Hocken and Hunken Part 2

"'Tis from your friend, sure enough," announced Mr Philp. "He paid off his crew last Toosday, an' took his discharge an' the train down to Plymouth. He've bought a wardrobe there--real wornut--an' 'tis comin'

round by sea. There's a plate-chest, too, he thinks you may fancy-- price thirty-five s.h.i.+llin secondhand: an' he hopes to reach Troy the day after next, which by the post-mark is to-morra."

"Mr Philp," explained the barber, "calls in at the Office every mornin'

to read all the post-cards. 'Tis one of his habits."

"Recent bereavement?" asked Mr Philp, before Captain Cai could well digest this.

"Eh?"

"Recent bereavement?" Mr Philp was examining the tall hat, which he had picked up to make room for his own person on the customers' bench.

"That's another of his apt.i.toods," the barber interpolated.

"He attends all the funerals in the parish."

"In the midst o' life we are in death," observed Mr Philp. "That's a cert, Cap'n Hocken, an' your hat put me in mind of it."

"Oh, 'tis my hat you're meanin'? What's wrong with it?"

"Did I say there was anything wrong? No, I didn't--G.o.d forbid! An' no doubt," concluded Mr Philp cheerfully, "the fas.h.i.+ons'll work round to it again."

"I'll change it for another."

"You won't find that too easy, will you?" The barber paused in his snipping, and turned about for a thoughtful look at the hat.

"I mean I'll buy another, of a different shape. First the beard, then the headgear--as I was tellin' Toy, a man ash.o.r.e can reggilate his ways as he chooses, an here's to prove it."

"They _do_ say a clean shave is worth two virtuous resolutions,"

answered the barber, shaking his head Again. "And you're makin' a brave start, I don't deny. But wait till you pick up with a few real habits."

"What sort o' habits?"

"The sort that come to man first-along in the shape o' duties--like church-goin'. Look here, Cap'n, I'll lay a wager with 'ee. . . .

Soon as you begin to walk about this town a bit, you'll notice a terrible lot o' things that want improvin'--"

"I don't need to walk off the Town Quay for _that_."

"Ah, an' I daresay it came into your head that if you had the orderin'

of Bussa you wouldn' be long about it? The town'll think it, anyway.

We're a small popilation in Troy, all tied up in neighbourly feelin's an' hangin' together till--as the sayin' is--you can't touch a cobweb without hurtin' a rafter. What the town's cryin' out for is a new broom--a man with ideas, eh, Mr Philp?--above all, a man who's independent. So first of all they'll flatter ye up into standin' for the Parish Council, and put ye head o' the poll--"

"Tut, man!" interrupted Captain Cai, flus.h.i.+ng a little. "What do I know about such things? Not o' course that I shan't take an interest--as a ratepayer--"

"_To_ be sure. I heard a man say, only last Sat.u.r.day, sittin' in that very chair, as there was never a s.h.i.+p's captain hauled ash.o.r.e but in three weeks he'd be ready to teach the Chancellor of th' Exchequer his business an' inclined to wonder how soon he'd be offered the job."

"A s.h.i.+p's captain needn't be altogether a born fool."

"No: an' next you'll be bent on larnin' to speak in public; and takin'

occasions to practise, secondin' votes o' thanks an' such like.

After that you'll be marryin' a wife--"

"I don't want to marry a wife, I tell 'ee!"

"Who said you did? Well, then, you'll get married--they dotes on a public man as a rule; and for tanglin' a man up in habits there's no snare like wedlock, not in the whole world. I've known scores o' men get married o' purpose to break clear o' their habits an' take a fresh start; but ne'er a man that didn't tie himself up thereby in twenty new habits for e'er a one he'd let drop."

"Go on with your folly, if it amuses you."

"Then, again, you've taken a house."

"So Rogers tells me. I don't even know the rent, at this moment."

"Twenty-five pound p'r annum," put in Mr Philp. Captain Cai--released just then from his wrapper--turned and stared at him.

"I had it from the Postmistress," Mr Philp's tone was matter-of-fact, his gaze unabashed. "Bein' paralytic, Rogers did your business with the widow by letter; he keeps a type-writin' machine an' pays Tabb's girl three s.h.i.+llin' a-week to work it. The paper's thin, as I've had a mind to warn 'er more than once."

"'Twould be a Christian act," suggested Mr Toy. "If there's truth in half what folks say, some of old Johnny Rogers' correspondence 'd make pretty readin' for the devil."

"But look here," interposed Captain Cai, "what's this about doin'

business with a widow? _Whose_ widow?"

"Why, your landlady, to be sure--the Widow Bosenna, up to Rilla Farm."

"No--stop a minute--take that blessed latherin'-brush out o' my mouth!

You don't tell me old Bosenna's dead, up there?"

"It didn' altogether surprise most of us when it happened," said the barber philosophically. "A man risin' sixty-five, with _his_ habits!

. . . But it all came about by the County Council's widenin' the road up at Four Turnin's. . . . You see, o' late years th' old man 'd ride home on Sat.u.r.days so full he _had_ to drop off somewhere 'pon the road; an' his mare gettin' to find this out, as dumb animals do, had picked up a comfortable way of canterin' hard by Four Turnin's and stoppin' short, slap in the middle of her stride, close by th' hedge, so 's her master 'd roll over it into the plantation there, where the ditch is full of oak-leaves. There he'd lie, peaceful as a suckin' child; and there, every Sabbath mornin' in the small hours, one o' the farm hands 'd be sent to gather 'em in wi' the new-laid eggs. So it went on till one day the County Council, busy as usual, takes a notion to widen th' road just there; an' not only pulls down th' hedge, but piles up a great heap o'

stones, ready to build a new one. Whereby either the mare hadn' noticed the improvement or it escaped her memory. Anyway--the night bein'

dark--she shoots old Bosenna neck-an'-crop 'pon the stones. It caused a lot o' feelin' at the time, an' the coroner's jury spoke their minds pretty free about it. They brought it in that he'd met his death by the visitation o' G.o.d brought about by a mistake o' the mare's an' helped on by the over-zealous behaviour of the County Surveyor. Leastways that's how they put it at first; but on the Coroner's advice they struck out the County Surveyor an' altered him to a certain party or parties unknown."

"I mind Mrs Bosenna well," said Captain Cai, rising as the barber unwrapped him; "a smallish well-featured body, with eyes like bullace plums."

"Ay, an' young enough to ha' been old Bosenna's daughter--a penniless maid from Holsworthy in Devon, as I've heard; an' now she's left there, up to Rilla, happy as a mouse in cheese. Come to think, Cap'n Cai, you might do worse than c.o.c.k your hat in that quarter."

But Captain Cai did not hear for the moment. He was peering into the looking-gla.s.s and thinking less of Mrs Bosenna than of his shaven-altered appearance.

"'Twould be a nice change for her, too," pursued Mr Toy in a rallying tone; "an adaptable man like you, Cap'n."

"Eh? What's that you were sayin' about my hat?" asked Captain Cai; and just then, letting his gaze wander to the depths of the gla.s.s, he was aware of Mr Philp shamelessly trying on that same hat before another mirror at the back of the shop.

"Hullo, there!"

Mr Philp faced about solidly, composedly.

"I was thinkin'," said he, "as I'd bid you three-an'-six for this, if you've done with it. I've long been wantin' something o' the sort, for interments."

"Done with you!" said Captain Cai, reaching for it and clapping it on his head. "Only you must send round for it to-morrow, when I've found myself something more up-to-date." Again he contemplated his shaven image in the mirror. "Lord! A man do look younger without a chin-beard!"

"Ay, Cap'n." Barber Toy, knuckles on hips, regarded and approved his handiwork. "The world's afore 'ee. Go in and win!"