The Ocean Cats Paw | Page 8

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 shores?"
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 sturdily. "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 casement. "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."
"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