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

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

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

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

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

She turned to the last page and read the subscription—

"Yours obediently,"

"TOBIAS HUNKEN."

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

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

"HONOURED MADAM,—"

The handwriting was somewhat superior.

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

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

"Your obedient servant,

"CAIUS HOCKEN."

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

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

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

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

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

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

Before Dinah could ask what was the matter, a bell sounded. It was the front door bell, which rang just within the porch.

Dinah smoothed her apron and bustled forth. It had always been her grievance—and her mistress shared it—against the nameless architect of Rilla farmstead, that he had made its long kitchen window face upon the strawyard, whereas a sensible man would have designed it to command the front door in flank, with its approaches. This mistake of his cost Dinah a circuit by way of the apple-room every time she answered the porch bell; for as little as any porter of old in a border fortress would she have dreamed of admitting a visitor without first making reconnaissance.

A minute later she ran back and thrust her head in at the kitchen-door.

"Mistress," she whispered excitedly, "it's them!"

"Oh!" exclaimed Mrs Bosenna, as the bell jangled again. "They seem in a hurry, too." She smiled, and the smile, if the curve of her mouth forbade it to be grim, at any rate expressed decision. She picked up the two letters and slipped them into her pocket. "You can show them in."

"Where, mistress?"

"Here. And, Dinah, nothing about the post, mind! Now, run!"



CHAPTER XVII.

APPARENTLY DIVIDES INTO THREE.

"You'll pardon us, ma'am, for calling so early," began Cai. He was too far embarrassed to be conscious of any surprise at being ushered into the kitchen.

"—You do the apologisin', of course," had been 'Bias's words in the front porch. "Yours was the first letter written: and, besides, you're a speaker."

"You are quite welcome, the both of you," Mrs Bosenna assured him as he came to a halt. Her tone was polite, but a faint note of interrogation sounded in it. "You have had your breakfast?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Ah, you are early indeed! I was just about to sit down to mine."

"We don't want to interrupt, ma'am, but—" Here Cai looked helplessly at 'Bias.

"Go on," growled 'Bias.

"We—we don't want to seem rude—"

"Never mind rude," growled 'Bias again. "Get it over."

"The fact is, there's been a mistake: a painful mistake. At least," said Cai, growing more and more nervous under Mrs Bosenna's gaze of calm inquiry, "it would be painful, if it weren't so absurd." He forced a laugh.

"Don't make noises like that," commanded 'Bias. "Get it over."

"It's about those letters, ma'am."

"Letters?" Mrs Bosenna opened her dark eyes wide; and turned them interrogatively upon Dinah. "Letters?"

"Letters?" repeated Dinah, taking her cue.

Relief broke like a sun-burst over Cai's face. "But perhaps you don't read your letters, ma'am, until after breakfast? And, if so, we're in time."

"What letters?" asked Mrs Bosenna.

"They've surely been delivered, ma'am? In fact we met the postman coming from the house."

"Dear me—and did he tell you he had been deliverin' letters here?"

"No—he was on his round, and we took it for granted. Besides, we know they were posted in time."

"William Skin takes the letters some days," suggested Dinah, "if he happens to overtake the post on his way back with the cart. It saves the man a climb up the hill."

"I wonder—" mused Mrs Bosenna.

"Where is he?" Cai's bewildered brain darted at the impossible stratagem of intercepting Skin and getting the letters from him.

"Stabling the pony at this moment, I expect. . . . But I don't understand. What letters are you talkin' about? What sort of letters?"

"There—there was one from me and one from 'Bias—"

"Goodness!" she broke in, smiling pleasantly, "What, another invitation?"

"Well—" began Cai.

"Yes," struck in 'Bias.

"You might call it an invitation, o' sorts," Cai conceded.

"'Course you might," said 'Bias positively.

"You are very mysterious this morning, you two." The widow turned from one to another, her smile still hiding her amusement. "But let me guess. It appears you both wished to send me an invitation, and something has gone amiss with your letters."

"We both sent the same one," explained Cai, and blushed. "That's the long and short of it, ma'am."

"It doesn't seem so very dreadful." Mrs Bosenna's smile was sweetly reassuring. "You both wrote, when it was only necessary for one to write?"

"That's what I kept tellin' him, ma'am," put in 'Bias stoutly. "But he would put his oar in."

"Well, well. . . You both wished to give me pleasure, and each wrote without the other's knowledge—"

"No, we didn't," interrupted 'Bias again.

"Anyway," she harked back with a patient little sigh, "you had both planned your invitation to give me pleasure; and since it was the same—?" She paused on a note of interrogation.

"You might call it the same, ma'am—after a fashion," assented Cai.

She laughed. "Do you know," she said, "I forgot for a moment what friends you are; and it did cross my mind that maybe there were two invitations, and they clashed."

"But they do, ma'am!" groaned Cai.

"Eh? Yet you said just now. . . . So there are two, after all!"

"It's—it's this way, ma'am: the letters are the same, but the invitation as you call it—" Here Cai paused and cast an irritable glance in the direction of Dinah, who had stepped to the door of the oven to conceal her mirth. If the woman would but go he might be able to explain. "But the invitation don't apply similarly, not in both cases."

"That's queer, isn't it?" commented Mrs Bosenna. "And, supposin' I accept, to which of you must I write?"

"Me," said 'Bias with great promptitude.

"Not at all." Cai turned in wrath on his friend.

"I do think you might help, instead of standin' there and—"

"Can't I accept both?" suggested Mrs Bosenna sweetly.

"No, you certainly can't, ma'am. . . . And since the letters seemin'ly haven't reached you yet, we'd both of us take it as a favour if you'd hand 'em back to us without lookin' inside 'em. We—we want to try again, and send something calkilated to please you better. 'Tis a queer request, I'll grant you."

"It is," she agreed, cutting him short. "But what's the matter with the letters? Did you put any bad language into them by any chance?"

"Ma'am!" exclaimed Cai.

"Bad language?" protested 'Bias. "Why, to begin with, ma'am, I never use it. The language is too good, in a way, an' that's our trouble; only Cai, here, won't out with it, but keeps beatin' about the bush. You see, we went to Mr Benny for it."

"You went to Mr Benny?" she echoed as he hesitated. "For what, pray?"

"For the letters, ma'am. Unbeknowns to one another we went to Mr Benny—Mr Peter Benny—he havin' a gift with his pen—" 'Bias hesitated again, faltered, and came to a stop, aware that Mrs Bosenna's smile had changed to a frown; that she was regarding him with disapproval in her eyes, and that a red spot had declared itself suddenly upon either cheek.

"You don't seem to be makin' very good weather of it either," Cai taunted him; and with that, glancing at her for confirmation, he too noticed her changed expression and was dumb.

"Are you tellin' me,"—she seated herself stiffly, and they stood like culprits before her. "Are you tellin' me this is a game?"

"A—a what, ma'am?"

"A game!" She stamped her foot. "You've been makin' the town's mock o' me with Peter Benny's help—is that what you two funny seamen have walked up here to confess?"

"There was no names given, ma'am," stammered Cai. "I do assure you—"

"No names given!" Mrs Bosenna in a temper was terribly handsome. Her indignation so overawed the pair, as to rob them of all presence of mind for the moment. After all, where lay the harm in asking Mr Benny to word a simple invitation? Since the letters had not reached her, she could suspect no worse; and why, then, all this fuss? So they might have reasoned it out, had not conscience held them cowards—conscience and a creeping cold shade of mutual distrust. "No names given!" repeated the lady. "And I'm to believe that, just as I'm to believe, sir,"—she addressed herself stiffly to 'Bias—"that you never used bad language in your life!"

"I didn' say that, ma'am—not exactly," urged the bewildered 'Bias. "I dunno what's this about bad language. Who's been usin' bad language? Not me."

"Not since your prize-fightin' days, perhaps, Captain Hunken."

"My prize-fightin' days? My pr—Whoever told you, ma'am, as ever I had any, or behaved so?"

"You had better ask your friend here."

"Hey?"

"Perhaps," said Mrs Bosenna sarcastically, "that goes back beyond your memory! Your parrot, if I may say so, has a better one."

"Missus!" expostulated Dinah modestly, while "Oh good Lord!" muttered Cai with a start. His friend's eye was on him, too, fixed and suspicious.

"The parrot?" 'Bias, albeit innocent, took alarm.

"Why, what has he been doin'?"

"It isn't anything he did, sir," protested Dinah, taking courage to face about again from the oven door. "It's what he said."

"I meant to warn you—" began Cai; but 'Bias beat him down thunderously—

"What did he say?" he demanded of Dinah.

"Oh, I couldn't, sir! I really couldn't!"

"I meant to warn you," interposed Cai again. "There's a—a screw loose somewhere in that bird. Didn't I tell you only the night before last that Mrs Bowldler couldn't get along with him?"

"You did," admitted 'Bias, his tone ominously calm. "But you didn' specify: not when I told you I was goin' to bring the bird up here to Rilla."

"No, I didn': for, in the first place, I couldn', not knowin' what language the bird used."

He would have said more, but 'Bias turned roughly from him to demand of the women—

"Well, what did he say? . . . Did he say it in your hearin', ma'am?"

"Ahem!—er—partially so," owned Mrs Bosenna.

"It's no use you're askin' what he said," added Dinah; "for no decent woman could tell it. And, what's more, the mistress is takin' her breakfast here in the kitchen because she durstn't go nigh the parlour."

"And I got that bird off a missionary! A decenter speakin' parrot I've never known, so far as my experience goes—and I've known a good few."

"Folks have different notions on these matters; different standards, so to speak," suggested Mrs Bosenna icily.

"It's my opinion," put in Cai, "that missionary did you in the eye."

"Oh, that's your opinion, is it? Well, you'd best take care, my joker, or you'll get something in the eye yourself."

"We don't want any prize-fightin' here, if you please," commanded Mrs Bosenna.

"There again!" foamed 'Bias, with difficulty checking an oath. "A prize-fighter, am I? Who put that into your head, ma'am? Who's been scandalisin' me to you?" He turned, half-choking, and shook a minatory finger at Cai.

"I—I didn' say I had any objection to fightin'-men, not when they're quiet," Mrs Bosenna made haste to observe in a pacificatory tone. In fact she was growing nervous, and felt that she had driven her revenge far enough. "My late husband was very fond of the—the ring—in his young days."

It is easier, however, to arouse passions than to allay them. 'Bias continued to shake a finger at Cai, and Cai (be it said in justice) faced the accusation gamely.

"I never scandalised you," he answered. "In fact I done all in my power to remove the impression." Feeling this to be infelicitous—in a sort of despair with his tongue, which had taken a twist and could say nothing aright this morning—he made haste to add in a tone at once easy and awkward, "It's my belief, 'Bias, as your parrot ain't fit to be left alone with females."

"Well, I'm goin' to wring his neck anyway," promised 'Bias; "and, if some folks aren't careful, maybe I won't stop with his."

Cai, though with rising temper, kept his nonchalance. "With you and me the creatur' don't feel the temptation, and consikently there's a side of his character hidden from us. But in female company it comes out. You may depend that's the explanation."

"Why, of course it is," chimed in Mrs Bosenna with sudden—suspiciously sudden—conviction. "How clever of Captain Hocken to think of it!"

"Yes, he's clever," growled 'Bias, unappeased. "Oh, he's monstrous clever, ma'am, is Caius Hocken! Such a friend, too! . . . And now, perhaps, he'll explain how it happened—he bein' so clever and such a friend—as he didn't find this out two nights ago and warn me?"

"I did warn ye, 'Bias," Cai's face had gone white under the taunt. "But I'll admit to you I might have pitched it stronger. . . . If you remember, on top of discussin' the parrot we fell to discussin' something—something more important to both of us; and that drove the bird out o' my head. It never crossed my mind again till bedtime, and then I meant to warn ye next day at breakfast."

"You're good at explanations, this mornin'," sneered 'Bias. "Better fit there was no need, and you'd played fair."

"'Played fair'!"—Cai flamed up at last—"I don't take that from you, 'Bias Hunken, nor yet from any one! You fell into your own trap—that's what happened to you. . . . 'Played fair'? I suppose you was playin' fair when you sneaked off unbeknowns and early to Rilla that mornin', after we'd agreed—"

"Well?" asked 'Bias, as Cai came to a halt.

"You know well enough what we agreed," was Cai's tame conclusion.

"Where's the bird, ma'am?" asked 'Bias dully. Both men felt that all was over between them now, though neither quite understood how it had happened. "It—it seems I've offended you, and I ask your pardon. As for my doin' this o' purpose—well, you must believe it or not. That's as conscience bids ye. . . . But one warnin' I'll give— A bad friend don't us'ally make a good husband."

He motioned to Dinah to lead the way to the parlour, and so, with a jerk of the head, took his leave, not without dignity.

Mrs Bosenna promptly burst into tears.

Cai, left alone with her and with the despair in his heart, slowly (scarce knowing what he did) drew forth a red spotted handkerchief and eyed it. Maybe he had, to begin with, some intention of proffering it. But he stood still, a figure of woe, now glancing at Mrs Bosenna, anon staring fixedly at the handkerchief as if in wonder how it came in his hand. He noted, too, for the first time that the tall clock in the corner had an exceptionally loud tick.

"Go away!" commanded Mrs Bosenna after a minute or so, looking up with tear-stained eyes. It seemed that she had suddenly became aware of his presence.

Cai picked up his hat. "I was waitin' your leave, ma'am."

"Go, please!"

He went. He was indeed anxious to be gone. Very likely at the white gate below by the stream, 'Bias was standing in wait to knock his head off. Cai did not care. Nothing mattered now—nothing but a desire to follow 'Bias and have another word with him. It might even be. . . . But no: 'Bias was lost to him, lost irrevocably. Yet he craved to follow, catch up with him, plead for one more word.

He went quickly down the path to the gate, but of 'Bias there was no sign.

Poor Cai! He took a step or two down the road, and halted. Since 'Bias was not in sight there would be little chance of overtaking him on this side of the town; and in the street no explanation would be possible.

Cai turned heavily, set his face inland, and started to walk at a great pace. As though walking could exorcise what he carried in his heart!

Meanwhile 'Bias went striding down the valley with equal vigour and even more determination. His right hand gripped the parrot-cage, swinging it as he strode, and at intervals bumping it violently upon the calf of his right leg, much to his discomfort, very much more to that of the bird— which nevertheless, though bewildered by the rapid nauseating motion, and at times flung asprawl, obstinately forbore to reproduce the form of words so offensive in turn to Mrs Bowldler and the ladies at Rilla.

Once or twice, as his hand tired, and the rim of the cage impinged painfully on his upper ankle-bone, 'Bias halted and swore—

"All right, my beauty! You just wait till we get home!"

He had never wrung a bird's neck, and had no notion how to start on so fell a deed. He was, moreover, a humane man. Yet resolutely and without compunction he promised the parrot its fate.

A little beyond the entrance of the town, by the gateway of Mr Rogers's coal store, he came on a group—a trio—he could not well pass without salutation. They were Mr Rogers (in his bath-chair and wicked as ever) and Mr Philp, with Fancy Tabb in attendance as usual.

"Well, I hope you're satisfied this time?" Mr Rogers was saying.

"I suppose I must be," Mr Philp was grumbling in answer. "But all I can say is, coals burn faster than they used."

"It's the way with best Newcastle." Mr Rogers, who had never sold a ton of Newcastle coal in his life (let alone the best), gave his cheerful assurance without winking an eye.

"So you've told me more'n once," retorted Mr Philp. "I never made a study o' trade rowts, as they're called; but more'n once, too, it's been in my mind to ask ye how Newcastle folk come to ship their coal to Troy by way o' Runcorn."

Mr Rogers blinked knowledgeably. "It shortens the distance," he replied, "by a lot. But you was sayin' as coals burned faster. Well, they do, and what's the reason?"

"Ah!" said Mr Philp. "That's what I'd like to know."

"Well, I'll give 'ee the information, and nothin' to pay. Coals burn faster as a man burns slower. You're gettin' on in life; an' next time you draw your knees higher the grate you can tell yourself that, William Philp. . . . Hullo! there's Cap'n Hunken! . . . Mornin', Cap'n. That's a fine bird you're carryin'."

"A parrot, by the looks of it," put in Mr Philp.

"Sherlock 'Omes!" Mr Rogers congratulated him curtly.

"'Mornin', Mr Rogers—mornin', Mr Philp!" 'Bias halted and held out the cage at half-arm's length. "Yes, 'tis a fine bird I'm told." He eyed the parrot vindictively.

"Talks?"

"Damn! That's just it."

"What can it say?"

"Dunno. Wish I did. Will ye take the bird for a gift, or would ye rather have sixpence to wring its neck?"

"Both," suggested Mr Philp with promptitude.

"What yer wrigglin' for like that, at the back o' my chair, you Tabb's child?" asked Mr Rogers, whose paralysis prevented his turning his head.

"Offer for 'n, master!" whispered Fancy. Mr Rogers, if he heard, made no sign. "D'ye mean it?" he inquired of 'Bias. "I'm rather partial to parrots, as it happens: and it's a fine bird. What's the matter with it?"

"I don't know," 'Bias confessed again. "I wish somebody'd find out: but they tell me it can't be trusted with ladies."

"Is that why you're takin' it for a walk? . . . Well, I'll risk five bob, if it's goin' cheap."

Mr Philp's face fell. "I'd ha' gone half-a-crown, myself," he murmured resignedly; "but I can't bid up against a rich man like Mr Rogers. . . . You don't know what the creetur says?"

"No more'n Adam—only that it's too shockin' for human ears. If Mr Rogers cares to take the bird for five shillin', he's welcome, and good riddance. Only he won't never find out what's wrong with him."

"Honest?" asked Mr Rogers.

"Honest. I've lived alongside this bird seven years; he was bought off a missionary; and I don't know."

"Ah, well!" sighed Mr Philp. "Money can't buy everything. But I don't mind bettin' I'd ha' found out."

"Would ye now?" queried Mr Rogers with a wicked chuckle. "I'll put up a match, then. The bird's mine for five shillin': but Philp shall have him for a month, and I'll bet Philp half-a-crown he don't discover what you've missed. Done, is it?"

"Done.'" echoed Mr Philp, appealing to 'Bias and reaching out a hand for the cage.

"Done!" echoed 'Bias. "Five shillin' suits me at any time, and I'm glad to be rid o' the brute."

"There's one stippylation," put in Mr Rogers. "Philp must tell me honest what he discovers. . . . You, Tabb's child, you're jogglin' my chair again!"

So 'Bias, the five shillings handed over, went his way; relieved of one burden, but not of the main one.

"Well, if I ever!" echoed Dinah, returning to the kitchen at Rilla. "If that wasn't a masterpiece, and no mistake!"

"Is the bird gone?" asked her mistress. "Then you might fry me a couple of sausages and lay breakfast in the parlour."

Dinah sighed. "'Tis lovely," she said, "to be able to play the fool with men . . . 'tis lovely, and 'tis what women were made for. But 'tis wasteful o' chances all the same. There goes two that'll never come back."

"You leave that to me," said Mrs Bosenna, who had dried her eyes. "Joke or no, you'll admit I paid them out for it. Now don't you fall into sentiments, but attend to prickin' the sausages. You know I hate a burst sausage."



BOOK III.



CHAPTER XVIII.

THE PLOUGHING.

It is possible—though not, perhaps, likely—that had Cai obeyed his first impulse and pursued 'Bias down the valley, to overtake him, the two friends might after a few hot words have found reconciliation, or at least have patched up an honourable truce. As it was, 'Bias carried home a bitter sense of betrayal, supposing that he had left Cai master of the field. He informed Mrs Bowldler that he would dine and sup alone.

"Which the joint to-day is a goose," protested that lady; "and one more difficult to halve at short notice I don't know, for my part."

"You must do the best you can." He vouchsafed no other reply.

Mrs Bowldler considered this problem all the rest of the morning. "Palmerston," she asked, as she opened the oven door to baste the bird, "supposin' you were asked to halve a roast goose, how would you begin?"

"I'd say I wouldn't," answered Palmerston on brief reflection.

"But supposin' you had to?"

Palmerston reflected for many seconds. "I'd start by gettin' my knee on it," he decided.

Mrs Bowldler, albeit much vexed in mind, deferred solving the problem, and was rewarded with good luck as procrastinators too often are in this world.

Dinner-time arrived, but Captain Hocken did not. She served the goose whole and carried it in to Captain Hunken.

"Eh?" said 'Bias, as she removed the cover. "What about—about Cap'n Hocken?"

"He have not arrove."

'Bias ground his teeth. "Havin' dinner with her!" he told himself, and fell to work savagely to carve his solitary portion.

Having satisfied his appetite, he lit a pipe and smoked. But tobacco brought no solace, no charitable thoughts. While, as a matter of fact, Cai tramped the highroads, mile after mile, striving to deaden the pain at his heart, 'Bias sat puffing and let his wrath harden down into a fixed mould of resentment.

Dusk was falling when Cai returned. Mrs Bowldler, aware that something was amiss, heard his footsteps in the passage and presented herself.

"Which, having been detained, we might make an 'igh tea of it," she suggested, "and venture on the wing of a goose. Stuffing at this hour I would 'ardly 'int at, being onion and apt to recur." But Captain Hocken desired no more than tea and toast.

Mrs Bowldler was intelligently sympathetic, because Fancy had called early in the afternoon and brought some enlightenment.

"There's a row," said Fancy, and told about the sale of the parrot. "That Mrs Bosenna's at the bottom of it, as I've said all along," she concluded.

"Do you reelly think the bird has been talking?"

"I don't think: I know."

Mrs Bowldler pondered a moment. "Ho! well—she's a widow."

"I reckon," said Fancy, "if these two sillies are goin' to fall out over her and live apart, you'll be wantin' extra help. Two meals for every one—I hope they counted that before they started to quarrel."

"I'll not have another woman in the house," declared Mrs Bowldler, and repeated it for emphasis after the style of the great Hebrew writers. "Another woman in the house have I will not! What do you say, Palmerston?"

Palmerston, who had been on the edge of tears for some time, broke down and fairly blubbered.

"There's a boy!" exclaimed the elder woman. "Mention a little hard work and he begins to cry."

"I don't believe he's cryin' for that at all," spoke up Fancy. "Are you, Pammy dear?"

"Nun-nun-No-o!" sobbed Palmerston.

"He can't abide quarrellin'—that's what's the matter. . . . Ah, well!" sighed Fancy, and fell back on her favourite formula of resignation. "It'll be all the same a hundred years hence; when we mee-eet," she chanted, "when we mee-eet, when we mee-eet on that Beyewtiful Shore! And in the meantime we three have got to sit tight an' watch for an openin' to teach 'em that their little hands were never made. No talkin' outside, mind!"

"As if I should!" protested Mrs Bowldler, and added thoughtfully, "I often wonder what happens to widows."

"They marry again, mostly."

"I mean up there—on the Beautiful Shore, so to speak. They don't marry again, because the Bible says so: but how some contrytomps is to be avoided I don't see."

Chiefly through the loyalty of these three, some weeks elapsed before the breach of friendship between Captain Caius Hocken and Captain Tobias Hunken became a matter of common talk. Mr Rogers must have had an inkling; for the pair consulted him on all their business affairs and investments, and in two or three ships their money had meant a joint influence on the shareholders' policy. Now, as they came to him separately, and with suggestions that bore no sign of concerted thought, so astute an adviser could hardly miss a guess that something was wrong. Nor did it greatly mend matters that each, on learning the other's wish upon this or that point where it conflicted with his own, at once made haste to yield. "If that's how 'Bias looks at it," Cai would say, "why o' course we'll make it so. I must have misunderstood him:" and 'Bias on his part would as promptly take back a proposal—"Cai thinks otherwise, eh? Oh, well that settles it! We haven't, as you might say, threshed it out together, but I leave details to him." "If you call this a detail—" "Yes, yes: leave it to Cai." Mr Rogers blinked, but asked no questions and kept his own counsel.

Mr Philp was more dangerous. (Who in Troy could keep Mr Philp for long off the scent of a secret?) But, as luck would have it, Cai in pure innocence routed Mr Philp at the first encounter.

It happened in this way. Towards the end of the first week of estrangement Cai, who bore up pretty well in the day time with the help of Mr Rogers, Barber Toy, and other gossips, began to find his evenings intolerably slow. He reasoned that autumn was drawing in, that the hours of darkness were lengthening, and that anyway, albeit the weather had not turned chilly as yet, a fire would be companionable. He ordered a fire therefore (more work for Mrs Bowldler). But somehow, after a brief defeat, his ennui returned. Then of a sudden, one night at bed-time, he bethought him of the musical box, and that John Peter Nanjulian needed hurrying-up.

Accordingly the next morning, as the church clock struck ten, found him climbing the narrow ascent to On the Wall: where, at the garden gate, he encountered Mr Philp in the act of leaving the house with a bulging carpet-bag.

"Eh? Good mornin', Mr Philp."

"Good mornin' to you, Cap'n Hocken." Mr Philp was hurrying by, but his besetting temptation held him to a halt. "How's Cap'n Hunken in these days?" he inquired.

"Nicely, thank you," answered Cai, using the formula of Troy.

"I ha'n't see you two together o' late."

"No?" Cai, casting about to change the subject, let fall a casual remark on the weather, and asked, "What's that you're carryin', if one may make so bold?"

"It's—it's a little commission for John Peter," stammered Mr Philp. "Nothin' to mention."

He beat a hasty retreat down the hill.

"'Tis curious now," said Cai to John Peter ten minutes later, "how your inquisitive man hates a question, just as your joker can't never face a joke that goes against him. I met Philp, just outside, with a carpet bag: and I no sooner asked what he was carryin' than he bolted like a hare."

"There's no secret about it, either," said John Peter. "He tells me that, for occupation, he has opened an agency for the Plymouth Dye and Cleanin' Works."

"And you've given him some clothes to be cleaned? Well, I don't see why he need be ashamed o' that."

"Well, I haven't, to tell you the truth. For my part, I like my clothes the better the more I'm used to 'em. But my sister's laid up with bronchitis."

"Miss Susan? . . . Nothin' serious, I hope?"

"She always gets it, in the fall o' the year. No, nothing serious. But the doctor says she must keep her bed for a week—and now she's got to. . . . There'll be a rumpus when she finds out," said John Peter resignedly: "for she don't like clean clothes any better than I do. But one likes to oblige a neighbour; and if he'd taken my trowsers 'twould ha' meant the whole household bein' in bed, which," concluded John Peter with entire simplicity, "would not only be awkward in itself, but dangerous when only two are left of an old family."

Cai agreed, if he did not understand. He reclaimed his musical box— needless to say, John Peter had not yet engraved the plate—and carried it home, promising to restore it when that adornment was ready. For the next night or two it soothed him somewhat while he smoked and meditated on public duties soon to engage his leisure. For he had been co-opted a member of the School Board in room of Mr Rogers, resigned: and in Barber Toy's shop it was understood that he would be a candidate not only for the Parish Council to be elected before Christmas, but for a Harbour Commissionership to fall vacant in the summer of next year.

The notification of his appointment on the School Board reached him by post on the last Tuesday in September. Now, as it happened, the Technical Instruction Committee of the County Council had arranged to hold at Troy, some four days later, an Agricultural Demonstration, with competitions in ploughing, hedging, dry-walling, turfing, the splitting and binding of spars, &c.

Behold, now, on the morning of the Demonstration, Captain Caius Hocken, School Manager and therefore ex officio a steward, taking the field in his Sunday best with a scarlet badge in his buttonhole, "quite," declared Mrs Bowldler, "like a gentleman of the French Embassy as used frequent to take luncheon with us in the Square."

The morning was bright and clear: the sky a pale blue and almost cloudless, the season—

Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth Of trembling winter,

—and Cai walked with a lightness of spirit to which since the quarrel he had been a stranger. The Demonstration was to be held at the Four Turnings, where the two roads that lead out of Troy and form a triangle with the sea for base, converge to an apex and branch off again into two County highways. The field lay scarcely a stone's throw from this apex—that is to say from the spot where the late Farmer Bosenna had ended his mortal career. It belonged in fact to Mrs Bosenna, and had been hired from her by the Technical Instruction Committee for a small sum; but Cai did not happen to know this, for the arrangement had been made some weeks ago, before his elevation to the School Board.

It was with a shock of surprise, therefore, that on passing the gate he found Mrs Bosenna close within, engaged in talk with two rosy-faced farmers; and, moreover, it brought a rush of blood to his face, for he had neither seen her nor heard from her since the fatal morning. There was, however, no way of retreat, and he stepped wide to avoid the group, lifting his hat awkwardly as he passed, not daring to meet the lady's eyes.

"Captain Hocken!" she called cheerfully.

"Ma'am?" Cai halted in confusion.

"Come here for a moment—that is, if it doesn't interrupt your duties— and be introduced to our two ploughing judges. Mr Widger of Callington, Mr Sam Nicholls of St Neot—Captain Hocken." Cai's cheeks in rosiness emulated those of the two men with whom he shook hands. "Captain Hocken," she explained to them, "takes a great interest in education."

For a moment it struck Cai that the pair, on hearing this, eyed him suspiciously; but his brain was in a whirl, and he might easily have been mistaken.

"Not at all," he stammered; "that is, I mean—I am new to this business, you see."

"You are a practical man, I hope, sir?' asked Mr Nicholls.

"I—I've spent the most part of my life at sea, if you'd count that bein' practical," said Cai modestly.

"To be sure I do," Mr Nicholls assented. "It's as practical as farmin', almost."

"In a manner o' speakin' it is," agreed Mr Widger grudgingly. "Men haven't all the same gifts. Now you'll hardly believe what happened to me the only time I ever took a sea trip."

"No?" politely queried Cai.

"I was sick," said Mr Widger, in a tone of vast reminiscent surprise.

"It does happen sometimes."

"Yes," repeated Mr Widger, "sick I was. It took place in Plymouth Sound: and you don't catch me tryin' the sea again."

"Now what," inquired Mr Nicholls, "might be your opinion about Labour Exemption Certificates, Captain Hocken?"

Cai was gravelled. His alleged interest in education had not as yet extended to a study of the subject.

Mrs Bosenna came to the rescue. Talk about education (she protested) was the last thing she could abide. Before the ploughing began she wanted to show Captain Hocken some work the hedgers had been doing at the lower end of the field.

At that moment, too, the local secretary came running with word that the first teams were already harnessed, and awaited the judges' preliminary inspection. Mr Widger and Mr Nicholls made their excuses, therefore, and hurried off to their duties.

"I have a bone to pick with you," said Mrs Bosenna, as she and Cai took their way leisurably across the field.

Cai groaned at thought of those unhappy letters.

But Mrs Bosenna made no allusion to the letters.

"You have not been near Rilla for weeks," she went on, reproachfully.

Cai glanced at her. "I thought—I was afraid you were offended," he said, his heart quickening its beat.

"Well, and so I was. To begin brawling as you did in a lady's presence—and two such friends as I'd always supposed you to be! It was shocking. Now, wasn't it?"

"It has made me miserable enough," pleaded Cai.

"And so it ought. . . . I don't know that I should be forgiving you now," added Mrs Bosenna demurely, "if it didn't happen that I wanted advice."

"My advice?" asked Cai incredulous.

"It's a business matter. Women, you know, are so helpless where business is concerned." (Oh, Mrs Bosenna!)

"If I can be of any help—" murmured Cai, somewhat astonished but prodigiously flattered.

"Hush!" she interrupted, lifting a quick eye towards the knap of the hill they had descended. "Isn't that Captain Hunken, up above? . . . Yes, to be sure it is, and he's turned to walk away just as I was going to call him!" She glanced at Cai, and there was mischief in the glance. "I expect the ploughing has begun, and I won't detain either of you. . . . The business? We won't discuss it now. I have to wait here for Dinah, who is coming for company as soon as she's finished her housework. . . . To-morrow, then, if you have nothing better to do. Good-bye!"

He left her and climbed the hill again. He seemed to tread on air; and no doubt, when he reached the plateau where the ploughmen were driving their teams to and fro before the judges, with corrugated brows, compressed lips, eyes anxiously bent on the imaginary line of the furrow to be drawn, this elation gave his bearing a confidence which to the malignant or uncharitable might have presented itself as bumptiousness. He mingled with the small group of cognoscenti, listened to their criticisms, and by-and-by, cocking his head knowledgeably on one side, hazarded the remark that "the fellow coming on with the roan and grey seemed to be missing depth in his effort to keep straight."

It was an innocent observation, uttered, may be, a thought too dogmatically, but truly with no deeper intent than to elicit fresh criticism from an expert who stood close beside his elbow. But a voice behind him said, and carried its sneer—

"Maybe he ain't the only one hereabouts as misses depth."

Cai, with a grey face, swung about. He had recognised the voice. Some demon in him prompted the retort—

"Eh, 'Bias? Is that you?—and still takin' an interest in agriculture?"

The shaft went home. 'Bias's voice shook as he replied—

"I mayn't know much about education, at two minutes' notice; and I mayn't pretend to know much about ploughin' and wear a button in my coat to excuse it. But I reckon that for a pound a side I could plough you silly, Cai Hocken."

It was uttered in full hearing of some ten or twelve spectators, mostly townsmen of Troy; and these, turning their heads, for a moment not believing their ears, stared speechlessly at the two men whose friendship had in six months passed into a local byword. Cap'n Hocken and Gap'n Hunken—what, quarrelling? No, no—nonsense: it must be their fun!

But the faces of the pair told a different tale.

It was a stranger—a young farmer from two parishes away—who let off the first guffaw.

"A bet, naybours!—did 'ee hear that? Take him up, little man—he won't eat 'ee."

"I'll go ten shillin' myself, rather than miss it," announced another voice. "Ten shillin' on the bantam!"

"Get out with 'ee both," spoke up a citizen of Troy. "You don't know the men. 'Tisn't serious now—is it, Cap'n Hocken?—well as you're actin'—"

"Why not?" Cai stood, breathing hard, eyeing his adversary. "If he means it?"

"That's right! Cover his money?" cried an encouraging voice behind him.

The young farmer slapped his thigh, and ran off to the next group. "Hi, you fellows! A match!"

He shouted it. They turned about. "What is it, Bill Crago?"—for they read in his excited gestures that he had real news.

"The fun o' the fair, boys! Two ships'-cap'ns offering to plough for a pound a side—if you ever!"

"Drunk!" suggested somebody.

"What's the odds if they be? 'Twill be all the better fun," answered Mr Crago. "No—far's one can tell they're dead sober. Come along and listen—" He hurried back and they after him.

"If he chooses to back out?" Cai was taunting Bias as the crowd pressed around. So true is it that:—

"To be wroth with one we love Doth work like madness in the brain."

"Who wants to back out?" answered 'Bias sullenly.

"If a man insults me, I hold him to his word: either that or he takes it back."

"Quite right, Cap'n';" prompted a voice. "And he can't tell us he didn't say it, for I heard him!"

"I ain't takin' nothin' back." 'Bias faced about doggedly.

By this time, as their wits cleared a little, each was aware of his folly, and each would gladly have retreated from this public exhibition of it. But as the crowd increased, neither would be the first to yield and invite its certain jeers. Moreover, each was furiously incensed: anything seemed better than to be shamed by him, to give him a cheap triumph.

News of the altercation had spread. Soon two-thirds of the spectators were trooping to join the throng in the upper field, pressing in on the antagonists, jostling in their eagerness to catch a word of the dispute. The competitors in Class D were left to plough lonely furrows and finish them unapplauded. Young Mr Crago had run off meantime to secure the services of the two judges.

Now Mrs Bosenna, after waiting some ten minutes by the lower gate for Dinah (whose capital fault was unpunctuality), had lost patience and walked back towards Rilla to meet and reproach her. She had almost reached the small gate when she spied Dinah hurrying down the steep path to the highroad, and halted. Dinah, coming up, excused herself between catches of breath. She had been detained by the plucking of a fowl, and a feather—or, as you might call it a fluff—had found its way into her throat. "Which," said she, "the way I heaved, mistress, is beyond belief."

Mrs Bosenna having admonished her to be more careful in future, turned to retrace her steps to the field.

They reached it and climbed the slope crosswise. They had scarcely gained the edge of the upper plateau when Mrs Bosenna stopped short and gave a gasp. For at that moment there broke on their view, against the near sky-line, the figure of a man awkwardly turning a plough, behind a team of horses.

"Save us, mistress!" cried keen-eyed Dinah. "If it isn't—"

"It can't be!" cried Mrs Bosenna, as if in the same breath.

"It's Cap'n Hunken," said Dinah positively.

"But why? Dinah—why?"

"It's Cap'n Hunken," repeated Dinah. "The Lord knows why. If he's doin' it for fun, I never saw worse entry to a furrow in my life."

"Nor I. But what can it mean?" Mrs Bosenna, panting, paused at the sound of derisive cheers, not very distant.

The two women ran forward a pace or two, until their gaze commanded the whole stretch of the upper slope. 'Bias, stolidly impelling his team— a roan and a rusty-black—had, in the difficult process of steering the turn, been too closely occupied to let his gaze travel aside. He was off again: his stalwart back, stripped to braces and shirt, bent as he trudged in wake of the horses, clinging to the plough-tail, helplessly striving to guide them by the wavy parallel his last furrow had set.

Down the field, nearer and nearer, approached Cai, steering a team as helplessly. Ribald cheers followed him.

Mrs Bosenna, though quite at a loss to explain it, grasped the situation in less than a moment. She followed up 'Bias, keeping wide and running—yet not seeming to hasten—over the unbroken ground to the left.

"Captain Hunken!"

'Bias, throwing all his weight back on the plough-tail, brought his team to a halt and looked around. He was bewildered, yet he recognised the voice.

While he paused thus, Cai steadily advanced to meet and pass him. He was plainly at the mercy of his team—a grey and a brown, both of conspicuous height—and they were drawing the furrow at their own sweet will. But he, too, clung to the plough-tail, and his lips were compressed, his eyes rigid, as he drew nearer, to meet and pass his adversary. He, likewise, had cast coat and waistcoat aside: his hat he had entrusted to an unknown backer. He saw nothing, as he came, but the line of the furrow he prayed to achieve.

"Captain Hocken!" She stepped forward hardily, holding up a hand, and Cai's team, too, came to a halt as if ashamed. "What—what is the meaning of this foolishness?"

"I've had enough, it he has," said Cai sheepishly, glancing past her and at 'Bias.

"I ain't doin' this for fun, ma'am," owned 'Bias. "Fact is, I'd 'most as lief steer a monkey by the tail."

"Then drop it this instant, the pair of you!"

'Bias scratched his head.

"As for that, ma'am, I don't see how we can oblige. There's money on it—bets."

"There won't be money's worth left in my field, at the rate you're spoilin' it." She turned upon the two judges, who were advancing timidly to placate her, while the crowd hung back. "And now, Mr Nicholls—now, Mr Widger—I'd like to hear what you have to say to this!"

"'Tis a pretty old cauch, sure 'nough," allowed Mr Sam Nicholls, pushing up the brim of his hat on one side and scratching his head while his eye travelled along the furrows. "Cruel!"

"And you permitted it! You, that might be supposed to have some knowledge o' farmin'!"

"Why, to be sure, ma'am," interposed Mr Widger, "we never reckoned as 'twould be so bad as all this. . . . Young Bill Crago came to us with word as how these—these two gentlemen—had made a match, and he asked us to do the judgin' same as for the classes 'pon the bills—"

"And so you started them? And then, I suppose, you couldn't stop for laughin'?"

"Something like that, ma'am, as you say," Mr Widger confessed.

"And what sort o' speech will you make, down to County Council, when I send in my bill for damages?—you that complained to me, only this mornin', how the rates were goin' up by leaps and bounds! . . . As for these gentlemen," said Mrs Bosenna, turning on Cai and 'Bias with just a twinkle of mischief in her eyes, "I shall be at home to-morrow morning if they choose to call and make me an offer—unless, o' course, they prefer to do so by letter."

At this, Dinah put up her hand suddenly to cover her mouth. But Cai and 'Bias were in no state of mind to catch the double innuendo.

Having thus reduced the judges to contrition, and having proceeded to call forward the local secretary and to extort from him a long and painful apology, Mrs Bosenna wound up with a threat to bundle the whole Demonstration out of her field if she heard of any further nonsense, and, taking Dinah's arm, sailed off (so to speak) with all the trophies of war.

Cai and 'Bias walked away shamefacedly to seek out their bottleholders and collect each his hat, coat, and waistcoat.

"But which of ee's won?" demanded their backers.

"Damn who's won!" was 'Bias's answer; and he looked too dangerous to be pressed further.

A wager is a wager, however; and the judges' decision was clamoured for, with threats that, until it was given, the Agricultural Demonstration would not be suffered to proceed. Mr Sam Nicholls consulted hastily with Mr Widger, and announced the award as follows:—

"We consider Captain Hunken's ploughin' to be the very worst ploughin' we've ever seen. But we award him the prize all the same, because we don't consider Captain Hocken's ploughin' to be any ploughin' at all."

Solvuntur risu tabulae—They can laugh, too, at Troy!



CHAPTER XIX.

ROSES AND THREE-PER-CENTS.

Although in her rose-garden—the rose-garden proper—Mrs Bosenna grew all varieties of "Hybrid Perpetuals" (these ranked first with her, as best suited to the Cornish soil and climate), with such "Teas" and "Hybrid Teas" as took her fancy, and while she pruned these plants hard in spring, to produce exhibition blooms, sentiment or good taste had forbidden her to disturb the old border favourites that lined the pathway in front of the house, or covered its walls and even pushed past the eaves to its chimneys. Some of these had beautified Rilla year by year for generations: the Provence cabbage-roses, for instance, in the border, the Crimson Damask and striped Commandant Beaurepaire; the moss-roses, pink and white, the China rose that bloomed on into January by the porch. These, with the Marechal Niel by her bedroom window, the scented white Banksian that smothered the southern wall, and the climbing Devoniensis that nothing would stop or stay until its flag was planted on the very roof-ridge, had greeted her, an old man's bride, on her first home-coming. They had, in the mysterious way of flowers, soothed some rebellion of young blood and helped to reconcile her to a lot which, for a shrewd and practical damsel, was, after all, not unenviable. She had no romance in her, and was quite unaware that the roses had helped; but she took a sensuous delight in them, and this had started her upon her hobby. A success or two in local flower-shows had done the rest.

Now with a rampant climber such as Rosa Devoniensis it is advisable to cut out each autumn, and clean remove some of the old wood; and this is no easy job when early neglect has allowed the plant to riot up and over the root-thatch. Mrs Bosenna had a particular fondness for this rose, and for the gipsy flush which separates it from other white roses as an unmistakable brunette. Yet she was sometimes minded to cut it down and uproot it, for the perverse thing would persist on flowering at its summit, and William Skin, sent aloft on ladders—whether in autumn or spring to prune this riot, or in summer to reap blooms by the armful— invariably did damage to the thatch.

Mrs Bosenna, then, gloved and armed with a pair of secateurs, stood next morning by the base of the Devoniensis holding debate with herself.

The issue—that she would decide to spare the offender for yet another year—was in truth determined; for already William Skin had planted one ladder against the house-wall and had shuffled off to the barn for another, to be hoisted on to the slope of the thatch, and there belayed with a rope around the chimney-stack. But she yet played with the resolve, taken last year, to be stern and order execution. She was still toying with it when the garden-gate clicked, and looking up, she perceived Captain Cai.

"Ah! . . . Good morning, Captain Hocken!"

Cai advanced along the pathway and gravely doffed his hat. "Good morning, ma'am—if I don't intrude?"

"Not at all. In fact I was expecting you."

"Er—on which errand, ma'am?"

"—Which?" echoed Mrs Bosenna, as if she did not understand.

"Shall we take the more painful business first?" suggested Cai humbly. "If indeed it has not—er—wiped out the other. The damage done yesterday to your field, ma'am—"

"Have you brought Captain Hunken along with you?" asked Mrs Bosenna, interrupting him.

"No, ma'am. He will be here in half an hour, sharp." Cai consulted his watch.

"You have stolen a march on him then?" she smiled.

Cai flushed. "No, again, ma'am. Er—in point of fact we tossed up which should call first."

"Then," said she calmly, "we'll leave that part of the business until he arrives; though, since it concerns you both, I can't see why you did not bring him along with you. Do you know," she added with admirable simplicity, "it has struck me once or twice of late that you and Captain Hunken are not the friends you were?"

Still Cai stared, his face mantling with confusion. This woman was an enigma to him. Surely she must understand? Surely she must have received that brace of letters to which she evaded all allusion? And here was she just as blithely postponing all allusion to yesterday's offence!

But no; not quite, it seemed; for she continued—

"I cannot think why you two should challenge one another as you did yesterday, and make sillies of yourselves before a lot of farmers. It—it humiliates you."

"We were a pair of fools," conceded Cai.

"What men cannot see somehow," she went on angrily, "is that it doesn't end there. That kind of thing humiliates a woman; especially when—when she happens to be cast on her own resources and it is everything to her to find a man she can trust."

Mrs Bosenna threw into these words so much feeling that Cai in a moment forgot self. His awkwardness fell from him as a garment.

"You may trust me, ma'am. Truly you may. Tell me only what I can do."

At this moment William Skin—a crab-apple of a man, whose infirmity of deafness had long since reduced all the world for him to a vain tolerable show, in which so much went unexplained that nothing caused surprise—came stumbling around the corner of the house with a waggon-rope and a second ladder, which he proceeded to rest alongside the first one; showing the while no recognition of Cai's presence, even by a nod.

"I want you," said Mrs Bosenna, "to invest a hundred pounds for me. Oh!"—as Cai gave a start and glanced at Skin—"we may talk before him: he's as deaf as a haddock."

"A hundred pounds?" queried Cai, still in astonishment.

"Yes; it's a sum I happen to have lyin' idle. At this moment it's in the Bank, on deposit, where they give you something like two-and-a-half only: and in the ordinary way I should put it into Egyptian three per cents, or perhaps railways. My poor dear Samuel always had a great opinion of Egypt, for some reason. He used to say how pleasant it was in church to hear the parson readin' about Moses and the bulrushes, and the plague of frogs and suchlike, and think he had money invested in that very place, and how different it was in these days. Almost in his last breath he was beggin' me to promise to stick to Egyptians, or at any rate to something at three per cent and gilt-edged: because, you see, he'd always managed all the business and couldn't believe that women had any real sense in money affairs. . . . I didn't make any promise, really; though in a sort of respect to his memory I've kept on puttin' loose sums into that sort of thing. Three per cent is a silly rate of interest, when all is said and done: but of course the poor dear thought he was leavin' me all alone in the world, with no friend to advise. . . ."

"I see," said Cai, his heart beginning to beat fast. "And it's different now?"

"I—I was hopin' so," said Mrs Bosenna softly.

Cai glanced at the back of William Skin, who had started to hum—or rather to croon—a tuneless song while knotting a rope to the second ladder. No: it was impossible to say what he wished to say in the presence of William Skin, confound him! Skin's deafness, Skin's imperturbability, might have limits. . . .

"You wish me to advise you?" he controlled himself to ask.

"No, I don't. I wish you—if you'll do me the favour—just to take the money and invest it without consultin' me. It's—well, it's like the master in the Bible—the man who gave out the talents. . . . Only don't wrap it in a napkin!" She laughed. "I don't even want to be told what you do with the money. I'd rather not be told, in fact. I want to trust you."

"Why?"

She laughed again, this time more shyly. "'Trust is proof,'" she answered, quoting the rustic adage. "You have given me some right to make that proof, I think?"

Ah—to be sure—the letters! She must, of course, have received his letter, along with 'Bias's, though this was her first allusion to it. . . . Cai's brain worked in a whirl for some moments. She was offering him a test; she was yielding upon honest and prudent conditions; she was as good as inviting him to win her. . . . To do him justice, he had never—never, at any rate, consciously—based his wooing on her wealth. For aught he cared, she might continue to administer all she possessed. The comforts of Rilla Farm may have helped to attract him, but herself had been from the first the true spell.

He did not profess any knowledge of finance. A return of four per cent on his own modest investments contented him, and he left these to Mr Rogers.

"Ah!"

His mind had caught, of a sudden, at a really brilliant idea.

"I accept," said he firmly, looking Mrs Bosenna hard in the eyes, and her eyes sank under his gaze.

"Hi! Heads!" sang out a voice, and simultaneously the ladder which William Skin had been hauling aloft, came crashing down and struck the flagged path scarcely two yards away.

A second later Cai had Mrs Bosenna in his arms. "You are not hurt?" he gasped.

She disengaged herself with a half-hysterical laugh. "Hurt? Am I? . . . No, of course I am not."

"The damned rope slipped," growled William Skin in explanation, from his perch on the ladder under the eaves.

"Slipped?" Cai ran to the rope and examined it. "Of course it slipped, you lubber!" He stepped back on the pathway and spoke up to Skin as he would have talked on shipboard to a blundering seaman in the cross-trees. "Ain't a slip-knot made to slip? And when a man's fool enough to tie one in place of a hitch—"

He cast off the rope, bent it around the rung with, as it seemed, one turn of the hand, and with a jerk had it firm and true.

"Make way, up there!" he called.

"You're never going to—to risk yourself," protested Mrs Bosenna.

"Risk myself? Lord, ma'am, for what age d'ye take me?" Cai caught up the slack of the rope and hitched it taut over his shoulder. He was rejuvenated. He made a spring for the ladder, and went up it much as twenty years ago he would have swarmed up the ratlines. "Make yourself small," he commanded, as Skin, at imminent risk of falling, drew to one side before his onset. Cai was past him in a jiffy, over the eaves, balancing himself with miraculous ease on the slippery thatch. "Now ease up the ladder!"

He had anchored himself by pure trick of balance, and was pulling with a steady hand almost as soon as Skin, collecting his wits, could reach out to fend the ladder off from crushing the edge of the eaves. Ten seconds later, by seaman's sleight of foot, he had gained a second anchorage half-way up the slope, had gathered up all the slack of the rope into a seaman's coil, and with a circular sweep of the arm had flung it deftly around the chimney. The end, instead of sliding down to his hand, hitched itself among the thorns of the rampant Devoniensis. Did this daunt him? It checked him for an instant only. The next, he had balanced himself for a fresh leap, gained the roof-ridges, and, seated astride of it, was hauling up the ladder, hand over fist, close to the chimney-base.

The marvel was, the close thatch showed no trace of having been trampled or disturbed.

"Darn the feller, he's as ajjile as a cat!" swore William Skin.

"Pass up the clippers, you below!" Cai commanded, forgetting that the man was deaf. "If your mistress'll stand back in the path a bit, I'll pick out the shoots one by one and hold 'em up for her to see, so's she can tell me which to cut away."

"You'll scratch your hands to ribbons," Mrs Bosenna warned him.

"'Tisn't worth while comin' down for a pair of hedgin' gloves. . . . I say, though—I've a better notion! 'Stead of lettin' this fellow run riot here around the chimney-stack, why not have him down and peg him horizontal, more or less, across and along the thatch, where he can be seen?"

"Capital!" she agreed. "He'd put out more than twice the number of blooms too. They do always best when laid lateral."

"He'll come down bodily with a little coaxin'. The question is how to peg him when he's down?"

"Rick-spars," answered Mrs Bosenna promptly. "The small kind. There's dozens in the waggon-house loft." She signalled to William Skin to come down, bawled an order in his ear, and despatched him to fetch a score or so.

"Hullo!" cried Cai, who, being unemployed for the moment, had leisure to look around and enjoy the view from the roof-ridge. "If it isn't 'Bias comin' up the path! . . . Hi! 'Bias!" he hailed boyishly, in the old friendly tone.

'Bias, stooping to unlatch the gate, heard the call which descended, as it were, straight from heaven, and gazed about him stupidly. He was aware of Mrs Bosenna in the pathway, advancing a step or two to make him welcome. She halted and laughed, with a glance up towards the roof. 'Bias's eyes slowly followed hers.

"Lord!" he muttered, "what made ye masthead him up there? . . . Been misbehavin', has he? 'Tis the way I've served 'prentices afore now."

"On the contrary, he has been behaving beautifully—"

"Here, 'Bias!" called down Cai again. "Heft along the tall ladder half a dozen yards to the s'yth'ard, and stand by to help. I'm bringin' down this plaguy rose-bush, and I'll take some catchin' if I slip with it."

"'Who ran and caught him when he fell?' 'His Bias,'" quoted Mrs Bosenna. "He has been doin' wonders up there, Captain Hunken. But if I were you—a man of your weight—"

"I reckon," said 'Bias, stepping forward and seizing the ladder, which he lifted as though it had been constructed of bamboo, "I han't forgot all I learnt o' reefin' off the Horn." He planted the ladder and had mounted it in a jiffy. "Now, then, what's the programme?" he demanded.

"You see this rose? Well, I got to collect it—I've tried the main stem, and it'll bend all right,—and then I got to slide down to you. After that we've to peg it out somewheres above the eaves, as Madam gives orders. See?"

"I see. When you're ready, slide away."

Just then William Skin came hurrying back with an armful of rick-spars: and within ten minutes the two rivals were hotly at work—yet cheerfully, intelligently, as though misunderstanding had never been,— clipping out dead wood from the rose-bush, layering it, pegging it, driving in the spars,—while Mrs Bosenna called directions, and William Skin gazed, with open mouth.

"This is better than ploughin', ma'am?" challenged Cai in his glee.

"So much better," agreed the widow, smiling up, "that I've almost a mind to forgive the pair of you."

"But I won't ask you to stay for dinner to-day," she said later, when the tangled mass of the Devoniensis had been separated, shoot from shoot, and pegged out to the last healthy-looking twig, and the two men stood, flushed but safe, on the pathway beside her. She stole a confidential little glance at Cai. "For I understand from Captain Hocken that you prefer to make your excuses separately. I have already forgiven him: and it's only fair to give Captain Hunken his turn."

Who less suspicious than Cai? Had he been suspicious at all, what better reassurance than the sly pressure of her hand as he bade her good-day? . . . Poor 'Bias!

Once past the gate, and out of sight, Cai felt a strange desire to skip!

"Well, mistress, you are a bold one, I must say!" commented Dinah that night by the kitchen fire, where Mrs Bosenna enjoyed a chat and, at this season of the year, a small glass of hot brandy-and-water, with a slice of lemon in it, before going to bed.

"I don't see where the boldness comes in," said the widow. She was studying the fire, and spoke inattentively.

"Two hundred pounds!"

"Eh? . . . There's no risk in that. You may say what you like of Captain Hocken or of Captain Hunken: but they're honest as children. The money's as safe with them as in the bank."

"Well, it do seem to me a dashin' and yet a very cold-blooded way of choosin' a man. Now, if I was taken with one—"

"Well?" prompted Mrs Bosenna, as Dinah paused.

"Call me weak, but I couldn't help it. I should throw myself straight at his head, an' ask him to trample me under his boots!"

"A nice kind of husband you'd make of him then!" said her mistress scornfully.

"I know, I know," agreed Dinah. "I've no power o' resistance at all, an' I daresay the Almighty has saved me a lifetime o' trouble. 'Twould ha' been desperet pleasant at the time though." She sighed.

"But to give two men a hundred pound each, an' choose the one that manages it best—"

"Worst," corrected Mrs Bosenna. "You ninny!" she went on with sovereign contempt. "Do you really suppose I'd marry a man that could handle my money, or was vain enough to suppose he could?"

"O—oh!" gasped Dinah as she took enlightenment. . . . "But two hundred pounds is a terrible sum to spend in findin' out which o' two men is the bigger fool. Why not begin wi' the one you like best, and find out first if he's foolish enough to suit?"

"Because," answered Mrs Bosenna, turning meditative eyes again upon the fire, "I don't happen to know which I like best."

"Then you can't be in love," declared foolish Dinah.

"Sensible women ain't; not until afterwards. . . . Now, which would you advise me to marry?"

"Captain Hunken." Dinah's answer was prompt. "He's that curt. I like a man to be curt; he makes it so hard for 'ee to say no. Besides which, as you might say, that parrot of his did break the ice in a manner of speakin'."

"Dinah, I'm ashamed of you."

"Well, mistress, natur' is natur': and we knows what we can't help knowin'."

"That's true," Mrs Bosenna agreed. It was her turn to sigh.

"Cap'n Hunken's the man," repeated Dinah. She nodded her head on it and paused. "Though, if you ask my opinion, Cap'n Hocken 'd make the better husband."

"It's difficult."

"Ay. . . . For my part I don't know what you want with a husband at all."

"Nor I," said Mrs Bosenna, still gazing into the fire.

"At the best 'tis a risk."

Mrs Bosenna sighed again. "If it weren't, where'd be the fun?"



CHAPTER XX.

A NEWSPAPER PARAGRAPH.

Mr Rogers enjoyed his newspaper. To speak more accurately, he enjoyed several: and one of Fancy's duties—by no means the least pleasant or the least onerous—was to read to him daily the main contents of 'The Western Morning News,' 'The Western Daily Mercury,' and 'The Shipping Gazette': and on Thursdays from cover to cover—at a special afternoon seance—'The Troy Herald,' with its weekly bulletin of more local news.

"What's the items this week?" asked Mr Rogers, puffing at a freshly lit pipe and settling himself down to listen.

Fancy opened the paper at its middle sheet, folded it back and scanned it.

"Here we are. 'If you want corsets, go to—' no, that's an advertisement. 'Troy Christian Endeavour. Under the auspices of the above-named flourishing society—'"

"Skip the Christian Endeavour."

"Very well. The next is 'Wesley Guild. A goodly company met this week to hear the Rev. J. Bates Handcock on "Gambling: its Cause and Cure." The reverend gentleman is always a favourite at Troy—'"

"He's none of mine, anyway. Skip the Wesley Guild."

"Right-o! 'On Wednesday last, in spite of counter attractions, much interest was testified by those who assembled in the Institute Hall to hear Mr Trudgeon, lately returned from the United States, on the Great Canyon of Colorado, illustrated with lantern slides. The lecturer in a genial manner, after personally conducting his audience across the Great Continent—'"

"Damn," said Mr Rogers. "Get on to the drunks. Ain't there any?"

"Seems not. How will this do?"

'Report says that Monday's Agricultural Demonstration —a full report of which will be found in another column—was not without its comic relief, beloved of dramatists. On dit that—'"

"On what?"

"Dit. Misprint, perhaps."

'On dit that two highly respected sons of the brine, recently settled in our midst, and one of whom has recently been elected to teach our young ideas how to shoot, were so fired with emulation by the ploughing in Class C as to challenge one another then and there to a trial of prowess, much to the entertainment of our agricultural friends. The stakes were for a considerable amount, and the two heroes who had elected to plough something more solid than the waves, quickly found themselves the observed of all observers. Rumour, that lying jade, hints at a lady in the case. Certain it is that the pair, whose names have of late been syn—been sy-nonymous—with,'—

"—O Lor'! here's a heap of it, master!"

"Skip the long syllables an' get on."

"H'm—m—"

'—acquitted themselves to the astonishment of the judges, and of everybody else in the field. Search out the lady, as our Gallic neighbours say.'

—"Where's Gallic?"

"Don't know. Ask Shake Benny. He supplies the Troy Notes to the 'Herald.'"

"Oh, does he?"

"Yes: he gets his gossip off Philp; and dresses it up. That's how it's done. Philp has a nose like a ferret's: but he was unfort'nit in his education. You may trust Philp to get at the facts—leastways you can trust him for gossip: but he can't dress anything up. . . . Why, what's the matter with the child?"

Fancy Tabb never laughed: and this was the queerer because she had a sense of humour beyond her years. Though by no means a gleeful child she could express glee naturally enough: but a joke merely affected her with silent convulsive twitchings, as though the risible faculties struggled somewhere within her but could not bring the laugh to birth.

These spasms of mirth, whatever had provoked them, were cut short—and her explanation too—by a heavy footstep on the stairs.

"Cap'n Hunken!" she announced, and went to open the door. "Most like he wants to talk business with you same as Cap'n Hocken did this morning, and I'd better make myself scarce. That's the silly way they've taken to behave, 'stead of callin' together."

"Ay, you're sharp, missy," said her master. "But 'twon't be the same arrand this time, as it happens: so you're wrong for once."

Fancy, if she heard, did not answer, for 'Bias by this time had reached the landing without. She opened to him. "Good afternoon, sir."

"Afternoon, missy. I saw your father in the shop, and he told me to walk up. Mr Rogers disengaged?"

"Ay, Cap'n—walk in, walk in!" said Mr Rogers from his chair. What is it to-day? Business? or just a pipe and a chat?"

"Well, it's business," allowed 'Bias with a glance at the girl. "But I'll light a pipe over it, if you don't mind."

"And I'll fit and make tea for you both," said Fancy. "It's near about time."

She vanished and closed the door behind her. 'Bias found a chair, seated himself, and filled his pipe very slowly and thoughtfully. Mr Rogers waited.

"The business that brings me—" 'Bias paused, struck a match and lit up—"ain't quite the ordinary business."

"No?"

"No." For a few seconds 'Bias appeared to be musing. "In fact you might call it a—a sort o' flutter. That's the word—ain't it?—when you take a bit o' money and play venturesome with it, against your usual habits."

"Ay?" Mr Rogers looked at him sharply. "When I say venturesome," continued 'Bias, "you'll understand I don't mean foolhardy. . . . Nothin' o' the sort. I want to hear o' something tolerably safe, into which a man might put a small sum he happened to have lyin' about."

"What sort of investment?"

"Ay, that's just what I want you to tell me. Ten per cent, we'll say, an' no more'n a moderate risk. . . . I reckoned as a man like you might know, maybe, o' half a dozen things o' the sort."

"What's the amount?" Mr Rogers's eyes, that had opened wide for a moment, narrowed themselves upon him in a curiosity that hid some humour.

"Put it at a hundred pound."

"Oh!—er—I mean, is that all?"

"You see," exclaimed 'Bias. "You mustn' run away wi' the notion that I ain't satisfied as things are. Four and five per cent—and that's what you get for me—does best in the main. I can live within the income and sleep o' nights. But once in a way—"

"Ay," interrupted Mr Rogers, "and more especially when it's to oblige a friend."

'Bias withdrew the pipe from his mouth and stared. "You're a clever one, too! . . . Well, and I don't mind you're knowin'. 'Tis a relief, in a way: for now you know I'm pleased enough with your dealins' on my own account."

"Thank 'ee. I'm not askin' no names."

"As to that, I'd rather not mention the name, either. But I'd be very glad o' your advice: for 'tis important to me, in a way o' speakin'!"

Mr Rogers nodded. "If that's so," said he, "you must give me a little time to think. There's mortgages, o' course: and there's deals to be done in shipping: and there's money-lendin,—though you'd object to that, maybe. . . . Anyway, you come to me to-morrow, and I may have something to propose."

"Thank 'ee. I take that as friendly."

"Right." Mr Rogers let drop a trembling half-paralysed hand towards the newspaper which lay on the floor beside his chair. "Would ye mind—"

'Bias stepped forward and picked it up for him.

"Thank 'ee. No: I want you to keep it. . . . I'm goin' to do a thing that's friendlier yet: though it be a risk. Open the paper at the middle sheet—right-hand side, an' look out a column headed 'Troy News.' . . . Got it?"

"Half a moment—Yes,' Troy News'—Here we are!"

"Now cast your eye down the column till you come 'pon a part about last Monday's Agricultural Demonstration."

"The devil!" swore 'Bias. "You don't mean to say—"

"'Course I do. Everything gets into the papers nowadays. . . . You'll find it spicy."

'Bias found the paragraph and started to read, with knitted brows. Its journalistic style held him puzzled for fully half a minute. Then he ejaculated "Ha!" and snorted. After another ten seconds he snorted again and exploded some bad words—some very bad words indeed.

"Thought I'd warn you to be careful," said Mr Rogers. "You don't take it amiss, I hope? In a little place like this there's eyes about all the time—an' tongues."

"I'd like to find the joker who wrote it?" breathed 'Bias, the paper trembling between his hands.

"I can't tell you who wrote it," said the ship-chandler; "but I can give a pretty close guess who's responsible for it: and that's Philp."

"Philp?"

"Mind ye, I say 'tis but a guess."

"I'll Philp him!"

"Well, he's no fav'rite o' mine," said Mr Rogers grinning. "He's too suspicious for me, and I hate a man to be suspicious. . . . But he's the man I suspect."

"Where does he live?"

"Union Place—two flights o' steps below John Peter Nanjulian's— left-hand side as you go up. But you can't have it out with him on suspicion only."

"Can't I?" said 'Bias grimly. "I'll ask him plain 'yes' or 'no.' If he says 'yes,' I'll know what to do, and you may lay I'll do it."

"But if he says 'no'?"

"Then I'll call him a liar," promised 'Bias without a moment's indecision. "That'll touch him up, I should hope. . . . Where did you say he lives?"

At this moment there came a knock at the door and Fancy entered with the tea-tray.

"If you'd really like a talk with him," said Mr Rogers, blinking, "maybe you'd best let the child here take you to his house. . . . Eh, missy? Cap'n Hunken tells me as how he'd like to pay a call 'pon Mr Philp, up in Union Place."

"Now?" asked Fancy.

"The sooner the better," answered 'Bias, crushing 'The Troy Herald' between his hands.

Fancy's hands, disencumbered of the tea-tray, began to twitch violently. "Very well, master," was all she said, however; and with that she left the room to fetch her hat and small cloak.

"I'd advise you to tackle Philp gently," was Mr Rogers's warning as soon as the pair were alone. "Not that I've any likin' for the man: but the point is, you've no evidence. He'll tell you—and, likely enough, with truth—as he never act'ally wrote what's printed."

"You leave him to me," answered 'Bias grimly, gulping his tea and preparing to sally forth.

"An' you might remember to leave the child outside. If a lady's name is to be handled in the discussion, you understand. . . . Besides which, witnesses are apt to be awk'ard. Two's the safe number when there's a delicate point to be cleared up."

Fancy reappeared and announced herself ready. 'Bias caught up his hat. . . . Left to himself, Mr Rogers lay back in his chair and chuckled. He did not care two straws for Mr Philp, or for what might happen to him. His mind was off on quite another train of thought.

"I wonder what the woman's game is? 'A hundred pound lyin' idle'—and Hocken around with the same tale this forenoon. . . . Ten per cent, and at a moderate risk. . . . She's shrewd, too, by all accounts. . . . Damme, if this isn't a queer cross-runnin' world! A woman like that, if I'd had the luck to meet her a three-four year ago—before this happened!" . . . He eyed his palsied hand as it reached out, shaking, for the tea-cup.

"When we get to the door," said 'Bias heavily, as he and Fancy turned out of the street into the narrow entry of Union Place, "you're to step back and run away home."

"No fear," she assured him. "I'm doin' you a favour, an' don't you forget it."

"But you can't come inside with me."

"That's all right. Nobody said as I wanted to, in my hearin'. I can see all I want to see. There's a flight o' steps runnin' up close outside the window."

She pointed it out and quite candidly indicated the point at which she proposed to perch herself. "And there's another window at the back," she added: "so's you can see all that's happenin' inside."

"Better fit you ran away home," he repeated.

"You can't make me," retorted Fancy. "Unless, o' course, you choose to use force, here in broad daylight. As a friend of mine said, only the other day," she went on, snatching at a purple patch from 'Pickerley,' "the man as would lift his hand against a woman deserves whatever can be said of him. Public opinion will condemn him in this life, and, in the next, worms are his portion. So there!"

"I dunno what you're talkin' about," said 'Bias, preoccupied with the thought of coming vengeance.

"Who's meanin' to lift his hand against a woman?"

"Well, mind you don't, that's all!"

She left him standing on the doorstep, and skipped away up the steps. Having reached a point which commanded a view over the blinds of Mr Philp's front window, she gave a glance into the room, and at once her arms and legs started to twitch as though in the opening movement of some barbaric war-dance.

'Bias, still inattentive, took no heed of these contortions. After a moment's pause he rapped sharply on the door with the knob of his walking-stick, then boldly lifted the latch and strode into the passage.

On his right the door of the front parlour stood ajar. He thrust it wide open and entered. And, as he entered, a female figure arose from a chair on the far side of the room.

"I—I beg your pardon, ma'am!" stammered 'Bias, falling back a pace.

"Polly wants a kiss!" screamed a voice. It did not seem to proceed from the lady. . . . Somehow, too, it was strangely familiar. . . . 'Bias stared wildly about him.

At the same moment, and just as his eyes fell on the parrot-cage on the table, the lady—But was it a lady? Heavens! what did it resemble—this figure in female attire?

"Drat your bird! He won't say no worse! And this is the third mornin' I've sat temptin' him!"

Mr Philp—yes, it was Mr Philp—in black merino frock, Paisley shawl and ribboned cap on which a few puce-coloured poppies nodded—Mr Philp, with a handful of knitting, and a ball of worsted trailing at his feet— But it is impossible to construct a sentence which would do justice to Mr Philp as he loomed up and swam into ken through 'Bias's awed surmise; and the effort shall be abandoned.

Mr Philp slowly unwound the woollen wrap that had swathed his beard out of sight.

"Clever things, birds," said Mr Philp, and his voice seemed to regain its identity as the folds of the bandage dropped from him. "I wonder whether shavin' would help! . . . I don't like to be beat."

'Bias, who had come with that very intent, lifted a hand—but let it fall again. No, he could not!

"Good Lord!" he ejaculated, and fled from the house.

Outside, Fancy—who had seen all—was executing a fandango on the step.

"Help!" she called, taunting him. "Who talked o' liftin' a hand against a woman?"



CHAPTER XXI.

THE AUCTION.

One result of the paragraph in 'The Troy Herald' was to harden the two friends' estrangement just at the moment when it promised to melt. Troy with its many amenities has a deplorable appetite for gossip; and to this appetite the contention of Captain Hocken and Captain Hunken for Mrs Bosenna's hand gave meat and drink. (There was, of course, no difficulty in guessing what Mr Shake Benny would have called "the inamorata's identity.") Malicious folk, after their nature, assumed the pair to be in quest of her money. The sporting ones laid bets. Every one discussed the item with that frankness which is so characteristic of the little town, and so engaging when you arrive at knowing us, though it not infrequently disconcerts the newcomer. Barber Toy—having Cai at his mercy next morning, with a razor close to his throat—heartily wished him success.

"Not," added Mr Toy, "that I bear any ill-will to Cap'n Hunken. But I back a shaved chin on principle, for the credit of the trade."

A sardonic and travelled seaman, waiting his turn in the corner, hereupon asked how he managed when it came to the Oxford and Cambridge boat-race.

"I'll tell you," answered Mr Toy. "I wasn't at Oxford myself—nor at Cambridge; and for years I'd back one or 'nother, 'cordin' to the newspapers. But that isn't a satisfactory way. When you're dealin' with an honest event—honest, mind you—as goes on year after year between two parties both ekally set on winnin', the only way to get real satisfaction is to pick your fancy an' go on backin' it. That gives ye a different interest altogether, like with Liberal or Conservative at a General Election. If you don't win this time, you look forward to next. . . . Well, one day Mr Philp here came into the shop wearin' a dark blue tie, and says I, 'You're Oxford.' 'Am I?' says he—'It's the first I've heard tell of it.' 'You're Oxford,' says I: 'and I'm Cambridge, for half-a-crown.' Odd enough, Cambridge won that year by eight lengths."

"I wonder you have the face to tell this story," put in Mr Philp.

The barber grinned. "Well, I thought as we'd both settled 'pon our fancy, in a neighbourly way. But be dashed if, soon after the followin' Christmas, Mr Philp didn't send his tie to the wash, and it came back any blue you pleased. 'Make it one or t'other—I don't care,' said I: and he weighed the choice so long, bein' a cautious man, that we missed to make up any bet at all. If you'll believe me, that year they rowed a dead heat."

"Very curious," commented Cai.

"But that isn' the end," continued the barber. "Next year he'd washed his necktie again, and that 'twas Cambridge he couldn' dispute. So we put on another half-crown, and Oxford won by two lengths. . . . 'Twas a pity I could never induce him to bet again, for his tie went on getting Cambridger and Cambridger, while Oxford won four years out o' five."

"If you believe there was any honesty in it!" said Mr Philp. "'Twas only my suspicious natur' as saved me."

The whole town, indeed, was watching the rivals, and with an open interest very difficult to resent. Nay, since it was impossible to tell every second man in the street to mind his own business, Cai and 'Bias accepted the publicity perforce and turned their resentment upon one another.

They continued, of course, to live apart, and Mrs Bowldler soon learned to avoid playing the intermediary, even to the extent of suggesting (say) some concerted action over the coal supplies. After the first fortnight no messages passed between them—

"They stood aloof, the scars remaining, Like cliffs that had been rent asunder."

If they met, in shop or roadway, they nodded, but exchanged no other greeting. They never met at Rilla Farm. How it was agreed I know not, though Mrs Bosenna must have contrived it somehow; but they now prosecuted their wooing openly on alternate days. Sunday she reserved for what Sunday ought to be—a day of rest.

"The artfulness!" exclaimed Mrs Bowldler on making discovery of this arrangement. "But the men are no match for us, my dear"—this to Fancy—"an' the oftener they marry us the cleverer they leave us."

"Then 'tis a good job Henry the Eighth wasn' a woman," commented Fancy.

"There was some such case in the Scriptures, if you'll remember; and it says that last of all the woman died also. If she did, you may be sure as 'twasn't till she chose."

"I heard Mr Rogers say t'other day, 'Never marry a widow unless her first husband was hanged.'"

"Pray let us change the subjeck," said Mrs Bowldler hastily.

"Why? . . . What did Mr Bowldler die of? I've often meant to ask," said Fancy, "and then again I've wondered sometimes if there ever was any such person."

"There was such a person." Mrs Bowldler half-closed her eyes in dreamy reminiscence. "Further than that I would not like to commit myself."

"He's dead, then?"

"He was a fitter in a ladies' tailorin', and naturally gay by temperament. It led to misunderstandin's. . . . Dead? No, not that I am aware of. For all I know he's still starrin' it somewhere in the provinces."

She protested that for the moment she must drop the subject, which invariably affected her with palpitations; but promised to return to it in confidence when she felt stronger.

Throughout these days, however, and for many days to come, she discoursed at large on the diplomacy of widows; warning Palmerston to shape his course in avoidance of them. And that budding author—who had already learnt to take his good things where he found them—boldly transferred her warnings to the pages of 'Pickerley,' which thereby arrived at resembling 'Pickwick' in one respect if in no other.

From these generalities she would hark back, at shortest notice, to the practical present.

"It behoves us—seein' as how a tempory cloud has descended between these two establishments—it behoves us, I say, to watch out for its silver lining in one form or another. Which talking of silver reminds me of electro, and I'll ask you, Palmerston, if that's the way to leave a mustard-pot and call yourself an indoor male?"

Their estrangement had endured some three months before the rivals came again into public collision.

The beginning of it happened through a very excusable misunderstanding.

Is Christmas Day to be reckoned as an ordinary day of the week, or as a Sunday, or as a dies non? The reader must decide.

Christmas Day that year fell on a Friday—one of the three week-days tacitly allotted to Cai, who may therefore be forgiven that he chose to reckon it as coming within the ordinary routine. He did so, and at about three o'clock in the afternoon (which was bright and sunny) he reached the small gate of Rilla, to be aware of 'Bias striding up the pathway ahead of him.

He gave chase in no small choler.

"Look here," he protested, panting; "haven't you made some mistake? This is Friday."

"Christmas Day," answered 'Bias, wheeling about.

"I can't help that. 'Tis Friday."

"An' next year 'twill be Saturday," retorted 'Bias with a sour grin; "it that'll content you, when it comes. None of us can't help it. Th' almanack says 'tis Christmas Day, and ord'nary days o' the week don't count. Besides, 'tis quarter-day, and I've brought my rent."

"I've brought mine, too," replied Cai. "Well, we'll leave it to Mrs Bosenna to settle."

They walked up to the house in silence. Dinah, who answered the bell, appeared to be somewhat upset at sight of the two on the doorstep together. (Yet we know that Dinah never opened the front door without a precautionary survey.) She admitted them to the front parlour, and opining that her mistress was somewhere's about the premises, departed in search of her.

'Bias took up a position with his back to the fire and his legs a-straddle. Cai stuck his hands in his pockets and stared gloomily out of window. For some three minutes neither spoke, then Cai, of a sudden, gave a start.

"There's that Middlecoat!" he exclaimed.

"Hey?" 'Bias hurried to the window, but the young farmer had already passed out of sight.

"Look here," suggested Cai, "it's just an well we turned up, one or both. That man's a perfect bully, so she tells me."

"She've told me the same, more than once."

"Always pickin' some excuse for a quarrel. It ain't right for a woman to live alongside such a neighbour unprotected."

"So I've told her."

"Well, he's in the devil of a rage just now,—to judge by the look of him, an' the way he was smackin' his leg with an ash-plant as he went by."

"Was he now?" 'Bias considered for a moment. "You may depend he took advantage, not expectin' either of us to turn up to-day. . . . I shouldn't wonder if the maid properly scared him with news we were here."

Sure enough Dinah returned in a moment to report that her mistress was in her rose-garden; and following her thither, they found Mrs Bosenna, flushed of face and evidently mastering an extreme discomposure.

"I,—I hardly expected you," she began.

"It's Friday," said Cai.

"It's Christmas Day," said 'Bias. "I reckon he counted on that,—that Middlecoat, I mean."

"Eh? . . . Mr Middlecoat—"

"Saw him takin' his leave, not above three minutes ago."

"You,—you saw him taking his leave?"

"Stridin' down the hill, angry as a bull," Cai assured her.

"He's a dreadful man to have for a neighbour," confessed Mrs Bosenna, recovering grip on her composure. "The way he threatens and bullies!"

"I'll Middlecoat him, if he gives me but half a chance!" swore 'Bias.

"If I'd known either of you was in hail. . . . But I reckoned you'd both be countin' this for a Sunday."

"Christmas Day isn't Sunday, not more'n once in seven years," objected 'Bias.

"It's Friday this year," said Cai, with simple conviction.

"Fiddlestick!" retorted 'Bias. "You can't make it out to be like an ordinary Friday—I defy you. There's a—a feelin' about the day."

"It feels like Friday to me," maintained Cai.

But here Mrs Bosenna interposed. "'Twon't feel like Christmas to me then if you two start arguin'. 'Peace and goodwill' was the motto, as I thought; but I don't see much of either abroad this afternoon."

The pair started guiltily and avoided each other's eyes. Many a time in distant ports they had talked together of Christmas in England and of Christmas fare—the goose, the plum-pudding. They had promised themselves a rare dinner to celebrate their first Christmas in England, and it had come to—what? To a dull meal eaten apart, served by a Mrs Bowldler on the verge of tears, and by a Palmerston frankly ravaged by woe. It had happened—happened past recall, and as Mrs Bowldler had more than once observed in the course of the morning, the worst was not over yet. "For," as she said, "out of two cold geese and two cold puddings I'll trouble you this next week for your entrays and what-not."