“You’ll scratch your hands to ribbons,” Mrs Bosenna warned him.

“‘Tisn’t worth while comin’ down for a pair of hedgin’ gloves. . . .  I say, though—­I’ve a better notion!  ‘Stead of lettin’ this fellow run riot here around the chimney-stack, why not have him down and peg him horizontal, more or less, across and along the thatch, where he can be seen?”

“Capital!” she agreed.  “He’d put out more than twice the number of blooms too.  They do always best when laid lateral.”

“He’ll come down bodily with a little coaxin’.  The question is how to peg him when he’s down?”

“Rick-spars,” answered Mrs Bosenna promptly.  “The small kind.  There’s dozens in the waggon-house loft.”  She signalled to William Skin to come down, bawled an order in his ear, and 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.