Hocken and Hunken Part 67

"_You_'re not," retorted the uncompromising child.

"Eh?"

"'Tis three days now since you've been near the old man, either one of 'ee. How would _you_ like that, if you was goin' to h.e.l.l?"

"Hush 'ee now! . . . 'Bias and me had clean forgot--there's so much to do in all these rejoicin's! Run back and tell 'n we'll be down in half-an-hour, soon as we've tidied up here."

On their way down to visit the sick man, Cai and 'Bias had to pause half-a-score of times at least to admire an arch or a decorated house-front. For by this time even the laggards were out and working for the credit of Troy.

But no decorations could compare with their own.

"That's a handsome bunch, missus," called Cai to a very old woman, who, perched on a borrowed step-ladder, was nailing a sheaf of pink valerian (local name, "Pride of Troy") over her door-lintel. "Let me give 'ee a hand wi' that hammer," he offered; for her hand shook pitiably.

"Ne'er a hand shall help me--thank 'ee all the same," the old lady answered. "There, Cap'n! . . . there's for Queen Victoria! an' it's done, if I die to-morrow." She tottered down to firm earth and gazed up at the doorway, her head nodding.

"She've _got_ to be in London to-morrow, of course. . . . But what a pity she can't take a walk through Troy too! Main glad she'd be. . . .

Oh, I know! She an' me was born the same year."

Of the doings of next day--the great day; of the feasting, the cheering, the salvo-firing, the marching, the counter-marching, the speechifying, the tea-drinking, the dancing, the illuminations, the bonfires; the tale may not be told here. Were they not chronicled, by this hand, in a book apart? And does not the chronicle repose in the Troy Parish Chest?

And may not a photograph of the famous arch constructed by Captains Hocken and Hunken be discovered therein some day by the curious?

To be sure, Queen Victoria herself did not pa.s.s beneath that arch.

But there pa.s.sed beneath that arch many daughters who since have grown into women and done virtuously, I hope. If not, I am certain there was no lack of encouragement that day in the honest, smiling faces of Captain Hocken and Captain Hunken as they stood with proprietary mien, one on either side of the roadway, and each with an enormous red rose aglow in his b.u.t.ton-hole.

_Pulvis et umbra sumus_--"The tumult and the shouting dies."--A little before ten o'clock that night Mr Middlecoat and Mrs Bosenna walked up through the dark to Higher Parc to see the bonfires. The summit commanded a view of the coast from Dodman to Rame, and inland to the high moors which form the backbone of the county. Mrs Bosenna counted eighteen fires: her lover could descry sixteen only.

"But what does it matter?" said he. They had started the climb arm-in-arm: but by this time his arm was about her waist.

"My eyes are sharper than yours, then," she challenged.

"Very likely," he allowed. "Sure, they must be: for come to think I reckoned 'em both in my list."

She laughed cosily.

"Shall we go over the ridge?" he suggested. "We may pick up one or two inland from my place."

"No," she answered, and mused for a while. "It's strange to think our two farms are goin' to be one henceforth. . . . The ridge has always seemed to me such a barrier. But I'll not cross it to-night.

Good-bye!"

"Nay, but you don't go back alone. I'll see you to the door."

"Why? I'm not afraid of ghosts."

But he insisted: and so, arm linked in arm, they descended to Rilla, where the roses breathed their scent on the night air.

Cai and 'Bias--the long day over--sat in Cai's summer-house, overlooking the placid harbour. Loyal candles yet burned in every window on the far sh.o.r.e and scintillated their little time on the ripple of the tide.

Above shone and wheeled in their courses the steady stars, to whom our royalties are less than a pinch of dust in the meanest unseen planet that spins within their range.

The door of the summer-house stood wide to the night. Yet so breathless was the air that the candles within (set by Mrs Bowldler on the table beside the gla.s.ses and decanters) carried a flame as unwavering as any star of the firmament. So the two friends sat and smoked, and between their puffed tobacco-smoke penetrated the dewy scents of the garden.

Both were out-tired with the day's labours; for both were growing old.

"'Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all,'"

murmured Cai. "'Twas a n.o.ble text we chose."

"Ay," responded 'Bias, drawing the pipe from his lips. "She've kept a widow just thirty-six years. An unusual time, I should say."

"Very," agreed Cai.

They gazed out into the quiet night, as though it held all their future and they found it good.