Hocken and Hunken Part 40

Behold, now, on the morning of the Demonstration, Captain Caius Hocken, School Manager and therefore _ex officio_ a steward, taking the field in his Sunday best with a scarlet badge in his b.u.t.tonhole, "quite,"

declared Mrs Bowldler, "like a gentleman of the French Emba.s.sy as used frequent to take luncheon with us in the Square."

The morning was bright and clear: the sky a pale blue and almost cloudless, the season--

Not yet on summer's death, nor on the birth Of trembling winter,

--and Cai walked with a lightness of spirit to which since the quarrel he had been a stranger. The Demonstration was to be held at the Four Turnings, where the two roads that lead out of Troy and form a triangle with the sea for base, converge to an apex and branch off again into two County highways. The field lay scarcely a stone's throw from this apex--that is to say from the spot where the late Farmer Bosenna had ended his mortal career. It belonged in fact to Mrs Bosenna, and had been hired from her by the Technical Instruction Committee for a small sum; but Cai did not happen to know this, for the arrangement had been made some weeks ago, before his elevation to the School Board.

It was with a shock of surprise, therefore, that on pa.s.sing the gate he found Mrs Bosenna close within, engaged in talk with two rosy-faced farmers; and, moreover, it brought a rush of blood to his face, for he had neither seen her nor heard from her since the fatal morning.

There was, however, no way of retreat, and he stepped wide to avoid the group, lifting his hat awkwardly as he pa.s.sed, not daring to meet the lady's eyes.

"Captain Hocken!" she called cheerfully.

"Ma'am?" Cai halted in confusion.

"Come here for a moment--that is, if it doesn't interrupt your duties-- and be introduced to our two ploughing judges. Mr Widger of Callington, Mr Sam Nicholls of St Neot--Captain Hocken." Cai's cheeks in rosiness emulated those of the two men with whom he shook hands. "Captain Hocken," she explained to them, "takes a great interest in education."

For a moment it struck Cai that the pair, on hearing this, eyed him suspiciously; but his brain was in a whirl, and he might easily have been mistaken.

"Not at all," he stammered; "that is, I mean--I am new to this business, you see."

"You are a practical man, I hope, sir?' asked Mr Nicholls.

"I--I've spent the most part of my life at sea, if you'd count that bein' practical," said Cai modestly.

"To be sure I do," Mr Nicholls a.s.sented. "It's as practical as farmin', almost."

"In a manner o' speakin' it is," agreed Mr Widger grudgingly.

"Men haven't all the same gifts. Now you'll hardly believe what happened to me the only time I ever took a sea trip."

"No?" politely queried Cai.

"I was sick," said Mr Widger, in a tone of vast reminiscent surprise.

"It _does_ happen sometimes."

"Yes," repeated Mr Widger, "sick I was. It took place in Plymouth Sound: and you don't catch me tryin' the sea again."

"Now what," inquired Mr Nicholls, "might be your opinion about Labour Exemption Certificates, Captain Hocken?"

Cai was gravelled. His alleged interest in education had not as yet extended to a study of the subject.

Mrs Bosenna came to the rescue. Talk about education (she protested) was the last thing she could abide. Before the ploughing began she wanted to show Captain Hocken some work the hedgers had been doing at the lower end of the field.

At that moment, too, the local secretary came running with word that the first teams were already harnessed, and awaited the judges' preliminary inspection. Mr Widger and Mr Nicholls made their excuses, therefore, and hurried off to their duties.

"I have a bone to pick with you," said Mrs Bosenna, as she and Cai took their way leisurably across the field.

Cai groaned at thought of those unhappy letters.

But Mrs Bosenna made no allusion to the letters.

"You have not been near Rilla for weeks," she went on, reproachfully.

Cai glanced at her. "I thought--I was afraid you were offended," he said, his heart quickening its beat.

"Well, and so I was. To begin brawling as you did in a lady's presence--and two such friends as I'd always supposed you to be!

It was shocking. Now, wasn't it?"

"It has made me miserable enough," pleaded Cai.

"And so it ought. . . . I don't know that I should be forgiving you now," added Mrs Bosenna demurely, "if it didn't happen that I wanted advice."

"_My_ advice?" asked Cai incredulous.

"It's a business matter. Women, you know, are so helpless where business is concerned." (Oh, Mrs Bosenna!)

"If I can be of any help--" murmured Cai, somewhat astonished but prodigiously flattered.

"Hus.h.!.+" she interrupted, lifting a quick eye towards the knap of the hill they had descended. "Isn't that Captain Hunken, up above? . . .

Yes, to be sure it is, and he's turned to walk away just as I was going to call him!" She glanced at Cai, and there was mischief in the glance.

"I expect the ploughing has begun, and I won't detain either of you.

. . . The business? We won't discuss it now. I have to wait here for Dinah, who is coming for company as soon as she's finished her housework. . . . To-morrow, then, if you have nothing better to do.

Good-bye!"

He left her and climbed the hill again. He seemed to tread on air; and no doubt, when he reached the plateau where the ploughmen were driving their teams to and fro before the judges, with corrugated brows, compressed lips, eyes anxiously bent on the imaginary line of the furrow to be drawn, this elation gave his bearing a confidence which to the malignant or uncharitable might have presented itself as b.u.mptiousness.

He mingled with the small group of _cognoscenti_, listened to their criticisms, and by-and-by, c.o.c.king his head knowledgeably on one side, hazarded the remark that "the fellow coming on with the roan and grey seemed to be missing depth in his effort to keep straight."

It was an innocent observation, uttered, may be, a thought too dogmatically, but truly with no deeper intent than to elicit fresh criticism from an expert who stood close beside his elbow. But a voice behind him said, and carried its sneer--

"Maybe he ain't the only one hereabouts as misses depth."

Cai, with a grey face, swung about. He had recognised the voice.

Some demon in him prompted the retort--

"Eh, 'Bias? Is that you?--and still takin' an interest in agriculture?"

The shaft went home. 'Bias's voice shook as he replied--

"I mayn't know much about education, at two minutes' notice; and I mayn't pretend to know much about ploughin' and wear a b.u.t.ton in my coat to excuse it. But I reckon that for a pound a side I could plough you silly, Cai Hocken."

It was uttered in full hearing of some ten or twelve spectators, mostly townsmen of Troy; and these, turning their heads, for a moment not believing their ears, stared speechlessly at the two men whose friends.h.i.+p had in six months pa.s.sed into a local byword. Cap'n Hocken and Gap'n Hunken--what, _quarrelling?_ No, no--nonsense: it must be their fun!

But the faces of the pair told a different tale.

It was a stranger--a young farmer from two parishes away--who let off the first guffaw.

"A bet, naybours!--did 'ee hear _that?_ Take him up, little man--he won't eat 'ee."