“Starving, uncle,” replied the lad, as he dropped the fish into the creel, hooked his fly on to one of the rings, and tightened the line. “But let’s come out here on to the heath. It will be more soft and comfortable to sit down.”
“Bah!” barked Uncle Paul. “I am not going to stir again till I have had something to eat and a rest. There, lay your rod down. Bother the soldiers! There was another party of them out yonder, shouted at me to stop, and because I didn’t, made as if they were going to fire. Yes, they had better! But I had to stop; and then they began questioning me about their escaped French prisoners, and wanted to know who I was and where I was going, and I thought that they were going to make me a prisoner and march me off yonder, only I showed them my card and asked them if I sounded like a French prisoner. They were civil then, and I gave them a shilling. That’s two shillings I have fooled away out here on this moor, where I should have said it wasn’t possible for a man to spend a farthing. Come on; help yourself,” and he held out the wallet for his companion to take one of the big sandwiches it contained.
“I think we had better go on outside, uncle,” said the boy. “There’s more breeze out there, and the rocks don’t reflect the heat.”
“Do you?” said Uncle Paul, with his mouth full. “There’s quite wind enough in here to keep me alive, and I am so hot I don’t want to go out to be blown on and catch cold.—My word, the old lady didn’t forget the mustard! Come, eat away, Pickle. Let’s start fair, or you will soon be a sandwich behind. My word, what an appetite this air does give one!”
“Yes, uncle,” said the boy, who, in spite of an effort to control himself, could not help darting an anxious glance from time to time at the opening between the rocks.
“Capital sandwiches, Pickle,” continued the uncle, eating away with the most intense enjoyment. “One doesn’t want any other pickle with these. What does the old proverb say—Hunger’s sweet sauce. Hullo! what are you getting up for?”
“Oh, I am going on eating, uncle,” replied the boy. “I was only going to walk to the end and see how far the soldiers had gone.”
“Hang the soldiers, sir!” cried the elder irascibly. “I wish they’d keep in their barracks instead of coming hunting their prisoners all over this beautiful countryside. Sit down and go on eating.”
The boy resumed his place, and began making half-moons in the edge of his sandwich and trying to munch hard; but somehow his appetite was gone, and before he was half through the second sandwich he watched his opportunity, slipped it into his pocket, and as his uncle turned round to look at him he leaned forward and helped himself to a third from the wallet.
“Ah, that’s better! Eat away, boy. We have got a long walk back, and you will have plenty of appetite for a good high tea. Hang the prisoners as well as the soldiers. If I had known that this great cage full of Bony’s French frogs was up here I don’t believe I should have come—that is, unless I thought that Nap himself was a prisoner here too, when I might have been tempted to come and have a grin at the wild beast in his cage. Eh, what? What did you do that for?”