To be sure (and Captain Cai might with better command on his nerves have hailed the omen) Nature could hardly have dressed shore and harbour of Troy in weather more auspicious. The smoke of chimneys arose straight on the "cessile air," making a soft dun-coloured haze through which the light of the declining day was filtered in streams of yellow—pale lemon-yellow, golden-yellow, orange, orange-tawny. On the far shore of the harbour, windows blazed as if cottage after cottage held the core of a furnace intense and steady. The green hillside above them lay bathed in this aureate flush, which permeated too the whole of the southern sky, up to its faint blue zenith.
"Pretty weather," grunted 'Bias, "I see the glass is steady too; leastways if you can trust the one they keep in the Inn parlour."
Cai did not respond: the crucial moment was drawing too near.
"Pretty li'l view, too. . . . A man with a box o' paints, now, might be tempted to have a slap at it."
Well-meant but artless simulation! Captain Hunken had once in his life purchased a picture; it represented Vesuvius by night, in eruption, and he had yielded to the importunity of the Neapolitan artist—or, rather, had excused himself for yielding—on the ground that after all you couldn't mistake the dam thing for anything else.
They came abreast of Harbour Terrace. They were passing by the green front door of Number Two. Still Captain Cai made no sign.
"There's a house, f'r instance—supposin' a man could afford the rental—" 'Bias halted and regarded it. "Hullo, 'tis unoccupied!" He turned about slowly. "You don't—mean—to tell me—as that's of it?"
"That's of it," Cai admitted tremulously. After a long pause,
'"Bias," he stammered, "break it gently."
"I'm tryin' to," said 'Bias, breathing and backing to the railings for a better view. He removed his hat and wiped the top of his head several times around. Then of a sudden—
"Hooray!" he exploded.
"'Bias!" Cai stared, as well he might, for his friend's face was totally impassive.
"Hoo—" began 'Bias again. "Who the devil's this?" he demanded, as the door opened and Tabb's child appeared in the entry.
"I been expectin' you this hour an' more," announced Tabb's child.
"Stoppin' for drinks on the road, I reckon?"
"We did take a drink, now you mention it," stammered Captain Cai, caught aback: "though, as it happens that don't account for our bein' late. But what brings you, here, missy?"
She laid a finger on her lip. "Sh! I've got 'em."
"Got what?"
"Servants for 'ee. They're inside." She pointed back in to the passage mysteriously.
"Who's this child?" demanded Captain 'Bias.
"She's—er—a young friend o' mine—" began Captain Cai. But Fancy interrupted him, dropping a slight curtsey, and addressing his friend straight.
"My name's Fancy Tabb, sir. Which I hope you'll like Troy, and Cap'n Hocken ast me to make myself useful an' find you a pair of servants— woman an' boy."
"Oh, but hold hard!" protested Captain Cai. "We haven't started furnishin' yet."
She nodded. "That's all right. No hurry with either of 'em—not for some weeks, or so long as it suits you. But you'll be safer to bespeak 'em: an' Mrs Bowldler is the chance of a lifetime."
She led the way through to the unfurnished and somewhat dingy kitchen. It had a low window-seat, from the extreme ends of which, as the two skippers entered, two figures—a middle-aged woman and a gawky lad— arose and saluted them; the one with a highly genteel curtsey, the other with an awkward half-pull at his forelock, and much scraping with his feet.
"This is Mrs Bowldler," Fancy nodded towards the middle-aged woman.
"Your servant, sirs," Mrs Bowldler curtseyed again and coughed. "With a
W if you don't object."
"She's quite a good plain cook; and well connected, though reduced in circumstances. Mr Rogers, sir, is often glad to employ her at a pinch."
"At a what?" asked Captain Tobias, breathing hard.
"Which," said Mrs Bowldler with a trembling cough, "the bare thought of taking service again with two strange gentlemen in my state of health is a nordeal, and as such I put it to you." Here she smoothed the front of her gown and turned upon Tobias with unexpected spirit. "You can say to me what you like, sir, and you can do to me what you like, but if you'd been laying awake all night with geese walking over your grave, I'd put myself in your place and say, 'Well, if he don't spit blood 'tis a mercy!'"
"Plain cookin', did you say?" asked Captain Tobias, turning stonily upon the girl.
"And knick-knacks. You mustn't mind her talk, sir; she was brought up to better things and 'tis only her tricks. . . . Now the boy here—his name's Pam, which is short for Palmerston: and I can't conscientiously say more for him, except that he's willin' and tells me he can carry coals."
She might not be able to say more for him, and yet her voice had a wistfulness it had lacked while she commended Mrs Bowldler. Certainly the lad's looks did not take the casual glance. He was coltish and angular, with timid, hare-like eyes. He wore curduroy trousers (very short in the leg), a coat which had patently been made for a grown man, and in place of waistcoat a crimson guernsey which as patently was a piece of feminine apparel. The sleeves of his coat were folded back above his wrists, and in his hand he dangled, by a string of elastic, a girl's sailor hat.
"Healthy?" asked Captain Tobias.
As if at a military command, the boy put out his tongue.
"La!" exclaimed Mrs Bowldler, "look at that for manners!"
"Where does he come from?"
The boy glanced at Fancy in a helpless way. Fancy was prompt. "'Twould save time—wouldn't it?—now that you've seen Mrs Bowldler, if she went round an' had a look at the house?"
"Which I trust," said Mrs Bowldler, "it would not be required of me to sleep in a nattic. It's not that I'm peculiar, but as I said to my sister Martha at breakfast only this morning, 'Attics I was never accustomed to, and if 'tis to be attics at my age, with the roof on your head all the time and not a wink in consequence, Martha,' I said, 'you wouldn't ask it of me, no, not to oblige all the retired gentlemen in Christendom.'"
"You'd better trot along upstairs, then, an' make sure," said Fancy. As soon as the woman was gone she jerked a nod towards the door. "Now we can talk. I didn't want her to know, but Pam comes from the work'ouse. His father was mate of a vessel and drowned at sea, and his mother couldn't manage alone."
"What vessel?" asked Captain Cai. Both skippers were regarding the boy with interest.
"The Tartar Girl—one of Mr Rogers's—with coal from South Shields, but a Troy crew. It happened five years ago; an' last night when you said you wanted a boy it came into my head that one of the Burts would be just about the age. [Pam's other name is Burt, but I didn't tell it just now, not wanting Mrs Bowldler to guess who he was.] So this morning I got Mr Rogers to let me telephone to Tregarrick Work'ouse—an' here he is."
"Do they dress 'em like that in there?" asked
Captain Cai.
"Better fit they did!" said the girl angrily. "They sent him over in a clean corduroy suit with 'Work-'ouse' written all over it: and a nice job I had to rig him up so's Mrs Bowldler shouldn' guess."
At this moment a piercing scream interrupted Fancy's explanation. It came from one of the front rooms, and was followed by another shorter scream—the voice unmistakably Mrs Bowldler's.
Running to the lady's rescue, they found her in the empty parlour— alone, clutching at the mantelshelf with both hands, and preparing to emit another cry for succour.
"What in the world's happened?" demanded Fancy the first to arrive.
"There was a man!" Mrs Bowldler ran her eyes over her protectors and turned them, with a slow shudder, towards the window. "I seen him distinctly. It sent my blood all of a cream."
"A man? What was he doing?" they asked.
"He was a-looking in boldly through the window . . ." Mrs Bowldler covered her face with her hands.
"Well?" Fancy prompted her impatiently, while Captain Cai stepped out to the front door in quest of the apparition.
"He had on a great black hat. I thought 'twas Death itself come after me!"
While Mrs Bowldler paused to take breath and record her further emotions, Captain Cai, reaching the front door, threw it open, looked out into the roadway, and recoiled with a start. Close on his right a man in black stood peering, as Mrs Bowldler had described, but now into the drawing-room window; shielding, for a better view, the brim of a tall hat which Captain Cai recognised with an exclamation—
"Mr Philp!"
Mr Philp withdrew his gaze, turned about and nodded without embarrassment.
"Good evenin', Cap'n. Friend arrived?"
"Funny way to behave, isn't it?" asked Captain Cai with sternness.
"Pokin' an' pryin' in at somebody else's windows—what makes ye do it?"
"I was curious to know what might be goin' on inside."
There was a finality about this which held Captain Cai gravelled for a moment. It hardly seemed to admit of a reply. At length he said—
"Well, you've frightened a woman into hysterics by it, if that's any consolation."
"There, now! Mrs Bosenna?"
"No, it was not Mrs Bosenna. . . . By the way, that reminds me.
I've changed my mind over that hat."
"Hey?"
"I find I've a use for it, after all."
But at this moment 'Bias appeared in the doorway behind him.
"Seen anything?" demanded 'Bias.
"Interduce me," said Mr Philp with majestic calm.
Captain Cai, caught in this act of secret traffic, blushed in his confusion, but obeyed.
"'Bias," said he, "this is the gentleman that caused the mischief inside. His name's Philp, and he'd like to make your acquaintance."
BOOK II.
CHAPTER IX.
FIRST SUSPICIONS.
It was August, and the weather for weeks had been superb. It was also the week of Troy's annual regatta, and a whole fleet of yachts lay anchored in the little harbour, getting ready their riding lights. Two or three belated ones—like large white moths in the grey offing— had yet to make the rendezvous, and were creeping towards it with all canvas piled: for the wind—light and variable all day—had now at sunset dropped almost to a flat calm.
"A few pounds to be picked up out yonder," commented Captain Cai, "if the tugs had any enterprise."
Captain 'Bias reached out a hand for the telescope. "That yawl—the big fellow—'d do better to take in her jib-tops'le. The faster it's pullin' her through the water the more it's pullin' her to leeward. She'd set two p'ints nigher with it down."
"The fella can't make up his mind about it, either: keeps it shakin' half the time."
The two friends sat in 'Bias's summerhouse, the scent of their tobacco mingling, while they discoursed, with the fragrance of late roses, nicotianas, lemon verbenas. "Discoursed," did I say? Well, let the word pass: for their talk was discursive enough. But when at intervals one or the other opened his mouth, his utterance, though it took the form of a comment upon men and affairs, was in truth but the breathing of a deep inward content. On the table between them Captain Cai's musical box tinkled the waltz from "Faust."
They had become house-occupiers early in May, and at first with a few bare sticks of furniture a-piece. But by dint of steady attendance at the midsummer auctions they had since done wonders. Captain Cai had acquired, among other things, a refrigerator, a linen-press, and a set of 'The Encyclopaedia Britannica' (edition of 1881); Captain 'Bias a poultry run (in sections) and a framed engraving of "The Waterloo Banquet,"—of which, strange to say, he found himself possessor directly through his indifference to art; for, oppressed by the heat of the saleroom, he had yielded to brief slumber (on his legs) while the pictures were being disposed of, and awaking at the sound of his own name was aware that he had secured this bargain by an untimely and unpremeditated nod.
Such small accidents, however, are a part of the fun of house-furnishing. On the whole our two friends had bought judiciously, and now looking around them, could say that their experiment had hitherto prospered; that, so far, the world was kind.
Especially were they fortunate (thanks to Fancy Tabb) precisely where bachelor householders are apt to miss good fortune—in the matter of domestic service. The boy Palmerston, to be sure, suffered from a trick—acquired (Fancy assured them) under workhouse treatment and eradicable by time and gentle handling—of bursting into tears upon small provocation or none. But Mrs Bowldler was a treasure. Of this there could be no manner of doubt; and in nothing so patently as in relation with the boy Palmerston did the gold in Mrs Bowldler's nature— the refined gold—reveal itself.
It was suspected that she had once been a kitchen-maid in the West End of London: but a discreet veil hung over this past, and she never lifted it save by whatever of confession might be read into the words, "When we were in residence in Eaton Square,"—with which she preluded all reminiscences (and they were frequent) of the great metropolis. Her true test as a good woman she passed when—although she must have known the truth, being a confirmed innocent gossip—she chose to extend the same veil, or a corner of it, over the antecedents of Palmerston. She said—
"The past is often enveloped. In the best families it is notoriously so. We know what we are, an' may speckilate on what we was; but what we're to be, who can possibly tell? It might give us the creeps."
She said again: "Every man carries a button in his knapsack, by which he may rise sooner or later to higher things. It was said by a Frenchman, and a politer nation you would not find."
Again: "Blood will tell, always supposin' you 'ave it, and will excuse the expression."
Thus did Mrs Bowldler "turn her necessity to glorious gain," colouring and enlarging her sphere of service under the prismatic lens of romance. In her conversation either cottage became a "residence," and its small garden "the grounds," thus:—
"Palmerston, inform Captain Hunken that dinner is served. You will find him in the grounds."
Or, "Where's that boy?" Captain Cai might ask.
"Palmerston, sir? He is at present in the adjacent, cleaning the knives and forks."
She had indeed set this high standard of expression in the very act of taking service; when, being asked what wages she demanded, she answered, "If acceptable to you, sir, I would intimate eighteen guineas—and my viands."
"That's two shilling short o' nineteen pound," said Captain Hunken.
"I thank you, sir"—Mrs Bowldler made obeisance—"but I have an attachment to guineas."
She identified herself with her employers by speaking of them in the first person plural: "No, we do not dress for dinner. Our rule is to dine in the middle of the day, as more agreeable to health." [A sigh.] "Sometimes I wish we could persuade ourselves that vegetables look better on the side-table."
Such was Mrs Bowldler: and her housekeeping, no less vigilant than romantic, protected our two friends from a thousand small domestic cares.
"Committee-meeting, to-night?" asked 'Bias.
"Eight o'clock: to settle up details—mark-boats, handicap, and the like. . . . It's a wonder to me," said Cai reflectively, "how this regatta has run on, year after year. With Bussa for secretary, if you can understand such madness."
"They'll be runnin' you for the next Parish Council, sure as fate."
Cai ignored this. "There's the fireworks, too. Nobody chosen yet to superintend 'em, an' who's to do it I don't know, unless I take over that little job in addition."
"I thought the firm always sent a couple o' hands to fix an let 'em off."
"So it does. They arrived a couple of hours ago—both drunk as Chloe."
"Plenty o' time to sleep it off between this an' then," opined 'Bias comfortably.
"But they're still on the drink. Likely as not we shall find 'em to-morrow in Highway lock-up, which is four miles from here. . . . It happened once before," said Cai with a face of gloom, "and Bussa did the whole display by himself."
"Good Lord! How did it go off?"
"He can't remember, except that it did go off. He was drunk, too— drunk o' purpose: for, as he says very reas'nably, 'twas the only way he could find the courage. The fellow isn' without public spirit, if he'd only apply it the right way. Toy tells me that he, for his part, saw it from his bedroom window—the Town Quay wasn't safe, wi' the rocket-sticks fairly rainin'—an' the show wasn' a bad show, if you looked at it horizontal; but the gentry on the yachts derived next to no enjoyment from it, bein' occupied in gettin' up their anchors."
Before 'Bias could comment on this, a footstep—light, yet audible between the tinkling notes of the musical box—drew the gaze of the pair to a small window on the right, outside of which lay the gravelled approach to their bower.
"May I come in?" asked a voice—a woman's—with a pretty hesitation in its note: and Mrs Bosenna stood in the doorway.
"Please keep your seats," she entreated as both arose awkwardly. She added with a mirthful little laugh, "I heard the musical box playing away, and so I took French leave. Now, don't tell me that I'm an intruder! It is only for a few minutes; and—strictly speaking, you know—the lease says I may enter at any reasonable time. Is this a reasonable time?"
They assured her, but still awkwardly, that she was welcome at any time.
Captain Cai found her a chair.
"So this," she said, looking around, "is where you sit together and talk disparagingly of our sex. At least, that's what Dinah assures me, though I don't see how she can possibly know."
"Ma'am!" said Cai, "we were talkin', this very moment, o' fireworks: nothing more an' nothing less."
"Well, and you couldn't have been talking of anything more to the point," said Mrs Bosenna; "for, as it happens, it's fireworks that brought me here."
'Bias looked vaguely skyward, while "You don't tell me, ma'am, those fellows are making trouble down in the town?" cried Cai.
"Eh? I don't understand. . . . Oh, no," she laughed when he explained his alarm, "I am afraid my errand is much more selfish. You see, I positively dote on fireworks."
She paused.
"Well," said 'Bias, "that's womanlike."
"Hallo!" said Cai. "How do you know what's womanlike?"
"I am afraid it is womanlike," confessed Mrs Bosenna hastily. "And from Rilla Farm you get no view at all on Regatta night. So I was wondering—if you won't think it dreadfully forward of me—"
"You're welcome to watch 'em from here, ma'am, if that's what you mean," said 'Bias.
"Or from my garden, ma'am, if you prefer it," said Cai.
"Why should she?" asked 'Bias.
"Well, 'tis a yard or two nearer, for one thing."
"Anything else?"
"Yes: the other summer-house fronts a bit more up the harbour; t'wards the fireworks, that's to say."
"You ought to know: you chose it. . . . But anyway I asked her first."
"Thank you—thank you both!" interposed Mrs Bosenna, leaving the question open. "And may I bring Dinah too? She's almost as silly about fireworks as I am, poor woman! and life on a farm can be dull." She sighed, and added, "Besides, 'twould be more proper. We mustn't set people talking—eh, Captain Hocken?" She appealed to him with a laugh.
"Cai won't be here," announced 'Bias heavily.
"Who said so?" demanded Cai.
"'Said so yourself, not twenty minutes ago. . . . 'Said you didn' know how the fireworks was ever goin' off without you, or words to that effect. I didn' make no comment at the time. All I say now is, if Mrs Bosenna comes here to see fireworks, she'll expect 'em to go off: an' I leave it at that."
"They'll go off, all right," said Cai cheerfully, putting a curb on his temper. [But what ailed 'Bias to-night?] "I'll get a small Sub-committee appointed this very evening. But about takin' a hand myself, I've changed my mind."
"Indeed, Captain Hocken, I hope you'll not desert the party," said Mrs Bosenna prettily, and laughed again. "Do you know that, having made so bold I've a mind to make bolder yet, and pretend I am entertaining you to-morrow. It's the only chance you give me, you two."
She said this with her eyes on 'Bias, who started as if stung and glanced first at her, then at Cai. But Cai observed nothing, being occupied at the moment in winding up the musical box, which had run down.
Mrs Bosenna smiled a demure smile. She had discovered what she had come to learn; and having discovered it, she presently took her leave, with a promise to be punctual on the morrow.
When she was gone the pair sat for some time in silence. Tink, tink-tink-a-tink, tink, went the musical box on the table. . . . At length Cai stood up.
"Time to be gettin' along to Committee," he said, and stepped to the doorway; but there he turned and faced about. "'Bias—"
"Eh?"
"You don't really think as I chose th' other summer-house because it had a better view?"
"Has it a better view?" asked 'Bias.
"For fireworks, it seems," said Cai sadly. "But I reckoned—though I hate to talk about it—as this one looked straighter out to sea an' by consequence 'd please ye better. That's why. . . . You're welcome to change gardens to-morrow."
"Mrs Bosenna's comin' to-morrow," grunted 'Bias, and then, after a second's pause, swore under his breath, yet audibly.
"What's the matter with ye, 'Bias?"
"I don't know. . . . Maybe 'tis that box o' tunes gets on my temper. No, don't take it away. I didn' mean it like that, an' the music used to be pretty enough, first-along."
"We'll give it a spell," said Cai, stooping and switching off the tune. "I'm not musical myself; I'd as lief hear thunder, most days. But the thing was well meant."
"Ay, an' no doubt we'll pick up a taste for it again—indoors of an evenin', when the winter comes 'round."
"Tell ye what," suggested Cai. "To-morrow, I'll take it off to John
Peter and ask him to put a brass plate on the lid, with an inscription.
He's clever at such things, an' terrible dilatory. . . . An' to-night
Mrs Bowldler can have it in the kitchen. She dotes on it—'I dreamt
that I dwelt' in particular."
"Which," said Mrs Bowldler to Palmerston later on, as they sat drinking in that ditty, one on either side of the kitchen table, "it can't sing, but the words is that I dreamt I dwelt in Marble Halls with Princes and Peers by my si-i-ide—just like that. Princes!" She leaned back in the cheap chair and closed her eyes. "It goes through me to this day. I used to sing it frequent in my 'teens, along with another popular favourite which was quite at the other end of the social scale, but artless—'My Mother said that I never should Play with the gypsies in the wood. If I did, She would say, Tum tiddle, tum tiddle, tum-ti-tay' —my memory is not what it was." Mrs Bowldler wiped her eyes.
"And did you?" asked Palmerston. "Tell me what happened."
Next morning, while the Church bells were ringing in Regatta Day,
Captain Cai tucked the musical box under his arm and called, on his way
to the Committee Ship, upon Mr John Peter Nanjulian (commonly "John
Peter" for short).
John Peter, an elderly man, dwelt with a yet more elderly sister, in an old roomy house set eminently on the cliff-side above the roofs of the Lower Town, approachable only by a pathway broken by flights of steps, and known by the singular name of On the Wall.
The house had been a family mansion, and still preserved traces of ancient dignity, albeit jostled by cottages which had climbed the slope and encroached nearer and nearer as the Nanjulians under stress of poverty had parted with parcel after parcel of their terraced garden. Of the last generation—five sons and three daughters, not one of whom had married—John Peter and his sister "Miss Susan" were now the only survivors, and lived, each on a small annuity, under the old roof, meeting only at dinner on Sundays, and for the rest of the week dwelling apart in their separate halves of the roomy building, up and down the wide staircase of which they had once raced as children at hide-and-seek with six playmates.
John Peter was eccentric, as all these later Nanjulians had been: a lean, stooping man, with a touch of breeding in his face, a weak mouth, and a chin dotted with tufts of gray hair which looked as if they had been affixed with gum and absent-mindedly. He was reputed to be a great reader, and could quote the poetical works of Pope by the yard. He had some skill with the pencil and the water-colour brush. He understood and could teach the theory of navigation; dabbled in chess problems; and had once constructed an astronomical timepiece. His not-too-clean hands were habitually stained with acids: for he practised etching, too, although his plates invariably went wrong. He had considerable skill in engraving upon brass and copper, and was not above eking out his income by inscribing coffin-plates. But the undertaker was shy of employing him because he could never be hurried.
John Peter received Captain Cai in his workshop—a room ample enough for a studio and lit by a large window that faced north, but darkened by cobwebs, dirty, and incredibly littered with odds and ends of futile apparatus. He put a watchmaker's glass to his eye and peered long into the bowels of the musical box.
"The works are clogged with dust," he announced. "Fairly caked with oil and dirt. No wonder it won't go."
"But it does go," objected Captain Cai.
"You don't tell me! . . . Well, you'd best let me take out the works, any way, and give them a bath of paraffin."
"Is it so serious as all that? . . . What I came about now, was to ask you to make a brass plate for the lid—with an inscription." Captain Cai pulled out a scrap of paper. "Something like this, 'Presented to Caius Hocken, Master of the Hannah Hoo, on the Occasion of his Retirement. By his affectionate undersigned': then the names, with maybe a motto or a verse o' poetry if space permits."
"What sort of poetry?"
"Eh? . . . 'Tell ye the truth, I didn' know till this moment that there were different sorts. Well, we'll have the best."
"Why not go to Benny, and get him to fix you up something appropriate?" suggested John Peter. "Old Benny, I mean, that writes the letters for seamen. He's a dab at verses. People go to him regular for the In-Memoriams they put in the newspaper."
"That's an idea, too," said Captain Cai. "I'll consult him to-morrow.
But that won't hinder your getting ahead wi' the plate?" he added; for
John Peter's ways were notorious.
"How would you like it?" John Peter looked purblindly about him, rubbing his spectacles with a thread-bare coat-tail.
"Well, I don't mind," said Cai with promptitude—"Though 'tis rather early in the morning."
"Old English?"
"Perhaps I don't know it by that name."
"Or there's Plain."
"Not for me, thank ye."
"—Or again, there's Italic; to my mind the best of all. It lends itself to little twiddles and flourishes, according to your taste." Old John Peter led him to the wall and pointed with a dirty finger; and Cai gasped, finding his attention directed to a line of engraved coffin-plates.
"That's Italic," said John Peter, selecting an inscription and tracing over the flourishes with his thumb-nail. "'William Penwarne, b. 1837—' that's the year the Queen came to the throne. It's easier to read, you see, than old English, and far easier than what we call Gothic, or Ecclesiastical—which is another variety—though, of course, not so easy as Plain. Here you have Plain—" He indicated an inscription—'Samuel Bosenna, of Rilla, b. 1830, d. 1895."
"Would that be th' old fellow up the valley, as was?—Mrs Bosenna's husband?" asked Cai, somewhat awed.
"That's the man."
"But what's it doing here?"
"'Tis my unfortunate propensity," confessed John Peter with simple frankness. "You see, by the nature of things these plates must be engraved in a hurry—I quite see it from the undertaker's point of view. But, on the other hand, if you're an artist, it isn't always you feel in the mood; you wait for what they call inspiration, and then the undertaker gets annoyed and throws the thing back on your hands." With a pathetic, patient smile John Peter rubbed his spectacles again, and again adjusted them. "Perhaps you'd like Plain, after all?" he suggested. "It usually doesn't take me so long."
"No," decided Cai somewhat hurriedly; "it might remind—I mean, there isn't the same kind of hurry with a musical box."
"It would be much the better for a bath of paraffin," muttered John
Peter, prying into the works. But Cai continued to stare at the plate
on the wall, and was staring at it when a voice at the door called
"Good mornin'!" and Mr Philp entered.
"Ho!" said Mr Philp, "I didn' know as you two were acquainted.
And what might you be doin' here, cap'n?"
"A triflin' matter of business, that's all," answered Cai, who chafed under Mr Philp's inquisitiveness; but chafed, like everybody else, in vain.
"Orderin' your breastplate? . . . It's well to be in good time when you're dealin' with John Peter," said Mr Philp with dreadful jocularity. "As I came along the head o' the town," he explained, "I heard that Snell's wife had passed away in the night. A happy release. I dropped in to see if they'd given you the job."
John Peter shook his head.
"And I don't suppose you'll get it, neither," said Mr Philp; "but I wanted to make sure. Push,—that's what you want. That's the only thing nowadays. Push. . . . You're lookin' at John Peter's misfits, I see," he went on, turning to Cai. "Now, there's a man whose place, as you might say, won't go unfilled much longer—hey?" Mr Philp pointed his walking-stick at the name of the late owner of Rilla, and achieved a sort of watery wink.
"I daresay you mean something by that, Mr Philp," said Cai, staring at him, half angry and completely puzzled. "But be dashed if I know what you do mean."
"There now! And I reck'ned as you an' Cap'n Hunken had ne'er a secret you didn't share!"
'"Bias?" asked Cai slowly. "Who was talkin' of 'Bias?"
"It takes 'em that way sometimes," said Mr Philp, wiping a rheumy eye. "An' the longer they puts it off the more you can't never tell which way it will take 'em. O' course, if Cap'n Hunken didn't tell you he'd been visitin' Rilla lately, he must have had his reasons, an' I'm sorry I spoke."
Cai was breathing hard. "Bias? . . . When?"
"The last time I spied him was two days ago . . . in the late afternoon. Now you come to mention it, I'd a notion at the time he wasn't anxious to be seen. For he came over the fields at the back—across the ten-acre field that Mrs Bosenna carried last week—and a very tidy crop, I'm told, though but moderate long in the stalk. . . . Well, there he was comin' across the stubble—at a fine pace, too, with his coat 'pon his arm—when as I guess he spied me down in the road below and stopped short, danderin' about an' pretendin' to poke up weeds with his stick. 'Some new-fashioned farmin',' thought I; 'weedin' stubble, and in August month too! I wonder who taught the Widow that trick'—for I won't be sure I reckernised your friend, not slap-off. But Cap'n Hunken it was: for to make certain I called and had a drink o' cider with Farmer Middlecoat, t'other side of the hill, an' he'd seen your friend frequent these last few weeks. . . . There now, you don't seem pleased about it!—an' yet 'twould be a very good match for him, if it came off."
Cai's head was whirling. He steadied himself to say, "You seem to take a lot of interest, Mr Philp, in other people's affairs."
"Heaps," said Mr Philp. "I couldn' live without it."
CHAPTER X.
REGATTA NIGHT.
It must be admitted, though with sorrow, that on the Committee Ship that day Captain Cai did not shine. He bungled two "flying starts" by nervously playing with his stop-watch and throwing it out of gear; he fired off winning guns for several hopelessly belated competitors; he made at least three mistakes in distributing the prize-money (and nobody who has not committed the indiscretion of paying out a first prize to a crew which has actually come in third can conceive the difficulty of enforcing its surrender); finally, he provoked something like a free fight on deck by inadvertently crediting two boats each with the other's time on a close handicap. It was the more vexatious, because he had in committee meetings taken so many duties upon himself, virtually cashiering many old hands, whose enforced idleness left them upon the ship with a run of the drinks, and whose resentment (as the day wore on) made itself felt in galling comments while, with no offer to help, they stood by and watched each painful development. The worst moment arrived when Captain Cai, who had replaced the old treasurer by a new and pushing man, and had, further, carried a resolution that prizes for all the major events should be paid by cheque, discovered his protege to be too tipsy to sign his name. This truly terrible emergency Captain Cai met by boldly subscribing his own name to the cheques. They would be drawn, of course, upon his private account, and he trusted the Committee to recoup him, while reading in the eyes of one or two that they had grasped this opportunity of revenge. But Regatta Day happens on a Wednesday, when the banks in Troy close early; and these cheques were accepted with an unflattering show of suspicion.
The longest day, however, has its end. All these vexations served at least to distract our friend's mind from the morning's discovery; and when at length, the last gun fired, he dropped into a boat to be pulled for shore, he was too far exhausted physically—having found scarcely a moment for bite or sup—to load his mind any more than did Walton's milk-maid "with any fears of many things that will never be."
He reached home, washed off the cares of the day and the reek of black gunpowder together in a warm bath, dressed himself with more than ordinary spruceness, and was descending the stair on his way to Bias's garden, when at the foot of them he was amazed to find Mrs Bowldler, seated and rocking herself to and fro with her apron cast over her head. Nay, in the dusk of the staircase he but just missed turning a somersault over her.
"Hullo! Why, what's the matter, missus?"
"Oh—oh!" sobbed Mrs Bowldler. "Bitter is the bread of poverty, deny it who can! And me, that have gone about Troy streets in my time with one pound fifteen's worth of feathers on my hat! Ostrich. And now to be laying a table for the likes of her, that before our reverses I wouldn't have seen in the street when I passed her!"
Captain Cai, already severely shaken by the events of the day, put a hand to his head.
"For goodness' sake, woman, talk sense to me! Who is it you're meanin'?—Mrs Bosenna? And what's this talk about layin' table?"
"Mrs Bosenna?" echoed Mrs Bowldler, who had by this time arisen from the stair. She drew her skirts close with a gesture of dignity. "It is not for me to drag Mrs Bosenna into our conversation, sir—far from it,—and I hope I know my place better. For aught I know, Captain Hocken—if, as a menial, I may use the term—"
"Not at all," said Captain Cai vaguely, as she paused with elaborate humility.
"For aught that I know, sir, Mrs Bosenna may be a Duchess fresh dropped from heaven. I have heard it mentioned in a casual way that she came from Holsworthy in Devon, and (unless my memory deceives me, sir) nothing relative to Duchesses was dropped—or not at the time, at least. But I pass no remarks on Mrs Bosenna. If she chose to marry an old man with her eyes open, it's not for me to cast it up, beyond saying that some folks know on which side their bread's buttered. I never dragged in Mrs Bosenna. You will do me that justice, I hope?"
"Then who the dickens is it you're talkin' about?"
"Which to mention any names, sir, it is not my desire; and the best of us can't help how we was born nor in what position. But farm service is farm service, call it what you please; and if a party as shall be nameless starts sitting down with her betters, perhaps you will tell me when and where we are going to end? That, sir, is the very question I put to Captain Hunken; and with all respect, sir, 'dammit' doesn't meet the case."
"Perhaps not," agreed Captain Cai, but not with entire conviction.
"It was all the answer Captain Hunken gave me, sir. 'Dammit,' he says,
'Mrs Bowldler, go and lay supper as I tell you, and we'll talk later.'"
"Supper? Where?"
"In the summer-house, sir: which it's not for me to talk about taking freaks into your head, and the spiders about, or the size o' them at this time o' the year. Captain Hunken and the lady and the other party are at present in your portion of the grounds, hoping that you'll join them in time for the fireworks; which it all depends if you like mixed company. And afterwards the guests"—Mrs Bowldler threw withering scorn into the word—"the guests is to adjourn to Captain Hunken's summer-house or what not, there to partake of supper. And if I'm asked to wait, sir," she concluded, "I must beg to give notice on the grounds that I'm only flesh and blood."
"O—oh!" said Captain Cai reflectively. It occurred to him that 'Bias had hit on a compromise with some tact. For the moment he was not thinking of Mrs Bowldler, and did not grasp the full meaning of her ultimatum.
She repeated it.
"Tut—tut," said he. "Who wants you to wait table against your will?
The boy'll do well enough."
"Which," said Mrs Bowldler, "I have took the opportunity of sounding
Palmerston, and he offers no objection."
"Very well, then."
Mrs Bowldler was visibly relieved. She heaved a sigh and fired a parting shot.
"I can only trust," she said, "if Palmerston waits as he'll catch up with no low tricks. Boys are so receptive!"
Cai descended to his garden, and at the foot of it found a trio of dark figures by the low fence of the edge of the cliff—'Bias and Mrs Bosenna in talk together, Dinah standing a little apart. "But that," thought he, "is only her place, as I've just been hearing." He had a just mind and was slow to suspect. Even now he could not assimilate the poison of Mr Philp's story. Everybody knew Mr Philp and his propensities. As Mr Toy the barber was wont to say, "Philp don't mean any harm: he just makes mischief like a bee makes honey."
So Cai said, "Cheer-o, 'Bias!"—his usual greeting—hoped he saw Mrs Bosenna well, and fell in on the other side of her by the breast-rail. The sky by this time was almost pitch dark, with a star or two shining between somewhat heavy masses of clouds. He begged Mrs Bosenna to be sure that she was comfortably anchored, as he put it. The rail was stout and secure; she might lean her weight against it without fear. He went on to apologise for his late arrival. The Committee Ship had been at sixes and sevens all day.
"Nobody could have guessed it, from the shore," said Mrs Bosenna graciously, and appealed to 'Bias. "Coming through the town I heard it on all hands."
"Not so bad," agreed 'Bias, and this, from him, was real praise.
"'Not a hitch from first to last—the most successful Regatta we've had for years.' Those were the very expressions that reached me."
"We'll do better next time," Cai assured her, swallowing down the flattery. "Believe it or not, I had trouble enough to keep things straight; and being one to fret when they're not ship-shape—"
"I know!" murmured Mrs Bosenna sympathetically. "You could not bear to come away until you'd seen everything through. Well, as it happens, there are people in Troy who recognise this; and it does me good to hear you talk about 'next time.' Though, to be sure, one can't count next time on such perfect weather."
"There'll be rain in half an hour or less," grunted 'Bias.
"Oh, not before the fireworks, surely?" she exclaimed in pretty dismay.
"Do say, now, Captain Hocken!"
She turned to Cai, and then—
"Oh—oh!" she cried as, far away up the harbour, the signal rocket shot hissing aloft and exploded with a tremendous detonation. The roar of it filled their ears; but Cai scarcely heeded the roar. It reverberated from shore to shore, and the winding creeks took it up, to re-echo it; but Cai did not hear the echoes.
For (it was no fancy!) a small hand had clutched at his arm out of the darkness and was clinging to it, trembling, for protection. . . . Yes, it trembled there yet! . . . He put a hand over it, to reassure it and at the same time to detain it.
He could not see her face. The rocket was of the kind known as "fog detonator," and scattered no light with its explosion. He greatly desired to know whether her gaze was turned towards him or up at the dark sky, and this he could not tell. But the hand lay under cover of his arm, and, as moments went by was not withdrawn. . . .
Half a minute passed thus, and then (oh, drat the fireworks after all!) a salvo of rockets climbed the sky—luminous ones, this time. As they shot up with a wroo—oo—sh! the hand was snatched away, gently, swiftly. . . .
They burst in balls of fire—blue, green, yellow, crimson. They lit up the garden so vividly that each separate leaf on the laurustinus bushes cast its own sharp shadow. "O—oh!" breathed Mrs Bosenna, but now on a very different note, and as though her whole spirit drank deep, quenching a celestial desire. Cai, stealing a look, saw her profile irradiated, her gaze uplifted to the zenith.
The fiery shower died out, was extinct. Across the party hedge the boy Palmerston was heard inquiring if that was the way the angels behaved in heaven.
"Moderately so," responded the polite, high-pitched voice of Mrs Bowldler (who never could resist fireworks). "Moderately so, but without the accompanyin' igsplosion. That is, so far as we are permitted to guess. . . . And highly creditable to them," it wound up, with sudden asperity, "considering the things they sometimes have to look down on!"
"I'd love," aspired the romantic boy, "to go up—an' up—an' up, just like that, an' then bust—bust in red and yellow blazes."
"You will, one o' these days; that is, if you behave yourself. We have that assurance within us."
"I wouldn' mind the dyin' out," ingeminated Palmerston, "so's I could have one jolly good bust."
"In the land of marrow an' fatness we shall be doing of it permanent," Mrs Bowldler assured him for his comfort. "That's to say if we ever get there. But you just wait till they let off the set pieces. There's one of Queen Victoria, you can see the very eyelids. Sixty years Queen of England, come next June: with God Bless Her underneath in squibs like Belshazzar's Feast. And He will, too, from what I know of 'im."
As it turned out, at the distance from which our company viewed them, these set pieces laid some tax on the imagination. They were duly applauded to be sure; and when Mrs Bosenna exclaimed "How lovely!" and 'Bias allowed "Not so bad," their tribute scarcely differed, albeit paid in different coin. The rockets, however, won the highest commendation, and a blaze of coloured fires on the surrounding hills ran the rockets a close second.
Towards the close of the display a few drops of rain began to fall from the overcharged clouds: large premonitory drops, protesting against this disturbance of the upper air.
"That's the fine-alley!" announced 'Bias, as another detonator banged aloft, while a volcano of "fiery serpents" hissed and screamed behind it. "Let's run for shelter!"
He offered his arm. Cai did the same. But Mrs Bosenna—she had not clung to any one this time—very nimbly slipped between them and took Dinah for protector. She was in the gayest of moods, as they all scrambled up the wet steps to the roadway, and so down other flights of wet steps under the pattering rain to the shelter of 'Bias's summer-house.
"Just in time!" she panted, shaking the drops from her cloak. "And I can't remember whenever I've enjoyed myself so much. But—" as she looked about her and over the table—"what a feast!"
It was a noble feast. If Cai had been busy all day, no less had 'Bias been busy. There were lobsters; there were chickens, with a boiled ham; there was a cold sirloin of beef, for grosser tastes; there were jellies, tartlets, a trifle, a cherry pie. There was beer in a nine-gallon jar, and cider in another. There were bottles of fizzy lemonade, with a dash of which Mrs Bosenna insisted on diluting her cider. Her mirth was infectious as they feasted, while the rain, now descending in a torrent, drummed on the summer-house roof.
"How on earth we're ever to get home, Dinah, I'm sure I don't know!
And what's more, I don't seem to care, just yet."
Captain Cai and Captain 'Bias protested in unison that, when the time came, they would escort her home against all perils.
"You can trust me, ma'am, I hope?" blurted 'Bias.
"I can trust both of you, I hope." Mrs Bosenna glanced towards Cai, or so Cai thought.
"The jokes they keep makin'!" Palmerston reported to Mrs Bowldler. (With the utmost cheerfulness he continued running to and fro between summer-house and residence under the downpour.) "When Mrs Bosenna said that about a merrythought I almost split myself."
"There's a medium in all things," Mrs Bowldler advised him. "Stand-offish should be your expression when waiting at table; like as if you'd heard it all before several times, no matter how funny they talk. As for splitting, I shiver at the bare thought."
"Well, I didn't do it, really. I just got my hand over my mouth in time."
"And what did that other woman happen to be doing?" asked Mrs Bowldler.
"I partic'l'ly noticed," said Palmerston. "She was sittin' quiet and toyin' with her 'am."
The rain continuing, 'Bias at the close of supper sensationally produced two packs of cards and proposed that, as soon as Palmerston had removed the cloth, they should play what he called "a rubber to whist." He and Mrs Bosenna cut together; Cai with Dinah. Now the two captains could, as a rule, play a good hand at whist. On this occasion they played so abominably as to surprise themselves and each other. Dinah did not profess to be an expert, and Cai's blunders were mostly lost on her. But 'Bias disgraced himself before his partner, who neither reproached him nor once missed a trick.
"I can't tell what's come over me to-night," he confessed at the end of the second rubber.
"Regatta-day!" laughed Mrs Bosenna, and pushed the cards away. The wedding-ring on her third finger glanced under the light of the hanging lamp. "Dinah shall tell our fortunes," she suggested.
Dinah took the pack and proceeded very gravely to tell their fortunes. She began with Captain Hunken, and found that, a dark lady happening in the "second house," he would certainly marry one of that hue, with plenty of money, and live happy ever after.
She next attempted Captain Hocken's. "Well, that's funny, now!" she exclaimed, after dealing out the cards face uppermost.
"What's funny?" asked Cai.
"Why," said Dinah, after a long scrutiny, during which she pursed and unpursed her lips half a dozen times at least, "the cards are different, o' course, but they say the same thing—dark lady and all—and I can't make it other."
"No need," said Cai cheerfully, drawing at his pipe (for Mrs Bosenna had given the pair permission to smoke). "So long as you let 'Bias and me run on the same lines, I'm satisfied. Eh, 'Bias?"
"But 'tis the same lady!"
"Oh! That would alter matters, nat'ch'rally."
Dinah swept the cards together again and shuffled them. "Shall I tell your fortune, mistress?" she asked mischievously.
"No," said Mrs Bosenna, rising. "The rain has stopped, and it's time we were getting home, between the showers."
Again Captain Cai and Captain 'Bias offered gallantly to accompany her to the gate of Rilla Farm; but she would have none of their escort.
"No one is going to insult me on the road," she assured them. "And besides, if they did, Dinah would do the screaming. That's why I brought her."
She had enjoyed her evening amazingly. She took her departure with a few happily chosen words which left no doubt of it.
After divesting himself of his coat that night, Captain Cai laid a hand on his upper arm and felt it timidly. Unless he mistook, the flesh beneath the shirt-sleeve yet kept some faint vibration of Mrs Bosenna's hand, resting upon it, thrilling it.
"The point is," said Cai to himself, "it can't be 'Bias, anyway. I felt pretty sure at the time that Philp was lyin'. But what a brazen fellow it is!"
Strangely enough, in his bedroom on the other side of the party wall Captain 'Bias stood at that moment deep in meditation. He, too, was rubbing his arm, just below the biceps.
Yet the explanation is simple. You have only to bethink you that Mrs
Bosenna, like any other woman, had two hands.
CHAPTER XI.
MRS BOSENNA PLAYS A PARLOUR GAME.
"We have runned out simultaneous," announced Mrs Bowldler next morning, as the two friends sat at breakfast in Captain Cai's parlour, each immersed (or pretending to be immersed) in his own newspaper. They had slept but indifferently, and on meeting at table had avoided, as if by tacit consent, allusions to last night's entertainment. Each of the newspapers contained a full-column report of the Regatta, with its festivities, which gave excuse for silence. With a thrill of innocent pleasure Cai saw his own name in print. He harked back to it several times in the course of his perusal, and confessed to himself that it looked very well.
But Mrs Bowldler, too, had slept indifferently, if her eyes—which were red and tear-swollen—might be taken as evidence. Her air, as she brought in the dishes, spoke of sorrow rather than of anger. Finding that it attracted no attention, she sighed many times aloud, and at each separate entrance let fall some gloomy domestic news, dropping it as who should say, "I tell you, not expecting to be believed or even heeded, still less applauded for any vigilant care of your interests, but rather that I may not hereafter reproach myself."
"We have runned out simultaneous," she repeated as Captain Cai glanced up from the newspaper. "Which I refer to coals. Palmerston tells me there's not above two-and-a-half scuttlefuls in either cellar, search them how you will." (The search at any rate could not be extensive, since the cellars measured 8 feet by 4 feet apiece.)
"Which," resumed Mrs Bowldler, after a pause and a sigh, "it may be un-Christian to say so of a man that goes about in a bath-chair with one foot in the grave, but in my belief Mr Rogers sends us short weight."
"I'll order some more this very morning, eh, 'Bias?"
'Bias grunted approval.
"And while we're about it, we may as well order in a quantity,—as much as the sheds will hold. We've pretty well reached the end o' summer, an' prices will be risin' before long. . . . If I were you, Mrs Bowldler," added Cai with a severity beyond his wont, "I shouldn't call people dishonest on mere suspicion."
"If you were me, sir—makin' so bold,—you'd ha' seen more of the world with its Rogerses and Dodgerses. There now!" Mrs Bowldler set down a dish of fried potatoes and stood resigned. "Dismiss me you may, Captain Hocken, and this instant. I ask no less. It was bound to come. As my sister warned me, 'You was always high in the instep, from a child, and,' says she, 'high insteps are out of place in the Reduced.'"
"God bless the woman!" Cai laid down the paper and stared. "Who ever talked of dismissin' you?"
"I have rode in my time in a side-saddle: and that, sir, is not easily forgotten. But if you will overlook it, gentlemen," said Mrs Bowldler tearfully, "I might go on to mention that Palmerston have had a misfortune with a tumbler last night."
Cai continued to stare. "I saw a couple performin' in the street yesterday. How did the boy get mixed up in it?"
"He broke it clearin' up the debree in the summer-house after the visitors had gone," Mrs Bowldler explained. "Which being a new departure, I hope you will allow me to pass it by in his case with a caution."
In the course of the forenoon Cai paid a call at Mr Rogers's harbour-side store, where he found Mr Rogers himself superintending, from his invalid-chair, the weighing out of coal. Fancy Tabb was in attendance.
"Hullo!" Mr Rogers greeted him. "Well, the show went very well yesterday, and I see your name in the papers this morning."
Cai confessed that he, too, had seen it.
"And it won't be the last time either, not by a long way. I was wantin' a word with you. Cap'n Hunken,—eh, but that's the sort of friend to have—a man in a thousand—Cap'n Hunken was tellin' me, a few days back, as he'd a mind to see ye in public life."
"Thank'ee," said Cai. "'Bias has been nursin' that notion about me, I know. But I hope I can make up my own mind."
"He said 'twould be a distraction for ye."
"Very likely." Cai was nettled without knowing why. "But supposin' I don't need bein' distracted, not at this present?"
"Not at this present," Mr Rogers agreed. "Your friend allowed that; but he said as, all human life bein' uncertain, he was worried in mind what was goin' to become o' you in the years to come."
"Meanin' after his death?" asked Cai, with a touch of asperity.
"He didn' specify. It might ha' been death he had in mind, or it might ha' been anything you like. What he said was, 'I'd like to see old Cai fixed up wi' summat to while away his latter years.' That's how he said it, in those exact words, an' nothing could have been more kindly put."
"We're the same age, to a hair. I don't see why 'Bias should be in all this hurry, unless between ourselves . . . But you wanted a word with me."
"Yes, on that very question. I'm on the School Board, as it happens, and I'm thinkin'—between you an' me—to send in my resignation, which will create a vacancy."
"Oh?" said Cai, alert; "I didn' know you took an interest in education."
"I don't," Mr Rogers responded frankly. "I hate the damned thing. If it rested with me, I'd have no such freaks in the land. But there's always the rates to be kept down. And likewise there's the coal contract to be considered. Added to which," he wound up, "it gives you a pull in several little ways."
"I see," said Cai after a pause. "But, if that's so, why resign?"
"Because I'm broken in health, an' can't attend the meetings. I'd have resigned six months ago if it hadn't been for Philp."
"Did Mr Philp persuade you to hold on?"
"You bet he didn't!" Mr Rogers grinned. "Philp wants the vacancy, and—well, I don't like Philp. I don't know how he strikes you?"
"To tell the truth," confessed Cai, "I can't say that I like him. He's too—inquisitive, shall we put it?—though I daresay he means it for the best."
"He's suspicious," said Mr Rogers. "You'd scarcely believe it now, but he came down to this very store, one day, and hinted that I gave short weight in coal. 'That's all right,' said I; 'are you come to lay an information?' 'No,' says he; 'I know the cost o' the law, an' I'm here as a friend, to give a fresh order. But,' says he, 'as between friends I'm goin' to see it weighed out.' 'Right again!' says I—'how much?' 'Twelve sacks will meet my requirements for the present,' says he; 'but I'd like 'em full this time, if you don't mind.' I'm givin' you the exact words as they occurred. 'Very well,' says I, 'you shall see 'em weighed an' put into the cart for ye, here an' now.' So I ordered Bill round wi' the cart; an' George, here, I told to pick out twelve o' the best sacks, lay 'em in a row 'long-side o' me, an' start weighin' very careful. When the scales turned the hundred-weight, I said, 'Now put in two great lumps for overplush and sack it up.' So he did, an' Bill took the bag out to the cart. 'Now for the next,' says I. Philp's a greedy fellow: he stuck there lookin' so hard at the weighin'-scoop, wonderin' how much overplush he'd get this go, he didn' see me twitch the tailmost sack out o' the line wi' th' end o' my crutch, nor Bill pick it up casual as he came along an' toss it away into the corner. When George had weighed out the eleven, I says to Philp, 'Well, now, I hope you're satisfied this time?' says I. He turns about, sees that all the sacks have gone, an' says he, 'That's the end, is it?' 'You're a treat, an' no mistake,' says I jokin'. 'We don't sell by the baker's dozen at this store:' for I could see he hadn' counted. 'Well,' says he, 'I must say there's no cause o' complaint this time,' and off drives Bill wi' the load. 'No cause o' complaint'!" Mr Rogers chuckled till the tears gathered in his eyes. He controlled his mirth and resumed, "I believe, though, the poor fool suspected something; for he was back at home before Bill had time to deliver more'n four sacks. But Bill, you see, always carries an empty sack or two to sit upon; so there was no countin' to be done at that end, d'ye see?"
"I see," said Cai gravely. It crossed his mind that he had been over-hasty in rebuking Mrs Bowldler.
"I wonder," put in the child Fancy, "how you can sit there an' tell such a story! That's just the sort o' thing people get put in hell for, as I've warned you again and again. It fairly gives me the creeps to hear you boastin' about it."
"Nothin' o' the sort," said her master cheerfully. He could not resent her free speaking, for she was necessary to him. Besides, it amused him. "You leave old Satan and Johnny Rogers to settle scores between themselves. If he takes me as he finds me I'll do the same by him—an' he knows I'll count the sacks. Cap'n Cai here'll tell you I'd never have put such a trick on Philp if he hadn' shown himself so suspicious. I hate a suspicious man. . . . An' that's one reason, Cap'n, why I want you to decide on takin' my place on the School Board. You see, I can choose my own time for resignin'; the Board itself fills up any vacancy that occurs between Elections: an' I can work the Board for you before Philp or any one else gets wind of it. That is, if I have your consent?"
"It's uncommonly good of you," said Cai. "I'll think it over, an' take advice, maybe."
"You know what advice your friend'll give you, anyway. For, I don't mind tellin' you, when he talked about your enterin' public life I dropped a hint to him."
"'Bias Hunken isn' the only friend I have in the world," answered Cai, with a sudden flush.
"I hope not," said Mr Rogers. "There's me, f'r instance: an' you've heard my opinion. That ought to be good enough for him—eh, child?" he turned to Fancy, who had been watching Cai's face with interest.
"If the Captain wants feminine advice," said Fancy, in a mocking grown-up tone, "we all love public men. It's our well-known weakness."
Cai wished them good-day, and took his leave in some confusion.
That mischievous child had divined his intent, almost as soon as he himself had divined it. Nay, now—or, to be accurate, three minutes later—it is odds that she knew it more surely than he: for he walked towards the Railway Station—that is, in the direction of Rilla Farm— telling himself at first that a stroll was, anyhow, a good recipe for clearing the brain; that Rogers's offer called on him to make, at short notice, an important decision.
He paused twice or thrice on his way, to commune with himself: the first time by the Passage Slip, where 'Bias and he had halted to view the traffic by the jetties. He conned it now again, but with unreceptive eyes. . . . "Rogers talks to me about takin' advice," soliloquised Cai. "It seems to me this is just one of those steps on which a man must make up his own mind. . . ."
He paused again beneath the shadow of the gasometer, possibly through association of ideas, because it suggested thoughts of 'Bias who had so much admired it—"'Bias means well, o' course. But I don't go about, for my part, schemin' how 'Bias is to amuse his latter days. Besides, 'Bias may be mistaken in more ways than one."
He had passed the Railway Station without being aware of it, and arrived in sight of Rilla gate, when he halted the third time. "A man must decide for himself, o' course, when it comes to the point. Still, in certain cases there's others to be considered. . . . If I knew how far she meant it! . . . She must ha' meant something." Yes, he felt the clutch on his biceps again and the small hand trembling under his large enfolding one. "She must ha' meant something. Not, to be sure, that it would seriously influence his decisions! But it seemed hardly fair not to consult her. . . . He would get her opinion, for what it was worth, not betraying himself. In advising him she might go—well, either a little further or a little backward. . . . Yet, once again, she must have meant something; and it wasn't fair, if she meant anything at all, to let old 'Bias go on dwelling in a fool's Paradise. Yes, certainly—for 'Bias's sake—there ought to be some clear understanding, and the sooner the better. . . ."
By the time Cai pressed the hasp of the gate, he had arrived at viewing himself as a man launched by his own strong will on a necessary errand, and carrying it through against inclination, for the sake of a friend.
"I hope it won't be a blow to him, whichever way it turns out," was the thought in Cai's mind as he knocked on the front door.
Dinah answered his knock: and, as she opened, Dinah could not repress a small start, which she hid, almost on the instant, under a demure smile of welcome.
"Captain Hocken? . . . Oh, yes! the mistress was within at this moment and entertaining a visitor. . . . Oh, indeed, no! there was no reason at all"—she turned, quick about, and he found himself following her and found himself, before he could protest, at the parlour door, which she flung open, announcing—
"Captain Hocken to see you, ma'am!"
Mrs Bosenna, seated at the head of her polished mahogany table and engaged upon a game of "spillikins"—which is a solitary trial of skill, and consists in lifting, one by one, with a delicate ivory hook a mass of small ivory pieces tangled as intricately as the bones in a kingfisher's nest—showed no more than a pretty surprise at the intrusion. She had, in fact, seen Captain Hocken pass the window some moments before; and it had not caused her to joggle the tiny ivory hook for a moment or to miss a moment's precision. What native quickness did for her, native stolidity did almost as well for Captain Hunken, who sat in an arm-chair by the fireplace smoking and watching her—and had been sitting and watching her for a good half an hour admiringly, without converse. "Spillikins" is a game during which, though it enjoins silence on the looker-on, a real expert can playfully challenge a remark or tolerate one, now and again. Also, you can make astonishing play with it if you happen to possess a pretty wrist and hand.