Hocken and Hunken Part 13

"Servant, ma'am," said he in a gruff unnatural voice, and fell back on his support.

She laughed again merrily. "And you'll forgive me for making you welcome with musical honours? That was a sudden notion of Dinah's.

She spied you coming up the road, and--Dinah, can you manage to stop that silly tune?"

"I'll try, mistress." Dinah stooped, groped amid the gra.s.ses, and produced the musical box from its lair.

"You can," stammered Captain Cai, as if repeating a formula, "turn it off--at any time--by means of a back-handed switch."

"It's yours, then!" Mrs Bosenna clapped her hands together as she turned on him.

"It's mine," confessed Captain Cai. "The question might occur to you, ma'am--"

"It has. Oh, it _has!_" She rippled with laughter. "You should have seen Dinah's face when she came upon it!"

"Caius," said Captain Hunken, interrupting her mirth as with a stroke tolled on a bell, "would ye mind pinching me?"

"Not at all, 'Bias--if you'll tell me where."

"Anywheres. Only rememberin' we're in the presence o' ladies."

"It's _perfectly_ simple," said Captain Cai, "if you'll only let me explain! You see, the thing's what you might call a testimonial.

I picked it up, comin' through the town to-day."

"A testimonial? How interesting!" murmured Mrs Bosenna.

"From my late crew, ma'am. As I was sayin', on my way through the town to call on you, ma'am, I was taken on the hop, so to speak, an' made the recipient--"

"What for?" demanded 'Bias. He was breathing hard.

"It don't become me," said Captain Cai, and, speaking under stress of desperation, he found himself of a sudden wondering at his own fluency.

"It don't become me to repeat all the--sentiments which, er, emanated."

"Give me some," growled Captain Tobias, and was heard to add, under stertorous breath--"Testimonial? I'd like to ha' seen _my_ lot try it on _me!_"

"They said," confessed Captain Cai, "as how it was their united wish--"

Here he recalled Mr Tregaskis' allusion to possible offspring, and blushed painfully.

"Well?"

"That was the words: as how it was their united wish--adding 'in all weathers.'"

"And, the next news, it's playin' tunes in a ditch," pursued Captain Tobias.

"I think I can explain," put in Mrs Bosenna sweetly, hastening to close up the little breach which, for some reason or other, had suddenly opened between these two good friends. "Captain Hocken, being c.u.mbered with the box on his way to pay me a visit, hid it in the bushes here for a time, meaning to recover it on his way back to the station."

"That's so, ma'am," Captain Cai corroborated her.

"But having misjudged the time, and in his hurry to meet you--good friend that he is--Oh, Captain Hunken, if you could have heard the way he spoke of you! What he led me to expect--not," she added prettily, "that I admit to being disappointed."

"Go on, ma'am," said Captain Tobias st.u.r.dily. But in truth it had come to his turn to look ashamed.

"Well, you see, in his haste he forgot it. And now he brings you back to fetch it--am I not right?"

"Not exactly, ma'am," confessed Captain Cai. "The truth is--"

"Well, you shall hear how meantime we happened on it. . . . We are very particular about our cream, here at Rilla: and with this warm weather coming on, Dinah has been telling me it's time we stood the pans out in running water. Haven't you, Dinah?"

Dinah smoothed her print gown. It was not for her to admit here that early in the day from an upper window she had been watching for Captain Hocken's approach, had witnessed it, had witnessed also the act of concealment, and had faithfully reported it to her mistress.

"So," continued Mrs Bosenna hardily, "reckoning that the bed of the stream may have been choked by what the winter rains carry down, and this being our favourite place for the pans, under the cool of the bridge, down happens Dinah--"

"Excuse me, ma'am; but ain't it rather near the high road?"

"It _is_, Captain Hunken: and I have often thought of it at nights.

But the folks are honest in these parts--extraordinarily honest."

She broke off, perceiving that Captain Tobias was looking with sudden earnestness at Captain Cai, and that Captain Cai was somewhat awkwardly evading the look.

"Be a man, Caius!" Tobias exhorted his friend.

"It's--it's this way, ma'am," said Captain Cai sheepishly, after a long pause, diving in his pocket. "We wasn't exactly bound to fetch the--the musical box--which, Lord forgive me! I'd forgot for the moment--but to return _this_. How it came to find its way to my pocket I don't know."

"And I don't know, either," mused Mrs Bosenna, as Dinah helped her to undress that night. (This undressing was, in fact, but a well-worn excuse for mistress and maid to chat and--due difference of position observed--exchange confidences before bedtime). "Captain Hocken is simple-minded, as any one can tell; but not absent-minded by nature.

At least, I hope not. I hate absent-minded men."

She glanced at her gla.s.s, and turned about sharply.

"Dinah, you designing woman! I believe you slipped that box into his pocket? Yes, when you pretended that his coat wanted brushing,--I saw you!"

CHAPTER VIII.

'BIAS APPROVES.

As they departed and went their way down the coombe, a constrained silence fell between the two friends. Nor did either break it until they came again in sight of the railway station.

"I don't altogether like the air in this valley," announced 'Bias.

"It _is_ a trifle close, now you mention it," Cai agreed.

"Nor I don't altogether cotton to the valley, neither. Pretty enough, you may say; but it gives you a _feelin'_--like as if you didn't know what was goin' to happen next."

"Places do have that effect with some," Cai a.s.sented again, but more dejectedly. Horrid apprehension--if 'Bias should extend his dislike to Troy itself!

"I'm feeling better already," 'Bias continued, answering and allaying this unspoken fear. "Is that the gasworks yonder?"