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"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.
"Well, I always favoured Cap'n Hocken's chance, for my part. An', come to think, 'tis more fitty 't should happen so. When all's said an' done, t'other's a foreigner, as you might say, from the far side o' the Duchy: an' if old Bosenna's money is to go anywhere, why then, bein' Troy-earned, let it go to a Troy man." "But 'tis a facer for Cap'n Hunken, all the same. Poor chap, look at 'en."
"There's a row," said Fancy, and told about the sale of the parrot. "That Mrs Bosenna's at the bottom of it, as I've said all along," she concluded. "Do you reelly think the bird has been talking?" "I don't think: I know." Mrs Bowldler pondered a moment. "Ho! well she's a widow."
But here Mrs Bosenna's voice called to them, and they turned together almost guiltily to see her climbing the slope above the mow-hay, with springy gait and cheeks charmingly flushed by recent caresses of the kitchen-fire. "If you care for it," she greeted them, "there's just time for a stroll to Higher Parc and back while Dinah lays tea.
Here you have Plain " He indicated an inscription 'Samuel Bosenna, of Rilla, b. 1830, d. 1895." "Would that be th' old fellow up the valley, as was? Mrs Bosenna's husband?" asked Cai, somewhat awed. "That's the man." "But what's it doing here?" "'Tis my unfortunate propensity," confessed John Peter with simple frankness.
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.
"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.
"I did not bargain for any speech," she protested. "I in fact I never made a speech in my life. If if Captain Hocken would say a few words " "Ay, Cap'n," exhorted a voice, "speak up for her, like a man now! Seems to us she've given you the right." There was a general laugh, and it brought a heightened flush to Mrs Bosenna's cheek. Cai, not noting it, cleared his throat and doffed his tall hat.
Each, as he ate, unconsciously compared it such is our frail humanity less with the good cheer of which it should have been a reminder than with the fresh abundance of Mrs Bosenna's larder. A bachelor table and bachelor habits are all very well until you have tasted the other thing. To talk of the parrot, for which 'Bias had an inexplicable affection, might be awkward, as Cai had promised.
It had cost him much, a while ago an hour or two ago, no more to resign his pretensions to Mrs Bosenna's hand. The queer thing was how little the resolutions once taken Mrs Bosenna counted. It was 'Bias he had lost.
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