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."
"What was Middlecoat's business, ma'am?—makin' so bold," inquired
'Bias.
"Oh!" she answered quickly, "he's a terrible young man! Wants his own way in everything, like most farmers, and turns violent when he can't get it. . . . He came about next week's sale, among other things."
"What sale, ma'am?"
"Why, surely you must have seen? The bills have been out for days. Squire Willyams is gettin' rid of his land this side of the stream, right down from here to the railway station. Fifty acres you may call it; the most of it waste or else coppice,—and coppice don't pay for cuttin'. You've almost to go down on your knees before anybody will cart it away."
"I did hear some word of it down in Toy's shop, now I come to think," said Cai. "But if the land's worthless—"
"It's worth little enough to any one but me and Mr Middlecoat. You see, it marches right alongside our two farms, between them and the Railway Company's strip along the waterside, and—well, Rilla's freehold and Middlecoat's is freehold, and it's nature, I suppose, to be jealous of any third party interlopin'. But I don't want the land, and so I've told him; nor I won't bid against him and run up the price,—though that's what they're aimin' at by an auction."
"Then what in thunder does the fellow want?" demanded 'Bias.
"If you'll climb 'pon the hedge yonder—that's my boundary—you'll see a little strip of a field, not fifty yards wide, runnin' down this side of the plantation. It widens a bit, higher up the hill, but 'tis scarcely more than a couple acres, even so. Barton's Orchard, they call it."
"But what about it?" asked Cai, craning his neck over to examine the plot.
"Why, to be sure I want to take it in for my roses. It lies rather too near the trees, to be sure; but one could trench along the far side and fill the trench with concrete, to check their roots from spreadin' this way; and all the soil is good along this side of the valley."
"Then why not buy it, ma'am, since 'tis for sale? Though for my part," added Cai, looking round upon the beds which, just now, were unsightly enough, with stiff leafless shoots protruding above their winter mulch, "I can't think what you want with more roses than you have already."
"One can never have too many roses," declared Mrs Bosenna. "Let be that there's new ones comin' out every year, faster than you can keep count with them. Folks'll never persuade me that the old H.P.'s don't do best for Cornwall; but when you go in for exhibition there's the judges and their fads to be considered, and the rage nowadays is all for Teas and high centres. . . . When first I heard as that parcel of ground was likely to come in the market, I sat down and planned how I'd lay it out with three long beds for the very best Teas, and fence off the top with a rose hedge—Wichurianas or Penzance sweet briars—and call it my Jubilee Garden; next year bein' the Diamond Jubilee, you know. All the plants could be in before the end of February, and I'll promise myself that by June, when the Queen's day came round, there shouldn't be a loyaller-bloomin' garden in the land."
"Well," allowed Cai, "that's sensibler anyway than puttin' up arches and mottoes. But what's to prevent ye?"
"'Tis that nasty disagreeable Mr Middlecoat," answered Mrs Bosenna pettishly. "He comes and tells me now as that strip has always been the apple of his eye. . . . It's my belief he wants to grow roses against me; and what's more, it's my belief he'd swallow up all Rilla if he could; which is better land than his own, acre for acre. It angers him to live alongside a woman and be beaten by her at every point o' farmin'."
"But you've the longer purse, ma'am, as I understand," suggested 'Bias. "Talkin' o' which—" He fumbled in his breast-pocket and produced an envelope.
"My rent, ma'am."
"Ay, to be sure: and mine, ma'am," Cai likewise produced his rent.
"You are the most punctual of tenants!" laughed Mrs Bosenna, taking the two envelopes. "But after all, they say, short reckonin's make long friends."
She divided a glance between them, to be shared as they would.
"But as I was suggestin' ma'am—why not attend the sale and outbid the fellow?"
"So I can, of course: and so I will, perhaps. Still it's not pleasant to live by a neighbour who thinks he can walk in and hector you, just because you're a woman."
"You want protection: that's what you want," observed 'Bias fatuously.
"In your place," said Cai with more tact, "I should forbid him the premises."
For some reason Mrs Bosenna omitted to invite them to stay and drink tea: and after a while they took their leave together. At the foot of the descent, as they gained the highroad, Cai faced about and asked, "Which way?"
"I was thinkin' to stretch my legs around Four Turnin's," answered 'Bias, although as a matter of fact the intention had that instant occurred to him.
"Well, so long!" Cai nodded and turned towards the town. "Compliments of the season," he added.
"Same to you."
They walked off in opposite directions.
On his way home through the town Cai took occasion to study the Bill of Auction on one of the hoardings. It advertised the property in separate small lots, of which Barton's Orchard figured as No. 9. The bill gave its measurement as 1 acre, 1 rood, 15 perches. The sale would take place at the Ship Hotel, Troy, on Monday, January 4,1897, at 2.30 P.M. Messrs Dewy and Moss, Auctioneers.
In the course of the next week he made one or two attempts to sound Mrs Bosenna and assure himself that she meant to attend the sale and secure Lot 9; but she spoke of it with an irritating carelessness. Almost it might have persuaded him—had he been less practised in her wayward moods—that she had dismissed the affair from her mind. But on Friday (New Year's Day) as he took leave of her, she recurred to it. "Dear me," said she meditatively, "I shall not be seeing you for several days, shall I?"
"Eh? Why not?"
"To-morrow's Saturday; then Sunday's our day of rest, as Dinah calls it.
On Monday's the auction—"
"Ah, to be sure!" Cai had forgotten this consequence of it, and was dashed in spirits for the moment. "But I shall see you there?"
"Perhaps," she answered negligently. "Shall you be attendin'?
Really, now!"
With an accent of reproach he asked how she could imagine that a business so nearly concerning her could find him other than watchful. On leaving he repeated his good wishes for the twelvemonth to come, and with a warmth of intention which she perversely chose to ignore.
To be sure he meant to attend the sale. Nor was he surprised on entering the Ship Inn next Monday, some ten minutes ahead of the advertised time, to find 'Bias in the bar with a glass of hot brandy and water at his elbow. Cai ordered a rum hot.
"Where's the auction to be held?" he inquired of Mr Oke, the landlord.
"Long Room as usual." Mr Oke jerked a thumb towards the stairs; and
Cai, having drained his glass, went up.
In the Long Room, which is a handsome apartment with waggon roof and curious Jacobean mouldings dating from the time when The Ship was built to serve as "town house" for one of Troy's great local families, Cai found a sparse company waiting for the sale to open, and noted with momentary dismay that Mrs Bosenna had not yet arrived. But after all, he reflected, there was no need for extreme punctuality, it would take the auctioneer some time to reach Lot 9.
The company included young Mr Middlecoat, of course; and, equally of course, Mr Philp, who had no interest in the sale beyond that of curiosity; some three or four farmers from the back-country, who had apparently come for no purpose but to lend Mr Middlecoat their moral support, since, as it turned out, not one of them made a serious bid; Squire Willyams' steward, Mr Baker,—a tall, clean-shaven man with a watchful non-committal face; one or two frequenters of The Ship's bar-parlour; and the Quaymaster, by whom (as Barber Toy remarked) any new way of neglecting his duties was hailed as a godsend.
Mr Dewy, the auctioneer, sat with his clerk at the end of the table, arranging his papers and unrolling his map of the property. He was a fussy little man, and made a great pother because the map as soon as unrolled started to roll itself up again. He weighted one corner with the inkpot, and for a second weight reached out a hand for one of three hyacinth vases which decorated the centre of the table. The bulb toppled over and, sousing into the inkpot, sent up a jet d'encre, splashes of which distributed themselves over the map, over the clerk, over Mr Baker's neat pepper-and-salt suit, and over Mr. Dewy's own fancy waistcoat. Much blotting-paper was called into use, and many apologies were hastily offered to Mr Baker; in the midst of which commotion 'Bias strolled into the room, and took a seat near the door.
Having mopped the worst of the damage on the map and offered his handkerchief to Mr Baker (who declined it), Mr Dewy picked up a small ivory hammer, stained his fingers with an unnoticed splash of ink on its handle, licked them, wiped them carefully with his handkerchief, picked up the hammer again, and announced that the sale had begun.
"Lot I.—All that Oak Coppice known as Higher Penpyll. Eighteen acres, one rood, eleven perches. Aspect south and south-west. . . . But there, gentlemen, you are all acquainted with the property, I make no doubt. . . . Any one present not possessed of the sale catalogue? Yes, I see a gentleman over there without one. Mr Chivers, would you oblige?"
The clerk, still attempting to remove some traces of ink from his person, distributed half a dozen copies of the printed catalogue. He gave one to Cai. 'Bias, too, held out a hand and received one.
"Lot I.," resumed Mr Dewy. "All that desirable woodland (oak coppice) known as Higher Penpyll. Eighteen acres and a trifle over. Now, what shall we say, gentlemen?"
"Fifty pounds," said Mr Middlecoat promptly.
The auctioneer glanced at Mr Baker, who frowned.
"Now, Mr Middlecoat! Now really, sir! . . . This is serious business, and you offer me less than three pounds an acre! The coppice is good coppice, too."
"'Twill hardly pay to clear," answered Mr Middlecoat. "But why can't ye lump this lot in with the two next? . . . That's my suggestion. If Mr Baker is agreeable? They all run in one stretch, so to speak; and, in biddin' for the whole, a man would know where he's to."
Mr Dewy, speaking in whispers behind his palm, held consultation with Mr
Baker.
"Very well," he announced at length. "Mr Baker, actin' on behalf of Squire Willyams, consents to the three lots bein' put up together— ong block, as the French would say. No objection? Very well, then. Lot 1, Higher Penpyll, eighteen acres, one rood, eleven perches: Lot 2, Lower Penpyll, forty-two acres, three perches—forty-two almost exact: Lot 3, Wooda Wood, forty acres, one rood, one perch; all in oak coppice, two to five years' growth. What offers, gentlemen, for this very desirable timbered estate?"
"Three-fifty!"
"Come, Mr Middlecoat!" protested the auctioneer, after another glance at Mr Baker. "Indeed, sir, you will not drive me to believe as you're jokin'?"
Mr Middlecoat, whose gaze had rested on Mr Baker, faced about, and, looking down the table, caught the eye of one of his supporters, who nodded.
"Three-seven-five!" called out the supporter.
"Four hundred!" Mr Middlecoat promptly capped the bid.
"That's a little better, gentlemen," Mr Dewy encouraged them.
Apparently, too, it was the best. For some three minutes he exhorted and rebuked them, but could evoke no further bid. There was a prolonged pause. The auctioneer glanced again at Mr Baker, who, while seemingly unaware of the appeal, slightly inclined his head. Mr Middlecoat's eyes had rested on Mr Baker all the while.
"One hundred acres, as you may say, at less than four pounds the acre! Well, if any man had prophesied this to me on the day when I entered business—" Mr Dewy checked himself, and let fall the hammer. "Mr Middlecoat, sir, you're a lucky man." He announced, "Lot 4—Two arable fields, known as Willaparc Veor and Willapark Vear respectively: the one of six acres, one rood, and six perches; the other of three and a half acres."
As the auction proceeded, even the guileless Cai could not help detecting an air of unreality about it. Mr Middlecoat bid for everything. Now and again, if Mr Middlecoat miscalculated, a friend helped and raised the price by a very few pounds for Mr Middlecoat to try again: which Mr Middlecoat duly did. It became obvious that Mr Middlecoat had somehow possessed himself of a pretty close guess at what price Squire Willyams would part with each lot instead of "buying in"; that Mr Baker knew it; that the auctioneer knew it; that everyone in the room knew they knew; and that nobody in the room was disposed to prevent Mr Middlecoat's acquiring whatever was offered.
Under these conditions the sale proceeded swiftly, pleasantly, and without a hitch. Cai cast frequent glances back at the door. But the minutes sped on, and still Mrs Bosenna did not appear.
"Lot 9—A field known as Barton's Orchard. Two perches only short of two acres—"
"Say twenty-five," said Mr Middlecoat carelessly.
Again Cai glanced back. The farm land had been fetching on an average some twenty to twenty-five pounds an acre. . . . Why was Mrs Bosenna not here?
On an impulse—annoyed, perhaps, by the young farmer's take-it-for-granted tone—he called out "Thirty!"
The auctioneer and Mr Baker—who had just signified, by a slight frown, that he could not accept the young farmer's bid—glanced up incuriously. Mr Middlecoat, too, turned about, not recognising the voice of his new "bonnet,"—to use a term not unfamiliar in auctioneering.
But Cai did catch their glances: for at the same moment he, too, wheeled about at the sound of a deep voice by the door.
"Forty!"
"Eh?" murmured Mr Dewy and Mr Baker, together taken by surprise. And "Hullo, what the dev—" began Mr Middlecoat, when Cai promptly chimed "Fifty!"
For the new bidder was 'Bias, of course: and well, in a flash, Cai guessed his game. Since Mrs Bosenna chose to tarry, 'Bias was bidding against him. It was a duel. Should 'Bias win and present her with these coveted two acres? Never!
"Sixty!"
"Here, I say!" Mr Middlecoat was heard to gasp in protest. But he too began to suspect a game. "Sixty-five!" The duel had become triangular.
"Seventy!"
"Eighty!" intoned 'Bias.
"A hundred!" Cai's jaw was set.
By this time all heads were turned to the new competitors. Two or three of the farmers were whispering, asking if by any chance there was mineral in dispute. One had heard—or so he alleged—that "manganese" had been discovered somewhere up the valley—before his time—but he could remember his father telling of it.
Mr Middlecoat stepped to the window and glanced out in to the square for a moment. He returned, and nervously bid "Ten more!"
"Excuse me," the auctioneer corrected him blandly; "the gentleman at the far end of the room—I didn't catch his name—"
"Hunken," said 'Bias.
"Captain Hunken," prompted Mr Philp.
"Er—excuse me, Mr Middlecoat, but Captain Hunken has just offered a hundred-and-twenty."
"And thirty!" chimed Cai.
"Fifty!" intoned back the voice by the door.
Mr Middlecoat passed a hand over his brow. "Another ten," he murmured to the auctioneer. "Is there a boy handy? I—I want to send out a message?"
"Certainly, Mr Middlecoat," agreed the accommodating but bewildered auctioneer, and turned to his clerk.
"Mr Chivers, would you oblige?"
The young farmer scribbled a word or two on a piece of paper, which he
folded and gave to Mr Chivers with some hurried instruction; and Mr
Chivers steered his way out with agility. But meanwhile the bidding for
Barton's Orchard had risen to two hundred.
"Say another ten, to keep it going," proposed Mr Middlecoat, wiping his brow although the weather was chilly. To gain time, he suggested that maybe there was some mistake; that the gentlemen, maybe, had not examined the map of the property and might be bidding for some other lot under a misapprehension.
Mr Baker objected to this. The description of the lots on the catalogue was precise and definite. The two gentlemen obviously knew what they were about. The field was a small field, but the soil was undeniably of the best, and in the interests of the vendor—
"Two hundred and thirty!" interrupted 'Bias.
"—and fifty!" bid Cai.
There was a pause. Mr Dewy looked at Mr Middlecoat, who under his gaze admitted himself willing to stake two hundred and sixty. "Though 'tis the price of building land!"
"Apparently you are willing to give it rather than let the purchase go," observed Mr Baker drily. "For aught you know both these gentlemen may be desiring it for a building site. Did I hear one of them say two-seventy-five? Captain—er—Hunken, if I caught the name?"
"Two-eighty," persisted Cai.
"Two-ninety!"
"Well, make it three hundred, and I've done!" groaned Mr Middlecoat collapsing.
"Three—"
"What's all this?" interrupted a voice, very sweet and cool in the doorway.
"Mrs Bosenna?—Your servant, ma'am!" Mr Dewy rose halfway in his seat and made obeisance. "We are dealing with a lot which may concern you, ma'am; for it runs "—he consulted his map—"Yes—I thought so—right alongside your property at Rilla. A trifle over two acres, ma'am, and Mr Middlecoat has just bid three hundred for it."
"And"—began Cai: but Mrs Bosenna (taken though she must have been by surprise) was quick and frowned him to silence.
"And a deal more than its value, as Captain Hocken was about to say.
Will any fool bid more for such a patch?"
Cai and 'Bias stared together, interrogating her. But there was no further bid, and Mr Dewy knocked down the lot at 300 pounds.
"Which," said Mrs Bosenna meditatively to Dinah that night, "you may call two hundred and fifty clean thrown into the sea. And the worst is that though Captain Hocken and Captain Hunken are a pair of fools and Mr Middlecoat a bigger fool than either—as it turns out, I'm the biggest fool of all."
"How, mistress?"
"Why, you ninny! They were buying, one against the other, to make me a present, and I stepped in and saved young Middlecoat's face. Yet," she mused, "I don't see what else he could have done. . . . Well, thank the Lord! he'll be humble now, which the others were and he wasn't."
"He's young, anyway," urged Dinah.
"That's something," her mistress conceded. "It gives the more time to rub in his foolishness, and he'll never hear the last of it."
"Three hundred pounds, too!" ejaculated Dinah. "The very sound of it frightens me. A terrible sum to throw to waste!"
"I wouldn't say that altogether. . . . Yes, you may unlace me.
What fools men are!"
CHAPTER XXII.
THE LAST CHALLENGE.
Next Lady-day, which fell on a Thursday, 'Bias called upon Mrs Bosenna with his rent and with the pleasing announcement that in a week or so he proposed to pay her a further sum of seven pounds eight shillings and fourpence; this being the ascertained half-year's dividend earned by the hundred pounds she had entrusted to his stewardship.
She warmly commended him. "Close upon fifteen per cent! I wonder— But there! I suppose you won't tell me how it's done, not if I ask ever so?"
'Bias looked knowing and reminded her that to ask no questions was a part of her bargain. As a matter of fact it was also a part of his bargain with Mr Rogers, and he could not have told had he wished to tell.
"I suppose you've heard the latest news?" said he. "They've chosen me on the Harbour Board—Ship-owners' representative."
"I didn't even know there had been an election."
"No more there hasn't. Rogers made the vacancy, and managed it for me; retired in my favour, as you might say."
"Seems to me Mr Rogers must be weakenin' in his head."
"Oh no, he's not!" 'Bias assured her with a chuckle. "But he's pretty frail in the body. At his time o' life and with his infirmity a man may be excused, surely?"
"I reckon," said Mrs Bosenna, "there's few would have wept if Mr Rogers had superannuated himself years ago. Now if you'd told me he was turned out—"
"You're hard on Rogers!" he protested, tasting the joke of it.
"Well, I don't think he took on these jobs for his health, as they say;
and so it comes hard to believe as he goes out o' them for that reason.
But there! he may be an honester man than I take him for. . . .
Well, and so you're becomin' a public man too! I congratulate you."
"I wouldn' call myself that," said 'Bias modestly. "But one or two have suggested that a fellow like me, with plenty of time on his hands, might look after a few small things and the way public money's spent on 'em." He might have claimed that at any rate he knew more of harbour affairs than Cai could possibly know of education: but he did not. To their honour, neither he nor Cai—though they ruffled when face to face before folks—ever spoke an ill word behind the other's back. "There's the dredgin', for one thing; and, for another, the way they're allowed to lade down foreign-goin' ships is a scandal."
"Is it the Harbour's business to stop that?"
"It ought to be somebody's business."
"You'll get nicely thanked," she promised, "if you interfere—and as a ship-owners' representative too!"
"There's another matter," confessed 'Bias. "They've asked me to put up for the Parish Council next month. There's a notion that, with this here Diamond Jubilee comin' on, the town ought to rise to the occasion."
"And you're the man to give it the lift!" said Mrs Bosenna gaily.
"Is Captain Hocken standin' too?"
"They say so."
"Then I'll plump for both of you. Wait, though—I won't promise: or when the canvass starts you'll both be neglectin' me."
The next day Cai called in turn with his rent. "And there's another little matter," said he after handing it to her. "You remember that hundred pounds? Well there's a half-year's dividend declared and due on it, and the cheque's to arrive some time next week. What's the amount, d'ye guess?"
"Satisfactory?"
"Seven pounds eight shillings and fourpence. . . . Eh? I thought it might astonish you."
"It's—it's such an odd amount," she murmured.
"It's close upon fifteen per cent."
"Yes. You took my breath away for the moment. I wonder at the way you men—I mean, I wonder how you do it—turnin' money to such good account? 'Tis a gift I suppose; and you couldn' teach me, even if you would."
Cai received the compliment with a somewhat guilty smile.
"They tell me too," she continued, "that you are standin' for the Parish
Council next month."
"Who told you?"
"Oh . . . a little bird!"
Cai did not guess at 'Bias under this description. "Well, you see, with this here Diamond Jubilee in the offing, there's a feelin' abroad that the town ought to sit up, as the sayin' is—"
"And you're the man to make it sit up!" said Mrs Bosenna gaily.
"Well now, I want you to help me."
Mrs Bosenna started, alert at once and on her guard; for the game of fence she had chosen to play with these two demanded a constant wariness.
But it seemed that for the moment Cai had no design to press his suit— or no direct design.
"It's this way," he explained. "You know the stevedores, down at the jetties, are givin' their usual Whit-Monday regatta—Passage Regatta, as some call it? Well, they've made me President this year."
"More honours?"
"And I've offered a Cup; which seemed the proper thing to do, under the circumstances. 'A silver cup, value 5 pounds, presented by the President, Caius Hocken, Esquire': it'll look fine 'pon the bills, and it's to go with the first prize of two guineas for sailin' boats not exceedin' fourteen feet over-all. There's what they call a one-design Class o' these in the harbour: which is good sport and worth encouragin'. There's no handicap in it either: the first past the line takes the prize—always the prettiest kind o' race to watch. Now the favour I ask is that, when the time comes, you'll hand the Cup to the winner."
"It—it'll look rather marked, won't it?" hesitated Mrs Bosenna. She had as small a disinclination as any woman to find herself the central figure in a show, and Cai (had he known it) was attacking one of the weakest points in her siege-defences. But to accept this offer—or (if you prefer it) to grant the favour—meant a move on the board which might too easily lead to a trap. "Besides," she objected, "you can't do that sort o' thing without a few words, and I've never made a public speech in my life."
"You leave the speechifyin' to me," said Cai reassuringly: but it did not reassure her at all. ("Good gracious!" she thought. "He's not the sort to take advantage of it—but if he did! . . . You can never trust men.")
Cai, misinterpreting the frown on her brow, went on to assure her further that he could manage a speech all right; at any rate, he would be able by Whit-Monday. He had—he would tell her in confidence—been taking some lessons in elocution of (or, as he put it, "off") Mr Peter Benny.
"Did you ever hear tell of a man called Burke?" he asked.
"'Course I did," answered Mrs Bosenna, albeit the question startled her. "My old nurse told me about him often. He used to go about snatchin' bodies."
Cai considered a moment, and shook his head. "I don't think mine can be the same, or Benny wouldn't have recommended him so highly. There was another fellow that learned to be a speaker by practisin' with his mouth full of pebbles, which struck me as too thoroughgoin' altogether, and 'specially when you're aimin' no higher than a Parish Council. To be sure," he confessed, "I did make a start with a brace of peppermint bull's-eyes, and pretty nigh choked myself. But Benny says that, for English public speakin', there's no such master as this Burke, and so I've sent for him."
"Gracious!" exclaimed Mrs Bosenna. "Won't he charge a terrible lot?— with travellin' expenses too!"
"His works, I mean. The man's dead, and they're in six volumes."
"You'll never get through 'em then, between this and Whitsuntide.
If I was you, I'd keep on at the peppermints."
Although the six volumes of Edmund Burke duly arrived, and Cai made a bold attempt upon their opening tractate, "A Vindication of Natural Society,"—thereby hopelessly bemusing himself, since he accepted its ironical arguments with entire seriousness—in the end he took a shorter way and procured Mr Benny to write his speeches for him.
These he got by heart in the course of long morning rambles; these he rehearsed with their accomplished author; these he declaimed in the solitude of his bed-chamber—until, one day, Mrs Bowldler (whom terror arresting, had held spellbound for some minutes on the landing) knocked in to know if Palmerston should run for the doctor.
By dint (or in spite) of them at the election of Parish Councillors Cai headed the poll with a total of 411 votes. 'Bias, who received 366, came fourth on the list of elected: but this was no disgrace—a triumph rather—for one who had omitted to be born in the town. By general consent the honours stood easy; though, on the strength of his poll, the new Council began by choosing Cai for its chairman. On him Troy laid thereby the chief responsibility for the Jubilee festivities now but two months ahead.
At this first Council meeting, and at the meetings of many committees subsequently called to make preparation for the great day, 'Bias said very little. Those—and they were many—who had looked for "ructions" between the two rivals, and had taken glee of the prospect, suffered complete disappointment.
"You see," he explained to Mr Rogers, "I don't hold by several things Cai Hocken and the Committee are doin'. But they be doin' 'em in the Queen's honour, after their lights: and 'tisn't fitly to use the occasion for quarrellin'. There's only one way o' forcin' a quarrel on me where Queen Victoria's consarned, and that is by speakin' ill of her."
"That's right," agreed Mr Rogers. "You've common ground in the
Widow-woman."
"The—?"
"The Widow at Windsor, as they call her."
"Oh! I thought for a moment—"
"There's widows and widows," Mr Rogers blinked mischievously. "But look here—what's this I'm told about your interferin' down at the Harbour Board, tryin' to get the Commissioners to regylate the ladin' o' vessels?"
"Well, and why not?" asked 'Bias.
"Why not? For one thing you bet it isn' the Commissioners' business."
"It ought to be somebody's business to stop what's goin' on.
Say 'tis mine, if you like."
"Look 'ee here, Cap'n Hunken," said Mr Rogers, showing his teeth.
"If that's your game, better fit you was kickin' up a rumpus on the
Parish Council than puttin' a spoke into honest trade. I didn' make
room 'pon the Board for you to behave in that style."
"I don't care whether you did or you didn'," retorted 'Bias sturdily. "And 'honest trade' d'ye call it? robbin' the underwriters and puttin' seamen's lives in danger."
"Eh? . . . You're a nice man to talk, I must say! Come to me, you do, and want me to get you anything up to twenty per cent without risk. How d'ee think that's done in these days, with every one cuttin' freights? I gave you credit for havin' more sense."
'Bias stared. "See here," he said slowly, "if I'd known that hundred pound was to be put into any such wickedness, I'd have seen you further before trustin' you with it. As 'tis, I'll trouble you—"
"Hold hard, there!" Mr Rogers interrupted. "You're in a tarnation hurry every way, 'twould seem. Who told you as I'd put that hundred into any vessel below Plimsoll mark?"
"I thought you hinted as much."
"Then you thought a long sight too fast. If you must know, your money's in the old Saltypool, and old as she is, that steamship might be my child, the way I watch over her."
"The Saltypool! Why, she's the most scand'lous case as has gone out of harbour these three months!"
"Eh?"
"I saw her with my own eyes alongside No. 3 jetty, the evenin' before she sailed. A calm night it was too; and she with her Plimsoll well under and a whole line o' trucks waitin' to be shot into her. She went out before daybreak, if you remember, and God knows how low she was by that time."
Mr Rogers's jaw dropped.
"The idiots!" he muttered. "When I told 'em—" He broke off.
"I say, you're not pullin' my leg?"
"Saw her with my own eyes, I tell you," 'Bias assured him, wondering a little; for the old sinner's dismay was clearly honest.
"Then all I say is, you can call Fancy and tell her to fetch me a Bible, if there's one in the house, an' I'll swear to you I never knew it, an' I never seen it. What's more, I'll sack the captain, an' I'll sack the mate. What's more, I'll cable dismissal out to Philadelphy. What's more—"
"There, there!" interposed 'Bias. "You didn' know, and enough said! I don't want any man thrown out of employ. 'Tis the system I'm out to spoil."
"Skippers are a trouble-without-end in these days," Mr Rogers muttered on, staring gloomily at the fire in the grate; "specially to a man crippled like me. . . . You spend years sarchin' for a fool, an' you no sooner get the treasure, as you think—one you can trust for a plain ord'nary fool in all weathers—than he turns out a dam fool!"
On his way from the ship-chandler's 'Bias ran against Mr Philp, who paused in the roadway and eyed him, chewing a piece of news and chuckling.
"That friend o' yours is a wonnur!" preluded Mr Philp.
"Meanin' Caius Hocken?"
"Who else? . . . He's goin' a great pace in these days; but you won't tell me he has flown out o' that range? Yes, 'tis Cap'n Hocken I mean; our Mayor, as you may call him; and there's some as looks to see a silver cradle yet in his mayoralty."
"What's the latest?" 'Bias could not help putting the question, yet despised himself for it.
"He's President of the Stevedores' Regatta this year."
"Get along with your news—I heard it ten days ago."
"So you did, for I told you myself. But he's giving a silver cup for the fourteen-foot race."
"And I heard that, too."
"Ay: but what you don't know, maybe, is that he's been up to Rilla Farm tryin' to persuade Mrs Bosenna to attend on the Committee-ship an' hand the cup—his cup—to the winner."
"She's never consented?"
"Now I call that a master-stroke. That's the bold way to win a woman. 'Come along o' me, my dear, an' find yourself the lady patroness, life-size. . . . Madam, you'll excuse the liberty,—but may I have the igstreme honour to request you to take my arm in the full view of all this here assembled rabble?' So arm-in-arm it is, up the deck, and 'Ladies an' Gentlemen'—meanin' 'Attention, pray, all you scum o' the earth'—'I'll trouble you to observe strick silence while this lady, with whom you are all familiar—'"
"Steady on!"
"Well, 'familiar' is too strong a word, as you say. 'While this lady, with whom you're all acquainted, presents the gallant winner with a cup, value Five Pounds, which you may have reckoned as an igstravagance when you heard I was the donor, 'but will now reckernise as a sprat to catch a whale—that is, unless you're even bigger fools than I take ye for. 'Twas with the greatest difficulty I indooced Mrs Bosenna—'"
"She never would!" swore 'Bias.
"Well, as a matter o' fact, she hasn't. But you'll allow the trick was clever, and nothin' more left for the woman, if she'd yielded, but to be carried straight off to the altar. 'Twould have been expected of her, and no less."
"What has she done?"
"Taken a wise an' womanly course, as I hear. 'No,' says she, 'I'll go to bottomless brimstone before lendin' myself to such a dodge'—or words to that effect. 'But I'll tell 'ee what I will do,' says she, 'I'll offer this here silver cup on my own account, an' give it with my own hands to the winner. And you can stand by,' says she, 'an' look as pompous as you please.' Either that, or that in so many words. I'm givin' you the gist of it, as it reached me."
"Thank 'ee," said 'Bias, perpending and digging up the roadway with the point of his stick. "'Tis to be her own prize, you say?"
"Yes, an' presented with her own hands. If I was you—bein' a trifle late as you are on the handicap—I'd sail in an' collar that prize. 'Twould be a facer for him."
"No time."
"Whit-Monday's not till the seventh o' June. Four clear weeks: an' Boatbuilder Wyatt could knock you up a shell in half that time. He gets cleverer with every boat of the class; and with a boat built to race once only he could make pretty well sure."
Later that afternoon Mr Philp, who never lost an occasion to advertise himself, paid a call on Mr Wyatt, boatbuilder.
"I found a new customer for you this afternoon," he announced, winking mysteriously. "If Cap'n Hunken should call along you'll know what I mean."
On his homeward road the industrious man had a stroke of good luck.
He espied Captain Hocken, and made haste to overtake him.
"Good evenin', Cap'n Cai!"
"Ah—Mr Philp? Good evenin' to 'ee."
"It's like a providence my meetin' you; for as it chances you was the last man in my mind. I happened down to Wyatt's yard just now, and—if you'll believe me—there's reason to believe he'll get an order to-morrow for another 14-footer,"
"Ay? . . . What for?"
"Why, to enter for the cup you're givin' on Whit-Monday."
"You're mistaken," said Cai. "'Tis Mrs Bosenna that's givin' the cup, not I."
"What? With her own hands?"
"To be sure. Why not?"
"Then that accounts for it," said Mr Philp gleefully, rubbing his hands. "He's a deep one, is your friend Hunken! It did strike me as odd, too— his givin' an order to Wyatt in all this hurry: but now I understand."
"Drat the man! what is it you understand?"
"Why, as you know, Wyatt can knock him a shell together that'll win the race under everybody's nose. 'Tis a child's play, if you don't mind castin' the boat next day an' content yourself with scantlin' like a packin' case. At least, 'twould be child's play to any one but Wyatt, who can't help buildin' solid, to save his life. If the man had consulted me, I'd have recommended Mitchell. Mitchell never had a length o' seasoned wood in his store: he can't afford the capital. But to my mind he can—take him as a workman—shape a boat better than Wyatt ever did yet."
"And to mine," Cai agreed.
"The cunning of it, too! He to take the prize from her under your nose and you standin' by and lookin' foolish. For, let alone the craft, they say Cap'n Hunken can handle a small boat to beat any man in this harbour. He cleared a whole prize-list out in Barbadoes, I've heard."
"What, 'Bias? Don't you be afraid. He can't steer a small boat for nuts."
"Dear me! Then I must have been misinformed, indeed."
"You have been," Cai assured him. "I reckon Mitchell can knock up a boat to give fits to anything of Wyatt's; and if 'Bias—if Cap'n Hunken is countin' on Wyatt to help him put the fool on me, it may happen he'll learn better."
CHAPTER XXIII.
PASSAGE REGATTA.
"'Tis good to wear a bit of colour again," said Mrs Bosenna on Regatta morning, as she stood before her glass pinning to her bodice a huge bow of red, white, and blue ribbons. "Black never did become me."
"It becomes ye well enough, mistress, and ye know it," contradicted
Dinah.
"'Tis monotonous, anyway. I can't see why we poor widow-women should be condemned to wear it for life."
"You bain't," Dinah contradicted again, and added slily, "d'ye wish me to fetch witnesses?"
Her mistress, tittivating the ribbons, ignored the question.
"I do think we might be allowed to wear colours now and again—say on
Sundays. As it is, I dare say many will be pickin' holes in my
character, even for this little outbreak."
"There's a notion, now! Why, 'tis Queen Victory's Year—and a pretty business if one widow mayn't pay her respects to another!"
"It do always seem strange to me," Mrs Bosenna mused.
"What?"
"Why, that the Queen should be a widow, same as any one else."
"Low fever," said Dinah. "And I've always heard as the Prince Consort had a delicate constitution."
"It happened before I was born," said Mrs Bosenna vaguely. "Think o' that, now! . . . And yet 'twasn't the widowin' I meant so much as the marryin'. I can't manage to connect it in my mind with folks so high up in the world as Kings and Queens. 'Tis so intimate."
"You may bet Providence tempers it to 'em somehow," opined Dinah.
"If they didn' have families, what'd become o' English history?"
If any tongues wagged against Mrs Bosenna for wearing the patriotic colours that day, they were not heard in the holiday crowd at the Passage Slip when, with nicely calculated unpunctuality, she arrived, at 11.32 (the time appointed having been 11.15), to be conveyed on board the Committee vessel. (It should be explained here that the aquatic half of Troy's Passage Regatta is compressed within the forenoon: at midday Troy dines, and even on holidays observes Greenwich time for that event. Moreover, the afternoon sports of bicycle racing, steeplechasing, polo-bending, &c., were preluded in those days—before an electric-power station worked the haulage on the jetties—by a procession of huge horses, highly groomed and bedecked with ribbons: and this procession, starting at 1 P.M., allowed the avid holiday-keeper small margin for dallying over his meal.)
Mrs Bosenna reached the slip to find Cai waiting below in a four-oared boat which he had borrowed from the Clerk of the Course. A large red ensign drooped from a staff and trailed in the water astern: the crew wore scarlet stocking-caps: bright cushion disposed in the stern-sheet added a touch of luxury to this pomp and circumstance. It might not rival the barge of Cleopatra upon Cydnus; but the shore-crowd, under whose eyes it had been waiting for close upon twenty minutes, voted it to be a very creditable turn out; and Cai, watch in hand, was at least as impatient as Mark Antony. Off the Committee Ship, a cable's length up the river, the penultimate race (ran-dan pulling-boats) was finishing amid banging of guns and bursts of music from the "Troy Town Band," saluting the winner with "See the Conquering Hero Comes," the second boat with strains consecrated to first and second prize-winners in Troy harbour since days beyond the span of living memory, even as all races start to the less classical but none the less immemorial air of "Off She goes to Wallop the Cat."
The crowd parted and made passage for Mrs Bosenna to descend the slip-way: for Troy is always polite. Its politeness, however, seldom takes the form of reticence; and as she descended she drew a double broadside of neighbourly good-days and congratulations, with audible comments from the back rows on her personal appearance.
"Mornin', Mrs Bosenna—an' a brave breast-knot you're wearin'!"
"Han'some, id'n-a?"
"Handsome, sure 'nough!"
"Fresh coloured as the day she was wed. . . . Good mornin' ma'am! Good mornin', Mrs Bosenna—an' a proper Queen o' Sheba you be, all glorious within."
"What a thing 'tis to have money!" remarked a meditative voice deep in the throng.
"Eh, Billy, my son, it cures half the ills o' life," responded another.
"'Tis a mysterious thing," hazarded a woman—"a dispensation you may call it, how black suits some complexions while others can't look at it."
"An' 'tis your sex's perversity," spoke up a male, "that them it don't suit be apt to wear it longest"—whereat several laughed, for where everybody is good-humoured the feeblest witticism will pass.
Mrs Bosenna heard these comments, but acknowledged them only by a scarcely perceptible heightening of colour. She went down the slip-way royally, with Dinah in close attendance: and Cai, catching sight of her and pocketing his watch, snatched up a boat-hook to draw the boat's quarter alongside the slip, while with his disengaged hand he lifted the brim of a new and glossy top-hat.
"Am I disgracefully late?" Without waiting for his answer, as he handed her aboard she exclaimed:
"Oh! and what a crowd of boats! . . . I never felt so nervous in all my life."
"There's no need," said Cai—who himself, two minutes before, had been desperately nervous. He seated himself beside her and took the tiller. "Push her out, port-oars! Ready?—Give way, all! . . . There's no need," he assured her, sinking his voice; "I never saw ye look a properer sight. Maybe 'tis the bunch o' ribbon sets 'ee off—'Tis the first time ye've worn colour to my recollection."
"Dead black never suited me."
"I wouldn' say that. . . . But," added Cai upon a happy thought, "if that's so, you know where to find excuse to leave off wearin' it."
"Hush!" she commanded. "How can you talk so with all these hundreds of eyes upon us?"
"I don't care." Cai's voice rose recklessly.
"Oh, hush! or the crew'll hear us?"
"I don't care, I tell you."
"But I do—I care very much. . . . You don't pay me compliments when we're alone," she protested, changing the subject slightly.
"I mean 'em all the time."
"Well, since compliments are flyin' to-day, that's a fine new hat you're wearin'. And I like the badge in your buttonhole: red with gold letters—it gives ye quite a smart appearance. What's the writin' on it?"
"'President.' 'Tis the only red-and-gold badge in the show.
Smart? I tell 'ee I'm feelin' smart."
It was indeed Cai's day—his hour, rather—of triumph. He had played a winning stroke, boldly, under the public eye: and a hundred comments of the sightseers, as he steered through the press of boats to the Committee Ship, testified to his success. Though he could not hear, he felt them.
—"Well!"
—"Proper cuttin'-out expedition, as you might call it."
—"And she with a great bunch o' ribbons pinned on her, that no-one shan't miss the meanin' of it."
—"Well, I always favoured Cap'n Hocken's chance, for my part. An', come to think, 'tis more fitty 't should happen so. When all's said an' done, t'other's a foreigner, as you might say, from the far side o' the Duchy: an' if old Bosenna's money is to go anywhere, why then, bein' Troy-earned, let it go to a Troy man."
—"But 'tis a facer for Cap'n Hunken, all the same. Poor chap, look at 'en."
—"Where? . . . I don't see 'en."
—"Why, forward there, on the Committee Ship: leanin' up against the bulwarks an' lookin' as if he'd swallowed a dog."
—"There, there! . . . And some plucky of the man to stand up to it, 'stead of walkin' off an' drownin' hisself. I like a man as can take a knock-down blow standing up. 'Tis a rare occurrence in these days."
Mrs Bosenna, too, whose wealth (pleasant enough for the comforts it procured, pleasanter, perhaps, for an attendant sense of security, pleasantest of all, it may be, for a further sense of power and importance, secretly enjoyed) had, as yet, of public acknowledgment taken little toll beyond the deference of tradesmen when she went shopping, felt herself of a sudden caught up to an eminence the very giddiness of which was ecstasy. It is possible that, had Cai claimed her there and then, before the crowd, she would have yielded with but a faint protest. You must not think that she lost her head for a moment. On the contrary during her triumphal convoy she saw everything with remarkable distinctness. She knew well enough that some scores of women, all around, were envying her, yet admiring in spite of their envy. Without hearing them, she could almost tell what comments were uttered in boat after boat as she passed. But what mattered their envy, so long as they admired? Nay, what mattered their envy, so long as they envied? The tonic north wind, the sunshine, the sparkle of the water, the gay lines of bunting flickering from stem to stern of the Committee Ship, the invigorating blare of the Troy Town Band, now throwing its soul into "Champagne Charlie," the propulsion of the oars that seemed to snatch her and sweep her forward past wondering faces to high destiny— all these were wings, and lifted her spirit with them. She began to under stand what it must feel like to be a Queen, or (at least) a Prime Minister's wife.
"Ea-sy all! In oars! . . . Bow, stand by to check her!"
Cai called his orders clearly, sharply, in the tone of a master of men. A score of boats hampered approach to the accommodation ladder; but those that had occupants were obediently thrust wide to make way, and easily as in a barge of state Mrs Bosenna was brought alongside. A dozen hands checked the way of the boat, now abruptly. Other hands were stretched to help her up the ladder, which she ascended with smiling and graceful agility. On the deck, at the head of it, stood the Hon. Secretary, with the silver cup ready, nursed in the crook of his arm. It was a handsome cup, and it flashed in the sunlight. The Hon. Secretary doffed his yachting cap. A dozen men close behind him doffed their caps at the signal. They were the successful competitors of the dinghy race, mixed up with committee-men: they had come to receive their prizes. The competing boats, their sails lowered, had been brought alongside, and lay tethered, trailing off from the ship's quarter, rubbing shoulders in a huddle.
Cai, mounting to the deck close behind Dinah, who had followed her mistress, was met by the Hon. Secretary with the announcement that everything had been ready these ten minutes.
Almost before she could catch her breath, Mrs Bosenna found the cup thrust into her hands; the band in the fore part of the vessel ceased— or, to speak more accurately, smothered—"Champagne Charlie"; the group before her fell back to form a semicircle and urged forward the abashed first-prize winner, who stood rubbing one ankle against another and awkwardly touching his forelock, while a silence fell, broken only by voices from the boats around calling "Order! Or-der for the speech!"
Mrs Bosenna, recognising the champion in spite of his blushes, collected her courage, smiled, and said—
"Why, 'tis Walter Sobey!"
"Servant, ma'am!" Mr Sobey touched his forelock again and grinned, as who should add, "You and me, ma'am, meets in strange places."
"Well, I never! . . . How things do turn out!" It crossed Mrs Bosenna's mind that on the last occasion of her addressing a word to Walter Sobey he had been employed by her to cart manure for her roses: and across this recollection floated a sense of money wasted—for to what service could Walter Sobey, inhabitant of a three-roomed cottage, put a two-handled loving-cup embossed in silver?
There was no time, however, for hesitation. . . . With the most gracious of smiles she took the cup in both hands, and presented it to the champion.
"'Tis good, anyhow, to feel it goes to a neighbour: and—and if the worst comes to the worst, Walter, you can always take it back to the shop and change it for something useful."
"Thank 'ee, ma'am," said Mr Sobey, taking the cup respectfully. He backed a pace or two, gazed around, and caught the eye of the Hon. Secretary. "There's a money prize, too, attached to it—ain't there?" he was heard to ask. "Leastways, 'twas so said 'pon the bills." Mr Sobey was proud of his victory; the prouder because he had built the winning boat with his own hands. (Very luckily for him, at the last moment Captain Hocken had judged it beneath the dignity of a Regatta President to compete; and Captain Hunken, missing his rival at the starting-line, had likewise withdrawn from the contest.)