“But that doesn’t often happen, sir, for between you and me and the post, seeing that the prisoners are only soldiers, after all, I don’t believe that though they have their orders, our men ever try to hit them; and very glad I am.”
“Ah, ah, ah, Mrs Champernowne, that isn’t loyal, you know, that isn’t loyal to his Majesty the King and your country.”
“I can’t help that, Dr Robson, and I am not speaking, sir, as a subject, but as a woman and a mother who has a brave stout boy in our good King’s Guards. Now suppose, sir, that you were a mother.” Uncle Paul grunted audibly.
“And had a boy the same as I have, and Bony Napolyparty had taken him prisoner. How would you like him to be shot down?”
Rodd literally jumped in his alarm, for there was a tremendously wild cissing from the pan and a horrible suggestion therewith that Mrs Champernowne had been turning the rasher with so much energy that she had thrown the cooking slice on to the fire itself instead of into its native pan, while a sudden gush as of hot burning fat came up the little stairs.
But the pleasant sizzling sounds began again directly, and Rodd, who was ravenously hungry, consequent upon the bad part he had played over the sandwiches beneath the tor, sighed in relief as he realised that the widow’s energetic treatment had only splashed a little of the fat over the side of the pan.
As Rodd listened for a continuation of the political discussion, in which it seemed to him that Uncle Paul had got the worst of it, for neither the widow nor he spoke for the next three or four minutes, and the pan had it all its own way, there was some creaking of the boards as the naturalist stumped about, and when he did speak it was evident that he thought it wise to change the subject. And it was the inner man who now spoke—
“Our tea-supper nearly ready, Mrs Champernowne?”
“Oh yes, sir. The second rasher’s about done. How many eggs shall I cook?”
“Oh, one, or perhaps two, for me,” shouted Uncle Paul.