The Ocean Cats Paw | Page 8

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, 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