Mrs Bosenna having admonished her to be more careful in future, turned to retrace her steps to the field.

They reached it and climbed the slope crosswise.  They had scarcely gained the edge of the upper plateau when Mrs Bosenna stopped short and gave a gasp.  For at that moment there broke on their view, against the near sky-line, the figure of a man awkwardly turning a plough, behind a team of horses.

“Save us, mistress!” cried keen-eyed Dinah.  “If it isn’t—­”

“It can’t be!” cried Mrs Bosenna, as if in the same breath.

“It’s Cap’n Hunken,” said Dinah positively.

“But why?  Dinah—­why?”

“It’s Cap’n Hunken,” repeated Dinah.  “The Lord knows why.  If he’s doin’ it for fun, I never saw worse entry to a furrow in my life.”

“Nor I. But what can it mean?” Mrs Bosenna, panting, paused at the sound of derisive cheers, not very distant.

The two women ran forward a pace or two, until their gaze commanded the whole stretch of the upper slope.  ’Bias, stolidly impelling his team—­ a roan and a rusty-black—­had, in the difficult process of steering the turn, been too closely occupied to let his gaze travel aside.  He was off again:  his stalwart back, stripped to braces and shirt, bent as he trudged in wake of the horses, clinging to the plough-tail, helplessly striving to guide them by the wavy parallel his last furrow had set.

Down the field, nearer and nearer, approached Cai, steering a team as helplessly.  Ribald cheers followed him.

Mrs Bosenna, though quite at a loss to explain it, grasped the situation in less than a moment.  She followed up ’Bias, keeping wide and running—­yet not seeming to hasten—­over the unbroken ground to the left.

“Captain Hunken!”

’Bias, throwing all his weight back on the plough-tail, brought his team to a halt and looked around.  He was bewildered, yet he recognised the voice.

While he paused thus, Cai steadily advanced to meet and pass him.  He was plainly at the mercy of his team—­a grey and a brown, both of conspicuous height—­and they were drawing the furrow at their own sweet will.  But he, too, clung to the plough-tail, and his lips were compressed, his eyes rigid, as he drew nearer, to meet and pass his adversary.  He, likewise, had cast coat and waistcoat aside:  his hat he had entrusted to an unknown backer.  He saw nothing, as he came, but the line of the furrow he prayed to achieve.

“Captain Hocken!” She stepped forward hardily, holding up a hand, and Cai’s team, too, came to a halt as if ashamed.  “What—­what is the meaning of this foolishness?”

“I’ve had enough, it he has,” said Cai sheepishly, glancing past her and at ’Bias.

“I ain’t doin’ this for fun, ma’am,” owned ’Bias.  “Fact is, I’d ’most as lief steer a monkey by the tail.”

“Then drop it this instant, the pair of you!”