despatched him to fetch a score or
so.

"Hullo!" cried Cai, who, being unemployed for the moment, had leisure to
look around and enjoy the view from the roof-ridge. "If it isn't 'Bias
comin' up the path! . . . Hi! 'Bias!" he hailed boyishly, in the old
friendly tone.

'Bias, stooping to unlatch the gate, heard the call which descended, as
it were, straight from heaven, and gazed about him stupidly. He was
aware of Mrs Bosenna in the pathway, advancing a step or two to make him
welcome. She halted and laughed, with a glance up towards the roof.
'Bias's eyes slowly followed hers.

"Lord!" he muttered, "what made ye masthead him up there? . . . Been
misbehavin', has he? 'Tis the way I've served 'prentices afore now."

"On the contrary, he has been behaving beautifully--"

"Here, 'Bias!" called down Cai again. "Heft along the tall ladder half
a dozen yards to the s'yth'ard, and stand by to help. I'm bringin' down
this plaguy rose-bush, and I'll take some catchin' if I slip with it."

"'Who ran and caught him when he fell?' 'His Bias,'" quoted Mrs
Bosenna. "He has been doin' wonders up there, Captain Hunken. But if I
were you--a man of your weight--"

"I reckon," said 'Bias, stepping forward and seizing the ladder, which
he lifted as though it had been constructed of bamboo, "I han't forgot
all I learnt o' reefin' off the Horn." He planted the ladder and had
mounted it in a jiffy. "Now, then, what's the programme?" he demanded.

"You see this rose? Well, I got to collect it--I've tried the main
stem, and it'll bend all right,--and then I got to slide down to you.
After that we've to peg it out somewheres above the eaves, as Madam
gives orders. See?"

"I see. When you're ready, slide away."

Just then William Skin came hurrying back with an armful of rick-spars:
and within ten minutes the two rivals were hotly at work--yet
cheerfully, intelligently, as though misunderstanding had never been,--
clipping out dead wood from the rose-bush, layering it, pegging it,
driving in the spars,--while Mrs Bosenna called directions, and William
Skin gazed, with open mouth.

"This is better than ploughin', ma'am?" challenged Cai in his glee.

"So much better," agreed the widow, smiling up, "that I've almost a mind
to forgive the pair of you."

"But I won't ask you to stay for dinner to-day," she said later, when
the tangled mass of the Devoniensis had been separated, shoot from
shoot, and pegged out to the last