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And the worst is that though Captain Hocken and Captain Hunken are a pair of fools and Mr Middlecoat a bigger fool than either as it turns out, I'm the biggest fool of all." "How, mistress?" "Why, you ninny! They were buying, one against the other, to make me a present, and I stepped in and saved young Middlecoat's face.
"Saw him takin' his leave, not above three minutes ago." "You, you saw him taking his leave?" "Stridin' down the hill, angry as a bull," Cai assured her. "He's a dreadful man to have for a neighbour," confessed Mrs Bosenna, recovering grip on her composure. "The way he threatens and bullies!" "I'll Middlecoat him, if he gives me but half a chance!" swore 'Bias.
He showed the backs of his own, which were lacerated and bleeding. "Caterpillars," added Mr Middlecoat in explanation. "There now!" cried Mrs Bosenna in accents of genuine dismay. "I'd no idea you were tearin' yourself like that and so easy to ask Dinah to fetch out a pair o' gloves!" "Do you mean to say, sir," asked Cai in his simplicity, "that caterpillars bite?"
"It's worth little enough to any one but me and Mr Middlecoat.
"One hundred acres, as you may say, at less than four pounds the acre! Well, if any man had prophesied this to me on the day when I entered business " Mr Dewy checked himself, and let fall the hammer. "Mr Middlecoat, sir, you're a lucky man."
"What's all this?" interrupted a voice, very sweet and cool in the doorway. "Mrs Bosenna? Your servant, ma'am!" Mr Dewy rose halfway in his seat and made obeisance. "We are dealing with a lot which may concern you, ma'am; for it runs " he consulted his map "Yes I thought so right alongside your property at Rilla. A trifle over two acres, ma'am, and Mr Middlecoat has just bid three hundred for it."
Mr Middlecoat, too, turned about, not recognising the voice of his new "bonnet," to use a term not unfamiliar in auctioneering. But Cai did catch their glances: for at the same moment he, too, wheeled about at the sound of a deep voice by the door. "Forty!" "Eh?" murmured Mr Dewy and Mr Baker, together taken by surprise.
Sure enough Dinah returned in a moment to report that her mistress was in her rose-garden; and following her thither, they found Mrs Bosenna, flushed of face and evidently mastering an extreme discomposure. "I, I hardly expected you," she began. "It's Friday," said Cai. "It's Christmas Day," said 'Bias. "I reckon he counted on that, that Middlecoat, I mean." "Eh? . . . Mr Middlecoat "
But Cap'n Hunken it was: for to make certain I called and had a drink o' cider with Farmer Middlecoat, t'other side of the hill, an' he'd seen your friend frequent these last few weeks. . . . There now, you don't seem pleased about it! an' yet 'twould be a very good match for him, if it came off." Cai's head was whirling.
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.
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