Hocken and Hunken Part 64

He would face them to-morrow. To-day he would tire himself out: to-night he would sleep.

And he slept, almost as soon as his head touched the pillow. His sleep was dreamless too.

"_Dame, get out and bake your pies--bake your pies--bake your pies--_"

"_Whoo-oo-sh!_"

He sat up in bed with a jerk. . . . What on earth was it? A squall of hail on the window? Or a rocket?--a ship in distress, perhaps, outside the harbour? . . .

"_Dame, get out and bake your pies--_" piped a high childish voice.

Some one was unbarring a door below. A voice--'Bias's voice--spoke out gruffly, demanding what was the matter?

Was the house on fire? . . . No: outside the half-open window lay spread the moonlight, pale and tranquil. The night wind entering, scarcely stirred the thin dimity curtains. This was no weather for sudden hail-storms or for shipwreck. Cai flung back the bedclothes, jumped out--and uttered a sharp cry of pain. His naked foot had trodden on a gritty pebble, small but sharp.

Someone had flung a handful of gravel at the window.

He picked his way cautiously across the floor, and looked out. . . .

In the moonlit roadway, right beneath, a girl--Fancy Tabb--was dancing a fandango, the while in her lifted hand she waved a white parcel.

"Ah, there you be!" she hailed, catching sight of him. "I've found 'em!"

"Found what?"

"Your papers! . . . I couldn' sleep till I told you: and I had to fetch Mr Benny along--here he is!"

"Good evening, Captain," spoke up Mr Peter Benny, stepping out into the roadway from the doorway where he had been explaining to 'Bias.

"It's all right, sir. Your papers are found."

"Good evening, Benny! Tis kind of you, surely,"--Cai's voice trembled a little. "What's the hour?" he asked.

"Scarce midnight yet. I reckoned maybe you might be sittin' up, frettin' over this--'Twas the child here, though, that found it out and insisted on bringing me."

"After we'd locked up," broke in Fancy, "and just as I was packin' Dad off to bed, it came into my head to ask him--'I suppose you don't know,'

said I, 'of anyone's havin' been to master's safe without my bein'

told?' He thought a bit, and 'No,' says he; 'n.o.body 'cept myself, an'

that but once. '_You?_' says I, 'and whoever sent _you_ there?'

'Why, the master hisself,' says Dad.--Who else?' 'But what for?' I asks, feelin' as you might have knocked me down with a feather.

'I meant to ha' told you,' says Dad, 'but it slipped my mind. 'Twas one afternoon, when you was out on your walk. I heard Master's stick tap on the plankin' overhead so I went up, thinkin' as he might be wantin' his tea in a hurry. He told me to open the safe an' take out a packet o'

papers from the top shelf; which I did.' 'What papers?' said I 'How should I know?' says Dad: 'I don't meddle with his business--I've seen too much of it in _my_ life. I didn' even glance at 'em, but locked the safe again, an' put 'em where he told me--which was in the j.a.panned box by his chair!' 'Why,' says I,' that's his Insurance Box as he called it--the same as I handed to Mr Benny only yesterday, to take away and sort through!' . . . After that, as you may guess, I was like a mad person till we'd taken down the bolts again and I'd run to Mr Benny's."

"Ay," chimed in Mr Benny, "I was upstairs and half-undressed: but she had me dressed again an' down as if 'twas a matter of life and death.

. . . And when we got out the box, there the papers were, sure enough.

After that--for I saw their value to you--no one with a human heart could help running along with her, to bear the news. . . . So here we are."

"'Bias!" called Cai softly. "Didn' I hear 'Bias's voice below there, a while since?"

"Ay, here I be."--It was 'Bias's turn to step out from the shadow of his doorway into the broad moonlight. "And glad enough to hear this news."

"Would ye do me a favour? . . . Dressed, are you?"

"Ay--been sittin' up latish to-night."

"Well, I'm not azackly in a condition to step down--not for a minute or two; and I doubt Mrs Bowldler, if I called her, wouldn' be in no condition either. . . . 'Twould be friendly of you to ask Mr Benny in and offer him a drink; and as for missy--"

"No thank 'ee, Cap'n," interposed Mr Benny. "Bringin' you this peace o'

mind has been cordial enough for me--and for the child too, I reckon, Good-night, gentlemen!"

"Cap'n Hunken," said Fancy, "will you take the papers up to him?

Then we'll go."

"May I bring the papers to 'ee?" asked 'Bias, lifting his face to the window.

"Ay, do--if they won't come in. . . . I'll step down and unbar the door."

He lit a candle and hurried downstairs, his heart in his mouth.

By the time he had unbarred and opened, Mr Benny and Fancy had taken their departure; but their "good-nights" rang back to him, up the moonlit road, and his friend stood on the threshold.

CHAPTER XXVII.

MRS BOSENNA GIVES THE ROSE.

"It's a delicate thing to say to a woman," suggested Cai; "'specially when she happens to be your land-lady."

"You do the talkin', of course," said 'Bias hurriedly.

"Must I? Why?"

"Well, to begin with, you knew her first."

"I don't see as that signifies."

"No? Well, you used to make quite a point of it, as I remember.

But anyway you're a speaker, and it'll need some gift, as you say."

They had reached the small gate at the foot of the path. The day was hot, the highroad dusty. Cai halted and removed his hat; drew out a handkerchief and wiped his brow; wiped the lining of the hat; wiped his neck inside the collar.

"There's another way of lookin' at it," he ventured. "Some might say as 'twas more tactful to let your feelin's cool off by degrees."

"That's no way for me," said 'Bias positively. "Short and sharp's our motto."

"'Tis the best, no doubt," Cai agreed. "But there's the trouble of puttin' it into words. . . . I wish, now, I'd thought of consultin'

Peter Benny. There'd be no harm, after all, in steppin' back and askin'

his advice."

"No, you don't," said 'Bias shortly. "In my belief, if we hadn't made so free wi' consultin' Peter Benny in the past, we shouldn't be where we be at this moment."