“Bless my heart! So I did,” said Uncle Paul. “Here, Pickle, where are those trout?”
Rodd gave his uncle a comical look, and stood rubbing one ear.
“Ah, uncle,” he cried, “where are those trout?”
Uncle Paul screwed up one eye, and he too in unconscious imitation began to rub one ear.
“Ah, well; ah, well,” said the landlady, “I suppose you couldn’t help it. I have had gentlemen staying here to fish before now, and it’s been a basketful one day and a basket empty the next. Fish are what the Scotch call very kittle cattle. Never mind, my dear,” she continued to Rodd. “Better luck next time. Fortunately I have got plenty of eggs, and there’s the ham waiting for me to cut off some more rashers.”
As she spoke the woman hurried into her kitchen, from which sharp crackling sounds announced that he was thrusting pieces of wood under the kettle, and as she busied herself she went on talking aloud so that they could hear—
“Did you hear the gun fire, sir, somewhere about one o’clock?”
“Yes,” grunted Uncle Paul. “Dinner-time, and we ate your sandwiches, Mrs Champernowne. They were delicious.”
“I am very glad, sir. But, oh dear no, that wasn’t the dinner-bell. That meant that some of the prisoners had escaped. Poor fellows! I always feel sorry for them.”
“Mrs Champernowne!” cried Uncle Paul, and Rodd, who was in his room with his face under water, raised it up, grinning, for he knew his uncle’s peculiar ways by heart, and he went on listening to what was said.