Chapter Five.The Milk in the Cocoa-Nut.“Yes, all right, Mrs Champernowne; get up directly. I say, what’s o’clock?”“Oh, I don’t know, my dear,” came in agitated tones, “but would you come to the door and speak to me a minute?”There was a bump on the floor as Rodd sprang out of bed, and then—“What is it?” whispered the boy, who was moved by his caller’s evident distress. “Don’t say uncle’s ill!”“No, no, my dear, but I am in great trouble. You—you didn’t shut the front door.”“Oh!” ejaculated Rodd.“And—and, my dear, there have been thieves and robbers in the night. They have stripped my little larder, and I don’t know what they haven’t taken besides. Do, pray, make haste and dress, and come down and help me! I am in such trouble, I don’t know what I shall do.”“All right; I’ll make haste and come down,” cried Rodd, feeling guilty all over, and then trying to excuse himself by shuffling the blame on to the right shoulders. “It was uncle she asked,” he muttered, as he ran round to the other side of the bed for the chair upon which he had hang his clothes when he undressed. “Why, hallo!”He stood staring at the chair for a moment or two, and then ran round the foot of the bed, opened the door two or three inches, and called in a subdued tone so as not to awaken his uncle, though if he had been asked why, he could not have told, beyond saying that he felt then that it was the right thing to do—“Mrs Champernowne! Mrs Champernowne!”“Yes, my dear,” came from the foot of the stairs. “Oh, you have been quick!”“No, no, I haven’t,” cried Rodd pettishly. “Here, I say, have you taken away my trousers?”“Gracious me, no, my dear! What should I want with your trousers?”“Take them down to brush perhaps,” muttered the boy to himself, as he ran back to the other side of the bed and raised the counterpane. “Haven’t slipped off and gone under,” he muttered, and then as a fresh thought struck him he clapped his hands to his forehead and stood staring before him. “The thieves!” he exclaimed. “They haven’t been in here and taken all my clothes?”He was silent for a few minutes, as he stared vacantly about the room.“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 butter, and a piece of freshly-boiled ham that I meant for you to have cold.”“And pray who’sthey, madam?” shouted Uncle Paul, who was in difficulties with buttons.“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 ejaculation.“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 scum. 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 sturdily. “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’spardon, uncle, and something else I can’t make out, andchanger. Why, that means exchange! Yes, and lower down here’ssoussomething, only it’s written over ‘John Champernowne’ and ‘his book’; but that’s in ink. What doesoreillermean, uncle?”“Bolster,” said Uncle Paul. “No: pillow,” and he turned involuntarily towards the bed, where, unperceived before, a scrap 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 snatched up the soft down cushion deeply marked by the pressure of his head.Catching up what lay beneath, he uttered a loud ejaculation and tapped it sharply against the bed-post.“What have you got there, uncle?”“Pickle, my boy, it’s my twenty guineas that we thought they’d stolen. What in the name of forceps and lancets did they tie them up in this old silk rag for? It’s a bit of a pocket-handkerchief.”“Why, uncle,” cried Rodd, laughing, “it isn’t going to be so bad, after all. Somebody’s been having a game with us.”“Game, eh? Queer sort of a game, Pickle,” cried Uncle Paul; and with very little effort he tore open the silk envelope and poured out a little heap of bright gold coins upon the bed. “Napoleons, by all that’s wonderful!” he cried. “Exchange! I begin to see now, boy. He’s taken my good gold money, whoever he is, and left this French trash. Here, give me that book. Mind—don’t drop my watch.”“I have got it safe, uncle,” replied the boy, handing the big book to his uncle.“Humph!” grunted Uncle Paul. “Not quite such a scoundrel as he might have been, whoever it is that wrote it. Exchange, eh? But there’s been no exchange about our clothes. Humph! All in French, of course. If he had been a gentleman, and he couldn’t understand plain English, he would have written it in Latin. Bah! How I do hate that pernicketty French! Let’s see—let’s see. Oh yes, here it all is. Ask pardon for two poor prisoners trying to escape—um, um, um—years of misery. Generous Englishman—some day—remerciments. Ah, it’s all scribbled horribly—in the dark, I suppose. Oh, he’s signed it, though, Pickle. ‘Des Saix, Comte.’ Oh, there are two of them, then. The other’s signed his name too—quite a different hand. ‘Morny des Saix, Vicomte.’ H’m! Well, I suppose they are gentlemen.”“Noblemen, uncle.”“Bah! Noblemen wouldn’t do a thing like that!”“What are those other words, uncle, under the last name?”“Um—um—um! ‘May God bless you for what you did to-day. Your friend till death.’ Why, Pickle, you ought to have been able to read that yourself.”“I did, uncle, but I wanted to be sure that I was right. Why, that must have been the boy I helped to escape.”“Yes, and he dodged us home, and as good as robbed us.”“Oh, uncle! Shame!”“How dare you, sir! What do you mean by it, Rodney? Do you forget who I am, sir?”“No.”“And pray who am I then, sir?”“Dear old Uncle Paul, who has got out of bed the wrong way this morning!”“H’m—ha! Well, I suppose you are right, Pickle. I did feel in an awful temper; but I don’t feel quite so bad now that I have found my watch.”“And pencil-case, uncle.”“Ah, yes, my boy. That was the gift of a very grateful old patient.”“And then there are all those gold napoleons, uncle.”“Bah! Trash! Base counters, good for nothing, like the ugly head that’s upon them,” cried Uncle Paul irascibly.“But I say, uncle; it might have been worse.”“But the clothes, my boy! The scoundrels! They’ll go masquerading about in our things, and escaping, I’ll be bound. But stop a minute. What did he say about exchange?”“Oh, that meant about the money.”“Hullo! There’s that wicked old woman again!—Well, Mrs Champernowne, what is it now?”“The wood-shed, sir.”“Well, I don’t want the wood-shed. Light the fire yourself.”“You don’t understand me, sir. I went round there to get some kindling, and there’s quite a heap of old clothes there that these wicked people have left behind.”Uncle Paul chuckled, for he was beginning to beam again.“I say, Pickle, that accounts for the milk in the cocoa-nut. They must have taken our things down into the old lady’s wood-shed, and turned it into a dressing-room.”“Yes,” cried Rodd; “and that young Viscount is quite welcome to mine.”“Most generous, I am sure, sir,” cried Uncle Paul sarcastically, “but would you be kind enough to tell me who pays the bills for your clothes?”“Why, you do, uncle, of course. But I say, uncle, I do hope they’ll escape; don’t you?”“Wha–a–at!”“You do, uncle, only you pretend that you don’t.”“Pretend!”“Yes. Poor fellows! How horrible! To have to stoop to such a scheme as that to get away! But after all, uncle, it’s glorious and brave. What an escape! Oh, how I should like to meet that poor fellow again!”“What, to give him up to the soldiers?” said Uncle Paul sarcastically.“Give him up to the soldiers!” cried the boy indignantly. “Why, I’d sooner put on his old clothes, and tell them a lie!”“What!” cried Uncle Paul.“Well, I’d pretend to be him so as to cheat them, and make them take me instead.”
“Yes, all right, Mrs Champernowne; get up directly. I say, what’s o’clock?”
“Oh, I don’t know, my dear,” came in agitated tones, “but would you come to the door and speak to me a minute?”
There was a bump on the floor as Rodd sprang out of bed, and then—
“What is it?” whispered the boy, who was moved by his caller’s evident distress. “Don’t say uncle’s ill!”
“No, no, my dear, but I am in great trouble. You—you didn’t shut the front door.”
“Oh!” ejaculated Rodd.
“And—and, my dear, there have been thieves and robbers in the night. They have stripped my little larder, and I don’t know what they haven’t taken besides. Do, pray, make haste and dress, and come down and help me! I am in such trouble, I don’t know what I shall do.”
“All right; I’ll make haste and come down,” cried Rodd, feeling guilty all over, and then trying to excuse himself by shuffling the blame on to the right shoulders. “It was uncle she asked,” he muttered, as he ran round to the other side of the bed for the chair upon which he had hang his clothes when he undressed. “Why, hallo!”
He stood staring at the chair for a moment or two, and then ran round the foot of the bed, opened the door two or three inches, and called in a subdued tone so as not to awaken his uncle, though if he had been asked why, he could not have told, beyond saying that he felt then that it was the right thing to do—
“Mrs Champernowne! Mrs Champernowne!”
“Yes, my dear,” came from the foot of the stairs. “Oh, you have been quick!”
“No, no, I haven’t,” cried Rodd pettishly. “Here, I say, have you taken away my trousers?”
“Gracious me, no, my dear! What should I want with your trousers?”
“Take them down to brush perhaps,” muttered the boy to himself, as he ran back to the other side of the bed and raised the counterpane. “Haven’t slipped off and gone under,” he muttered, and then as a fresh thought struck him he clapped his hands to his forehead and stood staring before him. “The thieves!” he exclaimed. “They haven’t been in here and taken all my clothes?”
He was silent for a few minutes, as he stared vacantly about the room.
“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 butter, and a piece of freshly-boiled ham that I meant for you to have cold.”
“And pray who’sthey, madam?” shouted Uncle Paul, who was in difficulties with buttons.
“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 ejaculation.
“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 scum. 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 sturdily. “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’spardon, uncle, and something else I can’t make out, andchanger. Why, that means exchange! Yes, and lower down here’ssoussomething, only it’s written over ‘John Champernowne’ and ‘his book’; but that’s in ink. What doesoreillermean, uncle?”
“Bolster,” said Uncle Paul. “No: pillow,” and he turned involuntarily towards the bed, where, unperceived before, a scrap 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 snatched up the soft down cushion deeply marked by the pressure of his head.
Catching up what lay beneath, he uttered a loud ejaculation and tapped it sharply against the bed-post.
“What have you got there, uncle?”
“Pickle, my boy, it’s my twenty guineas that we thought they’d stolen. What in the name of forceps and lancets did they tie them up in this old silk rag for? It’s a bit of a pocket-handkerchief.”
“Why, uncle,” cried Rodd, laughing, “it isn’t going to be so bad, after all. Somebody’s been having a game with us.”
“Game, eh? Queer sort of a game, Pickle,” cried Uncle Paul; and with very little effort he tore open the silk envelope and poured out a little heap of bright gold coins upon the bed. “Napoleons, by all that’s wonderful!” he cried. “Exchange! I begin to see now, boy. He’s taken my good gold money, whoever he is, and left this French trash. Here, give me that book. Mind—don’t drop my watch.”
“I have got it safe, uncle,” replied the boy, handing the big book to his uncle.
“Humph!” grunted Uncle Paul. “Not quite such a scoundrel as he might have been, whoever it is that wrote it. Exchange, eh? But there’s been no exchange about our clothes. Humph! All in French, of course. If he had been a gentleman, and he couldn’t understand plain English, he would have written it in Latin. Bah! How I do hate that pernicketty French! Let’s see—let’s see. Oh yes, here it all is. Ask pardon for two poor prisoners trying to escape—um, um, um—years of misery. Generous Englishman—some day—remerciments. Ah, it’s all scribbled horribly—in the dark, I suppose. Oh, he’s signed it, though, Pickle. ‘Des Saix, Comte.’ Oh, there are two of them, then. The other’s signed his name too—quite a different hand. ‘Morny des Saix, Vicomte.’ H’m! Well, I suppose they are gentlemen.”
“Noblemen, uncle.”
“Bah! Noblemen wouldn’t do a thing like that!”
“What are those other words, uncle, under the last name?”
“Um—um—um! ‘May God bless you for what you did to-day. Your friend till death.’ Why, Pickle, you ought to have been able to read that yourself.”
“I did, uncle, but I wanted to be sure that I was right. Why, that must have been the boy I helped to escape.”
“Yes, and he dodged us home, and as good as robbed us.”
“Oh, uncle! Shame!”
“How dare you, sir! What do you mean by it, Rodney? Do you forget who I am, sir?”
“No.”
“And pray who am I then, sir?”
“Dear old Uncle Paul, who has got out of bed the wrong way this morning!”
“H’m—ha! Well, I suppose you are right, Pickle. I did feel in an awful temper; but I don’t feel quite so bad now that I have found my watch.”
“And pencil-case, uncle.”
“Ah, yes, my boy. That was the gift of a very grateful old patient.”
“And then there are all those gold napoleons, uncle.”
“Bah! Trash! Base counters, good for nothing, like the ugly head that’s upon them,” cried Uncle Paul irascibly.
“But I say, uncle; it might have been worse.”
“But the clothes, my boy! The scoundrels! They’ll go masquerading about in our things, and escaping, I’ll be bound. But stop a minute. What did he say about exchange?”
“Oh, that meant about the money.”
“Hullo! There’s that wicked old woman again!—Well, Mrs Champernowne, what is it now?”
“The wood-shed, sir.”
“Well, I don’t want the wood-shed. Light the fire yourself.”
“You don’t understand me, sir. I went round there to get some kindling, and there’s quite a heap of old clothes there that these wicked people have left behind.”
Uncle Paul chuckled, for he was beginning to beam again.
“I say, Pickle, that accounts for the milk in the cocoa-nut. They must have taken our things down into the old lady’s wood-shed, and turned it into a dressing-room.”
“Yes,” cried Rodd; “and that young Viscount is quite welcome to mine.”
“Most generous, I am sure, sir,” cried Uncle Paul sarcastically, “but would you be kind enough to tell me who pays the bills for your clothes?”
“Why, you do, uncle, of course. But I say, uncle, I do hope they’ll escape; don’t you?”
“Wha–a–at!”
“You do, uncle, only you pretend that you don’t.”
“Pretend!”
“Yes. Poor fellows! How horrible! To have to stoop to such a scheme as that to get away! But after all, uncle, it’s glorious and brave. What an escape! Oh, how I should like to meet that poor fellow again!”
“What, to give him up to the soldiers?” said Uncle Paul sarcastically.
“Give him up to the soldiers!” cried the boy indignantly. “Why, I’d sooner put on his old clothes, and tell them a lie!”
“What!” cried Uncle Paul.
“Well, I’d pretend to be him so as to cheat them, and make them take me instead.”
Chapter Six.What does that Sergeant want?“Humph!” grunted Uncle Paul, as they descended at last, to hear the fire crackling in the kitchen, and the bright old copper kettle singing its morning song.It was a lovely morning, with the sweet scents of the garden and moor floating in at the little parlour window, and as Uncle Paul took what his irreverent nephew called a good long sniff, he slowly and ostentatiously, moved thereto by the sight of the clean white cloth and the breakfast things, hauled up his great gold watch and examined its face.“Twenty-five minutes, thirty-seven seconds, past six, Pickle. Rather early for breakfast. Well, I suppose we must take things as they are; but I am very, very sorry that they took away my old coat; it was a great favourite. And those things of yours, sir, are much too good to go climbing about tors and wading in streams. I wish that Count had knocked at my door like a gentleman and asked me, as he should. He should have had this suit instead. I’d a deal rather he had it than my old shooting jacket.”“Ha, ha!”“What are you laughing at, sir?”“Uncle Paul eating his words.”“What, sir?”“You mean, uncle, that if Count de Saix had come and knocked at the door and asked you to help him, you’d have called me up and sent me to the prison for the soldiers.”“Now look here, Rodney, that’s impudence, sir, and— Ah! There’s the microscope, and the slides and the glasses. Have they been disturbed?”“No, uncle. Just as we left them. I almost wonder they didn’t carry off all those hydras.”“Hydrae. Be careful about your Latin plurals. But look here, do you want me to box your ears?”“No, uncle.”“Then don’t give me any more of your impertinent allusions. Hum—hum—hum! Half-past six. Very early for breakfast. But I begin to feel a littleappetitlich, as the Germans call it; don’t you?”“Oh no, uncle,” said Rodd, very mildly. “You said last night that we had eaten enough to last twenty-four hours.”“Now, look here, Rodney, you had the impudence to tell me a short time ago that I’d got out of bed the wrong way. I am afraid it’s you, sir, that have done that, and if you don’t take care we shall be having a very serious quarrel.—There! Run, quick! That kettle’s boiling over.”But Rodd was half-way to the kitchen, and had snatched the kettle off before his uncle had finished speaking, warned of what was happening as he had been by the first angry hiss.“It’s all right, uncle,” he cried. “No harm done!”“But what’s become of that old woman? She ought to be here now, seeing about our breakfast.”“Here she comes, uncle,” and through the window they could see their hostess hurrying back with a big basket from the direction of the neighbour’s cottage, and the next minute they heard her setting her load upon her white kitchen-table.“Oh, I didn’t know you were down, gentlemen,” she cried, as she hurried into the parlour. “I have been over to my neighbour’s to see if she could help me now that I am in such a fix.”“Well, could she?” said Uncle Paul.“Oh yes, sir. As luck had it, she was baking yesterday, and she had plenty of butter and eggs, besides a small ham which had just been smoked.”“Oh, come,” said Uncle Paul, “we shall be able to keep you alive for a few days longer, Pickle; and I suppose you will soon be able to let us have breakfast, Mrs Champernowne?”“Oh yes, sir, very quickly. I shall only want time to fry the ham.”Uncle Paul gave an involuntary sniff, as if the aroma of the fragrant brown had floated to his nostrils.“But you can’t tell, sir, how sorry I am that such a thing should have happened to gentlemen staying in my house;” and the poor woman looked appealingly to uncle and nephew, and back.“Don’t you say another word about it, madam,” replied Uncle Paul. “You make us a nice clear cup of coffee to take away the taste of the night’s adventures.”“I will indeed, sir, and I won’t say another word, only thank you for taking it so patiently and, if I might make the observation, in such a lamb-like way.”Rodd turned round very quickly, walked to the window, and began to whistle softly.“I went over this morning to my neighbour’s, sir, as you may see by the basket.”“Yes, madam,” said Uncle Paul, who was staring hard at his nephew’s back and scratching one ear vigorously.“I told her all about it, of course, sir, and her master was there having his breakfast before he went out peat-cutting, and if you’ll believe me, sir, he did nothing but laugh, and said he knew it was the prisoners, sure enough, and he had the impudence to say that it was a great blessing that they came to my cottage instead of to his, and lucky for the prisoners too, for they’d got a better fit.”“Ah, yes, Mrs Champernowne,” said Uncle Paul, pulling out his watch and frowning very hard in its face; “but do you think your neighbour’s ham will be as good as yours?”“Oh yes, sir—better, I expect, for it was a lovely little pig when it was fatted up and killed last Christmas; one of those little fat, short-legged, dunkey ones with turn-up snouts. My husband used to say they were the Chinese breed, and that was why the ham and bacon always went so well with China tea. You may depend upon that ham, sir, being beautiful.”“Very singular fact, Mrs Champernowne,” said Uncle Paul blandly. “Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind cutting the rashers a little thicker. I am rather ashamed of my nephew’s appetite; but then you see he’s only a hungry, growing boy.”Uncle Paul took out his watch again, and this time their landlady took the hint, and hurried into the kitchen, from which delicious odours soon began to escape, and in the midst of the examination upon the window-sill, where the bright sun lit up the lenses of the microscope, the magnified hydrae, with their buds and wondrous developments, were set aside, to be superseded by the morning meal.“Ah, yes,” said Uncle Paul, thoroughly mollified now by Mrs Champernowne’s preparations, “there are worse disasters at sea, Pickle, and I’d worn that old coat off and on for a good many years.”“You couldn’t have worn it off and on, uncle,” said Rodd dryly.“Look here, sir; if your mother, my dear sister, had had the slightest idea that you would have grown up into such an impertinent, two-edged-tongued young scrub, I don’t believe she’d have died and left you in my charge. I suppose you meant that to be very witty, sir. Please understand that I was only speaking figuratively. Now we will just spend about an hour over those specimens, and then, as it is so beautiful and fine, we will be off on to the moor again. You will take your fishing-rod, of course?”“Oh yes, uncle.”“Then turn up the bottoms of those trousers before we start.”“No, uncle; I shall put my leggings on over these,” said Rodd coolly, “and I should advise you to do the same.” Both Uncle Paul’s ears seemed to twitch, and he scratched one as if it itched; but he said nothing, for just then Mrs Champernowne tapped at the door, to enter smiling, with a packet of letters.“Postman, sir,” she said, placing the letters upon the table. “You won’t mind me speaking another word, sir?” she said.“Oh no, Mrs Champernowne,” said her visitor, rather gruffly. “What is it?”“I think you told me, sir, that the prisoners did not take any of your valuables, your money, or anything of that sort?”“No, Mrs Champernowne,” cried Rodd eagerly. “They took uncle’s money, but they left a lot of French napoleons instead.”Uncle Paul made a snatch at a very big blue letter, and darted a furious look at his nephew.“I am very,very, veryglad, sir,” cried Mrs Champernowne, “and, poor things, they are to be pitied, after all.”She backed smilingly out of the room, and Uncle Paul held the big blue letter, which was doubly sealed with red wax, edgewise at his nephew, as if he were going to make a sword-cut at him.“Now, look here, Rodney,” he said; “it has been dawning upon me for a long time past that I have indulged and spoiled you, with the result that you are growing into a most impertinent young rascal. Have the goodness for the future, sir, to allow me to speak for myself. When I require your conversational assistance, I will ask you for it.”“Yes, uncle, and—”“Well, sir, what?”“Aren’t you going to open that big letter, uncle? I want to know what’s the news.”“What is it to you, sir?” cried Uncle Paul, who had been opening a very keen-looking, peculiarly-shaped, ivory-handled knife. “Have the goodness to let my business be my business. I have a very great mind to put this letter,”—and as he spoke he carefully cut round the seals—“and the other missives away in my writing-case until I am alone—” Here Uncle Paul unfolded a letter upon the top of which was stamped the Royal Arms, and smoothed it out upon the tablecloth—“and read it in peace, without being pestered by an impertinent boy. Bless my heart! Why, Pickle, my boy! Hark here! It’s a letter from the Government. Jump up and shout, you young dog! Hang Bony and all his works! It’s all right at last.”“Why, what is it?” cried the boy excitedly, as his uncle went on eagerly reading the bold round hand that formed the formal contents.“Hark here! ‘His Majesty’s advisers see their way to recommend that the long-deferred grant for the sea-going natural history expedition to the West Coast of Africa to be carried out by Dr Robson at his earliest convenience be made, and that the grant to the full amount will be paid in to Dr Robson’s bank as soon as formal application has been received.’ There, sir, what do you think of that? At last! At last! Pickle, my boy, they say that everything comes at last to the man who waits, and here it is.”“Oh, Uncle Paul!” cried the boy, with sparkling eyes. “I am so glad—so glad!” And as he spoke he dashed at the reader, to catch him tightly by the two sides of the collar of his coat.“Mind my clean cravat, Pickle.”“Bother your clean cravat, uncle!” shouted the boy. “Look here, sir; you always promised me that if ever that money came and you went on that expedition, you’d play fair.”“What do you mean, sir, by your playing fair?”“You said, uncle,” cried the boy, sawing the collar he held to and fro, “that I should be very useful to you, and could help you no end over the netting and dredging and bottling specimens, and that you’d take me with you.”“Ah,” cried Uncle Paul, “that was when you were a nice, good, obedient boy, and hadn’t learnt to say sharp impertinent things, and didn’t go about setting free escaped prisoners and getting your uncle robbed.”“Gammon, uncle! I see through you, and—I say, what does that sergeant want?” For there was the tramp of heavy feet, and the non-commissioned officer who had been at the head of the squad of men they had met, marched past the cottage window.
“Humph!” grunted Uncle Paul, as they descended at last, to hear the fire crackling in the kitchen, and the bright old copper kettle singing its morning song.
It was a lovely morning, with the sweet scents of the garden and moor floating in at the little parlour window, and as Uncle Paul took what his irreverent nephew called a good long sniff, he slowly and ostentatiously, moved thereto by the sight of the clean white cloth and the breakfast things, hauled up his great gold watch and examined its face.
“Twenty-five minutes, thirty-seven seconds, past six, Pickle. Rather early for breakfast. Well, I suppose we must take things as they are; but I am very, very sorry that they took away my old coat; it was a great favourite. And those things of yours, sir, are much too good to go climbing about tors and wading in streams. I wish that Count had knocked at my door like a gentleman and asked me, as he should. He should have had this suit instead. I’d a deal rather he had it than my old shooting jacket.”
“Ha, ha!”
“What are you laughing at, sir?”
“Uncle Paul eating his words.”
“What, sir?”
“You mean, uncle, that if Count de Saix had come and knocked at the door and asked you to help him, you’d have called me up and sent me to the prison for the soldiers.”
“Now look here, Rodney, that’s impudence, sir, and— Ah! There’s the microscope, and the slides and the glasses. Have they been disturbed?”
“No, uncle. Just as we left them. I almost wonder they didn’t carry off all those hydras.”
“Hydrae. Be careful about your Latin plurals. But look here, do you want me to box your ears?”
“No, uncle.”
“Then don’t give me any more of your impertinent allusions. Hum—hum—hum! Half-past six. Very early for breakfast. But I begin to feel a littleappetitlich, as the Germans call it; don’t you?”
“Oh no, uncle,” said Rodd, very mildly. “You said last night that we had eaten enough to last twenty-four hours.”
“Now, look here, Rodney, you had the impudence to tell me a short time ago that I’d got out of bed the wrong way. I am afraid it’s you, sir, that have done that, and if you don’t take care we shall be having a very serious quarrel.—There! Run, quick! That kettle’s boiling over.”
But Rodd was half-way to the kitchen, and had snatched the kettle off before his uncle had finished speaking, warned of what was happening as he had been by the first angry hiss.
“It’s all right, uncle,” he cried. “No harm done!”
“But what’s become of that old woman? She ought to be here now, seeing about our breakfast.”
“Here she comes, uncle,” and through the window they could see their hostess hurrying back with a big basket from the direction of the neighbour’s cottage, and the next minute they heard her setting her load upon her white kitchen-table.
“Oh, I didn’t know you were down, gentlemen,” she cried, as she hurried into the parlour. “I have been over to my neighbour’s to see if she could help me now that I am in such a fix.”
“Well, could she?” said Uncle Paul.
“Oh yes, sir. As luck had it, she was baking yesterday, and she had plenty of butter and eggs, besides a small ham which had just been smoked.”
“Oh, come,” said Uncle Paul, “we shall be able to keep you alive for a few days longer, Pickle; and I suppose you will soon be able to let us have breakfast, Mrs Champernowne?”
“Oh yes, sir, very quickly. I shall only want time to fry the ham.”
Uncle Paul gave an involuntary sniff, as if the aroma of the fragrant brown had floated to his nostrils.
“But you can’t tell, sir, how sorry I am that such a thing should have happened to gentlemen staying in my house;” and the poor woman looked appealingly to uncle and nephew, and back.
“Don’t you say another word about it, madam,” replied Uncle Paul. “You make us a nice clear cup of coffee to take away the taste of the night’s adventures.”
“I will indeed, sir, and I won’t say another word, only thank you for taking it so patiently and, if I might make the observation, in such a lamb-like way.”
Rodd turned round very quickly, walked to the window, and began to whistle softly.
“I went over this morning to my neighbour’s, sir, as you may see by the basket.”
“Yes, madam,” said Uncle Paul, who was staring hard at his nephew’s back and scratching one ear vigorously.
“I told her all about it, of course, sir, and her master was there having his breakfast before he went out peat-cutting, and if you’ll believe me, sir, he did nothing but laugh, and said he knew it was the prisoners, sure enough, and he had the impudence to say that it was a great blessing that they came to my cottage instead of to his, and lucky for the prisoners too, for they’d got a better fit.”
“Ah, yes, Mrs Champernowne,” said Uncle Paul, pulling out his watch and frowning very hard in its face; “but do you think your neighbour’s ham will be as good as yours?”
“Oh yes, sir—better, I expect, for it was a lovely little pig when it was fatted up and killed last Christmas; one of those little fat, short-legged, dunkey ones with turn-up snouts. My husband used to say they were the Chinese breed, and that was why the ham and bacon always went so well with China tea. You may depend upon that ham, sir, being beautiful.”
“Very singular fact, Mrs Champernowne,” said Uncle Paul blandly. “Then perhaps you wouldn’t mind cutting the rashers a little thicker. I am rather ashamed of my nephew’s appetite; but then you see he’s only a hungry, growing boy.”
Uncle Paul took out his watch again, and this time their landlady took the hint, and hurried into the kitchen, from which delicious odours soon began to escape, and in the midst of the examination upon the window-sill, where the bright sun lit up the lenses of the microscope, the magnified hydrae, with their buds and wondrous developments, were set aside, to be superseded by the morning meal.
“Ah, yes,” said Uncle Paul, thoroughly mollified now by Mrs Champernowne’s preparations, “there are worse disasters at sea, Pickle, and I’d worn that old coat off and on for a good many years.”
“You couldn’t have worn it off and on, uncle,” said Rodd dryly.
“Look here, sir; if your mother, my dear sister, had had the slightest idea that you would have grown up into such an impertinent, two-edged-tongued young scrub, I don’t believe she’d have died and left you in my charge. I suppose you meant that to be very witty, sir. Please understand that I was only speaking figuratively. Now we will just spend about an hour over those specimens, and then, as it is so beautiful and fine, we will be off on to the moor again. You will take your fishing-rod, of course?”
“Oh yes, uncle.”
“Then turn up the bottoms of those trousers before we start.”
“No, uncle; I shall put my leggings on over these,” said Rodd coolly, “and I should advise you to do the same.” Both Uncle Paul’s ears seemed to twitch, and he scratched one as if it itched; but he said nothing, for just then Mrs Champernowne tapped at the door, to enter smiling, with a packet of letters.
“Postman, sir,” she said, placing the letters upon the table. “You won’t mind me speaking another word, sir?” she said.
“Oh no, Mrs Champernowne,” said her visitor, rather gruffly. “What is it?”
“I think you told me, sir, that the prisoners did not take any of your valuables, your money, or anything of that sort?”
“No, Mrs Champernowne,” cried Rodd eagerly. “They took uncle’s money, but they left a lot of French napoleons instead.”
Uncle Paul made a snatch at a very big blue letter, and darted a furious look at his nephew.
“I am very,very, veryglad, sir,” cried Mrs Champernowne, “and, poor things, they are to be pitied, after all.”
She backed smilingly out of the room, and Uncle Paul held the big blue letter, which was doubly sealed with red wax, edgewise at his nephew, as if he were going to make a sword-cut at him.
“Now, look here, Rodney,” he said; “it has been dawning upon me for a long time past that I have indulged and spoiled you, with the result that you are growing into a most impertinent young rascal. Have the goodness for the future, sir, to allow me to speak for myself. When I require your conversational assistance, I will ask you for it.”
“Yes, uncle, and—”
“Well, sir, what?”
“Aren’t you going to open that big letter, uncle? I want to know what’s the news.”
“What is it to you, sir?” cried Uncle Paul, who had been opening a very keen-looking, peculiarly-shaped, ivory-handled knife. “Have the goodness to let my business be my business. I have a very great mind to put this letter,”—and as he spoke he carefully cut round the seals—“and the other missives away in my writing-case until I am alone—” Here Uncle Paul unfolded a letter upon the top of which was stamped the Royal Arms, and smoothed it out upon the tablecloth—“and read it in peace, without being pestered by an impertinent boy. Bless my heart! Why, Pickle, my boy! Hark here! It’s a letter from the Government. Jump up and shout, you young dog! Hang Bony and all his works! It’s all right at last.”
“Why, what is it?” cried the boy excitedly, as his uncle went on eagerly reading the bold round hand that formed the formal contents.
“Hark here! ‘His Majesty’s advisers see their way to recommend that the long-deferred grant for the sea-going natural history expedition to the West Coast of Africa to be carried out by Dr Robson at his earliest convenience be made, and that the grant to the full amount will be paid in to Dr Robson’s bank as soon as formal application has been received.’ There, sir, what do you think of that? At last! At last! Pickle, my boy, they say that everything comes at last to the man who waits, and here it is.”
“Oh, Uncle Paul!” cried the boy, with sparkling eyes. “I am so glad—so glad!” And as he spoke he dashed at the reader, to catch him tightly by the two sides of the collar of his coat.
“Mind my clean cravat, Pickle.”
“Bother your clean cravat, uncle!” shouted the boy. “Look here, sir; you always promised me that if ever that money came and you went on that expedition, you’d play fair.”
“What do you mean, sir, by your playing fair?”
“You said, uncle,” cried the boy, sawing the collar he held to and fro, “that I should be very useful to you, and could help you no end over the netting and dredging and bottling specimens, and that you’d take me with you.”
“Ah,” cried Uncle Paul, “that was when you were a nice, good, obedient boy, and hadn’t learnt to say sharp impertinent things, and didn’t go about setting free escaped prisoners and getting your uncle robbed.”
“Gammon, uncle! I see through you, and—I say, what does that sergeant want?” For there was the tramp of heavy feet, and the non-commissioned officer who had been at the head of the squad of men they had met, marched past the cottage window.
Chapter Seven.He Says.“Eh? What?” exclaimed Uncle Paul excitedly.“You don’t mean that he is coming here?”“He is, uncle,” replied the boy nervously, and his colour began to go and come.“Tut, tut, tut, tut!” ejaculated Uncle Paul. “This looks serious, my boy. Well, I don’t know. Perhaps he’s only heard of the visit that has been paid here.”“I beg pardon, sir; here is Mr Windell, one of the sergeants of the prison guard. Could he see you for a few minutes?”“Well, I’m rather— Yes, yes, show him in, Mrs Champernowne. Rodney, my boy, you sit still and hold your tongue. I don’t know what this man wants; but you leave it to me.”Rodd nodded his head, and fancied that he felt relieved, but he did not, for his heart was beating faster than usual, and he was suffering from a strange kind of emotion.“Good-morning, gentlemen,” said the sergeant, saluting stiffly as he was shown in.“Good-morning,” said Uncle Paul stiffly. “Do you wish to see me?”“Yes, sir; only about a little matter upon the moor yesterday. After we left you I did not feel satisfied about those prisoners.”“Indeed?” said Uncle Paul coldly.“No, sir. The governor yonder likes to have things thoroughly done, so about three hours afterwards I went over the ground again.”“Yes,” said Uncle Paul, without taking his eyes from the sergeant’s face.“And there I found out something else.”Uncle Paul was silent, and Rodd’s heart went on now in a steadythump—thump—thump—thump.“Thought I’d come on, sir,” said the sergeant, turning back to the door, going outside, and returning with Rodd’s creel, which he slowly opened and took from within, neatly folded up, the canvas wallet. “Belong to you gentlemen, don’t they?”“Yes,” said Uncle Paul slowly; “those are ours. Well?”Rodd’s heart now seemed to stand quite still till the sergeant replied to his uncle’s query.“That’s all, sir; that’s all,” said the sergeant, and Rodd’s heart went on again. “You had left them behind, and I thought I’d bring them on.”“Thank you,” said Uncle Paul quietly. “Very good of you, and I am much obliged.”“Don’t name it, sir. Going to have another fine day, and hope the young gentleman here will have plenty more sport. There’s a lot of trout up there, only they are terrible small. Good-morning, gentlemen.”“Good-morning, sergeant,” said Uncle Paul quietly, and Rodd’s mouth opened a little and then shut, but no sound came. “Wait a moment, sergeant,” continued Uncle Paul, thrusting his hand into his pocket and feeling about amongst some five-and-twenty or thirty coins, all of which felt too small, for he wanted a larger one; but feeling that, he took hold of three together, when something made him stop short with his hand half out of his pocket, and he thrust it back again. “Dear me,” he said, quickly now, “I really have no change.”“Oh, there’s no need for that, sir,” said the sergeant.“Yes, yes,” said Uncle Paul. “Rodd, my boy, have you half-a-crown in your pocket?”“I think so, uncle,” said the boy quickly; and then his face looked blank. “No, uncle; I haven’t anything at all,” he cried in dismay.“Oh, pray don’t mind, sir,” said the sergeant, moving to the door. “Good-morning, sir; good-morning. I don’t want paying for a little thing like that.”“Stop, please,” said Uncle Paul hurriedly. “Rodd, my boy, go and ask Mrs Champernowne if she’ll be kind enough to lend me half-a-crown.”Rodd hurried out, feeling exceedingly hot, and with a peculiar moisture in the palms of his hands, returning directly afterwards with the required coin, though the unexpected demand had made their landlady open her eyes rather widely.“There, that’s right, sergeant,” said Uncle Paul, “and I am sure my nephew is much obliged. He wouldn’t have liked to lose that creel.”“Thank you, sir. Very glad I found it. Good-morning once more.”The man saluted both, giving Rodd a very peculiar look which seemed to go through him, and then turning upon his heels, he marched out of the room and shut the door, while Uncle Paul sank back in his chair, took out a clean red and yellow silk handkerchief, and wiped his forehead.“Rodney, my boy,” he said, “I felt as if we had been doing something underhanded, and nearly brought out three of those napoleons to pay that man.”“Oh, uncle,” said the boy huskily; “it would have been like telling him that the poor fellows had been here.”“Yes, my boy, and that you had been helping them to escape.”“Oh!” ejaculated Rodd, and he darted to the window. “No,” he gasped, with a sigh of relief. “He’s gone.”“Well, we knew he’d gone, boy.”“Yes, uncle, but I was afraid that he’d stop talking to Mrs Champernowne, and she would tell him about their coming here. But he didn’t stop, and he has gone right away.”“Hah!” ejaculated Uncle Paul. “Well, you see how near we have been to getting into trouble with the authorities; for of course they are very strict over such things as these. There, now I must write an important letter to send off in acknowledgment of that despatch; so you be off now for about half-an-hour, and go and play like a good boy.”“Yes, uncle,” said Rodd, rather grumpily; and he went slowly out, with the intention of getting somewhere on to the high ground where he could watch the sergeant’s red coat till he was out of sight. “I wish Uncle Paul wouldn’t talk to me like that,” he muttered, as he went out of the garden gate. “Go out and play like a good boy! It does make me feel so wild! He’ll be saying good little boy next, and I am past sixteen; and he wasn’t doing it to tease me either, for he was quite serious, what with the prisoners, and the sergeant coming like that. Bother him! He looked at me as he went away just as if he suspected that I’d left the sandwiches and the fish where that poor fellow could get them. Here, I mustn’t let him see that I am following him. I’ll go round by that other track and get up behind those stones. Then I can see the whole way to the prison. Oh, he didn’t know anything, or else he’d have spoken out. But that’s the worst of doing what you oughtn’t to. You always feel as if everybody suspects you. Well, I didn’t want to do any harm, and Uncle Paul didn’t think it was very wrong, in spite of his grumbling about the French. If he had he wouldn’t have called me Pickle. It would have been Rodney, and his voice would have sounded very severe, for he can be when he likes. Spoiled and indulged me! That he hasn’t!”The ascent was so steep by the track he had chosen that the boy was soon high above the cottages, hurrying along by a ridge of stones which led up to what looked like a young tor, so situated that it sheltered the two cottage gardens, and the enclosed field or two where the neighbour’s cow was pastured, from the north and east wind, and also acted as a lew for Mrs Champernowne’s bees, which could reach their straw hive homes comfortably without being blown out by the wanton breezes which travelled across the moors.Rodd was pretty well out of breath when he reached the little tor, and so he drew in a fresh supply as he dropped upon his knees and crawled round the last stone to his proposed look-out, feeling certain he would be able to see the sergeant’s bright scarlet coat with its white belts, as he marched straight away for the prison.He did see him, but not so far off as he had anticipated, and the sight took his breath completely away again, for as he crept round he became conscious of a peculiar scent that was not wild thyme but tobacco, and before he realised what it was, he came plump face to face with their late visitor, who was seated upon the soft close turf with his back against a stone, basking in the sunshine, and evidently enjoying a rest.“Here we are again, then, sir!” he cried, in his sharp military way. “I thought I’d just sit down here for a bit on the chance that you might come up and like to have a word or two to say to me.”He looked very hard at Rodd as he spoke, and the boy felt his face burn, while the next moment there was a sensation as if the cool wind were fanning his hot cheeks.“Come out to speak to me, didn’t you, sir?” said the sergeant.Rodd was silent for a few moments, for his throat felt dry, while he passed his tongue over his lips to moisten them.“No,” he said, at last, with an effort. “I came up here to see if you had gone, and watch you back to the prison.”The sergeant laughed softly, and thrust one finger into the bowl of his pipe, before sending out a fresh cloud of smoke.“Ah,” he said, “I am not surprised. Well, here we are. Do you want to say anything to me?”Rodd opened and shut his lips again, but no words came till he made an effort, and then said, with his utterance sounding very dry—“You want to speak to me?”“Right, sir. Yes, I do. You remember when I came upon you up yonder by that pool?”Rodd nodded and frowned.“Well, I suppose you noticed that there was a hole at the bottom of those rocks across there, where the little stream came out?”“Yes,” said Rodd, with his brow puckering up.“Well, yesterday evening, as I said to your uncle, I went over the ground again to see if I could find any track of those escaped prisoners.”Rodd nodded shortly.“Well, I took off my gaiters and shoes and stockings and waded across the pool, and nearly doubled myself up to get into that hole; and after I had gone a little way I found that there was quite a dry cave there with streaks of light coming down from above between the piled-up stones.”Rodd nodded again.“Just in the highest part where the water did not reach, some one had lit a fire with bits of ling and dry peat. It was still warm—at least, the ashes were, and somebody had been busy cooking trout there, grilling them, thriddled on a stick of hazel; and very curious it was too, for somehow or other, the water, instead of running down, had been running up backwards like, and carried with it that there fishing-basket of yours, and the wallet, and laid them upon that nice dry sandy place close up to the fire along by which there were ever so many heads of those little fish, and their backbones. Rum, wasn’t it? Do you think an otter could have done that?”“No,” said Rodd, after a few moments’ pause; and he spoke sharply and angrily. “No, I don’t think that.”“More don’t I,” said the sergeant dryly, and he half closed his eyes and sent a faint little curl of smoke into the air. “Now, young gentleman, what do you think would happen if I was to go yonder to the governor at the prison, and say that I believed you had helped the King’s enemies to escape? You didn’t, of course, eh?”Rodd moistened his lips again, and his frank young face looked very much puckered and wrinkled as he pulled himself together and looked almost defiantly at his questioner, who exclaimed—“Well, you heard what I said.”The boy nodded.“Well, speak out. You didn’t, of course?”Rodd drew a deep breath, moistened his lips again, and then out the words came. “Yes,” he said, “I did!”“Hah!” said the sergeant, as he fixed the boy with his keen grey eyes and spoke to him as if he were one of his recruits. “Well, I like that. Spoken like a man. My old mother used to say, ‘Speak the truth, Tom, and then you needn’t be afraid of any man.’ Look here, youngster, I am only a soldier, and you are a young gentleman, or else you wouldn’t be visiting and making holiday here; but do you mind shaking hands?”“Yes,” said Rodd hotly, “I know: I suppose I have done wrong, and you have got your duty to do; so go and do it.”“Here,” cried the sergeant, “grip, boy, grip! I like you for all this more and more. I had my duty to do, and I did it as far as I could; but I was too late. The prisoners had escaped, and we have heard this morning, the news being brought by a miserable-looking sneak of a fellow who had come to the governor to ask for the reward for not taking them, that they got down to Salcombe very late last night and boarded one of the orange boats in the little harbour, where I expect they had friends waiting for them, for the schooner sailed at once, and I dare say they are within sight of a French port before now. Yes, I had my duty to do, me and my lads, but the prisoners escaped, same as I would if I had been in a French prison, shut up for doing nothing, and because our two countries were at war. There, I am not going to blame you now it’s all over, as you own to it like a man. They both came to you, I suppose, for a bit of help, and you gave it to them. But when I was on duty I should have nailed you if I had caught you in the act. There, that’ll do. Thought I should like to tell you about it, and hold you like at the point of the bayonet, and see what you’d say. I know it’s precious hard to tell the truth sometimes, and it must have been very hard here. But you did it like a man. But I say: you never thought that basket and wallet would tell tales when you left those poor beggars a mouthful to eat; and I hope if there’s any more war to come and I’m took, and make a good try to slip away—I hope, I say, that I shall come upon some brave young French lad who will do as good a turn to me as you did to those poor fellows, who were making a run for freedom, and to get out of the reach of our bayonets and guns.”Rodd thrust his hand into his pocket, and flushed up now more than ever, for the sergeant caught him by the wrist.“No, no, my lad,” he cried; “none of that! I didn’t come here to get money out of you. I was a boy once myself. Only a common one, but pretty straightforward and honest, or else I don’t suppose I should have won these three gold chevrons which I have got here upon my arm. Well, I wouldn’t have taken pay then for doing a dirty action, fond as I was of coppers with the King’s head on; and I wouldn’t do it now. So don’t you make me set up my hackles by trying to offer me anything for this. Besides, I’ve got a whole half-crown your uncle gave me, and I am not even going to ask you whether he had a finger in this pie.”“No, he hadn’t—he hadn’t indeed,” cried Rodd warmly. “On my honour, sergeant, I did it all.”“All right, my lad, I’ll take your word; but just you take my advice. The law’s law, and they’re pretty sharp about here, so if you hear the gun fire and the soldiers are out after any poor fellows who have escaped, don’t you get meddling with ’em again. Time I was off back.” And without another word the sergeant sprang up and strode away, leaving Rodd watching him for a time and admiring the man’s upright carriage and bold elastic step, till happening to cast his eyes in another direction, he found himself looking down upon Mrs Champernowne’s cottage, and, with letter in hand and straw hat on head, Uncle Paul, looking in all directions as if in search of his missing boy.
“Eh? What?” exclaimed Uncle Paul excitedly.
“You don’t mean that he is coming here?”
“He is, uncle,” replied the boy nervously, and his colour began to go and come.
“Tut, tut, tut, tut!” ejaculated Uncle Paul. “This looks serious, my boy. Well, I don’t know. Perhaps he’s only heard of the visit that has been paid here.”
“I beg pardon, sir; here is Mr Windell, one of the sergeants of the prison guard. Could he see you for a few minutes?”
“Well, I’m rather— Yes, yes, show him in, Mrs Champernowne. Rodney, my boy, you sit still and hold your tongue. I don’t know what this man wants; but you leave it to me.”
Rodd nodded his head, and fancied that he felt relieved, but he did not, for his heart was beating faster than usual, and he was suffering from a strange kind of emotion.
“Good-morning, gentlemen,” said the sergeant, saluting stiffly as he was shown in.
“Good-morning,” said Uncle Paul stiffly. “Do you wish to see me?”
“Yes, sir; only about a little matter upon the moor yesterday. After we left you I did not feel satisfied about those prisoners.”
“Indeed?” said Uncle Paul coldly.
“No, sir. The governor yonder likes to have things thoroughly done, so about three hours afterwards I went over the ground again.”
“Yes,” said Uncle Paul, without taking his eyes from the sergeant’s face.
“And there I found out something else.”
Uncle Paul was silent, and Rodd’s heart went on now in a steadythump—thump—thump—thump.
“Thought I’d come on, sir,” said the sergeant, turning back to the door, going outside, and returning with Rodd’s creel, which he slowly opened and took from within, neatly folded up, the canvas wallet. “Belong to you gentlemen, don’t they?”
“Yes,” said Uncle Paul slowly; “those are ours. Well?”
Rodd’s heart now seemed to stand quite still till the sergeant replied to his uncle’s query.
“That’s all, sir; that’s all,” said the sergeant, and Rodd’s heart went on again. “You had left them behind, and I thought I’d bring them on.”
“Thank you,” said Uncle Paul quietly. “Very good of you, and I am much obliged.”
“Don’t name it, sir. Going to have another fine day, and hope the young gentleman here will have plenty more sport. There’s a lot of trout up there, only they are terrible small. Good-morning, gentlemen.”
“Good-morning, sergeant,” said Uncle Paul quietly, and Rodd’s mouth opened a little and then shut, but no sound came. “Wait a moment, sergeant,” continued Uncle Paul, thrusting his hand into his pocket and feeling about amongst some five-and-twenty or thirty coins, all of which felt too small, for he wanted a larger one; but feeling that, he took hold of three together, when something made him stop short with his hand half out of his pocket, and he thrust it back again. “Dear me,” he said, quickly now, “I really have no change.”
“Oh, there’s no need for that, sir,” said the sergeant.
“Yes, yes,” said Uncle Paul. “Rodd, my boy, have you half-a-crown in your pocket?”
“I think so, uncle,” said the boy quickly; and then his face looked blank. “No, uncle; I haven’t anything at all,” he cried in dismay.
“Oh, pray don’t mind, sir,” said the sergeant, moving to the door. “Good-morning, sir; good-morning. I don’t want paying for a little thing like that.”
“Stop, please,” said Uncle Paul hurriedly. “Rodd, my boy, go and ask Mrs Champernowne if she’ll be kind enough to lend me half-a-crown.”
Rodd hurried out, feeling exceedingly hot, and with a peculiar moisture in the palms of his hands, returning directly afterwards with the required coin, though the unexpected demand had made their landlady open her eyes rather widely.
“There, that’s right, sergeant,” said Uncle Paul, “and I am sure my nephew is much obliged. He wouldn’t have liked to lose that creel.”
“Thank you, sir. Very glad I found it. Good-morning once more.”
The man saluted both, giving Rodd a very peculiar look which seemed to go through him, and then turning upon his heels, he marched out of the room and shut the door, while Uncle Paul sank back in his chair, took out a clean red and yellow silk handkerchief, and wiped his forehead.
“Rodney, my boy,” he said, “I felt as if we had been doing something underhanded, and nearly brought out three of those napoleons to pay that man.”
“Oh, uncle,” said the boy huskily; “it would have been like telling him that the poor fellows had been here.”
“Yes, my boy, and that you had been helping them to escape.”
“Oh!” ejaculated Rodd, and he darted to the window. “No,” he gasped, with a sigh of relief. “He’s gone.”
“Well, we knew he’d gone, boy.”
“Yes, uncle, but I was afraid that he’d stop talking to Mrs Champernowne, and she would tell him about their coming here. But he didn’t stop, and he has gone right away.”
“Hah!” ejaculated Uncle Paul. “Well, you see how near we have been to getting into trouble with the authorities; for of course they are very strict over such things as these. There, now I must write an important letter to send off in acknowledgment of that despatch; so you be off now for about half-an-hour, and go and play like a good boy.”
“Yes, uncle,” said Rodd, rather grumpily; and he went slowly out, with the intention of getting somewhere on to the high ground where he could watch the sergeant’s red coat till he was out of sight. “I wish Uncle Paul wouldn’t talk to me like that,” he muttered, as he went out of the garden gate. “Go out and play like a good boy! It does make me feel so wild! He’ll be saying good little boy next, and I am past sixteen; and he wasn’t doing it to tease me either, for he was quite serious, what with the prisoners, and the sergeant coming like that. Bother him! He looked at me as he went away just as if he suspected that I’d left the sandwiches and the fish where that poor fellow could get them. Here, I mustn’t let him see that I am following him. I’ll go round by that other track and get up behind those stones. Then I can see the whole way to the prison. Oh, he didn’t know anything, or else he’d have spoken out. But that’s the worst of doing what you oughtn’t to. You always feel as if everybody suspects you. Well, I didn’t want to do any harm, and Uncle Paul didn’t think it was very wrong, in spite of his grumbling about the French. If he had he wouldn’t have called me Pickle. It would have been Rodney, and his voice would have sounded very severe, for he can be when he likes. Spoiled and indulged me! That he hasn’t!”
The ascent was so steep by the track he had chosen that the boy was soon high above the cottages, hurrying along by a ridge of stones which led up to what looked like a young tor, so situated that it sheltered the two cottage gardens, and the enclosed field or two where the neighbour’s cow was pastured, from the north and east wind, and also acted as a lew for Mrs Champernowne’s bees, which could reach their straw hive homes comfortably without being blown out by the wanton breezes which travelled across the moors.
Rodd was pretty well out of breath when he reached the little tor, and so he drew in a fresh supply as he dropped upon his knees and crawled round the last stone to his proposed look-out, feeling certain he would be able to see the sergeant’s bright scarlet coat with its white belts, as he marched straight away for the prison.
He did see him, but not so far off as he had anticipated, and the sight took his breath completely away again, for as he crept round he became conscious of a peculiar scent that was not wild thyme but tobacco, and before he realised what it was, he came plump face to face with their late visitor, who was seated upon the soft close turf with his back against a stone, basking in the sunshine, and evidently enjoying a rest.
“Here we are again, then, sir!” he cried, in his sharp military way. “I thought I’d just sit down here for a bit on the chance that you might come up and like to have a word or two to say to me.”
He looked very hard at Rodd as he spoke, and the boy felt his face burn, while the next moment there was a sensation as if the cool wind were fanning his hot cheeks.
“Come out to speak to me, didn’t you, sir?” said the sergeant.
Rodd was silent for a few moments, for his throat felt dry, while he passed his tongue over his lips to moisten them.
“No,” he said, at last, with an effort. “I came up here to see if you had gone, and watch you back to the prison.”
The sergeant laughed softly, and thrust one finger into the bowl of his pipe, before sending out a fresh cloud of smoke.
“Ah,” he said, “I am not surprised. Well, here we are. Do you want to say anything to me?”
Rodd opened and shut his lips again, but no words came till he made an effort, and then said, with his utterance sounding very dry—
“You want to speak to me?”
“Right, sir. Yes, I do. You remember when I came upon you up yonder by that pool?”
Rodd nodded and frowned.
“Well, I suppose you noticed that there was a hole at the bottom of those rocks across there, where the little stream came out?”
“Yes,” said Rodd, with his brow puckering up.
“Well, yesterday evening, as I said to your uncle, I went over the ground again to see if I could find any track of those escaped prisoners.”
Rodd nodded shortly.
“Well, I took off my gaiters and shoes and stockings and waded across the pool, and nearly doubled myself up to get into that hole; and after I had gone a little way I found that there was quite a dry cave there with streaks of light coming down from above between the piled-up stones.”
Rodd nodded again.
“Just in the highest part where the water did not reach, some one had lit a fire with bits of ling and dry peat. It was still warm—at least, the ashes were, and somebody had been busy cooking trout there, grilling them, thriddled on a stick of hazel; and very curious it was too, for somehow or other, the water, instead of running down, had been running up backwards like, and carried with it that there fishing-basket of yours, and the wallet, and laid them upon that nice dry sandy place close up to the fire along by which there were ever so many heads of those little fish, and their backbones. Rum, wasn’t it? Do you think an otter could have done that?”
“No,” said Rodd, after a few moments’ pause; and he spoke sharply and angrily. “No, I don’t think that.”
“More don’t I,” said the sergeant dryly, and he half closed his eyes and sent a faint little curl of smoke into the air. “Now, young gentleman, what do you think would happen if I was to go yonder to the governor at the prison, and say that I believed you had helped the King’s enemies to escape? You didn’t, of course, eh?”
Rodd moistened his lips again, and his frank young face looked very much puckered and wrinkled as he pulled himself together and looked almost defiantly at his questioner, who exclaimed—
“Well, you heard what I said.”
The boy nodded.
“Well, speak out. You didn’t, of course?”
Rodd drew a deep breath, moistened his lips again, and then out the words came. “Yes,” he said, “I did!”
“Hah!” said the sergeant, as he fixed the boy with his keen grey eyes and spoke to him as if he were one of his recruits. “Well, I like that. Spoken like a man. My old mother used to say, ‘Speak the truth, Tom, and then you needn’t be afraid of any man.’ Look here, youngster, I am only a soldier, and you are a young gentleman, or else you wouldn’t be visiting and making holiday here; but do you mind shaking hands?”
“Yes,” said Rodd hotly, “I know: I suppose I have done wrong, and you have got your duty to do; so go and do it.”
“Here,” cried the sergeant, “grip, boy, grip! I like you for all this more and more. I had my duty to do, and I did it as far as I could; but I was too late. The prisoners had escaped, and we have heard this morning, the news being brought by a miserable-looking sneak of a fellow who had come to the governor to ask for the reward for not taking them, that they got down to Salcombe very late last night and boarded one of the orange boats in the little harbour, where I expect they had friends waiting for them, for the schooner sailed at once, and I dare say they are within sight of a French port before now. Yes, I had my duty to do, me and my lads, but the prisoners escaped, same as I would if I had been in a French prison, shut up for doing nothing, and because our two countries were at war. There, I am not going to blame you now it’s all over, as you own to it like a man. They both came to you, I suppose, for a bit of help, and you gave it to them. But when I was on duty I should have nailed you if I had caught you in the act. There, that’ll do. Thought I should like to tell you about it, and hold you like at the point of the bayonet, and see what you’d say. I know it’s precious hard to tell the truth sometimes, and it must have been very hard here. But you did it like a man. But I say: you never thought that basket and wallet would tell tales when you left those poor beggars a mouthful to eat; and I hope if there’s any more war to come and I’m took, and make a good try to slip away—I hope, I say, that I shall come upon some brave young French lad who will do as good a turn to me as you did to those poor fellows, who were making a run for freedom, and to get out of the reach of our bayonets and guns.”
Rodd thrust his hand into his pocket, and flushed up now more than ever, for the sergeant caught him by the wrist.
“No, no, my lad,” he cried; “none of that! I didn’t come here to get money out of you. I was a boy once myself. Only a common one, but pretty straightforward and honest, or else I don’t suppose I should have won these three gold chevrons which I have got here upon my arm. Well, I wouldn’t have taken pay then for doing a dirty action, fond as I was of coppers with the King’s head on; and I wouldn’t do it now. So don’t you make me set up my hackles by trying to offer me anything for this. Besides, I’ve got a whole half-crown your uncle gave me, and I am not even going to ask you whether he had a finger in this pie.”
“No, he hadn’t—he hadn’t indeed,” cried Rodd warmly. “On my honour, sergeant, I did it all.”
“All right, my lad, I’ll take your word; but just you take my advice. The law’s law, and they’re pretty sharp about here, so if you hear the gun fire and the soldiers are out after any poor fellows who have escaped, don’t you get meddling with ’em again. Time I was off back.” And without another word the sergeant sprang up and strode away, leaving Rodd watching him for a time and admiring the man’s upright carriage and bold elastic step, till happening to cast his eyes in another direction, he found himself looking down upon Mrs Champernowne’s cottage, and, with letter in hand and straw hat on head, Uncle Paul, looking in all directions as if in search of his missing boy.
Chapter Eight.The Salcombe Boats.“I am very, very sorry, sir,” said Mrs Champernowne. “Of course I am only a poor widow, and I let my apartments to gentlemen who come down fishing or to take walks for their health over the moor. But your stay down here has been something more than that. It has been a real pleasure to me ever since you and the young gentleman have been here. And not only am I very sorry that you are going away, but it has quite upset me to hear that you are going sailing away over the stormy seas, searching for all kinds of strange things in foreign abroad.”“Oh, come, come, Mrs Champernowne,” cried Uncle Paul, as he saw the poor woman lift up her apron and put one corner to her eye. “There oughtn’t to be anything in a naturalist’s expedition to upset you.”“Ah, you don’t know, sir,” said Mrs Champernowne, speaking to Uncle Paul, but shaking her head sadly at Rodd all the while. “I have had those who were near and dear to me go sailing away quite happy and joyful like, just the same as you and Mr Rodney might, and never come back again, for the sea is a very dangerous place.”“Oh, perhaps so, and of course there are exceptions,” said Uncle Paul; “but as a rule people do come back safe.”“I don’t know, sir,” said the old lady, shaking her head sadly. “The sea is very unruly sometimes. Hadn’t you better take my advice, sir, and stop here? The moor’s very big, and surely if you and the young gentleman look well you’ll be able to find plenty of things to fill your bottles, without going abroad.”“Can’t be done, Mrs Champernowne,” said Uncle Paul smiling. “Dartmoor isn’t the West Coast of Africa, nor yet the Cape of Good Hope, so, much as we have enjoyed being here, we shall have to say good-bye, and live in hopes of coming to see you again some day, for I haven’t half worked out the moor, nor yet a hundredth part.”“I am very, very, very sorry,” said the old lady again, “but no doubt, sir, you know best. When do you think of going, sir?”“To-morrow morning, Mrs Champernowne. We can’t let the grass grow under our feet, can we, Rodd?”“No, uncle,” was the reply; and the next morning the portmanteau was packed, the fishing-rod and naturalist’s nets tied up in a neat bundle, a light spring cart was drawn up at the door, and uncle and nephew were soon on their way to the cross roads to take their chance of finding room upon the Plymouth coach, which came within a few miles of the widow’s cottage.They were fortunate, as it happened, and that evening they were safely back at Uncle Paul’s home, a pleasant little country house on the high grounds overlooking the glorious harbour dotted with vessels, which included several of the King’s men-of-war, and within easy reach of the docks.“Ah,” cried Uncle Paul that evening, as he strolled out into his garden, in company with Rodd, who was carrying a telescope that looked like a small cannon; “that was a fine air up on the moor, my boy, but nothing like this. Take a good long deep breath. Can’t you smell the salt and the seaweed? Doesn’t it set you longing to be off?”“Well—yes, uncle,” replied the boy, smiling and screwing up his face till it was all wrinkled about the eyes; “but I begin to be a bit afraid.”“Afraid, sir? What of?”“That I shan’t turn out such a good sailor as I should like to be.”“Why, what do you mean? Now, look here, Rodd; don’t you tell me that you want to back out of going upon this trip.”“Oh no, uncle,” cried the boy eagerly. “I want to go, of course!”“But what are you afraid of?”“Well, you see, uncle, coasting about with you in a fisherman’s lugger for a few days, and always keeping within sight of land, is one thing; going right away across the ocean is quite another.”“Well, sir, who said it wasn’t?” cried Uncle Paul. “What then?”“Suppose I turn ill, uncle?”“Well, sir, suppose you do. Am I not doctor enough to put you right again?”“Oh, I don’t mean really ill, uncle. I mean sea-sick; and it would seem so stupid.”“Horribly; yes. You’d better be! Pooh! Rubbish! Nonsense! You talk like a great Molly. Now, no nonsense, Rodney. Speak out frankly and candidly. You mean that now it has come to the point you think it too serious, and you want to shirk?”“I don’t, uncle; I don’t, indeed, and I do wish you wouldn’t call me Rodney!” cried the boy earnestly.“I shall, sir,as long as I live, if you play me false now.”“Oh, uncle, what a shame!” cried the boy passionately. “Play you false! Who wants to play you false? I only wanted to tell you frankly that I felt a bit afraid of not being quite equal to the sea. I want to go, and I mean to go, and you oughtn’t to jump upon me like this, and call me Rodney.”The boy stood before the doctor, flushed and excited, as he continued—“You talk to me, uncle, as if you thought that I was a regular coward and afraid of the sea.”“Then you shouldn’t make me, sir. Who was it said afraid? Why, you have been out with me for days together, knocking about, in pretty good rough weather too.”“Yes, uncle, but that was all within sight of land.”“What’s that got to do with it? It’s often much rougher close in shore, especially on a rocky coast, than it is out on the main.”“I wish I hadn’t spoken,” cried Rodd passionately.“So do I, sir.”“I couldn’t help thinking I might turn very sick for days, and get laughed at by the crew and called a swab.”“Oh,” said Uncle Paul, laughing, “you talked as if you were afraid of the sea, and all the time, you conceited young puppy, you mean that you are afraid of the men.”“Well, yes, uncle, I suppose that that really is it.”“Humph! Then why didn’t you say so, and not talk as if you, the first of my crew that I reckoned upon, were going to mutiny and give it all up?”“Give it up, uncle?” cried the boy. “Why, you know that I am longing to go.”“Ah, well, that sounds more like it, Pickle,” said Uncle Paul, looking sideways at the boy through his half-closed eyes. “Then I suppose it is all a false alarm.”“Of course it is, uncle,” cried Rodd.“Well, we may as well make sure, you know, because once we are started it won’t be long before we are out of sight of land, and there’ll be no turning back.”“Well, I don’t want to turn back, uncle.”“Then you shouldn’t have talked as if you thought you might. Are you afraid now?”“Not a bit, uncle. I am ready to start to-morrow morning.”“Ah, well, you won’t, my boy, for there’s everything to do first.”“Everything to do?”“Of course. It’s not like taking a few bottles and pill-boxes and a net or two to go up on the moor. Why, there’s our ship to find first, and then to get her fitted with our nets and sounding-lines and dredges and all sorts of odds and ends, with reserves and provisions for all that we lose. Then there’s to collect a crew.”“Oh, there’ll be plenty of fellows down by the Barbican or hanging about down there who will jump at going.”“Don’t you be so precious sanguine, my fine fellow. This will be all so fresh that the men won’t be so ready as you expect. The first thing a seaman will ask will be, ‘Where are we bound? What port?’”“Well, uncle; tell them.”“Tell them what I don’t know myself unless I say Port Nowhere on the High Seas! It will be all a matter of chance, Pickle, where we go and what we do, and I may as well say it now, if any one gets asking you what we are going to do, your answer is included in just these few words—We are going to explore.”Rodd nodded in a short business-like way.“All right, uncle; I’ll remember,” he cried promptly. “Then you are going to hire a ship and engage a crew?”“Well,” said Uncle Paul thoughtfully, “we are landsmen—I mean landsman and a boy—but we may as well begin to be nautical at once and call things by the sea-going terms. No, my boy, I am not going to engage a ship—too big.”“Why, you won’t go all that way in a lugger, uncle?”“Bah! Rubbish!” cried Uncle Paul shortly. “Here, give me hold of that glass.”He took the telescope, drew out the slide to a mark upon the tube which indicated the focus which suited his eye, and then as he began slowly sweeping the portions of the harbour which were within reach he went on talking.“Isn’t there anything between a lugger and a ship, sir? You know well enough if you talk to a sailor about a ship he’d suppose you meant a full-rigged three-masted vessel.”“Yes, of course, uncle. And a barque is a three-master with a mizzen fore-and-aft rigged.”“That’s better, my lad. But what do you mean by fore-and-aft rigged?”“Well, like a schooner, uncle.”“Good boy! Go up one, as you used to say at school. Well, what do you think of a large schooner for a good handy vessel that can be well managed by a moderate crew?”“Oh, I should think it would be splendid, uncle; and she’d sail very fast.”“That depends on her build and the way she is sailed, my boy. But that’s what I am thinking of having, Pickle.”“But with a good crew, uncle.”“Yes; I want the best schooner and the best crew that are to be had, my boy.”“But it will cost a lot of money, uncle.”“Yes, Pickle; but I am proud to say that the Government has not been mean in that respect, and if what they have granted me is not enough, I shall put as many hundreds as are required out of my own pocket to make up the deficiency, so that in all probability I shan’t have a penny to leave you, Pickle, when I die.”“When you die!” cried the boy scornfully. “Who wants you to die? And who wants you to leave me any money? I say, Uncle Paul, who’s talking nonsense now?”“How dare you, sir!”“Then you shouldn’t say such things, uncle. Talking about dying! There will be plenty of time to talk about that in a hundred years.”“Well, that’s a very generous allowance, Pickle, and if we get such a schooner as I want, with a clever crew, and you work hard with me, why, we ought to make a good many discoveries by that time. A hundred years hence,” continued Uncle Paul thoughtfully, as he apparently brought his telescope to bear upon a sloop of war whose white sails began to be tinged with orange as the sun sank low; but all the time he was peering out through the corners of his eyes to note the effect of his words upon his nephew. “But let me see—a hundred years’ time. Why, how much older will you be then, Pickle?”“Why, just the same as you would, uncle; a hundred years older than I am now. Pooh! You are making fun of me. But I say, uncle, be serious. How are you going to manage to get your schooner?”“Set to work, and lose no time, my boy. But I am rather puzzled at the present moment, and I am afraid—”Uncle Paul lowered the glass as he spoke, and turned his eyes thoughtfully upon his nephew, who had uttered a low peculiar sound.“Of being sea-sick, uncle?” Uncle Paul smiled.“I suppose that’s what you call retaliation, young gentleman. Well, no, sir, I’m not afraid of that—at least, not much. I remember the first time I crossed the Channel that I was very ill, and every time I have been at sea since I have always felt that it would be unwise to boast; but I think both you and I can make our voyage without being troubled in that way. But we won’t boast, Pickle, for, as they say, we will not holloa till we are out of the wood. Let me see; isn’t there an old proverb something about a man not boasting till he taketh off his armour?”“I think so, uncle, but I cannot recollect the words.”“Well, I don’t want any armour, my boy, but I do want a well-found schooner—a new one if I can get it; if not, one that will stand a thorough examination; and I don’t know that such a boat’s to be got just now it’s wanted. There are plenty of ramshackle old things lying about here, but I want everything spick-and-span ready for the extra fitting out I shall give her. Copper-fastened, quick-sailing, roomy, and with good cabin accommodation so that we can have a big workshop for the men who help us, and a sort of study and museum for ourselves. Now, Pickle, where shall we have to go to find such a craft? Portsmouth—London? What about Southampton?”“Southampton. Yes. Some fine yacht, uncle.”“No, boy. She’d be all mast and sails. Do well for a coaster, but I want an ocean-going craft, one that will bear some knocking about. A cargo boat whose hold one could partition off for stores. Now then?”There was silence for about a minute, and then Uncle Paul spoke again.“There, out with it, boy, at once. Don’t waste time. Say you don’t know.”“But I think I do know, uncle,” cried the boy.“Eh? What? Where? Tchah! Not you!”“But what about one of those boats the French prisoners escaped in?” cried Rodd eagerly.“Eh? What? One of those trim orange boats that go on the Mediterranean Trade, that they build at Salcombe?”“Yes, uncle. Don’t you remember that one we were looking at a few months ago, that came in here after the storm, to get a new jibboom?”“Why, of course I do, Pickle!” cried Uncle Paul eagerly. “Think of that, now! Why, I might have been fumbling about with a hammer for months and not found what I wanted, and here are you, you impudent young rascal, proving that you are not quite so stupid as I thought, for you hit the right nail on the head at once.”
“I am very, very sorry, sir,” said Mrs Champernowne. “Of course I am only a poor widow, and I let my apartments to gentlemen who come down fishing or to take walks for their health over the moor. But your stay down here has been something more than that. It has been a real pleasure to me ever since you and the young gentleman have been here. And not only am I very sorry that you are going away, but it has quite upset me to hear that you are going sailing away over the stormy seas, searching for all kinds of strange things in foreign abroad.”
“Oh, come, come, Mrs Champernowne,” cried Uncle Paul, as he saw the poor woman lift up her apron and put one corner to her eye. “There oughtn’t to be anything in a naturalist’s expedition to upset you.”
“Ah, you don’t know, sir,” said Mrs Champernowne, speaking to Uncle Paul, but shaking her head sadly at Rodd all the while. “I have had those who were near and dear to me go sailing away quite happy and joyful like, just the same as you and Mr Rodney might, and never come back again, for the sea is a very dangerous place.”
“Oh, perhaps so, and of course there are exceptions,” said Uncle Paul; “but as a rule people do come back safe.”
“I don’t know, sir,” said the old lady, shaking her head sadly. “The sea is very unruly sometimes. Hadn’t you better take my advice, sir, and stop here? The moor’s very big, and surely if you and the young gentleman look well you’ll be able to find plenty of things to fill your bottles, without going abroad.”
“Can’t be done, Mrs Champernowne,” said Uncle Paul smiling. “Dartmoor isn’t the West Coast of Africa, nor yet the Cape of Good Hope, so, much as we have enjoyed being here, we shall have to say good-bye, and live in hopes of coming to see you again some day, for I haven’t half worked out the moor, nor yet a hundredth part.”
“I am very, very, very sorry,” said the old lady again, “but no doubt, sir, you know best. When do you think of going, sir?”
“To-morrow morning, Mrs Champernowne. We can’t let the grass grow under our feet, can we, Rodd?”
“No, uncle,” was the reply; and the next morning the portmanteau was packed, the fishing-rod and naturalist’s nets tied up in a neat bundle, a light spring cart was drawn up at the door, and uncle and nephew were soon on their way to the cross roads to take their chance of finding room upon the Plymouth coach, which came within a few miles of the widow’s cottage.
They were fortunate, as it happened, and that evening they were safely back at Uncle Paul’s home, a pleasant little country house on the high grounds overlooking the glorious harbour dotted with vessels, which included several of the King’s men-of-war, and within easy reach of the docks.
“Ah,” cried Uncle Paul that evening, as he strolled out into his garden, in company with Rodd, who was carrying a telescope that looked like a small cannon; “that was a fine air up on the moor, my boy, but nothing like this. Take a good long deep breath. Can’t you smell the salt and the seaweed? Doesn’t it set you longing to be off?”
“Well—yes, uncle,” replied the boy, smiling and screwing up his face till it was all wrinkled about the eyes; “but I begin to be a bit afraid.”
“Afraid, sir? What of?”
“That I shan’t turn out such a good sailor as I should like to be.”
“Why, what do you mean? Now, look here, Rodd; don’t you tell me that you want to back out of going upon this trip.”
“Oh no, uncle,” cried the boy eagerly. “I want to go, of course!”
“But what are you afraid of?”
“Well, you see, uncle, coasting about with you in a fisherman’s lugger for a few days, and always keeping within sight of land, is one thing; going right away across the ocean is quite another.”
“Well, sir, who said it wasn’t?” cried Uncle Paul. “What then?”
“Suppose I turn ill, uncle?”
“Well, sir, suppose you do. Am I not doctor enough to put you right again?”
“Oh, I don’t mean really ill, uncle. I mean sea-sick; and it would seem so stupid.”
“Horribly; yes. You’d better be! Pooh! Rubbish! Nonsense! You talk like a great Molly. Now, no nonsense, Rodney. Speak out frankly and candidly. You mean that now it has come to the point you think it too serious, and you want to shirk?”
“I don’t, uncle; I don’t, indeed, and I do wish you wouldn’t call me Rodney!” cried the boy earnestly.
“I shall, sir,as long as I live, if you play me false now.”
“Oh, uncle, what a shame!” cried the boy passionately. “Play you false! Who wants to play you false? I only wanted to tell you frankly that I felt a bit afraid of not being quite equal to the sea. I want to go, and I mean to go, and you oughtn’t to jump upon me like this, and call me Rodney.”
The boy stood before the doctor, flushed and excited, as he continued—
“You talk to me, uncle, as if you thought that I was a regular coward and afraid of the sea.”
“Then you shouldn’t make me, sir. Who was it said afraid? Why, you have been out with me for days together, knocking about, in pretty good rough weather too.”
“Yes, uncle, but that was all within sight of land.”
“What’s that got to do with it? It’s often much rougher close in shore, especially on a rocky coast, than it is out on the main.”
“I wish I hadn’t spoken,” cried Rodd passionately.
“So do I, sir.”
“I couldn’t help thinking I might turn very sick for days, and get laughed at by the crew and called a swab.”
“Oh,” said Uncle Paul, laughing, “you talked as if you were afraid of the sea, and all the time, you conceited young puppy, you mean that you are afraid of the men.”
“Well, yes, uncle, I suppose that that really is it.”
“Humph! Then why didn’t you say so, and not talk as if you, the first of my crew that I reckoned upon, were going to mutiny and give it all up?”
“Give it up, uncle?” cried the boy. “Why, you know that I am longing to go.”
“Ah, well, that sounds more like it, Pickle,” said Uncle Paul, looking sideways at the boy through his half-closed eyes. “Then I suppose it is all a false alarm.”
“Of course it is, uncle,” cried Rodd.
“Well, we may as well make sure, you know, because once we are started it won’t be long before we are out of sight of land, and there’ll be no turning back.”
“Well, I don’t want to turn back, uncle.”
“Then you shouldn’t have talked as if you thought you might. Are you afraid now?”
“Not a bit, uncle. I am ready to start to-morrow morning.”
“Ah, well, you won’t, my boy, for there’s everything to do first.”
“Everything to do?”
“Of course. It’s not like taking a few bottles and pill-boxes and a net or two to go up on the moor. Why, there’s our ship to find first, and then to get her fitted with our nets and sounding-lines and dredges and all sorts of odds and ends, with reserves and provisions for all that we lose. Then there’s to collect a crew.”
“Oh, there’ll be plenty of fellows down by the Barbican or hanging about down there who will jump at going.”
“Don’t you be so precious sanguine, my fine fellow. This will be all so fresh that the men won’t be so ready as you expect. The first thing a seaman will ask will be, ‘Where are we bound? What port?’”
“Well, uncle; tell them.”
“Tell them what I don’t know myself unless I say Port Nowhere on the High Seas! It will be all a matter of chance, Pickle, where we go and what we do, and I may as well say it now, if any one gets asking you what we are going to do, your answer is included in just these few words—We are going to explore.”
Rodd nodded in a short business-like way.
“All right, uncle; I’ll remember,” he cried promptly. “Then you are going to hire a ship and engage a crew?”
“Well,” said Uncle Paul thoughtfully, “we are landsmen—I mean landsman and a boy—but we may as well begin to be nautical at once and call things by the sea-going terms. No, my boy, I am not going to engage a ship—too big.”
“Why, you won’t go all that way in a lugger, uncle?”
“Bah! Rubbish!” cried Uncle Paul shortly. “Here, give me hold of that glass.”
He took the telescope, drew out the slide to a mark upon the tube which indicated the focus which suited his eye, and then as he began slowly sweeping the portions of the harbour which were within reach he went on talking.
“Isn’t there anything between a lugger and a ship, sir? You know well enough if you talk to a sailor about a ship he’d suppose you meant a full-rigged three-masted vessel.”
“Yes, of course, uncle. And a barque is a three-master with a mizzen fore-and-aft rigged.”
“That’s better, my lad. But what do you mean by fore-and-aft rigged?”
“Well, like a schooner, uncle.”
“Good boy! Go up one, as you used to say at school. Well, what do you think of a large schooner for a good handy vessel that can be well managed by a moderate crew?”
“Oh, I should think it would be splendid, uncle; and she’d sail very fast.”
“That depends on her build and the way she is sailed, my boy. But that’s what I am thinking of having, Pickle.”
“But with a good crew, uncle.”
“Yes; I want the best schooner and the best crew that are to be had, my boy.”
“But it will cost a lot of money, uncle.”
“Yes, Pickle; but I am proud to say that the Government has not been mean in that respect, and if what they have granted me is not enough, I shall put as many hundreds as are required out of my own pocket to make up the deficiency, so that in all probability I shan’t have a penny to leave you, Pickle, when I die.”
“When you die!” cried the boy scornfully. “Who wants you to die? And who wants you to leave me any money? I say, Uncle Paul, who’s talking nonsense now?”
“How dare you, sir!”
“Then you shouldn’t say such things, uncle. Talking about dying! There will be plenty of time to talk about that in a hundred years.”
“Well, that’s a very generous allowance, Pickle, and if we get such a schooner as I want, with a clever crew, and you work hard with me, why, we ought to make a good many discoveries by that time. A hundred years hence,” continued Uncle Paul thoughtfully, as he apparently brought his telescope to bear upon a sloop of war whose white sails began to be tinged with orange as the sun sank low; but all the time he was peering out through the corners of his eyes to note the effect of his words upon his nephew. “But let me see—a hundred years’ time. Why, how much older will you be then, Pickle?”
“Why, just the same as you would, uncle; a hundred years older than I am now. Pooh! You are making fun of me. But I say, uncle, be serious. How are you going to manage to get your schooner?”
“Set to work, and lose no time, my boy. But I am rather puzzled at the present moment, and I am afraid—”
Uncle Paul lowered the glass as he spoke, and turned his eyes thoughtfully upon his nephew, who had uttered a low peculiar sound.
“Of being sea-sick, uncle?” Uncle Paul smiled.
“I suppose that’s what you call retaliation, young gentleman. Well, no, sir, I’m not afraid of that—at least, not much. I remember the first time I crossed the Channel that I was very ill, and every time I have been at sea since I have always felt that it would be unwise to boast; but I think both you and I can make our voyage without being troubled in that way. But we won’t boast, Pickle, for, as they say, we will not holloa till we are out of the wood. Let me see; isn’t there an old proverb something about a man not boasting till he taketh off his armour?”
“I think so, uncle, but I cannot recollect the words.”
“Well, I don’t want any armour, my boy, but I do want a well-found schooner—a new one if I can get it; if not, one that will stand a thorough examination; and I don’t know that such a boat’s to be got just now it’s wanted. There are plenty of ramshackle old things lying about here, but I want everything spick-and-span ready for the extra fitting out I shall give her. Copper-fastened, quick-sailing, roomy, and with good cabin accommodation so that we can have a big workshop for the men who help us, and a sort of study and museum for ourselves. Now, Pickle, where shall we have to go to find such a craft? Portsmouth—London? What about Southampton?”
“Southampton. Yes. Some fine yacht, uncle.”
“No, boy. She’d be all mast and sails. Do well for a coaster, but I want an ocean-going craft, one that will bear some knocking about. A cargo boat whose hold one could partition off for stores. Now then?”
There was silence for about a minute, and then Uncle Paul spoke again.
“There, out with it, boy, at once. Don’t waste time. Say you don’t know.”
“But I think I do know, uncle,” cried the boy.
“Eh? What? Where? Tchah! Not you!”
“But what about one of those boats the French prisoners escaped in?” cried Rodd eagerly.
“Eh? What? One of those trim orange boats that go on the Mediterranean Trade, that they build at Salcombe?”
“Yes, uncle. Don’t you remember that one we were looking at a few months ago, that came in here after the storm, to get a new jibboom?”
“Why, of course I do, Pickle!” cried Uncle Paul eagerly. “Think of that, now! Why, I might have been fumbling about with a hammer for months and not found what I wanted, and here are you, you impudent young rascal, proving that you are not quite so stupid as I thought, for you hit the right nail on the head at once.”