The Ocean Cat's Paw Part 4

"I can't help that, Dr Robson, and I am not speaking, sir, as a subject, but as a woman and a mother who has a brave stout boy in our good King's Guards. Now suppose, sir, that you were a mother." Uncle Paul grunted audibly.

"And had a boy the same as I have, and Bony Napolyparty had taken him prisoner. How would you like him to be shot down?"

Rodd literally jumped in his alarm, for there was a tremendously wild cissing from the pan and a horrible suggestion therewith that Mrs Champernowne had been turning the rasher with so much energy that she had thrown the cooking slice on to the fire itself instead of into its native pan, while a sudden gush as of hot burning fat came up the little stairs.

But the pleasant sizzling sounds began again directly, and Rodd, who was ravenously hungry, consequent upon the bad part he had played over the sandwiches beneath the tor, sighed in relief as he realised that the widow's energetic treatment had only splashed a little of the fat over the side of the pan.

As Rodd listened for a continuation of the political discussion, in which it seemed to him that Uncle Paul had got the worst of it, for neither the widow nor he spoke for the next three or four minutes, and the pan had it all its own way, there was some creaking of the boards as the naturalist stumped about, and when he did speak it was evident that he thought it wise to change the subject. And it was the inner man who now spoke--

"Our tea-supper nearly ready, Mrs Champernowne?"

"Oh yes, sir. The second rasher's about done. How many eggs shall I cook?"

"Oh, one, or perhaps two, for me," shouted Uncle Paul.

"Oh, I say!" muttered Rodd.

"Better cook eight or ten for my nephew," cried the doctor dryly.

"He'll eat like a young wolf."

"What a shame!" muttered Rodd. "I'll serve him out for this."

"Fried, of course, sir?" came from the kitchen.

"Murder, woman, no!" roared Uncle Paul. "Fry! That is wild west-country ignorance, madam! Are you not aware, madam, that the action of boiling fat upon alb.u.men is to produce a coagulate leathery ma.s.s of tough indigestible matter inimical to the tender sensitive lining of the most important organ of the human frame, lying as it does without a.s.similation or absorption upon the epigastric region, and producing an irritation that may require medical treatment to allay?"

"Dear, dear, dear, dear me, no, sir! Really, you quite fl.u.s.ter me with all those long words. Who ever heard that fried ham and eggs were bad for anybody?"

"Then I tell you now, madam," shouted the doctor, "that--"

"Don't you take any notice, Mrs Champernowne," shouted Rodd. "It's only uncle's fun."

"Wuff!" went Uncle Paul, with a snap like that of an angry dog. "Wuff!"

"Fried, please, Mrs Champernowne; four for uncle and three for me."

"Umph!" grunted the doctor, and a few minutes later he and his nephew, hunger-sharpened and weary-legged, were seated facing one another in the widow's pleasant little parlour, hard at work, and risking all the direful symptoms upon which the elder had discoursed, and thoroughly enjoying hearty draughts of Mrs Champernowne's fragrant tea.

There was silence in the kitchen, following the final hissings and odours emitted by the hard-worked pan, but a great deal of business went on in the little parlour, the first words that were spoken being by Uncle Paul, who growled out--

"Here, I suppose you had better tell the old lady to put on another rasher of ham to fry."

"For you, uncle?" said Rodd archly.

"No, sir, for you. You traitorous young dog, leaving all those beautiful trout up on the moor to be devoured by the enemies of your country!"

"Well, they can't eat them raw, uncle."

"Why not, sir? They are only so many ravening savages, ready to breathe out battle and slaughter if they got free."

"That poor boy didn't seem much of a savage, uncle," said Rodd quietly; and after a sidelong glance to see whether he dared say it, the boy continued tentatively, "I wish the poor fellow had been here to have this ham."

"What!" roared his uncle fiercely. "Bah! You wouldn't have left him a mouthful. Wolf--raven!"

"Yes, I would, uncle. I'd have left him all."

"Umph!" grunted Uncle Paul, taking up a very thin, old, much-worn silver table-spoon and looking at it with the eye of a connoisseur. "H'm! Ha!

Queen Anne."

"She's dead, uncle," said the boy.

"Well, I know that, don't I?" growled Uncle Paul, as he tilted the empty dish, and carefully sc.r.a.ped all the golden brown fat and gravy to one side, getting together sufficient to nearly fill the spoon, and then making as if to put it upon his own plate, but with a quick gesture dabbing it down upon Rodd's.

"Fair play, uncle!" shouted the boy.

"Bah!" grunted the doctor. "Cut me a thin slice of bread, all crumb, Pickle. Thunder and lightning! I have got the best share, after all;"

and then, with his face puckered up into a pleasant smile, he inserted a fork into the newly-cut slice of home-made bread, and began pa.s.sing it round and round the dish until it had imbibed the remains of the liquid ham and the golden new-laid eggs, when he deposited it upon his own plate with a triumphant smile which seemed to Rodd to make him look five-and-twenty years younger.

"Shall I fill another cup of tea for you, uncle?" cried Rodd; and by the way, they were breakfast cups.

"No, no, Pickle; I--I--er--well, say half."

At that moment the door was opened, and, looking hot and out of breath, their landlady entered.

"I hope you haven't been waiting for anything, gentlemen," she cried, giving the table a comprehensive glance. "I am so sorry. I will cook another rasher or two directly."

"Madam, no," said Uncle Paul didactically. "What does the great cla.s.sic author say?"

"Really I don't know, sir," cried Mrs Champernowne, with a perplexed look wrinkling up her pleasant face. "But it won't take many minutes."

"Enough, madam, is as good as a feast. This has been a banquet, eh, Pickle? I never enjoyed anything half so much before in my life. The ham was tenderness itself, the eggs new-laid--the bread--the b.u.t.ter--the tea--eh, Pickle?"

"Delicious, uncle."

"The fat of the land, Mrs Champernowne," continued the doctor; "the riches of these smiling pastures. Now if your friend Napoleon Bonaparte had come with his locusts to devastate the land, his hordes such as we have seen safely imprisoned yonder--"

"Yes, sir," interrupted Mrs Champernowne eagerly; "that's what I came to tell you. I thought I might just run over to my neighbour's, whose master has come back from the hunt, and I thought that you would like to hear. Those two French prisoners have got right away."

"Hooray!" shouted Rodd, springing from the chair, and to Mrs Champernowne's astonishment catching her round the waist and waltzing her about the room. "Three cheers for the poor prisoners! Hurrah!

Hurrah! Hurrah!"

And Uncle Paul pushed back his chair, puckered up his forehead, stared hard at his nephew, and grunted out--

"Humph!"

"Oh, my dear, don't! Pray don't!" panted Mrs Champernowne, whom Nature had made middle-aged, round and plump. "You are taking away all my breath. But my neighbour's master says that he thinks they have made for Salcombe, where they will perhaps get aboard one of the orange boats and be put back in their own country."

"Hah!" said Uncle Paul, leaning back in his chair to take hold of his bunch of seals and haul up by the broad watered silk ribbon the big double-cased gold watch that ticked away from where it reclined warm and comfortable at the bottom of his fob.