The Ocean Cat's Paw Part 7

"They have, though!" he cried. "Here, Mrs Champernowne!--Boots and all. Oh, I can't tell her. Here, I must get my other suit out of the portmanteau. I won't wake uncle, because it's so early. Why, it can be only just sunrise; and he'd sit up and laugh at me. Oh, bother!"

Rodd ran round to the door again, opened it about an inch, and listened.

"She's in the kitchen," he muttered to himself, and slipping out on to the little landing he raised the latch of his uncle's door, glided in, and made for the big portmanteau that lay unstrapped beneath the window.

Raising the one half quickly, he twisted the whole round so that the two halves might lie open upon the whitely-scrubbed boards as silently as he could; but one corner caught against the leg of the dressing-table, jarring it so violently that a hair-brush fell on to the floor with a bang, and Uncle Paul sprang up in bed.

"Hullo, you sir! What are you doing there?" he cried.

"Getting out my other suit, uncle," said the boy quickly.

"What for? Don't do that! We are going over the moor again to-day."

"But I must, uncle," cried Rodd.

"Mush!"

"Yes. Oh, I shall be obliged to tell you. It was all your fault, uncle; you didn't fasten the door as Mrs Champernowne told you, and there have been thieves in the night."

"Been grandmothers in the night!" cried Uncle Paul contemptuously.

"It's true, uncle, and they came up into my room while I was asleep and took away all my clothes--boots and all."

"You don't mean that, Pickle! Here, I say, where are mine?"

Rodd sprang to his feet from where he was kneeling by the portmanteau, and ran round to the side of the bed, just as his uncle turned and faced him.

"Every blessed thing gone, boy. Why, Rodney, my lad, we have fallen into a den of thieves--robbed, and we may thank our stars we haven't been murdered!"

"Why, it's horrid, uncle! Didn't you hear them, then?"

"Hear them, no! I heard nothing till you knocked something off on to the floor. Here, stop a moment, boy! My purse! It was in my trousers pocket."

"Then it's gone, uncle," cried Rodd.

"Ah! Horror! My gold watch and seals!"

"Well, they weren't in your trousers, uncle."

"No, boy; I remember winding it up and laying it on the chimney-piece."

"It isn't there, uncle."

"My gold presentation watch, that I wouldn't have lost for five hundred pounds! Call up that wretched woman."

"Uncle, I can't!"

"Do as I tell you, sir! She's in league with the thieves."

"But, uncle!"

"Oh yes, I forgot. There, don't stand staring there like a bull calf that has lost its mother. Turn that portmanteau upside down. Put on some things yourself, and throw me some more. You can dress quicker than I can, for you haven't got to shave. Look sharp, and then run for the village constable."

"Why, there isn't one, uncle," grumbled Rodd, as he began to scramble into his other clothes.

"No, of course there isn't, sir. A miserable one-eyed place with only two cottages in it, and I dare say that old woman's in the other, sharing the plunder? What a fool I was to come!"

"No, you weren't, uncle, and Mrs Champernowne isn't sharing the plunder, for she came and woke me up to say that the thieves had been and carried off everything there was down-stairs. I say, uncle, it was all your fault."

"Don't you dare to say that to me again, sir!" roared Uncle Paul. "It is insolent and disrespectful. Oh, hang the woman's door! Why didn't she bolt it herself? Why, I'd got twenty guineas in that purse, besides a lot of silver. There, there's somebody knocking at the door! Who's there?"

"Please, sir, it's me. They've taken the bread and the b.u.t.ter, and a piece of freshly-boiled ham that I meant for you to have cold."

"And pray who's _they_, madam?" shouted Uncle Paul, who was in difficulties with b.u.t.tons.

"Well, sir, I was thinking it must be the smugglers. They've been here several times before, when they have been crossing the moor with cargo; but it couldn't be them, for they always leave a little box of tea or a bit of silk, to pay for what they take. It must have been thieves, sir--thieves."

"Yes, madam; and they have taken my purse and gold watch too, besides two suits of clothes. There, go on down. We'll join you soon. I want to think what's to be done."

The stairs creaked as Mrs Champernowne descended, and just then something caught Rodd's eye--something bright and shiny, against the leaves of a big old gazetteer lying upon the side-table.

Rodd uttered an e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n.

"Oh!" he exclaimed.

"Something more gone?" cried the Doctor.

"No, uncle; there's your watch. And here's your gold pencil-case too,"

continued the boy, as he raised the corner of the book. "Why, they have been turning the watch-ribbon into a marker, and somebody has been writing here on the fly-leaf."

"Thank goodness!" grunted Uncle Paul. "That's something saved out of the fire. Never mind the writing. But they have taken our clothes."

"It's in French, I think, uncle, but I can't quite make it out."

"French!" cried Uncle Paul fiercely. "Why, of course! How stupid! I might have known. We have been attacked in the night by a gang of old Napoleon's sc.u.m. That man's bound to be the curse of my life. Don't stand staring there, boy. Can't you see?"

"No, uncle," said the boy st.u.r.dily. "What nonsense! Napoleon couldn't have invaded England in the night to come and steal our clothes."

"Bah! Idiot! Can't you see it's some of those scoundrelly French prisoners who escaped yesterday? That vagabond of a boy perhaps that you pampered off and were feeding with our good English provisions. Now you see the consequences. The ungrateful rapparee--Oh no, but that's Irish, and he'd be French."

"Yes, uncle," said the boy thoughtfully, for his uncle's fulminations fell blankly upon his ears as he stood trying to puzzle out some of the pencilled words upon the fly-leaf of the book.

"Here's _pardon_, uncle, and something else I can't make out, and _changer_. Why, that means exchange! Yes, and lower down here's _sous_ something, only it's written over 'John Champernowne' and 'his book'; but that's in ink. What does _oreiller_ mean, uncle?"

"Bolster," said Uncle Paul. "No: pillow," and he turned involuntarily towards the bed, where, unperceived before, a sc.r.a.p of something red peered from beneath the clean white pillow-case. "Under the pillow,"

said Uncle Paul, and stepping to the side of the bed he s.n.a.t.c.hed up the soft down cushion deeply marked by the pressure of his head.

Catching up what lay beneath, he uttered a loud e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n and tapped it sharply against the bed-post.