The Ocean Cats Paw | Page 7

you had seen and heard the poor lad as I did, I am sure you wouldn't have betrayed him."
"Betray! It isn't betraying, sir, to give up a prisoner of war."
"I felt as if it would be, uncle, under such circumstances," said Rodd, who began noting that his uncle had lowered his voice, and that his angriest words had been uttered in a whisper.
"Look here, my boy," he said now quite softly, "I knew that there was something up, or you would have been wolfing more than your share of those sandwiches. I saw you keep squinting at that hole over yonder. So you have hid him away there?"
"No, uncle," said Rodd; "I did nothing, but just as the soldiers were coming up, and he'd been begging and praying me to save him, I just said that that would be a good place to hide."
"Humph!" grunted Uncle Paul. "It was very wrong, my boy--very wrong; but look here, Pickle, is the poor fellow badly wounded?"
"No, uncle; only exhausted. He looked just like that hunted deer we saw the other day."
"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,