Book 3 - Chapter 28. Jubilee

________________________________________________
_ BOOK III CHAPTER XXVIII. JUBILEE

For the best part of a week before the great Day of Jubilee Cai and 'Bias toiled together and toiled with a will, erecting the framework of a triumphal arch to span the roadway. Within-doors, in the intervals of household duty, Mrs Bowldler measured, drew, and cut out a number of capital letters in white linen, to be formed into a motto and sewn upon red Turkey twill, while Palmerston industriously constructed and wired gross upon gross of paper roses--an art in which he had been instructed by Fancy, who had read all about it in a weekly newspaper, 'The Cosy Hearth.' The two friends talked little to one another during those busy June days. Strollers-by--and it had become an evening recreation in Troy to stroll from one end of the town to the other and mark how things were getting along for the 22nd--found Captain Hocken and Captain Hunken ever at work but little disposed to chat; and as everyone knew of the old quarrel, so everyone noted the reconciliation and marvelled how it had come to pass. Even Mr Philp was baffled. Mr Philp, passing and repassing many times a day, never missed to halt and attempt conversation; with small result, however.

"It's a wonder to me," he grumbled at last, "how men of your age can risk scramblin' about on ladders with your mouths constantly full o' nails."

In the evenings they supped together. Mrs Bowldler had made free to suggest this.

"Which," said Mrs Bowldler in magnificent anacoluthon, "if we see it as we ought, this bein' no ordinary occasion, but in a manner of speakin' one of Potentates and Powers and of our feelin's in connection therewith; by which I allude to our beloved Queen, whom Gawd preserve!-- Gawd bless her! I say, and He _will_, too, from what I know of 'im--and therefore deservin' of our yunited efforts; and, that bein' the case, it would distinkly 'elp, from the point of view of the establishment (meanin' Palmerston and me) if we (meanin' you, sir, and Captain Hunken) could make it convenient to have our meals in common. . . . The early Christians were not above it," she added. "Not they! Ho, not,--if I may use the expression--by a long chalk!"

She contrived it so delicately that afterwards neither Cai nor 'Bias could remember precisely at what date--whether on the Wednesday or on the Thursday--they slipped back into the old comfortable groove.

The arch occupied their thoughts. After supper, as they sat and smoked, their talk ran on it: on details of its construction; on the chances (exiguous indeed!) of its being eclipsed by rivals in the town, some in course of construction, a few as yet existent only in the promises of rumour.

Cai would say, "I hear the Dunstans are makin' great preparations in their back-yard. They mean to bring their show out at the last moment, and step it in barrels."

"I don't believe in barrels," 'Bias would respond. "Come a breeze o' wind, where are you? Come a strong breeze, and over you go, endangerin' life. It ought to be forbidden."

"No chance of a breeze, though." Cai had been studying the glass closely all the week.

"Fog, more like. 'Tis the time o' the year for fogs."

Other matters they discussed more desultorily; meetings of the Procession Committee, of the Luncheon Committee (all the parish was to feast together), of the Tree-planting Committee, of the Tea Committee; the cost of the mugs and the medals for the children, the latest returns handed in by Mr Benny, who had undertaken the task of calling on every householder, poor or rich, and collecting donations. But to the arch their talk recurred.

--And rightly: for in the arch they were building better than they knew. In it, though unaware (being simple men), they were rebuilding friendship.

By Saturday evening the scaffolding was complete, firmly planted, firmly nailed, firmly clasped together by rope--in sailors' hitches such as do not slip. They viewed it, approved it, and soberly, having gathered up tools, went in to supper. On Sunday they attended morning service in church, and oh! the glow in their hearts when, in place of the usual voluntary, the organ rolled out the first bars of "God Save the Queen" and all the worshippers sprang to their feet together!

On Monday the town awoke to the rumbling of waggons. They came in from the plantations where since the early June daybreak Squire Willyams's foresters and gardeners had been cutting young larches, firs, laurels, aucubas. The waggons halted at every door and each householder took as much as he required. So, all that day, Cai and 'Bias packed their arch with evergreens; until at five o'clock Mr Philp, happening along, could find no chink anywhere in its solid verdure. He called his congratulations up to them as, high on ladders, they affixed flags to the corner poles and looped the whole with festoons of roses.

And now for the motto to crown the work! Fancy Tabb coming up the roadway and pausing while she conned the structure, shading her eyes against the sun-rays that slanted over it, beheld Mrs Bowldler and Palmerston issue from the doorway in solemn procession, bearing between them a length of Turkey twill. Mrs Bowldler passed one end up to Captain Hocken, high on his ladder: Captain Hunken reached down and took the other end from Palmerston. Between them, as they lifted the broad fillet above the archway, its folds fell apart, and she read:--

MANY DAUGHTERS HAVE DONE VIRTUOUSLY
BUT THOU EXCELLEST THEM ALL.

"My! I'd like to be a Queen!"

"If I had my way, you WOULD," whispered Palmerston, who, edging close to her, had overheard.

"Eh? Is that Fancy Tabb?" interrupted Cai. He had happened to glance over his shoulder and spied her from the ladder. "Well, and what d'ee think of it?" he asked, as one sure of the answer.

"I was sayin' as I'd like to be a Queen," said Fancy. "Queen of England, I mean: none of your second-bests."

"Well, my dear," Cai assured her, bustling down the ladder and staring up at the motto to make sure that it hung straight, "_that_ you won't never be: but you're among the many as have done virtuously, and God bless 'ee for it! Which is pretty good for your age."

"_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 hell?"

"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 pass beneath that arch. But there passed 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 button-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 shore 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 glasses 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 noble 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.

[THE END]
Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch's Novel: Hocken and Hunken; A Tale of Troy

_


Read previous: Book 3: Chapter 27. Mrs Bosenna Gives The Rose

Table of content of Hocken and Hunken; A Tale of Troy


GO TO TOP OF SCREEN

Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book