“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’s they, 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.”