Hocken and Hunken Part 50

"Certainly, Mr Middlecoat," agreed the accommodating but bewildered auctioneer, and turned to his clerk.

"Mr Chivers, would you oblige?"

The young farmer scribbled a word or two on a piece of paper, which he folded and gave to Mr Chivers with some hurried instruction; and Mr Chivers steered his way out with agility. But meanwhile the bidding for Barton's Orchard had risen to two hundred.

"Say another ten, to keep it going," proposed Mr Middlecoat, wiping his brow although the weather was chilly. To gain time, he suggested that maybe there was some mistake; that the gentlemen, maybe, had not examined the map of the property and might be bidding for some other lot under a misapprehension.

Mr Baker objected to this. The description of the lots on the catalogue was precise and definite. The two gentlemen obviously knew what they were about. The field was a small field, but the soil was undeniably of the best, and in the interests of the vendor--

"Two hundred and thirty!" interrupted 'Bias.

"--and fifty!" bid Cai.

There was a pause. Mr Dewy looked at Mr Middlecoat, who under his gaze admitted himself willing to stake two hundred and sixty. "Though 'tis the price of building land!"

"Apparently you are willing to give it rather than let the purchase go,"

observed Mr Baker drily. "For aught you know both these gentlemen may be desiring it for a building site. Did I hear one of them say two-seventy-five? Captain--er--Hunken, if I caught the name?"

"Two-eighty," persisted Cai.

"Two-ninety!"

"Well, make it three hundred, and I've done!" groaned Mr Middlecoat collapsing.

"Three--"

"What's all this?" interrupted a voice, very sweet and cool in the doorway.

"Mrs Bosenna?--Your servant, ma'am!" Mr Dewy rose halfway in his seat and made obeisance. "We are dealing with a lot which may concern you, ma'am; for it runs "--he consulted his map--"Yes--I thought so--right alongside your property at Rilla. A trifle over two acres, ma'am, and Mr Middlecoat has just bid three hundred for it."

"And"--began Cai: but Mrs Bosenna (taken though she must have been by surprise) was quick and frowned him to silence.

"And a deal more than its value, as Captain Hocken was about to say.

Will any fool bid more for such a patch?"

Cai and 'Bias stared together, interrogating her. But there was no further bid, and Mr Dewy knocked down the lot at 300 pounds.

"Which," said Mrs Bosenna meditatively to Dinah that night, "you may call two hundred and fifty clean thrown into the sea. And the worst is that though Captain Hocken and Captain Hunken are a pair of fools and Mr Middlecoat a bigger fool than either--as it turns out, I'm the biggest fool of all."

"How, mistress?"

"Why, you ninny! They were buying, one against the other, to make me a present, and I stepped in and saved young Middlecoat's face. Yet," she mused, "I don't see what else he could have done. . . . Well, thank the Lord! he'll be humble now, which the others were and he wasn't."

"He's young, anyway," urged Dinah.

"That's something," her mistress conceded. "It gives the more time to rub in his foolishness, and he'll never hear the last of it."

"Three hundred pounds, too!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Dinah. "The very sound of it frightens me. A terrible sum to throw to waste!"

"I wouldn't say that altogether. . . . Yes, you may unlace me.

What fools men are!"

CHAPTER XXII.

THE LAST CHALLENGE.

Next Lady-day, which fell on a Thursday, 'Bias called upon Mrs Bosenna with his rent and with the pleasing announcement that in a week or so he proposed to pay her a further sum of seven pounds eight shillings and fourpence; this being the ascertained half-year's dividend earned by the hundred pounds she had entrusted to his stewardship.

She warmly commended him. "Close upon fifteen per cent! I wonder-- But there! I suppose you won't tell me how it's done, not if I ask ever so?"

'Bias looked knowing and reminded her that to ask no questions was a part of her bargain. As a matter of fact it was also a part of his bargain with Mr Rogers, and he could not have told had he wished to tell.

"I suppose you've heard the latest news?" said he. "They've chosen me on the Harbour Board--Ship-owners' representative."

"I didn't even know there had been an election."

"No more there hasn't. Rogers made the vacancy, and managed it for me; retired in my favour, as you might say."

"Seems to me Mr Rogers must be weakenin' in his head."

"Oh no, he's not!" 'Bias a.s.sured her with a chuckle. "But he's pretty frail in the body. At his time o' life and with his infirmity a man may be excused, surely?"

"I reckon," said Mrs Bosenna, "there's few would have wept if Mr Rogers had superannuated himself years ago. Now if you'd told me he was _turned_ out--"

"You're hard on Rogers!" he protested, tasting the joke of it.

"Well, I don't think he took on these jobs for his health, as they say; and so it comes hard to believe as he goes out o' them for that reason.

But there! he may be an honester man than I take him for. . . .

Well, and so you're becomin' a public man too! I congratulate you."

"I wouldn' call myself _that_," said 'Bias modestly. "But one or two have suggested that a fellow like me, with plenty of time on his hands, might look after a few small things and the way public money's spent on 'em." He might have claimed that at any rate he knew more of harbour affairs than Cai could possibly know of education: but he did not.

To their honour, neither he nor Cai--though they ruffled when face to face before folks--ever spoke an ill word behind the other's back.

"There's the dredgin', for one thing; and, for another, the way they're allowed to lade down foreign-goin' ships is a scandal."

"Is it the Harbour's business to stop that?"

"It ought to be somebody's business."

"You'll get nicely thanked," she promised, "if you interfere--and as a ship-owners' representative too!"

"There's another matter," confessed 'Bias. "They've asked me to put up for the Parish Council next month. There's a notion that, with this here Diamond Jubilee comin' on, the town ought to rise to the occasion."

"And you're the man to give it the lift!" said Mrs Bosenna gaily.

"Is Captain Hocken standin' too?"