Hocken and Hunken Part 12

"Hold hard." Captain Tobias removed the pipe from his mouth and stared earnestly at his friend. "Say that agen," he commanded.

"There was roast suckin' pig, I tell you. It melted in y'r mouth.

Well, after dinner she left me alone with pipes an' tobacco; an' 'twas then, I suppose, that in my forgetful way I must have slipped the box into my pocket."

"'Twasn' very nice treatment, was it?--after the length she'd gone to put herself out."

"But 'twas absence o' mind, you understand."

"I seem to remember," mused Captain Tobias, "there was a Lord Somebody-or-other suffered from the same complaint. I read about it in the papers, an' only wish I'd cut it out. Any little valu'bles lyin'

about he'd slip into his pocket. But I never heard of your bein'

afflicted in that way."

"Of course I'm not!" Captain Cai protested warmly.

"Then I don't see what excuse you'll put up. . . . But wait till we get all this cargo stowed. Ahoy, there!" Captain Tobias called up the porters, and after consultation it was decided to convert the goods-shed into a cloak-room for housing the bulk of his luggage, but to send on his sea-chest and the birdcage by wheelbarrow to his lodgings.

"What's the address?" he asked, turning to Captain Cai.

"Ship Inn."

"What?" Captain Tobias paused in the act of picking up the nine-gallon jar. "Drinks on the premises?"

"Lashin's."

"What a world o' fuss that arrangement do save! Here!--" to the porter who stood checking the articles deposited--"this goes into hold wi' the rest. Contents, rum, an' don't you forget it, my son; leastways, pr'aps I'd better say, don't you remember it."

"I'm a total abstainer, sir," said the porter proudly.

"You don't tell me? . . . One meets with such cases, about. . . .

Well,"--Captain Tobias turned to Captain Cai again, as one averting his face from a sorrow to which no help can be proffered--"what's the distance?"

"To the Ship? About half a mile--a nice easy walk, an' the barrow can follow us."

They were no sooner outside the station premises, however, than Captain Tobias called halt to the driver of the wheelbarrow, paid him, and instructed him to proceed ahead.

"And you may tell the landlord," he added, "to expect us when he sees us."

He watched the man out of sight before explaining this manoeuvre.

"'Twas clever of you to mistake me, in front of those fellows; but I _meant_, what distance to this here widow's?"

"Eh? You don't mean to say--after your journey, too--"

"We'll get it over," said Captain Tobias firmly.

Captain Cai could not but approve. Here was prompt occasion not only to repair and apologise for his small blunder, but to make Mrs Bosenna acquainted with his paragon. She would soon correct that unfortunate image of him as a coa.r.s.e prize-fighting fellow.

To tell the truth, while reproaching himself for having evoked that image by his clumsy praise, he had doubted it might be difficult to efface: knowing his friend's shyness of womankind. He had doubted that 'Bias, who (to use his own words) "shunned the fair s.e.x in all its branches," might decline even to make the lady's acquaintance.

Lo! here was that admirable man setting his face and--sternly, for friendship's sake--marching upon an introduction. What a friend!

They took their way up the valley, walking side by side. For a long while both kept silence.

"Pretty country!" by-and-by observed Captain Tobias. He paused as if to take stock of it, but his gaze was meditative rather than observant.

"Suckin' pigs, too, . . ." he added after a while, and resumed his way.

"What about 'em?"

"Why, to drop in on a lone woman unexpected, an' find her sittin' down to roast suckin' pig . . . it's--it's like Solomon an' the lilies."

Captain Cai flushed half-guiltily. "I didn't say I called quite unexpectedly, did I?"

"To break the ice, was your words."

"You see, I'd happened to meet Mrs Bosenna the evenin' before, an'--hullo!"

They had come to the bend of the road beneath Rilla Farm, and either his eyesight had played him a trick or Captain Cai had caught a glimpse-- just a glimpse and no more--of a print gown some fifty yards ahead, where the hedge made an angle about a clump of trees. The small entrance gate and the footbridge lay just beyond this angle.

"Hullo!" exclaimed Captain Cai.

"What's up?"

"Nothin'"--for the light apparition had vanished. "Besides, she'd be wearin' black, o' course."

"I wish you'd talk more coherent," said Captain Tobias, stopping short again and eyeing him. "I put it to you, now. Here I be, tumbled out 'pon a terminus platform in a country I've never set eyes on. As if that wasn' enough, straightaway things start to happen so that I want to hold my head. And as if _that_ wasn' enough, you work loose on the jawin' tacks till steerage way there's none. I put it to you."

"I'm sorry, 'Bias," Cai a.s.sured him contritely as they moved on.

"Maybe I'm upset by the pleasure o' seein' ye here. Many a time I've picter'd it, an'--I don't know if you've noticed, but these little things never _do_ fall out just like a man expects."

"I've noticed it to-day, right enough," said Tobias with some emphasis.

But he was mollified, and indeed seemed on the point of adding a word when of a sudden he came to yet another halt and eyed his friend more reproachfully than ever--no, not reproachfully save by implication: with bewilderment rather, and helpless surmise.

"_What?_" gasped Captain Tobias. "_Which?_"--and, with that, speech failed him.

The pair had come to the footbridge and were in the act of crossing it, when they became aware that the stream beneath them differed from all streams in their experience. It was not rippling like other streams; it was not murmuring; it was tinkling out a gay little operatic tune!

To be more precise, it was rendering the waltz-tune in "Faust," an opera by the late M. Gounod. Captain Hocken and Captain Hunken knew nothing of "Faust" or of its composer. But they could recognise a tune.

"_Which?_" repeated Tobias gasping, holding by the handrail of the bridge. "You or me? Or both, perhaps?"

"Two gla.s.ses o' port wine only, 'Bias . . . and you _saw_ me at the station. I'd run all the way too. . . . Besides, _you_ hear it."

Relief, of a sudden, broke over Captain Cai's face. "It's the box!" he cried.

With that he was aware of the sound of a merry laugh behind him--a feminine laugh, too, not less musical than the melody still tinkling at his feet. He turned about and confronted Mrs Bosenna as she stepped forth from her hiding in the bushes, her maid Dinah in attendance close behind her.

"Good afternoon again, Captain Hocken! And is this Captain Hunken?

. . . It was polite of you--polite indeed--to bring him so soon."

She held out a hand to Tobias, who, to take it, was forced to relinquish for a moment his clutch on the rail.