Hocken and Hunken Part 16

She led the way through to the unfurnished and somewhat dingy kitchen.

It had a low window-seat, from the extreme ends of which, as the two skippers entered, two figures--a middle-aged woman and a gawky lad-- arose and saluted them; the one with a highly genteel curtsey, the other with an awkward half-pull at his forelock, and much sc.r.a.ping with his feet.

"This is Mrs Bowldler," Fancy nodded towards the middle-aged woman.

"Your servant, sirs," Mrs Bowldler curtseyed again and coughed. "With a W if you don't object."

"She's quite a good plain cook; and well connected, though reduced in circ.u.mstances. Mr Rogers, sir, is often glad to employ her at a pinch."

"At a what?" asked Captain Tobias, breathing hard.

"Which," said Mrs Bowldler with a trembling cough, "the bare thought of taking service again with two strange gentlemen in my state of health is a nordeal, and as such I put it to you." Here she smoothed the front of her gown and turned upon Tobias with unexpected spirit. "You can say to me what you like, sir, and you can do to me what you like, but if you'd been laying awake all night with geese walking over your grave, I'd put myself in your place and say, 'Well, if he don't spit blood 'tis a mercy!'"

"Plain cookin', did you say?" asked Captain Tobias, turning stonily upon the girl.

"And knick-knacks. You mustn't mind her talk, sir; she was brought up to better things and 'tis only her tricks. . . . Now the boy here--his name's Pam, which is short for Palmerston: and I can't conscientiously say more for him, except that he's willin' and tells me he can carry coals."

She might not be able to say more for him, and yet her voice had a wistfulness it had lacked while she commended Mrs Bowldler.

Certainly the lad's looks did not take the casual glance.

He was coltish and angular, with timid, hare-like eyes. He wore curduroy trousers (very short in the leg), a coat which had patently been made for a grown man, and in place of waistcoat a crimson guernsey which as patently was a piece of feminine apparel. The sleeves of his coat were folded back above his wrists, and in his hand he dangled, by a string of elastic, a girl's sailor hat.

"Healthy?" asked Captain Tobias.

As if at a military command, the boy put out his tongue.

"La!" exclaimed Mrs Bowldler, "look at that for manners!"

"Where does he come from?"

The boy glanced at Fancy in a helpless way. Fancy was prompt. "'Twould save time--wouldn't it?--now that you've seen Mrs Bowldler, if she went round an' had a look at the house?"

"Which I trust," said Mrs Bowldler, "it would not be required of me to sleep in a nattic. It's not that I'm peculiar, but as I said to my sister Martha at breakfast only this morning, 'Attics I was never accustomed to, and if 'tis to be attics at my age, with the roof on your head all the time and not a wink in consequence, Martha,' I said, 'you wouldn't ask it of me, no, not to oblige all the retired gentlemen in Christendom.'"

"You'd better trot along upstairs, then, an' make sure," said Fancy.

As soon as the woman was gone she jerked a nod towards the door.

"Now we can talk. I didn't want _her_ to know, but Pam comes from the work'ouse. His father was mate of a vessel and drowned at sea, and his mother couldn't manage alone."

"What vessel?" asked Captain Cai. Both skippers were regarding the boy with interest.

"The _Tartar Girl_--one of Mr Rogers's--with coal from South Shields, but a Troy crew. It happened five years ago; an' last night when you said you wanted a boy it came into my head that one of the Burts would be just about the age. [Pam's other name is Burt, but I didn't tell it just now, not wanting Mrs Bowldler to guess who he was.] So this morning I got Mr Rogers to let me telephone to Tregarrick Work'ouse--an'

here he is."

"Do they dress 'em like that in there?" asked

Captain Cai.

"Better fit they did!" said the girl angrily. "They sent him over in a clean corduroy suit with 'Work-'ouse' written all over it: and a nice job I had to rig him up so's Mrs Bowldler shouldn' guess."

At this moment a piercing scream interrupted Fancy's explanation.

It came from one of the front rooms, and was followed by another shorter scream--the voice unmistakably Mrs Bowldler's.

Running to the lady's rescue, they found her in the empty parlour-- alone, clutching at the mantelshelf with both hands, and preparing to emit another cry for succour.

"What in the world's happened?" demanded Fancy the first to arrive.

"There was a man!" Mrs Bowldler ran her eyes over her protectors and turned them, with a slow shudder, towards the window. "I seen him distinctly. It sent my blood all of a cream."

"A man? What was he doing?" they asked.

"He was a-looking in boldly through the window . . ." Mrs Bowldler covered her face with her hands.

"Well?" Fancy prompted her impatiently, while Captain Cai stepped out to the front door in quest of the apparition.

"He had on a great black hat. I thought 'twas Death itself come after me!"

While Mrs Bowldler paused to take breath and record her further emotions, Captain Cai, reaching the front door, threw it open, looked out into the roadway, and recoiled with a start. Close on his right a man in black stood peering, as Mrs Bowldler had described, but now into the drawing-room window; shielding, for a better view, the brim of a tall hat which Captain Cai recognised with an exclamation--

"Mr Philp!"

Mr Philp withdrew his gaze, turned about and nodded without embarra.s.sment.

"Good evenin', Cap'n. Friend arrived?"

"Funny way to behave, isn't it?" asked Captain Cai with sternness.

"Pokin' an' pryin' in at somebody else's windows--what makes ye do it?"

"I was curious to know what might be goin' on inside."

There was a finality about this which held Captain Cai gravelled for a moment. It hardly seemed to admit of a reply. At length he said--

"Well, you've frightened a woman into hysterics by it, if that's any consolation."

"There, now! Mrs Bosenna?"

"No, it was not Mrs Bosenna. . . . By the way, that reminds me.

I've changed my mind over that hat."

"Hey?"

"I find I've a use for it, after all."

But at this moment 'Bias appeared in the doorway behind him.

"Seen anything?" demanded 'Bias.

"Interduce me," said Mr Philp with majestic calm.

Captain Cai, caught in this act of secret traffic, blushed in his confusion, but obeyed.