THE PLOUGHING.
It is possible--though not, perhaps, likely--that had Cai obeyed his
first impulse and pursued 'Bias down the valley, to overtake him, the
two friends might after a few hot words have found reconciliation, or at
least have patched up an honourable truce. As it was, 'Bias carried
home a bitter sense of betrayal, supposing that he had left Cai master
of the field. He informed Mrs Bowldler that he would dine and sup
alone.
"Which the joint to-day is a goose," protested that lady; "and one more
difficult to halve at short notice I don't know, for my part."
"You must do the best you can." He vouchsafed no other reply.
Mrs Bowldler considered this problem all the rest of the morning.
"Palmerston," she asked, as she opened the oven door to baste the bird,
"supposin' you were asked to halve a roast goose, how would you begin?"
"I'd say I wouldn't," answered Palmerston on brief reflection.
"But supposin' you _had_ to?"
Palmerston reflected for many seconds. "I'd start by gettin' my knee on
it," he decided.
Mrs Bowldler, albeit much vexed in mind, deferred solving the problem,
and was rewarded with good luck as procrastinators too often are in this
world.
Dinner-time arrived, but Captain Hocken did not. She served the goose
whole and carried it in to Captain Hunken.
"Eh?" said 'Bias, as she removed the cover. "What about--about Cap'n
Hocken?"
"He have not arrove."
'Bias ground his teeth. "Havin' dinner with _her!_" he told himself,
and fell to work savagely to carve his solitary portion.
Having satisfied his appetite, he lit a pipe and smoked. But tobacco
brought no solace, no charitable thoughts. While, as a matter of fact,
Cai tramped the highroads, mile after mile, striving to deaden the pain
at his heart, 'Bias sat puffing and let his wrath harden down into a
fixed mould of resentment.
Dusk was falling when Cai returned. Mrs Bowldler, aware that something
was amiss, heard his footsteps in the passage and presented herself.
"Which, having been detained, we might make an 'igh tea of it," she
suggested, "and venture on the wing of a goose. Stuffing at this hour I
would 'ardly 'int at, being onion and apt to recur." But Captain Hocken
desired no more than tea and toast.
Mrs Bowldler was intelligently sympathetic, because Fancy had called
early in the afternoon and brought some enlightenment.
"There's a row," said Fancy, and told about the sale of the parrot.
"That Mrs Bosenna's at the bottom of it, as I've said all along," she
concluded.
"Do you reelly think the bird has been talking?"
"I don't think: I know."
Mrs Bowldler pondered a moment. "Ho! well--she's a widow."
"I reckon," said Fancy, "if these two sillies are goin' to fall out over
her and live apart, you'll be wantin' extra help. Two meals for every
one--I hope they counted _that_ before they started to quarrel."
"I'll not have another woman in the house," declared Mrs Bowldler, and
repeated it for emphasis after the style of the great Hebrew writers.
"Another woman in the house have I will not! What do _you_ say,
Palmerston?"
Palmerston, who had been on the edge of tears for some time, broke down
and fairly blubbered.
"There's a boy!" exclaimed the elder woman. "Mention a little hard work
and he begins to cry."
"I don't believe he's cryin' for that at all," spoke up Fancy.
"Are you, Pammy dear?"
"Nun-nun-No-o!" sobbed Palmerston.
"He can't abide quarrellin'--that's what's the matter. . . . Ah, well!"
sighed Fancy, and fell back on her favourite formula of resignation.
"It'll be all the same a hundred years hence; when we mee-eet," she
chanted, "when we mee-eet, when we mee-eet on that Beyewtiful Shore!
_And_ in the meantime we three have got to sit tight an' watch for an
openin' to teach 'em that their little hands were never made.
No talkin' outside, mind!"
"As if I should!" protested Mrs Bowldler, and added thoughtfully,
"I often wonder what happens to widows."
"They marry again, mostly."
"I mean up there--on the Beautiful Shore, so to speak. They don't marry
again, because the Bible says so: but how some _contrytomps_ is to be
avoided I don't see."
Chiefly through the loyalty of these three, some weeks elapsed before
the breach of friendship between Captain Caius Hocken and Captain Tobias
Hunken became a matter of common talk. Mr Rogers must have had an
inkling; for the pair consulted him on all their business affairs and
investments, and in two or three ships their money had meant a joint
influence on the shareholders' policy. Now, as they came to him
separately, and with suggestions that bore no sign of concerted thought,
so astute an adviser could hardly miss a guess that something was wrong.
Nor did it greatly mend matters that each, on learning the other's wish
upon this or that point where it conflicted with his own, at once made
haste to yield. "If that's how 'Bias looks at it," Cai would say,
"why o' course we'll make it so. I must have misunderstood him:" and
'Bias on his part would as promptly take back a proposal--"Cai thinks
otherwise, eh? Oh, well that settles it! We haven't, as you might say,
threshed it out together, but I leave details to him." "If you call
this a detail--" "Yes, yes: leave it to Cai." Mr Rogers blinked, but
asked no questions and kept his own counsel.
Mr Philp was more dangerous. (Who in Troy could keep Mr Philp for long
off the scent of a secret?) But, as luck would have it, Cai in pure
innocence routed Mr Philp at the first encounter.
It happened in this way. Towards the end of the first week of
estrangement Cai, who bore up pretty well in the day time with the help
of Mr Rogers, Barber Toy, and other gossips, began to find his evenings
intolerably slow. He reasoned that autumn was drawing in, that the
hours of darkness were lengthening, and that anyway, albeit the weather
had not turned chilly as yet, a fire would be companionable. He ordered
a fire therefore (more work for Mrs Bowldler). But somehow, after a
brief defeat, his _ennui_ returned. Then of a sudden, one night at
bed-time, he bethought him of the musical box, and that John Peter
Nanjulian needed hurrying-up.
Accordingly the next morning, as the church clock struck ten, found him
climbing the narrow ascent to On the Wall: where, at the garden gate, he
encountered Mr Philp in the act of leaving the house with a bulging
carpet-bag.
"Eh? Good mornin', Mr Philp."
"Good mornin' to you, Cap'n Hocken." Mr Philp was hurrying by, but his
besetting temptation held him to a halt. "How's Cap'n Hunken in these
days?" he inquired.
"Nicely, thank you," answered Cai, using the formula of Troy.
"I ha'n't see you two together o' late."
"No?" Cai, casting about to change the subject, let fall a casual remark
on the weather, and asked, "What's that you're carryin', if one may make
so bold?"
"It's--it's a little commission for John Peter," stammered Mr Philp.
"Nothin' to mention."
He beat a hasty retreat down the hill.
"'Tis curious now," said Cai to John Peter ten minutes later, "how your
inquisitive man hates a question, just as your joker can't never face a
joke that goes against him. I met Philp, just outside, with a carpet
bag: and I no sooner asked what he was carryin' than he bolted like a
hare."
"There's no secret about it, either," said John Peter. "He tells me
that, for occupation, he has opened an agency for the Plymouth Dye and
Cleanin' Works."
"And you've given him some clothes to be cleaned? Well, I don't see why
he need be ashamed o' that."
"Well, I haven't, to tell you the truth. For my part, I like my clothes
the better the more I'm used to 'em. But my sister's laid up with
bronchitis."
"Miss Susan? . . . Nothin' serious, I hope?"
"She always gets it, in the fall o' the year. No, nothing serious.
But the doctor says she must keep her bed for a week--and now she's
_got_ to. . . . There'll be a rumpus when she finds out," said John
Peter resignedly: "for she don't like clean clothes any better than I
do. But one likes to oblige a neighbour; and if he'd taken my trowsers
'twould ha' meant the whole household bein' in bed, which," concluded
John Peter with entire simplicity, "would not only be awkward in itself,
but dangerous when only two are left of an old family."
Cai agreed, if he did not understand. He reclaimed his musical box--
needless to say, John Peter had not yet engraved the plate--and carried
it home, promising to restore it when that adornment was ready. For the
next night or two it soothed him somewhat while he smoked and meditated
on public duties soon to engage his leisure. For he had been co-opted a
member of the School Board in room of Mr Rogers, resigned: and in Barber
Toy's shop it was understood that he would be a candidate not only for
the Parish Council to be elected before Christmas, but for a Harbour
Commissionership to fall vacant in the summer of next year.
The notification of his appointment on the School Board reached him by
post on the last Tuesday in September. Now, as it happened, the
Technical Instruction Committee of the County Council had arranged to
hold at Troy, some four days later, an Agricultural Demonstration, with
competitions in ploughing, hedging, dry-walling, turfing, the splitting
and binding of spars, &c.
Behold, now, on the morning of the Demonstration, Captain Caius Hocken,
School Manager and therefore _ex officio_ a steward, taking the field in
his Sunday best with a scarlet badge in his buttonhole, "quite,"
declared Mrs Bowldler, "like a gentleman of the French Embassy as used
frequent to take luncheon with us in the Square."
The morning was bright and clear: the sky a pale blue and almost
cloudless, the season--
Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth
Of trembling winter,
--and Cai walked with a lightness of spirit to which since the quarrel
he had been a stranger. The Demonstration was to be held at the Four
Turnings, where the two roads that lead out of Troy and form a triangle
with the sea for base, converge to an apex and branch off again into two
County highways. The field lay scarcely a stone's throw from this
apex--that is to say from the spot where the late Farmer Bosenna had
ended his mortal career. It belonged in fact to Mrs Bosenna, and had
been hired from her by the Technical Instruction Committee for a small
sum; but Cai did not happen to know this, for the arrangement had been
made some weeks ago, before his elevation to the School Board.
It was with a shock of surprise, therefore, that on passing the gate he
found Mrs Bosenna close within, engaged in talk with two rosy-faced
farmers; and, moreover, it brought a rush of blood to his face, for he
had neither seen her nor heard from her since the fatal morning.
There was, however, no way of retreat, and he stepped wide to avoid the
group, lifting his hat awkwardly as he passed, not daring to meet the
lady's eyes.
"Captain Hocken!" she called cheerfully.
"Ma'am?" Cai halted in confusion.
"Come here for a moment--that is, if it doesn't interrupt your duties--
and be introduced to our two ploughing judges. Mr Widger of Callington,
Mr Sam Nicholls of St Neot--Captain Hocken." Cai's cheeks in rosiness
emulated those of the two men with whom he shook hands. "Captain
Hocken," she explained to them, "takes a great interest in education."
For a moment it struck Cai that the pair, on hearing this, eyed him
suspiciously; but his brain was in a whirl, and he might easily have
been mistaken.
"Not at all," he stammered; "that is, I mean--I am new to this business,
you see."
"You are a practical man, I hope, sir?' asked Mr Nicholls.
"I--I've spent the most part of my life at sea, if you'd count that
bein' practical," said Cai modestly.
"To be sure I do," Mr Nicholls assented. "It's as practical as farmin',
almost."
"In a manner o' speakin' it is," agreed Mr Widger grudgingly.
"Men haven't all the same gifts. Now you'll hardly believe what
happened to me the only time I ever took a sea trip."
"No?" politely queried Cai.
"I was sick," said Mr Widger, in a tone of vast reminiscent surprise.
"It _does_ happen sometimes."
"Yes," repeated Mr Widger, "sick I was. It took place in Plymouth
Sound: and you don't catch me tryin' the sea again."
"Now what," inquired Mr Nicholls, "might be your opinion about Labour
Exemption Certificates, Captain Hocken?"
Cai was gravelled. His alleged interest in education had not as yet
extended to a study of the subject.
Mrs Bosenna came to the rescue. Talk about education (she protested)
was the last thing she could abide. Before the ploughing began she
wanted to show Captain Hocken some work the hedgers had been doing at
the lower end of the field.
At that moment, too, the local secretary came running with word that the
first teams were already harnessed, and awaited the judges' preliminary
inspection. Mr Widger and Mr Nicholls made their excuses, therefore,
and hurried off to their duties.
"I have a bone to pick with you," said Mrs Bosenna, as she and Cai took
their way leisurably across the field.
Cai groaned at thought of those unhappy letters.
But Mrs Bosenna made no allusion to the letters.
"You have not been near Rilla for weeks," she went on, reproachfully.
Cai glanced at her. "I thought--I was afraid you were offended," he
said, his heart quickening its beat.
"Well, and so I was. To begin brawling as you did in a lady's
presence--and two such friends as I'd always supposed you to be!
It was shocking. Now, wasn't it?"
"It has made me miserable enough," pleaded Cai.
"And so it ought. . . . I don't know that I should be forgiving you
now," added Mrs Bosenna demurely, "if it didn't happen that I wanted
advice."
"_My_ advice?" asked Cai incredulous.
"It's a business matter. Women, you know, are so helpless where
business is concerned." (Oh, Mrs Bosenna!)
"If I can be of any help--" murmured Cai, somewhat astonished but
prodigiously flattered.
"Hush!" she interrupted, lifting a quick eye towards the knap of the
hill they had descended. "Isn't that Captain Hunken, up above? . . .
Yes, to be sure it is, and he's turned to walk away just as I was going
to call him!" She glanced at Cai, and there was mischief in the glance.
"I expect the ploughing has begun, and I won't detain either of you.
. . . The business? We won't discuss it now. I have to wait here for
Dinah, who is coming for company as soon as she's finished her
housework. . . . To-morrow, then, if you have nothing better to do.
Good-bye!"
He left her and climbed the hill again. He seemed to tread on air; and
no doubt, when he reached the plateau where the ploughmen were driving
their teams to and fro before the judges, with corrugated brows,
compressed lips, eyes anxiously bent on the imaginary line of the furrow
to be drawn, this elation gave his bearing a confidence which to the
malignant or uncharitable might have presented itself as bumptiousness.
He mingled with the small group of _cognoscenti_, listened to their
criticisms, and by-and-by, cocking his head knowledgeably on one side,
hazarded the remark that "the fellow coming on with the roan and grey
seemed to be missing depth in his effort to keep straight."
It was an innocent observation, uttered, may be, a thought too
dogmatically, but truly with no deeper intent than to elicit fresh
criticism from an expert who stood close beside his elbow. But a voice
behind him said, and carried its sneer--
"Maybe he ain't the only one hereabouts as misses depth."
Cai, with a grey face, swung about. He had recognised the voice.
Some demon in him prompted the retort--
"Eh, 'Bias? Is that you?--and still takin' an interest in agriculture?"
The shaft went home. 'Bias's voice shook as he replied--
"I mayn't know much about education, at two minutes' notice; and I
mayn't pretend to know much about ploughin' and wear a button in my coat
to excuse it. But I reckon that for a pound a side I could plough you
silly, Cai Hocken."
It was uttered in full hearing of some ten or twelve spectators, mostly
townsmen of Troy; and these, turning their heads, for a moment not
believing their ears, stared speechlessly at the two men whose
friendship had in six months passed into a local byword. Cap'n Hocken
and Gap'n Hunken--what, _quarrelling?_ No, no--nonsense: it must be
their fun!
But the faces of the pair told a different tale.
It was a stranger--a young farmer from two parishes away--who let off
the first guffaw.
"A bet, naybours!--did 'ee hear _that?_ Take him up, little man--he won't
eat 'ee."
"I'll go ten shillin' myself, rather than miss it," announced another
voice. "Ten shillin' on the bantam!"
"Get out with 'ee both," spoke up a citizen of Troy. "You don't know
the men. 'Tisn't serious now--is it, Cap'n Hocken?--well as you're
actin'--"
"Why not?" Cai stood, breathing hard, eyeing his adversary. "If _he_
means it?"
"That's right! Cover his money?" cried an encouraging voice behind him.
The young farmer slapped his thigh, and ran off to the next group.
"Hi, you fellows! A match!"
He shouted it. They turned about. "What is it, Bill Crago?"--for they
read in his excited gestures that he had real news.
"The fun o' the fair, boys! Two ships'-cap'ns offering to plough for a
pound a side--if you ever!"
"Drunk!" suggested somebody.
"What's the odds if they be? 'Twill be all the better fun," answered Mr
Crago. "No--far's one can tell they're dead sober. Come along and
listen--" He hurried back and they after him.
"If he chooses to back out?" Cai was taunting Bias as the crowd pressed
around. So true is it that:--
"To be wroth with one we love
Doth work like madness in the brain."
"Who wants to back out?" answered 'Bias sullenly.
"If a man insults me, I hold him to his word: either that or he takes it
back."
"Quite right, Cap'n';" prompted a voice. "And he can't tell us he
didn't say it, for I heard him!"
"I ain't takin' nothin' back." 'Bias faced about doggedly.
By this time, as their wits cleared a little, each was aware of his
folly, and each would gladly have retreated from this public exhibition
of it. But as the crowd increased, neither would be the first to yield
and invite its certain jeers. Moreover, each was furiously incensed:
anything seemed better than to be shamed by _him_, to give _him_ a cheap
triumph.
News of the altercation had spread. Soon two-thirds of the spectators
were trooping to join the throng in the upper field, pressing in on the
antagonists, jostling in their eagerness to catch a word of the dispute.
The competitors in Class D were left to plough lonely furrows and finish
them unapplauded. Young Mr Crago had run off meantime to secure the
services of the two judges.
Now Mrs Bosenna, after waiting some ten minutes by the lower gate for
Dinah (whose capital fault was unpunctuality), had lost patience and
walked back towards Rilla to meet and reproach her. She had almost
reached the small gate when she spied Dinah hurrying down the steep path
to the highroad, and halted. Dinah, coming up, excused herself between
catches of breath. She had been detained by the plucking of a fowl, and
a feather--or, as you might call it a fluff--had found its way into her
throat. "Which," said she, "the way I heaved, mistress, is beyond
belief."
Mrs Bosenna having admonished her to be more careful in future, turned
to retrace her steps to the field.
They reached it and climbed the slope crosswise. They had scarcely
gained the edge of the upper plateau when Mrs Bosenna stopped short and
gave a gasp. For at that moment there broke on their view, against the
near sky-line, the figure of a man awkwardly turning a plough, behind a
team of horses.
"Save us, mistress!" cried keen-eyed Dinah. "If it isn't--"
"It can't be!" cried Mrs Bosenna, as if in the same breath.
"It's Cap'n Hunken," said Dinah positively.
"But why? Dinah--why?"
"It's Cap'n Hunken," repeated Dinah. "The Lord knows why. If he's
doin' it for fun, I never saw worse entry to a furrow in my life."
"Nor I. But what can it mean?" Mrs Bosenna, panting, paused at the
sound of derisive cheers, not very distant.
The two women ran forward a pace or two, until their gaze commanded the
whole stretch of the upper slope. 'Bias, stolidly impelling his team--
a roan and a rusty-black--had, in the difficult process of steering the
turn, been too closely occupied to let his gaze travel aside. He was
off again: his stalwart back, stripped to braces and shirt, bent as he
trudged in wake of the horses, clinging to the plough-tail, helplessly
striving to guide them by the wavy parallel his last furrow had set.
Down the field, nearer and nearer, approached Cai, steering a team as
helplessly. Ribald cheers followed him.
Mrs Bosenna, though quite at a loss to explain it, grasped the situation
in less than a moment. She followed up 'Bias, keeping wide and
running--yet not seeming to hasten--over the unbroken ground to the
left.
"Captain Hunken!"
'Bias, throwing all his weight back on the plough-tail, brought his team
to a halt and looked around. He was bewildered, yet he recognised the
voice.
While he paused thus, Cai steadily advanced to meet and pass him.
He was plainly at the mercy of his team--a grey and a brown, both of
conspicuous height--and they were drawing the furrow at their own sweet
will. But he, too, clung to the plough-tail, and his lips were
compressed, his eyes rigid, as he drew nearer, to meet and pass his
adversary. He, likewise, had cast coat and waistcoat aside: his hat he
had entrusted to an unknown backer. He saw nothing, as he came, but the
line of the furrow he prayed to achieve.
"Captain Hocken!" She stepped forward hardily, holding up a hand, and
Cai's team, too, came to a halt as if ashamed. "What--_what_ is the
meaning of this foolishness?"
"I've had enough, it _he_ has," said Cai sheepishly, glancing past her
and at 'Bias.
"I ain't doin' this for fun, ma'am," owned 'Bias. "Fact is, I'd 'most
as lief steer a monkey by the tail."
"Then drop it this instant, the pair of you!"
'Bias scratched his head.
"As for that, ma'am, I don't see how we can oblige. There's money on
it--bets."
"There won't be money's worth left in my field, at the rate you're
spoilin' it." She turned upon the two judges, who were advancing
timidly to placate her, while the crowd hung back. "And now, Mr
Nicholls--now, Mr Widger--I'd like to hear what _you_ have to say to
this!"
"'Tis a pretty old cauch, sure 'nough," allowed Mr Sam Nicholls, pushing
up the brim of his hat on one side and scratching his head while his eye
travelled along the furrows. "Cruel!"
"And you permitted it! You, that might be supposed to have _some_
knowledge o' farmin'!"
"Why, to be sure, ma'am," interposed Mr Widger, "we never reckoned as
'twould be so bad as all this. . . . Young Bill Crago came to us with
word as how these--these two gentlemen--had made a match, and he asked
us to do the judgin' same as for the classes 'pon the bills--"
"And so you started them? And then, I suppose, you couldn't stop for
laughin'?"
"Something like that, ma'am, _as_ you say," Mr Widger confessed.
"And what sort o' speech will you make, down to County Council, when I
send in my bill for damages?--you that complained to me, only this
mornin', how the rates were goin' up by leaps and bounds! . . . As for
these gentlemen," said Mrs Bosenna, turning on Cai and 'Bias with just a
twinkle of mischief in her eyes, "I shall be at home to-morrow morning
if they choose to call and make me an offer--unless, o' course, they
prefer to do so by letter."
At this, Dinah put up her hand suddenly to cover her mouth. But Cai and
'Bias were in no state of mind to catch the double innuendo.
Having thus reduced the judges to contrition, and having proceeded to
call forward the local secretary and to extort from him a long and
painful apology, Mrs Bosenna wound up with a threat to bundle the whole
Demonstration out of her field if she heard of any further nonsense,
and, taking Dinah's arm, sailed off (so to speak) with all the trophies
of war.
Cai and 'Bias walked away shamefacedly to seek out their bottleholders
and collect each his hat, coat, and waistcoat.
"But which of ee's won?" demanded their backers.
"_Damn_ who's won!" was 'Bias's answer; and he looked too dangerous to
be pressed further.
A wager is a wager, however; and the judges' decision was clamoured for,
with threats that, until it was given, the Agricultural Demonstration
would not be suffered to proceed. Mr Sam Nicholls consulted hastily
with Mr Widger, and announced the award as follows:--
"We consider Captain Hunken's ploughin' to be the very worst ploughin'
we've ever seen. But we award him the prize all the same, because we
don't consider Captain Hocken's ploughin' to be any ploughin' at all."
_Solvuntur risu tabulae_--They can laugh, too, at Troy!