Hocken and Hunken Part 25

But here Mrs Bosenna's voice called to them, and they turned together almost guiltily to see her climbing the slope above the mow-hay, with springy gait and cheeks charmingly flushed by recent caresses of the kitchen-fire.

"If you care for it," she greeted them, "there's just time for a stroll to Higher Parc and back while Dinah lays tea. A breath of fresh air will do me all the good in the world"--little she looked to be in need of it--"and I don't suppose either of you knows what a glorious view you'll get up there? All the harbour and shipping at your feet, and miles of open Channel beyond! My poor dear Robert used to say there wasn't its equal in Cornwall."

Cai could a.s.sure her in all innocence that he had never heard tell of Higher Parc and its famous view; nor did it occur to him to turn and interrogate his friend, who was flushing guiltily.

If Mrs Bosenna saw the flush, she ignored it. She led the way to a stile; clambered over it, declining their help, agile as a maid of seventeen; and struck a footpath slanting up and across a turnip-field at the back of the farmstead. The climb, though not steep, was continuous, and the chimneys of Rilla lay some twenty or thirty feet below them, when they reached a second stile and, overing it, stood on the edge of a mighty field, the extent of which could not be guessed, for it domed itself against the sky, cutting off all view of hedge or limit beyond.

"This is Higher Parc," announced Mrs Bosenna. "Ten acres."

"Oh?" exclaimed Cai with a sudden flash of memory. "And stubble!"

He glanced at 'Bias. But 'Bias, who, if he heard the innuendo, read nothing in it, was gazing up the slope as though he had never set eyes on Higher Parc before in all his life.

They made their way up across the stubble, Mrs Bosenna picking her steps daintily among the sharp stalks that shone like a carpet stiff with gold against the level sunset. The shadows of the three walked ahead of them, stretching longer and longer, vanishing at length over the ridge.

. . . And the view from the ridge was magnificent, as Mrs Bosenna had promised. The slope at their feet hid the jetties--or all save the tops of the loading-cranes: but out in midstream lay the sailing vessels and steamships moored to the great buoys, in two separate tiers, awaiting their cargoes. Of the sailing vessels there were Russians, with no yards to their masts, British coasters of varying rig, Norwegians, and one solitary Dutch galliot. But the majority flew the Danish flag--your Dane is fond of flying his flag, and small blame to him!--and these exhibited round bluff bows and square-cut counters with white or varnished top-strakes and stern-davits of timber. To the right and seaward, the eye travelled past yet another tier, where a stumpy Swedish tramp lay cheek-by-jowl with two stately Italian barques--now Italian-owned, but originally built in Glasgow for traffic around the Horn--and so followed the curve of the harbour out to the Channel, where sea and sky met in a yellow flood of potable gold. To the left the river-gorge wound inland, hiding its waters, around overlapping bluffs studded with farmsteads and (as the eye threaded its way into details) peopled here and there with small colonies of farm-folk working hard, like so many groups of ants,--some cutting, others saving, the yellow corn, all busy forestalling night, when no man can work.

Uplands, where the harvesters Pause in the swathe, shading their eyes, to watch Or barge or schooner stealing up from sea: Themselves in twilight, she a twilit ghost Parting the twilit woods.

. . . While Cai and 'Bias stood at gaze, drinking it all in, Mrs Bosenna--whose senses were always quick--turned, looked behind her, and uttered a little scream.

"Steers! . . . That Middlecoat's steers--they've broken fence again!

Oh--oh! and whatever shall I do?"

Cai and 'Bias, wheeling about simultaneously, were aware of a small troop of horned cattle advancing towards them leisurably, breasting the golden rays on the stubble-field, and spreading as they advanced.

"Do, ma'am?" echoed 'Bias, taking in the situation at a glance.

"Why, turn 'em back, to be sure!" He started off to meet the herd.

"--While you run for the stile," added Cai, preparing to follow as bravely. But Mrs Bosenna caught his arm.

"I'm--I'm so silly," she confessed in a tremulous whisper, "about horned beasts--when they don't belong to me."

"Dangerous, are they?" asked Cai. He lingered, although 'Bias had advanced some twenty paces to meet the herd, three or four of which had already come to a halt, astonished at being thus interrupted in an innocent ramble. "We'll head 'em off while you run."

"No, no!" pleaded Mrs Bosenna; and Cai hung irresolute, for the pressure on his arm was delicious. It crossed his mind for a moment that a lady so timid with cattle had no business to be dwelling alone at Rilla Farm.

"It's different--with my own cows," gasped Mrs Bosenna, as if interpreting and answering this thought in one breath. "I'm used to them--but Mr Middlecoat will insist on keeping these wild beasts!-- though he knows I'm a lone woman and they're not to be held by any fences--"

"I'd like to give that Middlecoat a piece of my mind," growled Cai, and swore. His arm by this time was about Mrs Bosenna's waist, and she was yielding to it. But he saw 'Bias still steadily confronting the herd-- saw him lift an arm, a hand grasping a hat, and wave it violently--saw thereupon the steers swing about and head back for the gate, heads down, sterns heaving and plunging. Cai swore again and reluctantly loosened his embrace.

"Run, _dear!_" The word drummed in his ears as he pelted to 'Bias's rescue. 'Bias, as a matter of fact, needed neither rescue nor support.

The steers after spreading and scattering before his first onset, were converging again in a rush back upon the open gateway. They charged through it in a panic, jostling, crushing through the narrow way: and 'Bias, still frantically waving his hat, had charged through it after them before Cai, a.s.sured now that his friend had the mastery, halted and drew breath, holding a hand to his side.

'Bias had disappeared. Cai heard his voice, at some little distance, still chivvying the steers down the lane beyond the gate. . . .

Then, as it seemed, another voice challenged 'Bias's, and the two were meeting in angry altercation.

"Mr Middlecoat!" gasped a voice close behind him. Cai swung about, and to his amazement confronted Mrs Bosenna. Instead of retreating she had followed up the pursuit.

"But I told you--" he began, in a tone of indignant command.

"You don't know Mr Middlecoat's temper. I'm afraid--if they meet--"

She hurried by him, towards the gate.

Cai took fresh breath and dashed after her. They pa.s.sed the gateway neck and neck. At a turning some fifty yards down the lane--Cai leading now by a stride or two--they pulled up, panting.

'Bias, his back blocking the way, stood there confronting a young farmer: and the young farmer's face was red with a bull-fury.

"You d.a.m.ned trespa.s.ser!"

"Trespa.s.ser?" echoed 'Bias, squaring up. "What about your d.a.m.ned trespa.s.sing cattle?"

Mrs Bosenna stepped past Cai and flung herself between the combatants.

Strange to say she ignored 'Bias, and faced the enemy, to plead with him.

"Mr Middlecoat, how can you be so foolish? He's as good as a prize-fighter!"

The young farmer stared and lowered his guard slowly.

"Your servant, ma'am! . . . A prize-fighter? Why couldn't he have told me so, at first?"

CHAPTER XIII.

FAIR CHALLENGE.

Again the two friends traversed back the valley road in silence: but this time they made no attempt to deceive themselves or to deceive one another by charging their constraint upon the atmosphere or the scenery.

Each was aware that their friendship had a crisis to be overcome; each sincerely pitied the other, with some twinge of compunction for his own good fortune; each longed to make a clean breast--"a straight quarrel is soonest mended," says the proverb,--and each, as they kept step on the macadam, came separately to the same decision, that the occasion must be taken that very evening, when pipes were lit after supper. The reader will note that even yet, on the very verge of the crisis, Cai and 'Bias owned:

"Two souls with but a single thought, Two hearts that beat as one."

Now, in accordance with routine, supper should have been served that evening at 'Bias's table. But Cai--on his way upstairs to t.i.tivate-- perceived that the lamp was lit and the cloth spread in his own parlour; and, as he noted this with a vague surprise, encountered Mrs Bowldler.

"Which, if it is agreeable, we are at home to Captain Hunken this evening," Mrs Bowldler began, in a panting hurry, and continued with a catch of the breath, "Which if you see it in a different light, I must request of you, sir, to allow Palmerston to carry down my box, and you may search it if you wish."

"Oh! Conf--" began Cai in his turn, and checked himself. "I beg your pardon, ma'am; but it really does seem as if I never reach home nowadays without you meet me at the foot of the stairs, givin' notice.

What's wrong this time?"

"If you drive me to it, sir," said Mrs Bowldler in an aggrieved tone, "it's Captain Hunken's parrot."

"Captain Hunken's parrot?" echoed Cai, genuinely surprised; for, in his experience, this bird was remarkable, if at all, for an obese lethargy.

It could talk, to be sure. Now and again it would e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e "Scratch Polly," or "Polly wants a kiss," in a perfunctory way; but on the whole he had never known a more comfortable or a less loquacious bird.

"He--he made a communication to me this afternoon," said Mrs Bowldler delicately; "or, as you might prefer to put it, he pa.s.sed a remark."

"What was it?"

Mrs Bowldler cast a glance behind her at the gas jet. "I really couldn't, sir! Not even if you were to put out the light; and as a gentleman you won't press it."