The Ocean Cat's Paw Part 3

"Hah!" said Uncle Paul, nodding his head. "Humph! Well, you know, my boy, it isn't the thing, and we should be getting into no end of trouble if it were known. It's against the law, you know, and if you had caught him and held him you would have got a big reward."

Rodd got up and laid his hands upon his elder's shoulders as he looked him fixedly in the eyes.

"I say, uncle," he said, "you have been questioning me. It's my turn now."

"Yes, Pickle; I'll play fair. It's your turn," said Uncle Paul. "What is it you want to say?"

"Only this, uncle. Would you have liked me to earn that reward?"

"Hah! I say, Pickle, my lad, would you like any more sandwiches?"

"No, uncle."

"Then isn't it about time we began to make for home?"

Uncle Paul rose and led the way down-stream, gazing straight before him, and though he must have seen, he took no notice of the fact that Rodd did not throw the strap of his creel of fish over his shoulder, but left it by the side of the stone, along with the wallet, through whose gaping mouth a second packet of big sandwiches could still be seen.

CHAPTER THREE.

MRS. CHAMPERNOWNE'S PAN.

Mr Robson, when he came up from Plymouth for a natural history expedition into Dartmoor, did not select a hotel for his quarters, for the simple reason that such a house of accommodation did not exist, but took what he could get--a couple of tiny bedrooms in the cottage of a widow whose husband had been a mining captain on the moor; and there after a long tramp they returned on the evening after the adventure, to find their landlady awaiting them at the pretty rose-covered porch, eager and expectant and ready to throw up her hands in dismay.

"Why, where are the fish?" she cried--"the trout?"

"Eh?" said Uncle Paul.

"The fish, sir--the fish. I've got a beautiful fire, and the lard ready in the pan. I want to go on cooking while you both have a good wash.

You told me that you would be sure to bring home a lot of trout for your supper, and I haven't prepared anything else."

"Bless my heart! So I did," said Uncle Paul. "Here, Pickle, where are those trout?"

Rodd gave his uncle a comical look, and stood rubbing one ear.

"Ah, uncle," he cried, "where are those trout?"

Uncle Paul screwed up one eye, and he too in unconscious imitation began to rub one ear.

"Ah, well; ah, well," said the landlady, "I suppose you couldn't help it. I have had gentlemen staying here to fish before now, and it's been a basketful one day and a basket empty the next. Fish are what the Scotch call very kittle cattle. Never mind, my dear," she continued to Rodd. "Better luck next time. Fortunately I have got plenty of eggs, and there's the ham waiting for me to cut off some more rashers."

As she spoke the woman hurried into her kitchen, from which sharp crackling sounds announced that he was thrusting pieces of wood under the kettle, and as she busied herself she went on talking aloud so that they could hear--

"Did you hear the gun fire, sir, somewhere about one o'clock?"

"Yes," grunted Uncle Paul. "Dinner-time, and we ate your sandwiches, Mrs Champernowne. They were delicious."

"I am very glad, sir. But, oh dear no, that wasn't the dinner-bell.

That meant that some of the prisoners had escaped. Poor fellows! I always feel sorry for them."

"Mrs Champernowne!" cried Uncle Paul, and Rodd, who was in his room with his face under water, raised it up, grinning, for he knew his uncle's peculiar ways by heart, and he went on listening to what was said.

"Oh, yes, sir," cried the landlady, with her voice half-drowned by a sudden flap and a sizzling noise which indicated, without the appetising odour which soon began to rise to Rodd's nostrils, that their landlady had vigorously slapped a thick rasher of pink-and-white ham into the hot frying-pan; "I know what you think, sir, and what you told me only last night about being a loyal subject of King George, and these being our natural enemies, whom we ought to hate."

_Ciss_! went the ham, and Rodd felt as if he should like to shout "Hear, hear!"

"But I can't help remembering what I hear at church about forgiving our enemies; and I am sure you would, sir, if you knew what I do about those poor fellows, torn away from their own people and shut up behind prison bars, and all for doing nothing."

Just then there was a little spluttering noise as if the pan were chuckling.

"For doing nothing!" shouted Uncle Paul, and a sound from his room suggested that he had set down the washhand jug with a bang. "The scoundrels who invaded our sh.o.r.es?"

_Ciss_! said the pan.

"That they didn't, sir!" cried the landlady. "They didn't even try; and even if they had there were all our brave fellows round the coasts who would soon have stopped them."

"Hear, hear!" cried Rodd, very softly, for he was speaking into his sweet-scented towel, whose scent was that of fresh air and wild thyme.

"Well, well, that's right," shouted Uncle Paul; "but they wanted to."

_Whish-ish_, went the pan, and there was a good deal more spluttering, and in his mind's eye Rodd saw the great rasher turned right over, to begin sizzling again.

"And I don't believe that, Dr Robson," cried the landlady st.u.r.dily.

"Don't you know that the poor fellows over yonder never get good honest shillings given to them and are enlisted of their own free will like our lads at home, but they are dragged away and are obliged to fight; and it was all owing to the angry jealousy and covetousness of that dreadful man, Bony, who has been the cause of all the trouble."

"Hah!" roared Uncle Paul, in a voice that almost shook the diamond-paned cas.e.m.e.nt. "Say no more, Mrs Champernowne. You are quite right, and I admire your sympathies. Madam, you are a lady!"

"Oh, really, Dr Robson--"

"I repeat it, madam, you are a lady, and I applaud everything you have said. But what about that gun?"

"Oh, dear me, yes, sir; I was just going to tell you, but you put it all out of my head. It was the alarm gun to tell everybody that prisoners had escaped, so that all the people on the moor could join the soldiers in scouring the place as they called it, and hunting the poor Frenchmen down for the sake of the reward. Yes, I'd reward them if I had my way!

Hunting their poor fellow-creatures, who are only trying for their liberty!"

"H'm! Ha!" grunted Uncle Paul, and there was a huckabacky sound about his words.

There was another furious hissing from the pan, followed by a fresh slap, for a second great rasher had been thrust in _vice_ number one nicely cooked and just placed in the hot dish that had been intended for trout.

"Did they catch them, Mrs Champernowne?" shouted Uncle Paul.

"I haven't heard, sir," was the reply; "but dear, dear, they are pretty well sure to, for there's not much chance for the poor fellows. Oh, it makes my heart bleed when I hear sometimes that one of them has been shot down by the soldiers."

Rodd went on tip-toe across the creaking floor to open his door a little farther, listening with strained ear, for his bright young imagination pictured the thin pale youth, wild-eyed and breathless, out of his hiding-place and running for liberty across the open moor, and hearing again the distant reports of the muskets.

"But that doesn't often happen, sir, for between you and me and the post, seeing that the prisoners are only soldiers, after all, I don't believe that though they have their orders, our men ever try to hit them; and very glad I am."

"Ah, ah, ah, Mrs Champernowne, that isn't loyal, you know, that isn't loyal to his Majesty the King and your country."