"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!