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The Ocean Cat's Paw: The Story of a Strange Cruise, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 3. Mrs. Champernowne's Pan |
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_ CHAPTER THREE. MRS. CHAMPERNOWNE'S PAN Mr Robson, when he came up from Plymouth for a natural history expedition into Dartmoor, did not select a hotel for his quarters, for the simple reason that such a house of accommodation did not exist, but took what he could get--a couple of tiny bedrooms in the cottage of a widow whose husband had been a mining captain on the moor; and there after a long tramp they returned on the evening after the adventure, to find their landlady awaiting them at the pretty rose-covered porch, eager and expectant and ready to throw up her hands in dismay. "Why, where are the fish?" she cried--"the trout?" "Eh?" said Uncle Paul. "The fish, sir--the fish. I've got a beautiful fire, and the lard ready in the pan. I want to go on cooking while you both have a good wash. You told me that you would be sure to bring home a lot of trout for your supper, and I haven't prepared anything else." "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. "Oh, yes, sir," cried the landlady, with her voice half-drowned by a sudden flap and a sizzling noise which indicated, without the appetising odour which soon began to rise to Rodd's nostrils, that their landlady had vigorously slapped a thick rasher of pink-and-white ham into the hot frying-pan; "I know what you think, sir, and what you told me only last night about being a loyal subject of King George, and these being our natural enemies, whom we ought to hate." Ciss! went the ham, and Rodd felt as if he should like to shout "Hear, hear!" "But I can't help remembering what I hear at church about forgiving our enemies; and I am sure you would, sir, if you knew what I do about those poor fellows, torn away from their own people and shut up behind prison bars, and all for doing nothing." Just then there was a little spluttering noise as if the pan were chuckling. "For doing nothing!" shouted Uncle Paul, and a sound from his room suggested that he had set down the washhand jug with a bang. "The scoundrels who invaded our shores?" Ciss! said the pan. "That they didn't, sir!" cried the landlady. "They didn't even try; and even if they had there were all our brave fellows round the coasts who would soon have stopped them." "Hear, hear!" cried Rodd, very softly, for he was speaking into his sweet-scented towel, whose scent was that of fresh air and wild thyme. "Well, well, that's right," shouted Uncle Paul; "but they wanted to." _Whish-ish_, went the pan, and there was a good deal more spluttering, and in his mind's eye Rodd saw the great rasher turned right over, to begin sizzling again. "And I don't believe that, Dr Robson," cried the landlady sturdily. "Don't you know that the poor fellows over yonder never get good honest shillings given to them and are enlisted of their own free will like our lads at home, but they are dragged away and are obliged to fight; and it was all owing to the angry jealousy and covetousness of that dreadful man, Bony, who has been the cause of all the trouble." "Hah!" roared Uncle Paul, in a voice that almost shook the diamond-paned casement. "Say no more, Mrs Champernowne. You are quite right, and I admire your sympathies. Madam, you are a lady!" "Oh, really, Dr Robson--" "I repeat it, madam, you are a lady, and I applaud everything you have said. But what about that gun?" "Oh, dear me, yes, sir; I was just going to tell you, but you put it all out of my head. It was the alarm gun to tell everybody that prisoners had escaped, so that all the people on the moor could join the soldiers in scouring the place as they called it, and hunting the poor Frenchmen down for the sake of the reward. Yes, I'd reward them if I had my way! Hunting their poor fellow-creatures, who are only trying for their liberty!" "H'm! Ha!" grunted Uncle Paul, and there was a huckabacky sound about his words. There was another furious hissing from the pan, followed by a fresh slap, for a second great rasher had been thrust in _vice_ number one nicely cooked and just placed in the hot dish that had been intended for trout. "Did they catch them, Mrs Champernowne?" shouted Uncle Paul. "I haven't heard, sir," was the reply; "but dear, dear, they are pretty well sure to, for there's not much chance for the poor fellows. Oh, it makes my heart bleed when I hear sometimes that one of them has been shot down by the soldiers." Rodd went on tip-toe across the creaking floor to open his door a little farther, listening with strained ear, for his bright young imagination pictured the thin pale youth, wild-eyed and breathless, out of his hiding-place and running for liberty across the open moor, and hearing again the distant reports of the muskets. "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. "Oh, I say!" muttered Rodd. "Better cook eight or ten for my nephew," cried the doctor dryly. "He'll eat like a young wolf." "What a shame!" muttered Rodd. "I'll serve him out for this." "Fried, of course, sir?" came from the kitchen. "Murder, woman, no!" roared Uncle Paul. "Fry! That is wild west-country ignorance, madam! Are you not aware, madam, that the action of boiling fat upon albumen is to produce a coagulate leathery mass of tough indigestible matter inimical to the tender sensitive lining of the most important organ of the human frame, lying as it does without assimilation or absorption upon the epigastric region, and producing an irritation that may require medical treatment to allay?" "Dear, dear, dear, dear me, no, sir! Really, you quite fluster me with all those long words. Who ever heard that fried ham and eggs were bad for anybody?" "Then I tell you now, madam," shouted the doctor, "that--" "Don't you take any notice, Mrs Champernowne," shouted Rodd. "It's only uncle's fun." "Wuff!" went Uncle Paul, with a snap like that of an angry dog. "Wuff!" "Fried, please, Mrs Champernowne; four for uncle and three for me." "Umph!" grunted the doctor, and a few minutes later he and his nephew, hunger-sharpened and weary-legged, were seated facing one another in the widow's pleasant little parlour, hard at work, and risking all the direful symptoms upon which the elder had discoursed, and thoroughly enjoying hearty draughts of Mrs Champernowne's fragrant tea. There was silence in the kitchen, following the final hissings and odours emitted by the hard-worked pan, but a great deal of business went on in the little parlour, the first words that were spoken being by Uncle Paul, who growled out-- "Here, I suppose you had better tell the old lady to put on another rasher of ham to fry." "For you, uncle?" said Rodd archly. "No, sir, for you. You traitorous young dog, leaving all those beautiful trout up on the moor to be devoured by the enemies of your country!" "Well, they can't eat them raw, uncle." "Why not, sir? They are only so many ravening savages, ready to breathe out battle and slaughter if they got free." "That poor boy didn't seem much of a savage, uncle," said Rodd quietly; and after a sidelong glance to see whether he dared say it, the boy continued tentatively, "I wish the poor fellow had been here to have this ham." "What!" roared his uncle fiercely. "Bah! You wouldn't have left him a mouthful. Wolf--raven!" "Yes, I would, uncle. I'd have left him all." "Umph!" grunted Uncle Paul, taking up a very thin, old, much-worn silver table-spoon and looking at it with the eye of a connoisseur. "H'm! Ha! Queen Anne." "She's dead, uncle," said the boy. "Well, I know that, don't I?" growled Uncle Paul, as he tilted the empty dish, and carefully scraped all the golden brown fat and gravy to one side, getting together sufficient to nearly fill the spoon, and then making as if to put it upon his own plate, but with a quick gesture dabbing it down upon Rodd's. "Fair play, uncle!" shouted the boy. "Bah!" grunted the doctor. "Cut me a thin slice of bread, all crumb, Pickle. Thunder and lightning! I have got the best share, after all;" and then, with his face puckered up into a pleasant smile, he inserted a fork into the newly-cut slice of home-made bread, and began passing it round and round the dish until it had imbibed the remains of the liquid ham and the golden new-laid eggs, when he deposited it upon his own plate with a triumphant smile which seemed to Rodd to make him look five-and-twenty years younger. "Shall I fill another cup of tea for you, uncle?" cried Rodd; and by the way, they were breakfast cups. "No, no, Pickle; I--I--er--well, say half." At that moment the door was opened, and, looking hot and out of breath, their landlady entered. "I hope you haven't been waiting for anything, gentlemen," she cried, giving the table a comprehensive glance. "I am so sorry. I will cook another rasher or two directly." "Madam, no," said Uncle Paul didactically. "What does the great classic author say?" "Really I don't know, sir," cried Mrs Champernowne, with a perplexed look wrinkling up her pleasant face. "But it won't take many minutes." "Enough, madam, is as good as a feast. This has been a banquet, eh, Pickle? I never enjoyed anything half so much before in my life. The ham was tenderness itself, the eggs new-laid--the bread--the butter--the tea--eh, Pickle?" "Delicious, uncle." "The fat of the land, Mrs Champernowne," continued the doctor; "the riches of these smiling pastures. Now if your friend Napoleon Bonaparte had come with his locusts to devastate the land, his hordes such as we have seen safely imprisoned yonder--" "Yes, sir," interrupted Mrs Champernowne eagerly; "that's what I came to tell you. I thought I might just run over to my neighbour's, whose master has come back from the hunt, and I thought that you would like to hear. Those two French prisoners have got right away." "Hooray!" shouted Rodd, springing from the chair, and to Mrs Champernowne's astonishment catching her round the waist and waltzing her about the room. "Three cheers for the poor prisoners! Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!" And Uncle Paul pushed back his chair, puckered up his forehead, stared hard at his nephew, and grunted out-- "Humph!" "Oh, my dear, don't! Pray don't!" panted Mrs Champernowne, whom Nature had made middle-aged, round and plump. "You are taking away all my breath. But my neighbour's master says that he thinks they have made for Salcombe, where they will perhaps get aboard one of the orange boats and be put back in their own country." "Hah!" said Uncle Paul, leaning back in his chair to take hold of his bunch of seals and haul up by the broad watered silk ribbon the big double-cased gold watch that ticked away from where it reclined warm and comfortable at the bottom of his fob.
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