Hocken and Hunken Part 9

"Hey? . . . But why? We don't pay off till Sat.u.r.day, as you ought to know, for I told 'ee plain enough, an' also that the men could have any money advanced, in reason."

"Come along and see," said the mate mysteriously. "I've been waitin'

here on the look-out for 'ee." He led the way up the steps, along a twisting corridor and into the Collector's office, where, sure enough, the crew of the _Hannah Hoo_ were gathered.

"Here's the Cap'n, boys!" he announced. "An' don't call me a liar, but take your time."

The men--they were standing uneasily, with doffed hats, around a table in the centre of the room--gazed and drew a long breath. They continued to breathe hard while the Collector bustled forward from his desk and congratulated Captain Cai on a prosperous pa.s.sage.

"There's one thing about it," said Ben Price the bald-headed, at length breaking through the mortuary silence that reigned around the table; "it _do_ make partin' easier."

"But what's here?" demanded Captain Cai, as his gaze fell upon a curious object that occupied the centre of the table. It was oblong: it was covered with a large red handkerchief: and, with the men grouped respectfully around, it suggested a miniature coffin draped and ready for committal to the deep.

"Well, sir," answered Nat Berry, who was generally reckoned the wag of the ship, "it might pa.s.s, by its look, for a concealment o' birth.

But it ain't. It's a testimonial."

"A what?"

But here the mate--who had been standing for some moments on one leg-- suddenly cleared his throat.

"Cap'n Hocken," said he in a strained unnatural voice, "we the undersigned, bein' mate and crew of the _Hannah Hoo_ barquentine--"

"Be this an affidavit?"

"No it isn': 'tis a Musical Box. . . . As I was sayin', We the undersigned, bein' mate an' crew of the _Hannah Hoo_ barquentine, which we hear that you're givin' up command of the same, Do hereby beg leave to express our mingled feelin's at the same in the shape of this here accompanyin' Musical Box. And our united hope as you may have live long to enjoy the noise it kicks up, which"--here Mr Tregaskis dropped to a confidential tone--"it plays 'Home, Sweet Home,' with other fashionable tunes, an' can be turned off at any time by means of a back-handed switch marked 'Stop' in plain letters. IT IS therefore--" here the speaker resumed his oratorical manner--"our united wish, sir, as you will accept the forthcoming Musical Box from the above-mentioned undersigned as a mark of respect in all weathers, and that you may live to marry an' pa.s.s it down to your offspring--"

"Hear, hear!" interjected Mr Nat Berry, and was told to shut his head.

"--to your offspring, or, in other words, progenitors," perorated Mr Tregaskis. "And if you don't like it, the man at the shop'll change it for something of equal value." Here with a sweep of the hand he withdrew the handkerchief and disclosed the gift. "I forget the chap's name for the moment, but he's a watchmaker, and lives off the Town Quay as you turn up west-an'-by-north to the Post Office. The round mark on the lid--as p'r'aps I ought to mention--was caused by a Challenge Cup of some sort standin' upon it all last summer in the eye of the sun, which don't affect the music, an' might be covered over with a bra.s.s plate in case of emergency; but time didn't permit." Thus Mr Tregaskis concluded, and stood wiping his brow.

Captain Cai stared at the gift and around at the men's faces mistily.

"Friends"--he managed to say. "Friends," he began again after a painful pause, and then, "It's all very well, William Tregaskis, but you might ha' given a man warnin'--after all these years!"

"It don't want no acknowledgment: but take your time," said the mate handsomely, conscious, for his part, of having performed with credit.

At this suggestion Captain Cai with a vague gesture pulled out his watch, and amid the whirl of his brain was aware of the hour--10.45.

"I've--I've an appointment, friends, as it happens," he stammered.

"And I thank you kindly, but--" On a sudden happy inspiration he fixed an eye upon the mate. "All sails unbent aboard?" he asked sternly.

"There's the mizzen, sir--"

"I thought so. We'll have discipline, lads, to the end--if you please.

We'll meet here on Sat.u.r.day: and when you've done your unbendin' maybe I'll start doin' mine."

He took up the musical box, tucked it under his arm, and marched out.

CHAPTER VI.

RILLA FARM.

The way was long, the sun was hot, the minstrel (as surely he may be called who carries a musical box) was more than once in two minds about turning back. He perspired under his absurdly superfluous burden.

To be sure he might--for Troy is always neighbourly--have knocked in at some cottage on his way through the tail-end of the town and deposited the box, promising to return for it. But he was flurried, pressed for time, disgracefully behind time, in fact; and, moreover, thanks to his attire and changed appearance, no friendly face had smiled recognition though he had recognised some half a dozen. There was no time to stop, renew old acquaintance, ask a small favour with explanations. . . .

All this was natural enough: yet he felt an increasing sense of human selfishness, human ingrat.i.tude--he, toiling along with this token of human grat.i.tude under his arm!

At the extreme end of the town his way led him through the entrance of a wooded valley, or coombe, down which a highroad, a rushing stream, and a railway line descend into Troy Harbour, more or less in parallels, from the outside world. A creek runs some little way up the vale. In old days--in Captain Cai's young days--it ran up for half a mile or more to an embanked mill-pool and a mill-wheel lazily turning: and Rilla Farm had in those days been Rilla Mill, with a farmstead attached as the miller's _parergon_.

But the railway had swept away mill-pool and wheel: and Rilla was now Rilla Farm. The railway, too, cutting sheer through the slope over which the farmstead stood, had transformed shelving turf to rocky cliff and farmstead to eyrie. You approached Rilla now by a footbridge crossing the line, and thereafter by a winding pathway climbing the cliff, with here and there a few steps hewn in the living rock. Nature in some twenty odd years had draped the cliff with fern--the _Polypodium vulgare_--and Mrs Bosenna in her early married days had planted the crevices with arabis, alyssum, and aubrietia, which had taken root and spread, and now, overflowing their ledges, ran down in cascades of bloom--white, yellow, and purple. The ascent, in short, was very pretty and romantic, and you might easily imagine it the approach to some foreign hill-castle or monastery: for the farmhouse on the summit hid itself behind out-buildings the walls of which crowned the escarpment and presented a blank face, fortress-like, overlooking the vale.

The path (as you have gathered) was for pedestrians only. Mrs Bosenna's farm-carts and milk-carts--her dairy trade was considerable--had to fetch a circuit by the road-bridge, half a mile inland.

The air in the valley was heavy, even on this April day. Captain Cai reached the footpath-gate in a bath of perspiration, despite his alpaca coat and notwithstanding that the last half mile of his way had lain under the light shade of budding trees. He gazed up at the ascent, and bethought him that the musical box was an intolerable burden for such a climb. It would involve him in explanations, too, being so unusual an accessory to a morning call. He searched about, therefore, for a hiding-place in which to bestow it, and found one at length in a clump of alder intermixed with brambles, that overhung the stream a few paces beyond the gate, almost within the shadow of the footbridge.

Having made sure that the bed on which it rested was firm and moderately dry, he covered the box with a strewing of last year's leaves, cunningly trailed a bramble or two over it, and pursued his way more lightsomely, albeit still under some oppression: for the house stood formidably high, and he feared all converse with women. For lack of practice he had no presence of mind in their company, Moreover, his recent fiasco in speech-making had dashed his spirits.

He reached the last turn of the path. It brought him in sight of a garden-gate some ten yards ahead, on his left hand. The gate was white, and some one inside was even at this moment engaged in repainting it; for as he halted to draw breath he caught sight of a paint-brush--or rather the point of one--briskly waggling between the rails.

The gate opened and Mrs Bosenna peeped out. "Ah, I _thought_ I heard footsteps!" said she. She wore a widow's cap--a very small and natty one; and a large white ap.r.o.n covered the front of her widow's gown from bosom to ankles.

"I--I'm sorry to call so late, ma'am."

"Late? Why, it can't be past noon, scarcely. . . . We don't have dinner till one o'clock. You'll excuse my not shaking hands, but I never _could_ paint without messing my fingers."

"But I hadn't an idea, ma'am--"

"Eh?"

"Nothing was farther from my thoughts than--than--"

"Staying to dinner? Oh, but it's understood! There's roast sucking-pig," said Mrs Bosenna tranquilly, as if this disposed of all argument. She added, "I didn't recognise you for the moment.

You're wearing a different hat."

"Actin' under advice, ma'am."

"I don't know that it's an improvement." Her eyes rested on him in cool scrutiny, and he flinched under it. "There's always a--a sort of distinction about a top hat. Of course, it was very thoughtful of you to change it for something more free-and-easy. But different styles suit different persons, and--as I'm always telling Dinah--the secret of dressing is to find out the style that suits you, and stick to it."

"Bein' free-an'-easy, ma'am, was the last thing in my mind," stammered Captain Cai.

"There, didn't I guess? . . . Well, you shall wear your top hat next time, and I'll take back my first impressions if I find 'em wrong."

"But, ma'am, the--the fact is--"

"Of course it was in the dusk," continued Mrs Bosenna; "but I certainly thought it suited you. One meets with so little of the real old-fashioned politeness among men in these days! Now "--she let her voice trail off reflectively as her eyes wandered past Captain Cai and rested on the tree-tops in the valley--"if I was asked to name my _bo ideal_ of an English gentleman--and the foreigners can't come near it, you needn't tell me--'twould be Sir Brampton Goldsworthy, Bart., of Halberton Court, Devon."

"Ma'am?"