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 G