung about, and to his amazement confronted Mrs Bosenna. Instead of retreating she had followed up the pursuit.

"But I told you—" he began, in a tone of indignant command.

"You don't know Mr Middlecoat's temper. I'm afraid—if they meet—"
She hurried by him, towards the gate.

Cai took fresh breath and dashed after her. They passed the gateway neck and neck. At a turning some fifty yards down the lane—Cai leading now by a stride or two—they pulled up, panting.

'Bias, his back blocking the way, stood there confronting a young farmer: and the young farmer's face was red with a bull-fury.

"You damned trespasser!"

"Trespasser?" echoed 'Bias, squaring up. "What about your damned trespassing cattle?"

Mrs Bosenna stepped past Cai and flung herself between the combatants. Strange to say she ignored 'Bias, and faced the enemy, to plead with him.

"Mr Middlecoat, how can you be so foolish? He's as good as a prize-fighter!"

The young farmer stared and lowered his guard slowly.

"Your servant, ma'am! . . . A prize-fighter? Why couldn't he have told me so, at first?"

CHAPTER XIII.

FAIR CHALLENGE.

Again the two friends traversed back the valley road in silence: but this time they made no attempt to deceive themselves or to deceive one another by charging their constraint upon the atmosphere or the scenery. Each was aware that their friendship had a crisis to be overcome; each sincerely pitied the other, with some twinge of compunction for his own good fortune; each longed to make a clean breast—"a straight quarrel is soonest mended," says the proverb,—and each, as they kept step on the macadam, came separately to the same decision, that the occasion must be taken that very evening, when pipes were lit after supper. The reader will note that even yet, on the very verge of the crisis, Cai and 'Bias owned:

"Two souls with but a single thought,
Two hearts that beat as one."

Now, in accordance with routine, supper should have been served that evening at 'Bias's table. But Cai—on his way upstairs to titivate— perceived that the lamp was lit and the cloth spread in his own parlour; and, as he noted this with a vague surprise, encountered Mrs Bowldler.

"Which, if it is agreeable, we are at home to Captain Hunken this evening," Mrs Bowldler began, in a panting hurry, and continued with a catch of the breath, "Which if you see it in a different light, I must request of you, sir, to allow Palmerston to carry down my box, and you may search it if you wish."

"Oh! Conf—" began Cai in his turn, and checked himself. "I beg your pardon, ma'am; but it really does seem as if I never reach home nowadays without you meet me at the foot of the stairs, givin' notice. What's wrong this time?"

"If you drive me to it, sir," said Mrs Bowldler in an aggrieved tone, "it's Captain Hunken's parrot."

"Captain Hunken's parrot?" echoed Cai, genuinely surprised; for, in his experience, this bird was remarkable, if at all, for an obese lethargy. It could talk, to be sure. Now and again it would ejaculate "Scratch Polly," or "Polly wants a kiss," in a perfunctory way; but on the whole he had never known a more comfortable or a less loquacious bird.

"He—he made a communication to me this afternoon," said Mrs Bowldler delicately; "or, as you might prefer to put it, he passed a remark."

"What was it?"

Mrs Bowldler cast a glance behind her at the gas jet. "I really couldn't, sir! Not even if you were to put out the light; and as a gentleman you won't press it."

"Certainly not," Cai assured her. He mused. "It's odd now; but I've always regarded that parrot as rather a dull bird: though of course I've never hinted that to 'Bias—to Captain Hunken."

"He wasn't dull this afternoon," asseverated Mrs Bowldler. "Oh, not by any manner of means!"

"Has he ever—er—annoyed you in this way before?"

"Never, sir."

"Has the boy ever heard him use—er—this kind o' language?"

"Which if you understand me, sir," explained Mrs Bowldler still more delicately, "the remark in question would not apply to a male party: not by any stretch. You may answer me, sir, that—the feathered tribes not being Christians—they don't calculate who's listening, but behave as the spirit moves them, like Quakers. To which I answer you, sir, that makes it all the worse. As it transpired, Palmerston was at the moment brushing down these very stairs, here, in the adjoining: which some might call it luck and others again Providence. But put it we'd happened to be cleaning out the room together, I must have sunk through the floor, and what would have happened to the boy's morals I leave you to guess."

Cai had to allow the cogency of this.

"As a matter of fact, sir," Mrs Bowldler continued, "I sounded Palmerston later. He declares to me he has never heard the creature use any bad language; and I believe him, for he went on to say that if he had, he'd have mentioned it to me. But you see my position, sir? It might even have happened with you two single gentlemen in the room. . . . Stay another twenty-four hours in the house I will not, with the chance of it staring me in the face."

Cai rubbed his chin. "I see," said he after a moment. "Well, it's awkward, but I'll speak to Captain Hunken."

He did so, almost as soon as he and 'Bias had gloomily finished their supper—a repast which largely consisted of odds-and-ends (the debree, in Mrs Bowldler's language) of yester-night's banquet. Each, as he ate, unconsciously compared it—such is our frail humanity—less with the good cheer of which it should have been a reminder than with the fresh abundance of Mrs Bosenna's larder. A bachelor table and bachelor habits are all very well—until you have tasted the other thing.

To talk of the parrot, for which 'Bias had an inexplicable affection, might be awkward, as Cai had promised. But it was less ticklish anyhow than to broach the subject uppermost in the minds of both; and Cai opened on it with a sense of respite, if not of relief.

"By the way," said he, lighting his pipe and crossing his legs, "I had a chat with Mrs Bowldler before supper. She came to me complainin' about"—(puff)—"about your parrot. It seems she has taken a dislike to the bird."

"Finds his talk monotonous?" suggested 'Bias after a pause, during which he, too, puffed. Strange to say, he showed no vexation. His tone was complacent even.

"I wouldn' say that azackly. . . ."

"I'll admit 'tis monotonous," 'Bias went on, between puffs. "Call it nothing at all if you like: I don't take no truck in birds'-talk, for my part—don't mind how same it is. If that's the woman's complaint, she was free to teach it new words any time."

"But it isn't."

"Then I don't see what grievance she can have," said 'Bias with entire composure. "The bird's shapely and well-grown beyond the usual. . . . Perhaps her objection is to parrots in general—eh?" 'Bias withdrew the pipe-stem from his lips and stared hardily along it. "There's no need to trouble, anyway," he added, "for, as it happens, I'm givin' the bird away."

"Eh?" The interrogation sounded like a faint echo.

"To-morrow. To Mrs Bosenna. Why shouldn't I?"

Cai felt his body stiffen as he sat. For the moment he made no answer: then—

"Well, 'tis your affair—in a sense," he said; "but I shouldn't, if I was you."

"I promised it to her this very day. She was confidin' to me that she finds it lonely up at Rilla, and I don't wonder."

"She've confided the same thing to me several times, off and on," said
Cai.

"Ah?" . . . 'Bias was unmoved. "Then maybe it'll help ye to guess how the land lies."

"It do, more or less," Cai agreed: and then, as a bright thought struck him. "Why shouldn't we lend her the musical box? It's—it's more reliable, any way."

"'Twouldn't be much account as a pet, would it?" retorted 'Bias. "Now look here, Cai!" he swung about in his chair, and for the first time since the conversation started the pair looked one another straight in the eyes. "You an' me'd best come to an understandin' and get it over. I don't mind tellin' you, as man to man, that I've been thinkin' things out; and the upshot is—I don't say 'tis certain, but 'tis probable—that in the near futur' I shall be spendin' a heap o' my time at Rilla."

"You'll be welcome. I can almost answer for it," Cai assured him heartily.

"You've noticed it, eh? . . . Well, that saves a lot o' trouble." With a grunt of relief 'Bias turned his gaze again upon the empty grate and sat smoking for a while. "I'd a sort o' fear it might come on ye sudden . . . eh? What's the matter?" He turned about again, for Cai had emitted an audible groan.

"I'm sorry for ye, 'Bias—you can't think—"

"Oh, you can stow that bachelor chaff," interrupted 'Bias with entire cheerfulness. "I used to feel that way myself, or pretend to. It's different when a man knows."

"I can't let ye go on like this!" Cai groaned again. "Stop it, 'Bias— do!"

"Stop it?" 'Bias stared. He was plainly amazed.

"I mean, stop talkin' about it! I do, indeed."

Still 'Bias stared. Of a sudden a partial light broke in upon him. "Good Lord!" he muttered. He arose, knocked the ashes from his pipe, laid it carefully on the chimney-shelf, slid his hands under his coat-tails, and very solemnly faced about.

"I'd an inklin' o' this, once or twice, and I don't mind confessin' it," said he, looking down with a compassionate air which Cai found insupportable. "Tho' 'twas no more than an inklin', and I put it aside, seein' as how no man with eyes could mistake the one she favoured."

"Meanin' me, o' course," interjected Cai, jabbing the tobacco down in his pipe.

"You?" 'Bias opened his eyes wide: then he smiled an indulgent smile. "Ho—you must excuse me—but if that isn' too rich!"

"You needn't start grinnin' like that, or you may end by grinnin' on the wrong side of your face." Cai, instead of pitying his friend's infatuation, was fast losing his temper. "What'd you say if I told you I had proofs?"

"I'd say you was a plumb liar," answered 'Bias with equal promptness, candour, and aplomb. "Proofs? What proofs?"

Cai hesitated a moment. . . . After all, what proof had he to cite?
A gentle pressure of the arm, for example, is not producible evidence.
"Never you mind," said he sullenly. "You'll have proof enough when the
time comes."

'Bias received this with a dry smile. "I thought as much. You haven't any, my sonny—not so much as would cover a threepenny-bit."

"You have, I suppose?" sneered Cai.

"Heaps."

"Very well; let's have a sample. . . . You won't find it on the mantelpiece," for 'Bias had turned about and was picking up his pipe again with great deliberation.

"I've no wish to hurt your feelin's undooly," said he, eyeing the bowl for a moment and tapping out the ashes into his palm.

"Don't mind me!"

"But I do mind ye. . . . See here now, Cai," he resumed after a short pause, "we've known one another—let me see—how long?"

"Seventeen years, come the twenty-first of November next," quickly responded Cai, fumbling at the tobacco-jar. "In Rotterdam, if you'll remember—our vessels lyin' alongside. 'Hullo!' says you."

"Far as I remember, you asked me aboard."

"Yes. 'Hullo!' says you; 'that's a pretty-lookin' craft o' your'n.' 'She'll work in' an' out o' most places,' says I. 'Speedy too, I reckon,' says you, 'for a hard-wood ship; though a bit fine forra'd. A wet boat, I doubt?' 'Not a bit,' says I; 'that's a mistake strangers are apt to make about the Hannah Hoo. Like to step aboard an' cast a look over her fittin's? I can show ye something in the way of teak panels,' says I: and you came. That's how it began," wound up Cai, staring hard at the tobacco-jar, for—to tell the truth—a faint mist obscured his vision.

'Bias, too, was staring hard, down upon the hearth-rug between his feet.

"Ay; an' from that day to this never a question atween us we couldn' settle by the toss of a coin." He continued to stare down gloomily. "Tossin' won't help us, not in this case," he added.

"It wouldn't be respectful."

"It wouldn't be fair, neither. . . . You may talk as you please, Cai, but the widow favours me."

"I asked ye for proofs just now, if you remember."

"So you did. And if you remember I asked you for the same, not two minutes afore. We can't give 'em, neither of us: and, if we could, why—as you said a moment since—'twouldn't be respectful. Let's play fair then, damn it!"

"Certainly," agreed Cai, striking a match and holding it to his pipe.
(But his hand shook.) "That's if you'll suggest how."

'Bias mused for a space. "Very well," said he at length; "then I'll suggest that we both sit down and write her a letter; post the letters together, and let the best man win."

"Couldn't be fairer," agreed Cai, after a moment's reflection.

"When I said the best man," 'Bias corrected himself, "I meant no more than to say the man she fancies. No reflection intended on you."

"Nor on yourself, maybe?" hinted Cai, with a last faint touch of exasperation. It faded, and—on an impulse of generosity following on a bright inspiration which had on the instant occurred to him— he suggested, "If you like, we'll show one another the letters before we post 'em?"

"That's as you choose," answered 'Bias. "Or afterwards, if you like—
I shall keep a rough copy."

Now this was said with suspicious alacrity: for Cai was admittedly the better scholar and, as a rule, revised 'Bias's infrequent business letters and corrected their faults of spelling. But—dazzled as he was by his own sudden and brilliant idea—no suspicion occurred to him.

"It's a bargain, then?"

"It's a bargain."

They did not shake hands upon it. Their friendship had always been sincere enough to dispense with all formalities of friendship; they would not have shaken hands on meeting (say) after a twenty years' separation. They looked one another in the eyes, just for an instant, and they both nodded.

"Cribbage to-night?" asked 'Bias.

"If 'tisn't too late," answered Cai.

He pulled out his watch, whilst 'Bias turned about to the mantel-shelf and the clock his bulk had been hiding.

"Nine-thirty," announced Cai.

"Almost to a tick," agreed 'Bias. "'Stonishing what good time we've kept ever since we set this clock."

"'Stonishing," Cai assented.

They played two games of cribbage and retired to bed. As he undressed Cai remembered his omission to warn 'Bias explicitly of what—according to Mrs Bowldler—the parrot was capable. The warning had been once or twice on the tip of his tongue during the early part of the conversation: but always (as he remembered) he had been interrupted.

"I'll warn him after breakfast to-morrow," said Cai to himself magnanimously, as he arose from his prayers. "Poor old 'Bias—what a good fellow it is, after all!"

He slept soundly, and was awakened next morning by Palmerston with the information, "Breakfast in the adjoining to-day, sir!"—this and "We are at home for breakfast" being the alternative formulae invented by Mrs Bowldler.

"And Captain Hunken requests of you not to wait," added Palmerston, again repeating what Mrs Bowldler had imparted.

"Is he lying late to-day?" asked Cai.

"He have a-gone out for an early ramble," answered Palmerston stolidly.

"Ah! to clear his brain—poor old 'Bias!" said Cai to himself, and thought no more about it. Nor did it occur to his mind that, overnight, Mrs Bowldler had point-blank refused to lay another meal in the room inhabited by the parrot, until, descending to 'Bias's parlour and becoming aware, as he lifted the teapot, that the room was brighter and sunnier than usual, he cast a glance toward the window. The parrot-cage no longer darkened it. Parrot and cage, in fact, were gone.

He turned sternly upon Mrs Bowldler. But Mrs Bowldler, setting down a dish of poached eggs, had noted his glance and anticipated his question.

"Which," said she, "I am obliged to you, sir, and prompter Captain Hunken could not have behaved. A nod, as they say, is as good as a wink to a blind horse; but Captain Hunken, being neither blind nor a horse, and anything so vulgar as winking out of the question, it may not altogether apply, though the result is the same."

CHAPTER XIV.

THE LETTERS.

Having breakfasted, read his newspaper, and smoked his pipe (and still no sign of the missing 'Bias), Cai brushed his hat and set forth to pay a call on Mr Peter Benny.

This Mr Peter Benny—father of Mr Shake Benny, whose acquaintance we have already made—was a white-haired little man who had known many cares in life, but had preserved through them all a passionate devotion to literature and an entirely simple heart: and these two had made life romantic for him, albeit his cares had been the very ordinary ones of a poor clerk with a long family of boys and girls, all of whom—his wife aiding—he had brought up to fear the Lord and seen fairly started in life. Towards the close of the struggle Fortune had chosen to smile, rewarding him with the stewardship of Damelioc, an estate lying beside the river some miles above Troy. This was a fine exchange against a beggarly clerkship, even for a man so honest as Peter Benny. But he did not hold it long. On the death of his wife, which happened in the fifth year of their prosperity, he had chosen to retire on a small pension, to inhabit again (but alone) the waterside cottage which in old days the children had filled to overflowing, and to potter at literary composition in the wooden outhouse where he had been used, after office hours, to eke out his 52 pounds salary by composing letters for seamen.

He retained his methodical habits, and Cai found him already at work in the outhouse, and thoroughly enjoying a task which might have daunted one of less boyish confidence. He was, in fact, recasting the 'Fasti' of Ovid into English verse, using for that purpose a spirited, if literal, prose translation (published by Mr Bohn) in default of the original, from which his ignorance of the Latin language precluded him. For a taste:—

"What sea, what land, knows not Arion's fame!
The rivers by his song were turned as stiff as glass:
The hungry wolf stood still, the lamb did much the same—
Pursuing and pursued, producing an impasse—"

But while delighting in this labour, Mr Benny was at any time ready, nay eager, for a chat. At Cai's entrance he pushed up his spectacles and beamed.

"Ah, good morning, Captain Hocken!—Good morning! I take this as really friendly. . . . You find me wooing the Muses as usual; up and early. Some authors, sir,—not that I dare claim that title,—have found their best inspirations by the midnight oil, even in the small hours. Edgar Allan Poe—an irregular genius—you are acquainted with his 'Raven,' sir?—"

"His what?"

"His 'Raven'; a poem about a bird that perched itself upon a bust and kept saying 'Nevermore,' like a parrot."

Cai winced. "On a bust, did you say? Whose bust?"

"A bust of Pallas, sir, in the alleged possession of Mr Poe himself: Pallas being otherwise Minerva, the goddess of Wisdom, usually represented with an Owl."

"I don't know much about birds," confessed Cai, reduced to helplessness by this erudition. "And I don't know anything about poetry, more's the pity—having been caught young and apprenticed to the sea."

"And nothing to be ashamed of in that, Captain Hocken!"

'The sea, the sea, the open sea—
The blue, the fresh, the ever free.'

"I daresay you've often felt like that about it, as did the late Barry Cornwall, otherwise Bryan Waller Procter, whose daughter, the gifted Adelaide Anne Procter, prior to her premature decease, composed 'The Lost Chord,' everywhere so popular as a cornet solo. It is one of the curiosities of literature," went on Mr Benny confidentially, "that the author of that breezy (not to say briny) outburst could not even cross from Dover to Calais without being prostrated by mal de mer; insomuch that his good lady (who happened, by the way, to survive him for a number of years, and, in fact, died quite recently), being of a satirical humour, and herself immune from that distressing complaint, used—as I once read in a magazine article—to walk up and down the deck before him on these occasions, mischievously quoting his own verses,—"

'I'm on the sea, I'm on the sea!
I am where I would ever be:
I love (O, how I love!) to ride
On the fierce, foaming, bursting tide,'

"et coetera. You'll excuse my rattling on in this fashion. So few people in Troy take an interest in literature: and it has so many by-ways!"

"I'm afraid," confessed Cai, more and more bewildered, "that my education was pretty badly neglected, 'specially in literature, though for some reason or another I'm not bad at spellin'. But, puttin' spellin' aside, that's just why I've come to you. I want you to help me with a letter, if you will."

"Why, of course I will," instantly responded Mr Benny, pushing his translations of the 'Fasti' aside and producing from a drawer some sheets of fresh paper.

"As a matter of business, you understand?"

"If you insist; though it will be a pleasure, Captain Hocken, I assure you."

"It's—it's a bit difficult," stammered Cai gratefully. "In fact, it's not an ordinary sort of letter at all."

Mr Benny, patting his paper into a neat pad, smiled professionally. The letter might not be an ordinary sort of letter; but he had in old days listened some hundreds of times to this exordium.

"It's—well, it's a proposal of marriage," said Cai desperately; and in despite of himself he started as he uttered the word.

Mr Benny, having patted up the pad to his satisfaction, answered with a nod only, and dipped his pen in the inkpot.

"I don't think you heard me," ventured Cai. "It's a proposal of marriage."

"Fire away!" said Mr Benny. "Just dictate, of give me the main bearings, and I'll fix it up."

"But look here—it's a proposal of marriage, I tell you!"

"I've written scores and scores. . . . For yourself, is it?"

This simple and indeed apparently necessary question hit Cai between wind and water.

"I want it written in the first person, of course—if that's what you mean?"

Again Mr Benny nodded, "I see," said he. "You're here on behalf of a friend, who is too bashful to come on his own account."

"You may put it at that," agreed Cai, greatly relieved. "I told you the case was a bit out o' the common!"

Mr Benny's smile was still strictly professional. "It's not outside of my experience, sir; so far, at any rate. May I take your friend to be of your own age, more or less?"

Cai nodded. "You're pretty quick at guessin', I must say."

"A trifle rusty, I fear, for want of practice. . . . But it will come back. . . Now for the lady. Spinster or widow?"

"Does that matter?"

"It helps, in a letter."

"We'll put it, then, as she's a widow."

"Age? . . . There, there! I'm not asking you to be definite, of course: but to give me a little general guidance. For instance, would she be about your friend's age? Or younger, shall we say?"

"Younger."

"Considerably?"

"I don't see as you need lay stress on that."

"You may be sure I shall not," said Mr Benny, jotting down "Younger, considerably" on his writing pad. "Moreover we can tone down or remove anything that strikes you as unhappily worded in our first draft. Trade, profession, or occupation, if any?" Seeing that Cai hesitated, "The more candid your friend is, between these four walls," added Mr Benny, extracting a hair from his pen, "the more persuasive we are likely to be."

"You may set down that she keeps a farm."

"Independent means?"

"Well, yes, as it happens. Not that—"

"To be sure—to be sure! When the affections are engaged, that doesn't weigh. Not, at any rate, with your friend. Still it may influence what I will call, Captain Hocken, the style of the approach. Style, sir, has been defined by my brother, Mr Joshua Benny—You may have heard of him, by the way, as being prominently connected with the London press. . . . No? A man of remarkable talent, though I say it. They tell me that for lightness of touch in a Descriptive Middle, it would be hard to find his match in Fleet Street. . . . As I was saying, sir, my brother Joshua has defined style as the art of speaking or writing with propriety, whatever the subject. By propriety, sir, he means what is ordinarily termed appropriateness. Impropriety, in the sense of indelicacy, is out of the question in—a—a communication of this kind. Strict appropriateness, on the other hand, is not always easy to capture. May I take it that your friend has—er—enjoyed a seafaring past?"

Cai gazed blankly at him for a short while, and broke into a simple hearty laugh.

"Why, of course," said he, "you're thinking of my friend 'Bias Hunken!
I almost took ye for a conjuror, first-along—upon my word I did!
But once I get the drift o' your cunning, 'tis easy as easy."
He gazed at Mr Benny and winked knowingly.

"You may tell me, if you please," replied Mr Benny, himself somewhat mystified, but playing for safety. "You may tell me, of course, that 'tis not Captain Hunken but another man altogether: as different from Captain Hunken as you might be, for instance."

Cai started. He was not good at duplicity, but managed to parry the suggestion. "We'll suppose it is my friend, 'Bias," said he; "though 'Bias would be amused if he heard it."

"Very well—very well indeed!" Mr Benny laid down his pen, rubbed his hands softly, and picked up the pen again. "Now we can get to work. . . . 'Honoured Madam'—Shall we begin with 'Honoured Madam'? Or would you prefer something a trifle more—er—impassioned? Perhaps we had better open—er—warily—if I may advise, and (so to speak) warm to our subject. . . . There is an art, Captain Hocken, even in composing and inditing a proposal of marriage. . . . 'Honoured Madam—You will doubtless be surprised by the purport of this letter—' Will she be surprised, by the way?"

"Cert'nly," Cai answered. "We agreed this is from 'Bias, remember."

"Yes, yes. . . . She will like it to be supposed that she's surprised, any way. All ladies do. '—as by the communication I find myself impelled to make to you.' I word it thus to suggest that you—that Captain Hunken, rather—cannot help himself: that the lady has made, in the most literal sense, a conquest. A feeling of triumph, sir, is in the female breast, whether of maiden or widow, inseparably connected with the receipt of such a communication. Without asking Captain Hunken's leave—eh?—we will flatter that feeling a little—and portray him as the victim of this particular lady's bow and spear. A figurative expression."

"Oh!" said Cai, who had begun to stare. "Well, go on."

"'Surprised, I say; yet not (I hope) affronted; in any event not unwilling to pardon, recognising that these words flow from the dictates of an emotion which, while in itself honourable, is in another sense notoriously no respecter of persons. Love, Honoured Madam, has its votaries as well as its victims. I have never accounted myself, nor have I been accounted, in the former category—'"

"What's a category?" asked Cai.

Mr Benny scratched out the word. "We will substitute 'case,'" said he, "and save Captain Hunken the trouble of an explanation. 'I am no longer—you will have detected it, so why should I pretend?—in the first flush of youth: no passionate boy'—We are talking of Captain Hunken, remember."

Cai nodded. "It's true as gospel, Mr Benny. But you have a wonderful way o' putting things."

In this way—Mr Benny scribbling, erasing, purring over a phrase and anon declaiming it—Cai venturing a question here and there, but always apologetically, with a sense of being carried off his feet and swept into deep waters—in half an hour the letter was composed. It was not at all the letter Cai had expected. It threw up his suit into a high romantic light in which he scarcely recognised it or himself. But he felt it to be extremely effective. His conscience pricked him a little, as in imagination he saw 'Bias with head aslant and elbows sprawling, inking himself to the wrists in literary effort. Poor 'Bias! But "all's fair in love and war."

To his mild astonishment Mr Benny declined a fee. "If, sir, you will be good enough to accept it, as between friends?" the little man suggested timidly. "You have helped me to pass a very pleasant morning: and it will be—shall I say?—something of a bond between us if, in the event, our joint composition should prove to have been instrumental in forwarding—er—Captain Hunken's suit."

Cai hesitated. At that moment he would have preferred conferring a benefit to receiving one. His conscience wanted a small salve. Yet to refuse would hurt Mr Benny's feelings.

"I'll tell you what!" he suggested: "We'll throw it in with another favour I meant to ask of you, and for which you shall name your terms. It has been suggested—by several, so there's no need to mention names— that I ought to go in for public life, in a small way, of course."

"Indeed, Captain Hocken?" Mr Benny smiled to himself; he began to understand, or thought that he did. "A very laudable ambition, too!"

"The mischief is," confessed Cai, "that I have had no practice in speakin'. I couldn't, as they say, make a public speech for nuts."

"It is an art, Captain Hocken," said Mr Benny reassuringly, "and can be acquired. An ambition to acquire it sir,—though in your mind you viewed it but as a means to an end,—would in my humble view be an ambition even more laudable than that of shining on the administrative side of public life. For it is not only an art, sir, and a great one. It is well-nigh a lost art. Where, nowadays, are your Burkes, your Foxes, your Sheridans—not to mention your Demostheneses?"

"You'll understand," hesitated Cai, "that nothing beyond the School Board is in question at present. I mention this strictly between ourselves."

Mr Benny swung about upon his stool. "Listen to this, Captain Hocken— 'Observe, sir, that, besides the desire which all men have naturally of supporting the honour of their own government, that sense of dignity and that security to property which ever attends freedom, has'—or, as I should prefer to say, have—'a tendency to increase the stock of the free community. Much may be taken where most is accumulated. And what is the soil or climate where experience has not uniformly proved that the voluntary flow of heaped-up plenty, bursting from the weight of heaped-up luxuriance, has ever run with a more copious stream of revenue, than could be squeezed from the dry husks of oppressed indigence by the straining of all the machinery in the world?' That is Burke, sir—Burke: who, by the fribbles of his own day, was lightly termed the dinner-bell of the House of Commons, yet compelled the attention of all serious political thinkers—"

'Th' applause of listening Senates to command.'

"I divine your ambition. Captain Hocken, and I honour it,"

"So long as you don't mistake me," urged Cai nervously. "It don't go beyond a seat on the School Board at present. . . . But there was a hint dropped that you used, back-along, to give lessons in—I forget the word."

"Elocution," Mr Benny supplied it. "A guinea the course of six lessons was my old charge. Shall we say to-morrow, at eleven sharp?"

"So be it," Cai agreed. "The sooner the better—I've to catch up the lee-way of three-quarters of a lifetime."

When Cai had folded the draft of his letter, bestowed it in his breast-pocket, and taken his departure, Mr Benny drew out his watch. It yet wanted a full hour of dinner-time. He rearranged the papers on his desk and resumed work upon the 'Fasti':—

"The hound beside the hare held consort in the shade,
The hind, the lioness, upon the self-same rock,
The too loquacious crow—"

Here some one knocked at the door.

"Come in!" called Mr Benny.

The door opened. The visitor was Captain Hunken.

"Good mornin'."

"Ah! Good morning, sir!"

"Busy?"

"Dallying, sir,—dallying with the Muses. That is all my business nowadays."

"I looked in," said 'Bias, laying down his hat, "to ask if you would do me a small favour."

"You may be sure of it, Captain Hunken: that is, if it should lie in my power."

'Bias nodded, somewhat mysteriously. "You bet it does: though, as one might say, it don't lie azackly inside the common. I want a letter written."

"Yes?"

"It ain't, as you might put it, an ordinary letter either. It's,—well, in fact, it's a proposal of marriage!"

Mr Benny rubbed the back of his head gently. "I have written quite a number in my time, Captain Hunken. . . . Is it—if I may put it delicately—in the first person, sir?"

"She's the first person—" began 'Bias, and came to a halt. "Does that matter," he asked, "so long as I describe the parties pretty accurate?"

"Not a bit," Mr Benny assured him. "A friend, shall we say?"

"That's right," 'Bias nodded solemnly.

"And the lady?—spinster or widow?"

"Widow."

"Oh!"

"Eh?"

"Nothing. . . . I was considering. One has to collect a few data, you understand,—in strict confidence, of course. . . . Trade, profession, or occupation?"

"Whose?"

"Well, your friend's, to start with."

"Is that necessary?"

"It will help us to be persuasive." Seeing that 'Bias still hesitated, Mr Benny went on. "May I take it, for instance, that one may credit him, as a friend of yours, with a seafaring past?"

"I do believe," responded 'Bias with a slow smile after regarding Mr
Benny for some seconds, "as you're thinkin' of Cai Hocken?"

Mr Benny laughed. "And yet it would not be so tremendous a guess,— hey?—seeing what friends you two are."

"It won't do no harm," allowed 'Bias after pondering a while, "if you took it to be Cai Hocken; though, mind you, I don't say as you're right."

"That's understood. . . . Now for the lady's occupation?"

"Well . . . you might make it farmin'—for the sake of argument."

"Now I wonder," thought Mr Benny to himself, "which of these two is lying." Aloud he began, setting pen to paper and repeating as he wrote, "'Honoured Madam,'—you don't think that too cold?"

"Why, are you able to start already?" exclaimed 'Bias in unfeigned amazement.

"I like to catch an inspiration as it springs to my brain," Mr Benny assured him. "We'll correct as we go on."

CHAPTER XV.

PALMERSTON'S GENIUS.

"You're welcome as blossom, my dear," said Mrs Bowldler to Fancy Tabb, who had dropped in, as she put it, for a look around. The child was allowed a couple of hours off duty in the afternoon to take a walk and blow away the cobwebs of the Chandler's gloomy house: her poor shop-drudge of a father having found courage to wring this concession from Mr Rogers for her health's sake. "You're welcome as blossom, but you must work for your welcome. Come and help me to cut bread-and-butter. . . . Palmerston! You bring the kettle and pour a little water into the teapots, just to get 'em heated."

"Company, is it?" asked Fancy, laying aside her cloak.

"Company?" Mrs Bowldler sniffed. "We've had enough of company to last us this side of the grave. Ho, I trust the name of company will not be breathed in my hearing for some time to come!"

"What is it, then?"

"Freaks, I hope; maggots, as my poor dear tender mother used to say; and all casting double work on the establishment. We must dine separate, all of a sudden; and now we must have our tea served separate; and from dinner to tea-time sitting in writing, the pair of us, till I wonder it haven't brought on a rush of blood to our poor heads."

"Writing?" echoed Fancy. She desisted from spreading the butter and eyed Mrs Bowldler doubtfully, pursing up her lips. "I don't like the look of that. What are they writing, do you suppose?"

"It don't become me to guess," answered Mrs Bowldler. "Belike they're making their wills and leaving one another the whole of their property."

"I hope not. They'd make a dreadful mess of it without a lawyer to help."

"They're making a dreadful mess on the tablecloth—or, as I should
say, on the tablecloths, respectively, as the case may be. Blots.
There's one or two you couldn't cover with a threepenny bit.
Captain Hunken especially; and it cost four-and-ninepence only last
July, which makes the heart bleed."

"They haven't quarrelled, have they?" asked Fancy.

"Quarrelled? No, of course they haven't quarrelled. What put such a thing into your head, child?"

"I don't know. . . . But I don't like this writin'; it's unnatural.
And they're livin' apart, you say?"

"They didn't even breakfast together. But that was an accident, Captain
Hunken having walked out early and taken the parrot."

"Funny thing to take for a walk."

"Which," explained Mrs Bowldler with a glance at Palmerston, "I had to lodge a complaint with Captain Hocken yesterday relative to its conversation, and he must have spoken about it; for Captain Hunken went out at eight o'clock taking the bird with him, cage and all, and when he came back they were minus."

Fancy pondered. "What did the parrot say?" she asked.

"You mustn't ask, my dear. I couldn't tell it to anything less than a married woman."

"That's a pity; because I wanted to know, quick. I suppose, now, you haven't a notion what he did with the bird?"

"Not a notion."

"I thought not. Well, I have. He's been an' gone an' given it away to
Mrs Bosenna, up at Rilla."

Mrs Bowldler turned pale and gripped the edge of the table.

"I'll bet you any money," Fancy nodded slowly.

"Ho! catch me ere I faint!" panted Mrs Bowldler.

"Why, what's the matter? She's a married woman, or has been."

"If only you'd heard—"

"Yes, it's a pity," agreed Fancy, and turned about. "Pam!"

"Yes, Miss," answered Palmerston.

"Call me 'Fancy.'"

"Yes, Miss Fancy."

She stamped her small foot. "There's no 'Miss' about it. How stupid you are—when you see I'm in a hurry, too! Call me 'Fancy.'"

"Y-yes—Fancy," stammered Palmerston, blushing furiously, shutting his eyes and dropping his voice to a whisper.

"That's better. . . . What does it feel like? Pleasant?"

"V-very pleasant, miss—Fancy, I mean. It—it'll come in time," pleaded Palmerston, still red to the eyes.

"That's right, again. Because I want you to marry me, Pammy dear."

"Well! the owdacious!" exclaimed Mrs Bowldler in a kind of hysterical titter, snatching at her bodice somewhere over the region of her heart. Fancy paid no heed to her.

"Only we must make a runaway match of it," she went on, "for there's no time to lose, it seems."

For answer Palmerston burst into a flood of tears.

"There now!" Mrs Bowldler of a sudden became serious. "You might have known he's too soft to be teased. . . . Oh, be quiet, do, Palmerston! Think of your namesake!"

A bell jangled overhead.

"Captain Hocken's bell!—and the child's face all blubbered, which he hates to see, while as for Captain Hunken—there! it that isn't his bell going too in the adjoining! Palmerston, pull yourself together and be a man."

"I c-can't, missus," sobbed Palmerston. "He—he said yesterday as he'd g-give me the sack the next time he saw my eyes red."

"Well, I must take 'em their tea myself, I suppose," said Mrs Bowldler, who had a kind heart. "No, Palmerston, your eyes are not fit. But you see how I'm situated?" she appealed to Fancy.

"Do you usually let them ring for tea?" Fancy asked.

"No, child. There must be something wrong with them both, or else with my clock," answered Mrs Bowldler with a glance up at the timepiece. "But twenty-five past four, I take you to witness! and I keep it five minutes fast on principle."

"There is something wrong," Fancy assured her. "If you'll take my advice, you'll go in and look injured."

"I couldn't keep 'em waiting, though injured I will look," promised Mrs Bowldler, catching up one of the two tea-trays. "Palmerston had better withdraw into the grounds and control himself. I will igsplain that I have sent him on an errand connected with the establishment."

She bustled forth. Fancy closed the door after her; then turned and addressed Palmerston.

"Dry your eyes, you silly boy," she commanded. Palmerston obeyed and stood blinking at her—alternately at her and at his handkerchief which he held tightly crumpled into a pad; whereupon she demanded, somewhat cruelly:

"Now, what have you to say for yourself?" He was endeavouring to answer when Mrs Bowldler came running in and caught up the other tea-tray.

"Which it appears," she panted, "he is in a hurry to catch the post; and I hope the Lord will forgive me for saying that Palmerston had just this instant returned and would go with it. But he has it done up in an envelope, and says boys are not to be trusted. When I was a girl in my teens," pursued Mrs Bowldler, luckily discovering that the second teapot had no water in it, and hastening to the kettle, "we learnt out of a Child's Compendium about a so-called ancient god of the name of Mercury, whence the stuff they put into barometers to go up for fine weather. He had wings on his boots, or was supposed to: which it would be a convenience in these days, with Palmerston's unfortunate habits. For goodness' sake, child," she addressed Fancy, "take him out somewhere, that I mayn't perjure myself twice in one day!"

She vanished.

"Now, what have you to say for yourself?" Fancy turned again upon Palmerston and repeated her question.

"That's what's the matter with me, Miss—Fancy, I mean," confessed he, after a painful struggle with his emotions. "I never had nothing to say for myself, not in this world: and—and—" he plucked up courage— "you got no business to play with me the way you did just now!" he blurted.

"Who said I was a-playin' with you?" Fancy demanded; but Palmerston did not heed.

"And right a-top of your sayin' as writin' was unnatural!" he continued.

She stared at him. "What has that to do with it? . . . Besides, whatever you're drivin' at, I didn' mean as all writin' was unnatural. I got to do enough of it for Mr Rogers, the Lord knows! But for them two, as have spent the best part of their lives navigatin' ships, it do seem—well, we'll call it unmanly somehow."

"That makes it all the worse," growled Palmerston, sticking both hands in his pockets and forcing himself to meet her stare, against which he nodded sullenly. "A man has to lift himself somehow—when he wants something, very bad."

"What is it you want?" asked Fancy.

"You know what it is, right enough." He glowered at her hardily, being desperate now and beyond shame.

"Do 'I?" But she blenched, meeting his eyes as be continued to nod.

"Yes, you do," persisted he. "I wants to marry ye, one of these days; and you can't round on me, either, for outin' with it; for 'twas your own suggestion."

"Oh, you silly boy!" Fancy reproved him, while conscious of a highly delicious thrill and an equally delicious fear. ("O, youth, youth! and the wonder of first love!") She cast about for escape, and forced a laugh. "Do you know, you're the very first as has ever proposed to me."

"I was thinkin' as much," said the unflattering Palmerston. "Come to that, you was the first as ever offered marriage to me."

"But I didn't! I mean," urged Fancy, "it was only in joke."

"Joke or not," said Palmerston, "you can't deny it." Suddenly weakening, he let slip his advantage. "But I wouldn' wish to marry one that despised me," he declared. "I had enough o' bein' despised—in the Workhouse."

"I never said I despised you, Pammy," Fancy protested.

"Yes, you did; or in so many words—'Unmanly,' you said."

"But that was about writing." She opened her eyes wide. "You don't mean to tell me that's the trouble? . . . What have you been writing?"

"A book," owned Palmerston with gloom. "A man must try to raise himself somehow."

"Of course he must. What sort of book?"

"It's—it's only a story."

"Why," she reassured him, "I heard of a man the other day who wrote a story and made A Thousand Pounds. It was quite unexpected, and surprised even his friends."

"It must be the same man Mrs Bowldler told me about. His name was Walter Scott, and he called it 'Waverley' without signing his name to it, because he was a Sheriff; and there was another man that wrote a book called 'Picnic' by Boss, and made pounds. So I've called mine 'Pickerley,' by way of drawing attention,—but, of course, if you think there's no chance, I suppose there isn't," wound up Palmerston, with a sudden access of despondency.

"Oh, Palmerston," exclaimed Fancy, clasping her hands, "if it should only turn out that you're a genius!"

"It would be a bit of all right," he agreed, his cheerfulness reviving.

"I have heard somewhere," she mused, "or perhaps I read it on the newspaper, that men of genius make the very worst husbands, and a woman must be out of her senses to marry one."

Again Palmerston's face fell. "I mayn't be one after all," he protested, but not very hopefully.

"Oh yes, I am sure you are! And, what's more, if you make a hit, as they say, I don't know but I might overlook it and take the risk. You see, I'm accustomed to living with Mr Rogers, who is bound to go to hell and that might turn out to be a sort of practice."

The boy stood silent, rubbing his head. He wanted time to think this out. Such an altered face do our ambitions present to most of us as they draw closer, nearer to our grasp!

Suddenly Fancy clapped her hands. "Why, of course!" she cried. "I always had an idea, somewhere inside o' me, that I'd be a lady one of these days—very important and covered all over with di'monds, so that all the other women would envy me. You know that feelin'?"

"No-o," confessed Palmerston.

"You would if you were a woman. But, contrariwise, what I like almost better is keepin' shop—postin' up ledgers, makin' out bills, to account rendered, second application, which doubtless has escaped your notice, and all that sort of thing. I saw a shop in Plymouth once with young women by the dozen sittin' at desks, and when they pulled a string little balls came rollin' towards them over on their heads like the stars in heaven, all full of cash; and they'd open one o' these balls and hand you out your change just as calm and scornful as if they were angels and you the dirt beneath their feet. You can't think how I longed to be one o' them and behave like that. But the two things didn't seem to go together."

"What two things?"

"Why, sittin' at a desk like that and sittin' on a sofa and sayin' 'How d'e do, my dear? It's so good of you to call in this dreadful weather, especially as you have to hire. . . .' But now," said Fancy, clasping her hands, "I see my way: that is, if you're really a genius. You shall write your books and I'll sell them. 'Mr and Mrs Palmerston Burt, Author and—what's the word?—pub—publicans—no, publisher; Author and Publisher.' It's quite the highest class of business: and if any one tried to patronise me I could always explain that I just did it to help, you bein' a child in matters of business. Geniuses are mostly like that."

"Are they?"

"Yes, that's another of their drawbacks. And," continued Fancy, "you'd be a celebrity of course, which means that we should be in the magazines, with pictures—A Corner of the Library, and The Rose-garden, looking West, and Mrs Palmerston Burt is not above playing with the Baby, and you with your favourite dog—for we'd have both, by that time. Oh, Pammy, where is the book?"

"Upstairs, mostly, but I got a couple o' chapters upon me—" Palmerston tapped his breast-pocket—"If you really mean as you'd like—" He hesitated, his colour changing from red to white. Here, on the point of proving it, the poor boy feared his fate too much.

But Fancy insisted. They escaped together to Captain Hunken's garden; and there, in the summer-house—by this time almost in twilight—he showed her the precious manuscript. It was written (like many another first effort of genius) on very various scraps of paper, the most of which had previously enwrapped groceries.

"And to think," breathed Fancy, recognising some of Mr Rogers's trade wrappers, "that maybe I've seen dad doin' up those very parcels, and never guessed—well, go on! Read it to me."

"I—I don't read at all well," faltered Palmerston.

She tapped her foot. "I don't care how bad you read so long as you don't keep me waitin' a moment longer."

"This is Chapter Nine. . . . If you like, of course, I could start by tellin' you what the other chapters are about—"

"Please don't talk any more, but read!"

"Oh, very well. The chapter is called 'Ernest makes Another Attempt.' Ernest is what Mrs Bowldler calls the hero, which means that the book is all about him. It begins—"

'It was late in the evening following upon the events related in the previous chapter'

—I got that out of a paper Mrs Bowldler carries about in her pocket. It is called 'Bow Bells,' and you can depend on it, for it's all about the highest people—

'when Ernest rang at the bell of Number 20 Grovener Square.'

—I got that address, too, out of Mrs Bowldler. She said you couldn' go higher than that. 'Not humanly speakin'' was her words, though I don't quite know what she meant."

"But," objected Fancy, "you might want to start higher, in another book. We can't expect to live all our lives on this one: and there oughtn't to be any come-down."

Palmerston smiled and waved his manuscript with an air of mastery.
He had thought of this.

"There's Royalty!"

"O-oh!" Fancy caught her breath. She felt sure now of his genius.

"We must feel our way," said Palmerston; "I believe in flyin' as high as you like so long as you're on safe ground. Of course," he went on, "there is a danger. I don't know who really lives in Grovener Square at Number 20; but they're almost sure not to be called Delauncy, and so there's no real hurt to their feelin's."

"Mrs Bowldler might know."

"You don't understand," explained Palmerston, who seemed, since breaking the ice of his confession, to have grown some inches taller, and altogether more masterful. "She don't know why I put all these questions to her. She sets it down to curiosity: when, all the time, I'm pumpin' her."

"Oh!" Fancy collapsed.

Palmerston resumed:—

"'The second footman ushered him to the boudoir, where already he had lit several lamps, casting a subdued shade of rose colour. The Lady Herm Intrude reclined on a console in an attitude which a moment since had been one of despair, but was now languid to the point of carelessness.'"

"What's a console?" inquired Fancy.

"They have one in all the best drawing-rooms," answered Palmerston.
"Mrs Bowldler—"

"Oh, go on!" She was beginning to feel jealous, or almost jealous.

"'She was attired in a gown of old Mechlin, with a deep fall and an indication of orange blossoms, and carried a shower bouquet of cluster roses, the—

"No, I've scratched that out. It said 'the gift of the bridegroom,' and
I got it from a fashionable wedding; but it won't do in this place."

'Amid these luxurious surroundings Ernest felt
his brain in a whirl. He cast himself on his knees
before the recumbent figure on the console which
gave no sign of life unless a long-drawn and
half-stifled sob, which seemed to strangle its owner,
might be so interpreted.
"Lady Herm Intrude," he cried in broken accents, "for
the second time, I love you."'"

"It's lovely, Palmerston! Lovely!" gasped Fancy. "Why was he loving her for the second time?"

"He was telling her for the second time. He had loved her from the first—it's all in the early chapters. . . . This is the second time he told her: and he has to do it twice more before the end of the book."

'As he waited, scarcely daring to breathe, for some answer, he could almost smell the perfume of the orchids which floated from a neighbouring vase and filled the apartment with its high-class articles of furniture, the product of many lands.'

"Oh, Palmerston! And you that never had an 'ome of your own, since you was nine—not even a Scattered one! However did you manage to think of it all?"

She caught the manuscript from him and peered at it, straining her eyes in the dark.

"If you could fetch a lamp now?" she suggested.

But the boy stepped close and stood beside her, dominant.

"You know how I came to do it," he said. "Yes—I'm glad you like it. I'll fetch a lamp. But—"

As she pored over the manuscript, he bent and suddenly planted a great awkward kiss on the side of her cheek.

Thereupon he fled in quest of the lamp.

CHAPTER XVI

IS IN TWO PARTS.

PART I.

Cai and 'Bias supped together that night, greatly to Mrs Bowldler's relief. But they exchanged a very few words during the meal, being poor hands at dissimulation.

The meal, for the third time running, was laid in Cai's parlour, Mrs Bowldler having delicately elected to ignore the upset caused by the parrot and to treat yesterday as a dies non. 'Bias, if he noted this, made no comment.

The cloth having been removed, they drew their chairs as usual to front the fireplace. Cai arose, found a clean church-warden pipe on the mantelshelf, passed it to 'Bias, and selected one for himself.

"I sent off that letter to-day," he said carelessly.

"Right," said 'Bias; "I sent mine, too."

"Four-thirty post, mine went by."

"So did mine."

"She'll get 'em together, then, first delivery to-morrow."

"Ay."

"That puts us all square. She'll be amused, I shouldn't wonder."

"I didn' try to be amusin' in mine," said 'Bias after a pause, puffing stolidly.

"No more did I." Cai filled and lit his pipe in silence. His conscience troubled him a little. "Well," said he, dropping into his arm-chair, "the matter's settled one way or another, so far as we're consarned. The letters are in the post, and there's no gettin' them out unless by Act o' Parliament. I don't mind tellin' you just what I said, if you think 'twould be fairer-like."

"I'm agreeable."

"You won't take it amiss that I pitched it pretty strong?"

"Not at all," answered 'Bias. "Come to that, I pitched it pretty strong myself."

Cai smiled tolerantly, and felt for the rough draft in his pocket. He fished it forth, unfolded the paper, and spread it on his knee under the lamp-light. Then, having adjusted his glasses, he picked up his pipe again.

"I just started off," said he, "by hintin' that she might be a bit surprised at hearin' from me."

"That's true enough," agreed 'Bias. "She'll be more'n surprised, if I'm not mistaken."

"I don't see why."

"Don't you? . . . Well, no offence. It's a very good way to begin. In fact," said 'Bias in a slightly patronising tone, "it's pretty much how I began myself. Only I went on quick to hope she wasn't—how d'ye call it?"

"I don't know what word you used. I should have said affronted,' if I take your meanin'."

'Bias gave a start. "As it happens I—er—hit on that very word.
I remember, because it looked funny to me, spelt with two f's.
But I went on to say that I meant honourable, and that she mustn't blame
me, because this kind o' thing happened without respect o' persons."

Cai sat up, stiff and wondering. He took off his glasses and wiped them. "You said—that?" he asked slowly.

"I said a damned sight more than that," chuckled 'Bias. "I said that love had its victims as well as its something else beginning with a v, which I forget the exact expression at this moment, and that I'd never looked on myself as bein' in the former cat—no, case. You can't think how I pitched it," said 'Bias, folding his hands comfortably over his stomach. "The words seemed just to flow from the pen."

"Oh, can't I?" Cai, sitting up with rigid backbone, continued to gaze at him. "Oh, they did—did they? And maybe you didn' go on to explain you weren't precisely in the first flush o' youth—not what you might call a passionate boy—"

It was 'Bias's turn to sit erect. He sat erect, breathing hard. "There—there's nothing unusual about the expression, is there?" he stammered. "Though how you come to guess on it—"

"You've been stealin' my letter, somehow!" flamed Cai.

But 'Bias did not seem to hear. He continued to breathe hard, to stare into vacancy. "Did you pay a visit to Peter Benny this mornin'?" he asked at length, very slowly.

"Well, yes—if you must know," Cai answered sullenly, his wrath checked by confusion, much as the onset of a tall wave is smothered as it meets a backwash.

"That's right," 'Bias nodded. "Somehow or 'nother Benny's sold us a dog: and, what's more, he sold us the same dog. . . . I don't think," went on 'Bias after a pause, "that it showed very good feelin' on your part, your goin' to Benny."

"Why not?" demanded Cai, whose thoughts were beginning to work. "Far as I can see you did the very same thing; so anyway you can't complain."

"Yes, I can. You know very well I never set up to be a scholar, same as you. By rights you're the scratch boat on this handicap, yet you tried to steal allowance. I thought you'd a-been a better sportsman."

"My goin' to Benny," urged Cai sophistically, "was a case of one eddicated man consultin' another, as is frequently done."

"Oh, is it? Well, you done it pretty thoroughly, I must say."

"Whereas your goin' was a clean case o' tryin' to pass off goods that weren't your own, or anything like it. . . . Come, I'll put it to you another way. Supposin' your letter had worked the trick, and she'd said 'yes' on the strength of it—I'm puttin' this for argyment's sake, you understand?"

"Go on."

"And supposin' one day, after you was married, she'd come to you and said, ''Bias, I want a letter written. I thought o' writin' it myself, but you're such a famous hand at a letter.' A nice hole you'd a-been in!"

"No, I shouldn'. I'd say, 'You rate me too high, my dear. Still,' I'd say, 'if you insist upon it, you just scribble down the main points on a sheet o' paper, and I'll take a walk and think it over.' Then I'd carry it off to Benny." 'Bias, who so far had held the better of the argument by keeping his temper, clinched his triumph with a nod and refilled his pipe.

"Benny's an old man, and might die at any moment," objected Cai.

"Now you're gettin' too far-fetched altogether. . . . Besides, 'twouldn't be any affair o' yours—would it?—after I'm married to her."

"Well, you won't be—now: and no more shall I," said Cai bitterly.
"Benny's seen to that!"

"'Tis a mess, sure enough," agreed 'Bias, lighting his pipe and puffing.

"She'll be affronted—oh, cuss the word! Just fancy it, to-morrow morning, when she opens her post! A nice pair of jokers she'll think us!" Cai paced the room. "Couldn't we go up to-night and explain?"

"Five minutes to ten," said 'Bias with a glance at the clock. "Ask her to get out o' bed and come down to hear we've made fools of ourselves? I don't see myself. You can do what you like, o' course."

"I shan't sleep a wink," declared Cai, still pacing. "How on earth
Benny—" He halted of a sudden. "You don't suppose Benny himself—"

"Ch't! a man of his age. . . . No, I'll tell you how it happened, as I allow: and, if so, Benny's not altogether to blame. First you goes to him, and wants a letter written. You give him no names, but he learns enough to guess how the wind sits . . . am I right, so far?"

Cai nodded.

"So he writes the letter and off you goes with it. Later on, in I drops with pretty much the same request. I remember, now, the old fellow behaved rather funny: asked me something about bein' the 'first person,' and then wanted to know if I didn' wish the letter written for a friend. I wasn't what you might call at my ease with the job, and so—as the time was gettin' on for dinner, too—I let it go at that."

"You did? . . . But so did I!"

"Hey?"

"I let Benny think he was writin' it for a friend o' mine. Far as I remember, he suggested it. . . . Yes, he certainly did," said Cai with an effort of memory.

"It don't matter," said 'Bias after a few seconds' reflection. "He took it for granted that one of us was tellin' lies: and likely enough he's chucklin' now at the thought of our faces when the thing came to be cleared up. Come to consider, there was no vice about the trick, 'specially as he wouldn' take any money from me."

"Nor from me," Cai dropped into his chair and reached for the tobacco-jar. "Well," he sighed, "the man's done for both of us, that's all!"

"Not a bit," said 'Bias sturdily. "We'll walk up early to-morrow, and explain. Ten to one it'll put her in the best o' tempers, havin' such a laugh against us both."

PART II.

"He can't have known!" said Mrs Bosenna early next morning, sitting in a high-backed chair beside the kitchen-table. Her face was slightly flushed, and the toe of her right shoe kept an impatient tap-tap on the flagged floor. "He can't possibly have known."

"We'll hope not," said Dinah. "It's thoughtless, though—put it at the best: and any way it don't speak too well for his past."

"He may have bought it, you know," urged Mrs Bosenna; "late in life."

"Well, he's no chicken," allowed Dinah; "since you put it like that."

"I wasn't referring to Captain Hunken, you silly woman. I meant it."

"Eh?" said Dinah. "Oh!—him?"

"'Him' if you like," Mrs Bosenna mused. "It can't possibly be a female, can it?"

"I should trust not, for the sake of a body's sex . . . to say things like that. Besides, I've surely been told somewhere—in the 'Child's Guide to Knowledge,' it may have been—that the females don't talk at all."

"Are you sure of that?"

"Pretty sure. It was something unnatural anyhow; or I shouldn' have remembered it."

"Well, and if so," said Mrs Bosenna, "one can see what Providence was driving at, which is always a comfort. . . . I was wondering now if you mind going and carrying him out to the garden somewhere. He couldn't take harm in this weather,—under the box-hedge, for instance."

Dinah shook her head. "I couldn', mistress; no really!"

"The chances are," said Mrs Bosenna persuasively, "he wouldn't say anything,—anything like that again, not in a blue moon."

"He said it to me first, and he said it to me again not ten minutes later. But, o' course, if you're so confident, there's nothing hinders your goin' and takin' him where you like. If you ask my opinion, though, he don't wait for no blue moons. He turns 'em blue as they come."

Mrs Bosenna tapped her foot yet more pettishly. "It's perfectly ridiculous," she declared, "to be kept out of one's own parlour by a bird! Go and call in William Skin, and tell him to take away the nasty thing."

"And him with a family?"

"He's hard of hearin'," said Mrs Bosenna.

"It's a hardness you can t depend on. I've knowed William hear fast enough,—when he wasn't wanted. He'll be wantin' to know, too, why we can't put the bird out for ourselves: his deafness makes him suspicious. . . . And what's more," wound up Dinah, "it won't help us, one way or 'nother, whether he hears or not. We shall go about thinkin he's heard; and I tell ye, mistress, I shan't be able to face that man again without a blush, not in my born life."

"It's perfectly ridiculous, I tell you!" repeated Mrs Bosenna, starting to her feet. "Am I to be forced to breakfast in the kitchen because of a bird?"

"Then, if so be as you're so proud as all that, why not go back to bed again, and I'll bring breakfast up to your room."

"Nonsense. Where d'ye keep the beeswax? And run you up to the little store-cupboard and fetch me down a fingerful of cotton-wool for my ears. I'll do it myself, since you're such a coward."

"'Tisn't that I'm a coward, mistress—"

"You're worse," interrupted her mistress severely.

"You never ought to know anything about such words, and it's a revelation to me wherever you managed to pick them up."

Dinah smoothed her apron. "I can't think neither," she confessed, and added demurely, "It could never have been from the old master, for I'm sure he'd never have used such."

Mrs Bosenna wheeled about, her face aflame. But before she could turn on Dinah to rend her, the sound of a horn floated up from the valley. Dinah's whole body stiffened at once. "The post!" she cried, and ran forth from the kitchen to meet it, without asking leave. Letters at Rilla Farm were rare exceedingly, for Mrs Bosenna made a point of paying ready-money (and exacting the last penny of discount) wherever it was possible; so that bills, even in the shape of invoices, were few. She had no relatives, or none whom she encouraged as correspondents, for, as the saying is, "she had married above her." For the same reason, perhaps, she had long since stopped the flow of sentimental letters from the girl-friends she had once possessed in Holsworthy, Devon. If Mrs Bosenna now and again found herself lonely at Rilla Farm in her widowhood, it is to be feared the majority of her old acquaintances would have agreed in asserting, with a touch of satisfied spite, that she had herself to blame,—and welcome!

"There's two!" announced Dinah, bursting back into the kitchen and waving her capture. "Two!—and the Troy postmark on both of 'em!"

"Put them down on the table, please. And kindly take a look at the oven. You needn't let the bread burn, even if I am to take breakfast in the kitchen."

"But ain't you in a hurry to open them, mistress?" asked Dinah, pretending to go, still hanging on her heel.

"Maybe I am; maybe I ain't." Mrs Bosenna picked up the two envelopes with a carelessness which was slightly overdone. They were sealed, the pair of them. She broke the seal of the first carefully, drew out the letter, and read—

"HONOURED MADAM,—You will doubtless be surprised—"

She turned to the last page and read the subscription—

"Yours obediently,"

"TOBIAS HUNKEN."

"Who's it from, mistress?" asked Dinah, making pretence of a difficulty with the oven door.

"Nobody that concerns you," snapped Mrs Bosenna, and hastily stowed the letter in the bosom of her bodice. She picked up the other. Of that, in turn, she broke the seal—

"HONOURED MADAM,—"

The handwriting was somewhat superior.

"HONOURED MADAM,—You will doubtless be surprised by the purport of this letter; as by the communication I feel myself impelled to make to you—"

Mrs Bosenna, mildly surprised, in truth, turned the epistle over.
It was signed—

"Your obedient servant,

"CAIUS HOCKEN."

She drew the first letter from her bodice. After the perusal of its first few sentences her cheeks put on a rosy glow.

But of a sudden she started, turned to the first letter again, and spread it on her lap.

"Well, if I ever!" breathed she, after a pause.

"A proposal! I knew it was!" cried Dinah, swinging about from the oven door.

Mrs Bosenna, if she heard, did not seem to hear. She was holding up both letters in turn, staring from the one to the other incredulously. Her roseal colour came and went.

"Them and their parrots! I'll teach 'em!"

Before Dinah could ask what was the matter, a bell sounded. It was the front door bell, which rang just within the porch.

Dinah smoothed her apron and bustled forth. It had always been her grievance—and her mistress shared it—against the nameless architect of Rilla farmstead, that he had made its long kitchen window face upon the strawyard, whereas a sensible man would have designed it to command the front door in flank, with its approaches. This mistake of his cost Dinah a circuit by way of the apple-room every time she answered the porch bell; for as little as any porter of old in a border fortress would she have dreamed of admitting a visitor without first making reconnaissance.

A minute later she ran back and thrust her head in at the kitchen-door.

"Mistress," she whispered excitedly, "it's them!"

"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs Bosenna, as the bell jangled again. "They seem in a hurry, too." She smiled, and the smile, if the curve of her mouth forbade it to be grim, at any rate expressed decision. She picked up the two letters and slipped them into her pocket. "You can show them in."

"Where, mistress?"

"Here. And, Dinah, nothing about the post, mind! Now, run!"

CHAPTER XVII.

APPARENTLY DIVIDES INTO THREE.

"You'll pardon us, ma'am, for calling so early," began Cai. He was too far embarrassed to be conscious of any surprise at being ushered into the kitchen.

"—You do the apologisin', of course," had been 'Bias's words in the front porch. "Yours was the first letter written: and, besides, you're a speaker."

"You are quite welcome, the both of you," Mrs Bosenna assured him as he came to a halt. Her tone was polite, but a faint note of interrogation sounded in it. "You have had your breakfast?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Ah, you are early indeed! I was just about to sit down to mine."

"We don't want to interrupt, ma'am, but—" Here Cai looked helplessly at 'Bias.

"Go on," growled 'Bias.

"We—we don't want to seem rude—"

"Never mind rude," growled 'Bias again. "Get it over."

"The fact is, there's been a mistake: a painful mistake. At least," said Cai, growing more and more nervous under Mrs Bosenna's gaze of calm inquiry, "it would be painful, if it weren't so absurd." He forced a laugh.

"Don't make noises like that," commanded 'Bias. "Get it over."

"It's about those letters, ma'am."

"Letters?" Mrs Bosenna opened her dark eyes wide; and turned them interrogatively upon Dinah. "Letters?"

"Letters?" repeated Dinah, taking her cue.

Relief broke like a sun-burst over Cai's face. "But perhaps you don't read your letters, ma'am, until after breakfast? And, if so, we're in time."

"What letters?" asked Mrs Bosenna.

"They've surely been delivered, ma'am? In fact we met the postman coming from the house."

"Dear me—and did he tell you he had been deliverin' letters here?"

"No—he was on his round, and we took it for granted. Besides, we know they were posted in time."

"William Skin takes the letters some days," suggested Dinah, "if he happens to overtake the post on his way back with the cart. It saves the man a climb up the hill."

"I wonder—" mused Mrs Bosenna.

"Where is he?" Cai's bewildered brain darted at the impossible stratagem of intercepting Skin and getting the letters from him.

"Stabling the pony at this moment, I expect. . . . But I don't understand. What letters are you talkin' about? What sort of letters?"

"There—there was one from me and one from 'Bias—"

"Goodness!" she broke in, smiling pleasantly, "What, another invitation?"

"Well—" began Cai.

"Yes," struck in 'Bias.

"You might call it an invitation, o' sorts," Cai conceded.

"'Course you might," said 'Bias positively.

"You are very mysterious this morning, you two." The widow turned from one to another, her smile still hiding her amusement. "But let me guess. It appears you both wished to send me an invitation, and something has gone amiss with your letters."

"We both sent the same one," explained Cai, and blushed. "That's the long and short of it, ma'am."

"It doesn't seem so very dreadful." Mrs Bosenna's smile was sweetly reassuring. "You both wrote, when it was only necessary for one to write?"

"That's what I kept tellin' him, ma'am," put in 'Bias stoutly. "But he would put his oar in."

"Well, well. . . You both wished to give me pleasure, and each wrote without the other's knowledge—"

"No, we didn't," interrupted 'Bias again.

"Anyway," she harked back with a patient little sigh, "you had both planned your invitation to give me pleasure; and since it was the same—?" She paused on a note of interrogation.

"You might call it the same, ma'am—after a fashion," assented Cai.

She laughed. "Do you know," she said, "I forgot for a moment what friends you are; and it did cross my mind that maybe there were two invitations, and they clashed."

"But they do, ma'am!" groaned Cai.

"Eh? Yet you said just now. . . . So there are two, after all!"

"It's—it's this way, ma'am: the letters are the same, but the invitation as you call it—" Here Cai paused and cast an irritable glance in the direction of Dinah, who had stepped to the door of the oven to conceal her mirth. If the woman would but go he might be able to explain. "But the invitation don't apply similarly, not in both cases."

"That's queer, isn't it?" commented Mrs Bosenna. "And, supposin' I accept, to which of you must I write?"

"Me," said 'Bias with great promptitude.

"Not at all." Cai turned in wrath on his friend.

"I do think you might help, instead of standin' there and—"

"Can't I accept both?" suggested Mrs Bosenna sweetly.

"No, you certainly can't, ma'am. . . . And since the letters seemin'ly haven't reached you yet, we'd both of us take it as a favour if you'd hand 'em back to us without lookin' inside 'em. We—we want to try again, and send something calkilated to please you better. 'Tis a queer request, I'll grant you."

"It is," she agreed, cutting him short. "But what's the matter with the letters? Did you put any bad language into them by any chance?"

"Ma'am!" exclaimed Cai.

"Bad language?" protested 'Bias. "Why, to begin with, ma'am, I never use it. The language is too good, in a way, an' that's our trouble; only Cai, here, won't out with it, but keeps beatin' about the bush. You see, we went to Mr Benny for it."

"You went to Mr Benny?" she echoed as he hesitated. "For what, pray?"

"For the letters, ma'am. Unbeknowns to one another we went to Mr Benny—Mr Peter Benny—he havin' a gift with his pen—" 'Bias hesitated again, faltered, and came to a stop, aware that Mrs Bosenna's smile had changed to a frown; that she was regarding him with disapproval in her eyes, and that a red spot had declared itself suddenly upon either cheek.

"You don't seem to be makin' very good weather of it either," Cai taunted him; and with that, glancing at her for confirmation, he too noticed her changed expression and was dumb.

"Are you tellin' me,"—she seated herself stiffly, and they stood like culprits before her. "Are you tellin' me this is a game?"

"A—a what, ma'am?"

"A game!" She stamped her foot. "You've been makin' the town's mock o' me with Peter Benny's help—is that what you two funny seamen have walked up here to confess?"

"There was no names given, ma'am," stammered Cai. "I do assure you—"

"No names given!" Mrs Bosenna in a temper was terribly handsome. Her indignation so overawed the pair, as to rob them of all presence of mind for the moment. After all, where lay the harm in asking Mr Benny to word a simple invitation? Since the letters had not reached her, she could suspect no worse; and why, then, all this fuss? So they might have reasoned it out, had not conscience held them cowards—conscience and a creeping cold shade of mutual distrust. "No names given!" repeated the lady. "And I'm to believe that, just as I'm to believe, sir,"—she addressed herself stiffly to 'Bias—"that you never used bad language in your life!"

"I didn' say that, ma'am—not exactly," urged the bewildered 'Bias. "I dunno what's this about bad language. Who's been usin' bad language? Not me."

"Not since your prize-fightin' days, perhaps, Captain Hunken."

"My prize-fightin' days? My pr—Whoever told you, ma'am, as ever I had any, or behaved so?"

"You had better ask your friend here."

"Hey?"

"Perhaps," said Mrs Bosenna sarcastically, "that goes back beyond your memory! Your parrot, if I may say so, has a better one."

"Missus!" expostulated Dinah modestly, while "Oh good Lord!" muttered Cai with a start. His friend's eye was on him, too, fixed and suspicious.

"The parrot?" 'Bias, albeit innocent, took alarm.

"Why, what has he been doin'?"

"It isn't anything he did, sir," protested Dinah, taking courage to face about again from the oven door. "It's what he said."

"I meant to warn you—" began Cai; but 'Bias beat him down thunderously—

"What did he say?" he demanded of Dinah.

"Oh, I couldn't, sir! I really couldn't!"

"I meant to warn you," interposed Cai again. "There's a—a screw loose somewhere in that bird. Didn't I tell you only the night before last that Mrs Bowldler couldn't get along with him?"

"You did," admitted 'Bias, his tone ominously calm. "But you didn' specify: not when I told you I was goin' to bring the bird up here to Rilla."

"No, I didn': for, in the first place, I couldn', not knowin' what language the bird used."

He would have said more, but 'Bias turned roughly from him to demand of the women—

"Well, what did he say? . . . Did he say it in your hearin', ma'am?"

"Ahem!—er—partially so," owned Mrs Bosenna.

"It's no use you're askin' what he said," added Dinah; "for no decent woman could tell it. And, what's more, the mistress is takin' her breakfast here in the kitchen because she durstn't go nigh the parlour."

"And I got that bird off a missionary! A decenter speakin' parrot I've never known, so far as my experience goes—and I've known a good few."

"Folks have different notions on these matters; different standards, so to speak," suggested Mrs Bosenna icily.

"It's my opinion," put in Cai, "that missionary did you in the eye."

"Oh, that's your opinion, is it? Well, you'd best take care, my joker, or you'll get something in the eye yourself."

"We don't want any prize-fightin' here, if you please," commanded Mrs
Bosenna.

"There again!" foamed 'Bias, with difficulty checking an oath. "A prize-fighter, am I? Who put that into your head, ma'am? Who's been scandalisin' me to you?" He turned, half-choking, and shook a minatory finger at Cai.

"I—I didn' say I had any objection to fightin'-men, not when they're quiet," Mrs Bosenna made haste to observe in a pacificatory tone. In fact she was growing nervous, and felt that she had driven her revenge far enough. "My late husband was very fond of the—the ring—in his young days."

It is easier, however, to arouse passions than to allay them. 'Bias continued to shake a finger at Cai, and Cai (be it said in justice) faced the accusation gamely.

"I never scandalised you," he answered. "In fact I done all in my power to remove the impression." Feeling this to be infelicitous—in a sort of despair with his tongue, which had taken a twist and could say nothing aright this morning—he made haste to add in a tone at once easy and awkward, "It's my belief, 'Bias, as your parrot ain't fit to be left alone with females."

"Well, I'm goin' to wring his neck anyway," promised 'Bias; "and, if some folks aren't careful, maybe I won't stop with his."

Cai, though with rising temper, kept his nonchalance. "With you and me the creatur' don't feel the temptation, and consikently there's a side of his character hidden from us. But in female company it comes out. You may depend that's the explanation."

"Why, of course it is," chimed in Mrs Bosenna with sudden—suspiciously sudden—conviction. "How clever of Captain Hocken to think of it!"

"Yes, he's clever," growled 'Bias, unappeased. "Oh, he's monstrous clever, ma'am, is Caius Hocken! Such a friend, too! . . . And now, perhaps, he'll explain how it happened—he bein' so clever and such a friend—as he didn't find this out two nights ago and warn me?"

"I did warn ye, 'Bias," Cai's face had gone white under the taunt. "But I'll admit to you I might have pitched it stronger. . . . If you remember, on top of discussin' the parrot we fell to discussin' something—something more important to both of us; and that drove the bird out o' my head. It never crossed my mind again till bedtime, and then I meant to warn ye next day at breakfast."

"You're good at explanations, this mornin'," sneered 'Bias. "Better fit there was no need, and you'd played fair."

"'Played fair'!"—Cai flamed up at last—"I don't take that from you, 'Bias Hunken, nor yet from any one! You fell into your own trap—that's what happened to you. . . . 'Played fair'? I suppose you was playin' fair when you sneaked off unbeknowns and early to Rilla that mornin', after we'd agreed—"

"Well?" asked 'Bias, as Cai came to a halt.

"You know well enough what we agreed," was Cai's tame conclusion.

"Where's the bird, ma'am?" asked 'Bias dully. Both men felt that all was over between them now, though neither quite understood how it had happened. "It—it seems I've offended you, and I ask your pardon. As for my doin' this o' purpose—well, you must believe it or not. That's as conscience bids ye. . . . But one warnin' I'll give— A bad friend don't us'ally make a good husband."

He motioned to Dinah to lead the way to the parlour, and so, with a jerk of the head, took his leave, not without dignity.

Mrs Bosenna promptly burst into tears.

Cai, left alone with her and with the despair in his heart, slowly (scarce knowing what he did) drew forth a red spotted handkerchief and eyed it. Maybe he had, to begin with, some intention of proffering it. But he stood still, a figure of woe, now glancing at Mrs Bosenna, anon staring fixedly at the handkerchief as if in wonder how it came in his hand. He noted, too, for the first time that the tall clock in the corner had an exceptionally loud tick.

"Go away!" commanded Mrs Bosenna after a minute or so, looking up with tear-stained eyes. It seemed that she had suddenly became aware of his presence.

Cai picked up his hat. "I was waitin' your leave, ma'am."

"Go, please!"

He went. He was indeed anxious to be gone. Very likely at the white gate below by the stream, 'Bias was standing in wait to knock his head off. Cai did not care. Nothing mattered now—nothing but a desire to follow 'Bias and have another word with him. It might even be. . . . But no: 'Bias was lost to him, lost irrevocably. Yet he craved to follow, catch up with him, plead for one more word.

He went quickly down the path to the gate, but of 'Bias there was no sign.

Poor Cai! He took a step or two down the road, and halted. Since 'Bias was not in sight there would be little chance of overtaking him on this side of the town; and in the street no explanation would be possible.

Cai turned heavily, set his face inland, and started to walk at a great pace. As though walking could exorcise what he carried in his heart!

Meanwhile 'Bias went striding down the valley with equal vigour and even more determination. His right hand gripped the parrot-cage, swinging it as he strode, and at intervals bumping it violently upon the calf of his right leg, much to his discomfort, very much more to that of the bird— which nevertheless, though bewildered by the rapid nauseating motion, and at times flung asprawl, obstinately forbore to reproduce the form of words so offensive in turn to Mrs Bowldler and the ladies at Rilla.

Once or twice, as his hand tired, and the rim of the cage impinged painfully on his upper ankle-bone, 'Bias halted and swore—

"All right, my beauty! You just wait till we get home!"

He had never wrung a bird's neck, and had no notion how to start on so fell a deed. He was, moreover, a humane man. Yet resolutely and without compunction he promised the parrot its fate.

A little beyond the entrance of the town, by the gateway of Mr Rogers's coal store, he came on a group—a trio—he could not well pass without salutation. They were Mr Rogers (in his bath-chair and wicked as ever) and Mr Philp, with Fancy Tabb in attendance as usual.

"Well, I hope you're satisfied this time?" Mr Rogers was saying.

"I suppose I must be," Mr Philp was grumbling in answer. "But all I can say is, coals burn faster than they used."

"It's the way with best Newcastle." Mr Rogers, who had never sold a ton of Newcastle coal in his life (let alone the best), gave his cheerful assurance without winking an eye.

"So you've told me more'n once," retorted Mr Philp. "I never made a study o' trade rowts, as they're called; but more'n once, too, it's been in my mind to ask ye how Newcastle folk come to ship their coal to Troy by way o' Runcorn."

Mr Rogers blinked knowledgeably. "It shortens the distance," he replied, "by a lot. But you was sayin' as coals burned faster. Well, they do, and what's the reason?"

"Ah!" said Mr Philp. "That's what I'd like to know."

"Well, I'll give 'ee the information, and nothin' to pay. Coals burn faster as a man burns slower. You're gettin' on in life; an' next time you draw your knees higher the grate you can tell yourself that, William Philp. . . . Hullo! there's Cap'n Hunken! . . . Mornin', Cap'n. That's a fine bird you're carryin'."

"A parrot, by the looks of it," put in Mr Philp.

"Sherlock 'Omes!" Mr Rogers congratulated him curtly.

"'Mornin', Mr Rogers—mornin', Mr Philp!" 'Bias halted and held out the cage at half-arm's length. "Yes, 'tis a fine bird I'm told." He eyed the parrot vindictively.

"Talks?"

"Damn! That's just it."

"What can it say?"

"Dunno. Wish I did. Will ye take the bird for a gift, or would ye rather have sixpence to wring its neck?"

"Both," suggested Mr Philp with promptitude.

"What yer wrigglin' for like that, at the back o' my chair, you Tabb's child?" asked Mr Rogers, whose paralysis prevented his turning his head.

"Offer for 'n, master!" whispered Fancy. Mr Rogers, if he heard, made no sign. "D'ye mean it?" he inquired of 'Bias. "I'm rather partial to parrots, as it happens: and it's a fine bird. What's the matter with it?"

"I don't know," 'Bias confessed again. "I wish somebody'd find out: but they tell me it can't be trusted with ladies."

"Is that why you're takin' it for a walk? . . . Well, I'll risk five bob, if it's goin' cheap."

Mr Philp's face fell. "I'd ha' gone half-a-crown, myself," he murmured resignedly; "but I can't bid up against a rich man like Mr Rogers. . . . You don't know what the creetur says?"

"No more'n Adam—only that it's too shockin' for human ears. If Mr Rogers cares to take the bird for five shillin', he's welcome, and good riddance. Only he won't never find out what's wrong with him."

"Honest?" asked Mr Rogers.

"Honest. I've lived alongside this bird seven years; he was bought off a missionary; and I don't know."

"Ah, well!" sighed Mr Philp. "Money can't buy everything. But I don't mind bettin' I'd ha' found out."

"Would ye now?" queried Mr Rogers with a wicked chuckle. "I'll put up a match, then. The bird's mine for five shillin': but Philp shall have him for a month, and I'll bet Philp half-a-crown he don't discover what you've missed. Done, is it?"

"Done.'" echoed Mr Philp, appealing to 'Bias and reaching out a hand for the cage.

"Done!" echoed 'Bias. "Five shillin' suits me at any time, and I'm glad to be rid o' the brute."

"There's one stippylation," put in Mr Rogers. "Philp must tell me honest what he discovers. . . . You, Tabb's child, you're jogglin' my chair again!"

So 'Bias, the five shillings handed over, went his way; relieved of one burden, but not of the main one.

"Well, if I ever!" echoed Dinah, returning to the kitchen at Rilla.
"If that wasn't a masterpiece, and no mistake!"

"Is the bird gone?" asked her mistress. "Then you might fry me a couple of sausages and lay breakfast in the parlour."

Dinah sighed. "'Tis lovely," she said, "to be able to play the fool with men . . . 'tis lovely, and 'tis what women were made for. But 'tis wasteful o' chances all the same. There goes two that'll never come back."

"You leave that to me," said Mrs Bosenna, who had dried her eyes. "Joke or no, you'll admit I paid them out for it. Now don't you fall into sentiments, but attend to prickin' the sausages. You know I hate a burst sausage."