The Ocean Cats Paw | Page 2

fronds.
"Why, there must be fifty," he cried. "There, I won't stop to count. I'll
catch a few more, and guess at fifty. That'll be enough for a nice lot for
tea and some more for to-morrow morning's breakfast. Uncle Paul does
enjoy a dish of trout. Humph! So do I. I suppose it's this beautiful fresh
air up among the tors, and the tramping. It was a good long way up
here from the cottage. I suppose it's that makes me feel so jolly hungry.
Oh, look at that now! Uncle would carry the wallet, and he's got all the
sandwiches. Never mind; I'll catch a few more of the little beauties, and
then toddle back to meet him."
But the boy did not begin to fish directly, but stood gazing round at the
glorious prospect of hill and dale and miniature mountain, here grey
and sparkling, there flushed as if with the golden sheen of blossoming
furze, while the lower slopes were of the magnificent purple of the
abundant heath.
"Beautiful!" cried the boy ecstatically. "I am glad that we came up here
to stay. So is dear old uncle. He's revelling in the specimens he gets,
and we shall have another jolly night with the microscope. He'll give
me a lecture upon all the little Latin beggars he pops into his bottle, and

another for being so stupid in not recollecting all their cranky names.
Never mind; it is jolly. Pity it isn't later, for then there'd be plenty of
blackberries and whorts. I dare say there'd be lots of the little tiny
button mushrooms, too, in the lower parts among the soft grass. But
what's the use of grumbling? Uncle says that I am never satisfied, and
that I am always restless, and I suppose it's because I am a boy. Well, I
can't help being a boy," he mused thoughtfully. "I might have been a
girl. Well, girls are restless too. I say, what's that?"
He shaded his eyes again and gazed at a speck of something that looked
bright scarlet in the distance, and then not very far away he made out
another, and again another speck or blotch of bright red. "Now, I
wonder what's growing there," muttered the boy. "I don't remember
anything scarlet growing and blowing. Poppies? No, I don't think they
are poppies. They are at the edges of the cornfields, and there are no
cornfields up here."
He fixed his eyes more intently upon the scarlet specks, and then burst
out laughing.
"Well, they are not poppies," he said aloud. "Poppies don't move, and
those are moving, sure enough. There, one of them has gone behind
that block of stone. Pooh, how stupid! Why, of course!"
He jerked himself round to look in another direction, so sharply that his
creel swung out for a moment from the strap, and came back against his
hip with a bang, as he stood with his back to the sun, gazing at a distant
grey, gloomy-looking pile of stone building, and then nodded his head
with satisfaction.
"Poppies, indeed! My grandmother! That's what they are. Soldiers from
over yonder. Part of the guard from the great prison, I suppose. Oh,
poor beggars! How miserable, when you come to think of it--shut up
yonder in that great gloomy place, for I don't suppose they let them
come out much without soldiers to watch them--and all for doing
nothing. Doing nothing! Mustn't say that, though, before Uncle Paul, or
he'll go into a rage and begin preaching about Bony and the war, and
going on about the French. Hullo!"

The boy started, for there was a dull thud, apparently from the prison,
miles away, followed by a loud echo which seemed to come from close
at hand, making him turn again as if to look for the spot from which it
came, and seeing it too, for the report of the gun had as it were struck
against the face of the tor above him, and then glanced off to strike
elsewhere.
"How queer echoes are!" he muttered. "Yes, and how queer I feel--all
hollow. That's made me think about it. I suppose that means twelve or
one o'clock dinner-time. Oh, how stupid to go right away from uncle
like this! I wish he'd come. But I won't go till I have made my fifty
trout."
Turning his attention now to the stream, he began whipping away again,
and finding that the little trout were rising as well as ever, with the
result that Rodney Harding once more forgot everything else in his
pursuit and went on up-stream nearer and nearer to the great tor, till at
last he found himself in a little hollow amongst the rocks where the
river had widened into a pool, hollowed