Chapter 8
"What have you got there, uncle?"
"Pickle, my boy, it's my twenty guineas that we thought they'd stolen.
What in the name of forceps and lancets did they tie them up in this old silk rag for? It's a bit of a pocket-handkerchief."
"Why, uncle," cried Rodd, laughing, "it isn't going to be so bad, after all. Somebody's been having a game with us."
"Game, eh? Queer sort of a game, Pickle," cried Uncle Paul; and with very little effort he tore open the silk envelope and poured out a little heap of bright gold coins upon the bed. "Napoleons, by all that's wonderful!" he cried. "Exchange! I begin to see now, boy. He's taken my good gold money, whoever he is, and left this French trash.
Here, give me that book. Mind--don't drop my watch."
"I have got it safe, uncle," replied the boy, handing the big book to his uncle.
"Humph!" grunted Uncle Paul. "Not quite such a scoundrel as he might have been, whoever it is that wrote it. Exchange, eh? But there's been no exchange about our clothes. Humph! All in French, of course. If he had been a gentleman, and he couldn't understand plain English, he would have written it in Latin. Bah! How I do hate that pernicketty French!
Let's see--let's see. Oh yes, here it all is. Ask pardon for two poor prisoners trying to escape--um, um, um--years of misery. Generous Englishman--some day--_remerciments_. Ah, it's all scribbled horribly-- in the dark, I suppose. Oh, he's signed it, though, Pickle. 'Des Saix, Comte.' Oh, there are two of them, then. The other's signed his name too--quite a different hand. 'Morny des Saix, Vicomte.' H'm! Well, I suppose they are gentlemen."
"n.o.blemen, uncle."
"Bah! n.o.blemen wouldn't do a thing like that!"
"What are those other words, uncle, under the last name?"
"Um--um--um! 'May G.o.d bless you for what you did to-day. Your friend till death.' Why, Pickle, you ought to have been able to read that yourself."
"I did, uncle, but I wanted to be sure that I was right.
"Yes, and he dodged us home, and as good as robbed us."
"Oh, uncle! Shame!"
"How dare you, sir! What do you mean by it, Rodney? Do you forget who I am, sir?"
"No."
"And pray who am I then, sir?"
"Dear old Uncle Paul, who has got out of bed the wrong way this morning!"
"H'm--ha! Well, I suppose you are right, Pickle. I did feel in an awful temper; but I don't feel quite so bad now that I have found my watch."
"And pencil-case, uncle."
"Ah, yes, my boy. That was the gift of a very grateful old patient."
"And then there are all those gold napoleons, uncle."
"Bah! Tras.h.!.+ Base counters, good for nothing, like the ugly head that's upon them," cried Uncle Paul irascibly.
"But I say, uncle; it might have been worse."
"But the clothes, my boy! The scoundrels! They'll go masquerading about in our things, and escaping, I'll be bound. But stop a minute.
What did he say about exchange?"
"Oh, that meant about the money."
"Hullo! There's that wicked old woman again!--Well, Mrs Champernowne, what is it now?"
"The wood-shed, sir."
"Well, I don't want the wood-shed. Light the fire yourself."
"You don't understand me, sir. I went round there to get some kindling, and there's quite a heap of old clothes there that these wicked people have left behind."
Uncle Paul chuckled, for he was beginning to beam again.
"I say, Pickle, that accounts for the milk in the cocoa-nut. They must have taken our things down into the old lady's wood-shed, and turned it into a dressing-room."
"Yes," cried Rodd; "and that young Viscount is quite welcome to mine."
"Most generous, I am sure, sir," cried Uncle Paul sarcastically, "but would you be kind enough to tell me who pays the bills for your clothes?"
"Why, you do, uncle, of course. But I say, uncle, I do hope they'll escape; don't you?"
"Wha-a-at!"
"You do, uncle, only you pretend that you don't."
"Pretend!"
"Yes. Poor fellows! How horrible! To have to stoop to such a scheme as that to get away! But after all, uncle, it's glorious and brave.
What an escape! Oh, how I should like to meet that poor fellow again!"
"What, to give him up to the soldiers?" said Uncle Paul sarcastically.
"Give him up to the soldiers!" cried the boy indignantly. "Why, I'd sooner put on his old clothes, and tell them a lie!"
"What!" cried Uncle Paul.
"Well, I'd pretend to be him so as to cheat them, and make them take me instead."
CHAPTER SIX.
WHAT DOES THAT SERGEANT WANT?
"Humph!" grunted Uncle Paul, as they descended at last, to hear the fire crackling in the kitchen, and the bright old copper kettle singing its morning song.
It was a lovely morning, with the sweet scents of the garden and moor floating in at the little parlour window, and as Uncle Paul took what his irreverent nephew called a good long sniff, he slowly and ostentatiously, moved thereto by the sight of the clean white cloth and the breakfast things, hauled up his great gold watch and examined its face.