JUBILEE.
For the best part of a week before the great Day of Jubilee Cai and
'Bias toiled together and toiled with a will, erecting the framework of
a triumphal arch to span the roadway. Within-doors, in the intervals of
household duty, Mrs Bowldler measured, drew, and cut out a number of
capital letters in white linen, to be formed into a motto and sewn upon
red Turkey twill, while Palmerston industriously constructed and wired
gross upon gross of paper roses--an art in which he had been instructed
by Fancy, who had read all about it in a weekly newspaper, 'The Cosy
Hearth.' The two friends talked little to one another during those busy
June days. Strollers-by--and it had become an evening recreation in
Troy to stroll from one end of the town to the other and mark how things
were getting along for the 22nd--found Captain Hocken and Captain Hunken
ever at work but little disposed to chat; and as everyone knew of the
old quarrel, so everyone noted the reconciliation and marvelled how it
had come to pass. Even Mr Philp was baffled. Mr Philp, passing and
repassing many times a day, never missed to halt and attempt
conversation; with small result, however.
"It's a wonder to me," he grumbled at last, "how men of your age can
risk scramblin' about on ladders with your mouths constantly full o'
nails."
In the evenings they supped together. Mrs Bowldler had made free to
suggest this.
"Which," said Mrs Bowldler in magnificent anacoluthon, "if we see it as
we ought, this bein' no ordinary occasion, but in a manner of speakin'
one of Potentates and Powers and of our feelin's in connection
therewith; by which I allude to our beloved Queen, whom Gawd preserve!--
Gawd bless her! I say, and He _will_, too, from what I know of 'im--and
therefore deservin' of our yunited efforts; and, that bein' the case, it
would distinkly 'elp, from the point of view of the establishment
(meanin' Palmerston and me) if we (meanin' you, sir, and Captain Hunken)
could make it convenient to have our meals in common. . . . The early
Christians were not above it," she added. "Not they! Ho, not,--if I
may use the expression--by a long chalk!"
She contrived it so delicately that afterwards neither Cai nor 'Bias
could remember precisely at what date--whether on the Wednesday or on
the Thursday--they slipped back into the old comfortable groove.
The arch occupied their thoughts. After supper, as they sat and smoked,
their talk ran on it: on details of its construction; on the chances
(exiguous indeed!) of its being eclipsed by rivals in the town, some in
course of construction, a few as yet existent only in the promises of
rumour.
Cai would say, "I hear the Dunstans are makin' great preparations in
their back-yard. They mean to bring their show out at the last moment,
and step it in barrels."
"I don't believe in barrels," 'Bias would respond. "Come a breeze o'
wind, where are you? Come a strong breeze, and over you go, endangerin'
life. It ought to be forbidden."
"No chance of a breeze, though." Cai had been studying the glass closely
all the week.
"Fog, more like. 'Tis the time o' the year for fogs."
Other matters they discussed more desultorily; meetings of the
Procession Committee, of the Luncheon Committee (all the parish was to
feast together), of the Tree-planting Committee, of the Tea Committee;
the cost of the mugs and the medals for the children, the latest returns
handed in by Mr Benny, who had undertaken the task of calling on every
householder, poor or rich, and collecting donations. But to the arch
their talk recurred.
--And rightly: for in the arch they were building better than they knew.
In it, though unaware (being simple men), they were rebuilding
friendship.
By Saturday evening the scaffolding was complete, firmly planted, firmly
nailed, firmly clasped together by rope--in sailors' hitches such as do
not slip. They viewed it, approved it, and soberly, having gathered up
tools, went in to supper. On Sunday they attended morning service in
church, and oh! the glow in their hearts when, in place of the usual
voluntary, the organ rolled out the first bars of "God Save the Queen"
and all the worshippers sprang to their feet together!
On Monday the town awoke to the rumbling of waggons. They came in from
the plantations where since the early June daybreak Squire Willyams's
foresters and gardeners had been cutting young larches, firs, laurels,
aucubas. The waggons halted at every door and each householder took as
much as he required. So, all that day, Cai and 'Bias packed their arch
with evergreens; until at five o'clock Mr Philp, happening along, could
find no chink anywhere in its solid verdure. He called his
congratulations up to them as, high on ladders, they affixed flags to
the corner poles and looped the whole with festoons of roses.
And now for the motto to crown the work! Fancy Tabb coming up the
roadway and pausing while she conned the structure, shading her eyes
against the sun-rays that slanted over it, beheld Mrs Bowldler and
Palmerston issue from the doorway in solemn procession, bearing between
them a length of Turkey twill. Mrs Bowldler passed one end up to
Captain Hocken, high on his ladder: Captain Hunken reached down and took
the other end from Palmerston. Between them, as they lifted the broad
fillet above the archway, its folds fell apart, and she read:--
MANY DAUGHTERS HAVE DONE VIRTUOUSLY
BUT THOU EXCELLEST THEM ALL.
"My! I'd like to be a Queen!"
"If I had my way, you WOULD," whispered Palmerston, who, edging close to
her, had overheard.
"Eh? Is that Fancy Tabb?" interrupted Cai. He had happened to glance
over his shoulder and spied her from the ladder. "Well, and what d'ee
think of it?" he asked, as one sure of the answer.
"I was sayin' as I'd like to be a Queen," said Fancy. "Queen of
England, I mean: none of your second-bests."
"Well, my dear," Cai assured her, bustling down the ladder and staring
up at the motto to make sure that it hung straight, "_that_ you won't
never be: but you're among the many as have done virtuously, and God
bless 'ee for it! Which is pretty good for your age."
"_You_'re not," retorted the uncompromising child.
"Eh?"
"'Tis three days now since you've been near the old man, either one of
'ee. How would _you_ like that, if you was goin' to hell?"
"Hush 'ee now! . . . 'Bias and me had clean forgot--there's so much to
do in all these rejoicin's! Run back and tell 'n we'll be down in
half-an-hour, soon as we've tidied up here."
On their way down to visit the sick man, Cai and 'Bias had to pause
half-a-score of times at least to admire an arch or a decorated
house-front. For by this time even the laggards were out and working
for the credit of Troy.
But no decorations could compare with their own.
"That's a handsome bunch, missus," called Cai to a very old woman, who,
perched on a borrowed step-ladder, was nailing a sheaf of pink valerian
(local name, "Pride of Troy") over her door-lintel. "Let me give 'ee a
hand wi' that hammer," he offered; for her hand shook pitiably.
"Ne'er a hand shall help me--thank 'ee all the same," the old lady
answered. "There, Cap'n! . . . there's for Queen Victoria! an' it's
done, if I die to-morrow." She tottered down to firm earth and gazed up
at the doorway, her head nodding.
"She've _got_ to be in London to-morrow, of course. . . . But what a
pity she can't take a walk through Troy too! Main glad she'd be. . . .
Oh, I know! She an' me was born the same year."
Of the doings of next day--the great day; of the feasting, the cheering,
the salvo-firing, the marching, the counter-marching, the speechifying,
the tea-drinking, the dancing, the illuminations, the bonfires; the tale
may not be told here. Were they not chronicled, by this hand, in a book
apart? And does not the chronicle repose in the Troy Parish Chest?
And may not a photograph of the famous arch constructed by Captains
Hocken and Hunken be discovered therein some day by the curious?
To be sure, Queen Victoria herself did not pass beneath that arch.
But there passed beneath that arch many daughters who since have grown
into women and done virtuously, I hope. If not, I am certain there was
no lack of encouragement that day in the honest, smiling faces of
Captain Hocken and Captain Hunken as they stood with proprietary mien,
one on either side of the roadway, and each with an enormous red rose
aglow in his button-hole.
_Pulvis et umbra sumus_--"The tumult and the shouting dies."--A little
before ten o'clock that night Mr Middlecoat and Mrs Bosenna walked up
through the dark to Higher Parc to see the bonfires. The summit
commanded a view of the coast from Dodman to Rame, and inland to the
high moors which form the backbone of the county. Mrs Bosenna counted
eighteen fires: her lover could descry sixteen only.
"But what does it matter?" said he. They had started the climb
arm-in-arm: but by this time his arm was about her waist.
"My eyes are sharper than yours, then," she challenged.
"Very likely," he allowed. "Sure, they must be: for come to think I
reckoned 'em both in my list."
She laughed cosily.
"Shall we go over the ridge?" he suggested. "We may pick up one or two
inland from my place."
"No," she answered, and mused for a while. "It's strange to think our
two farms are goin' to be one henceforth. . . . The ridge has always
seemed to me such a barrier. But I'll not cross it to-night.
Good-bye!"
"Nay, but you don't go back alone. I'll see you to the door."
"Why? I'm not afraid of ghosts."
But he insisted: and so, arm linked in arm, they descended to Rilla,
where the roses breathed their scent on the night air.
Cai and 'Bias--the long day over--sat in Cai's summer-house, overlooking
the placid harbour. Loyal candles yet burned in every window on the far
shore and scintillated their little time on the ripple of the tide.
Above shone and wheeled in their courses the steady stars, to whom our
royalties are less than a pinch of dust in the meanest unseen planet
that spins within their range.
The door of the summer-house stood wide to the night. Yet so breathless
was the air that the candles within (set by Mrs Bowldler on the table
beside the glasses and decanters) carried a flame as unwavering as any
star of the firmament. So the two friends sat and smoked, and between
their puffed tobacco-smoke penetrated the dewy scents of the garden.
Both were out-tired with the day's labours; for both were growing old.
"'Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all,'"
murmured Cai. "'Twas a noble text we chose."
"Ay," responded 'Bias, drawing the pipe from his lips. "She've kept a
widow just thirty-six years. An unusual time, I should say."
"Very," agreed Cai.
They gazed out into the quiet night, as though it held all their future
and they found it good.