as his uncle turned and faced
him.

"Every blessed thing gone, boy. Why, Rodney, my lad, we have fallen
into a den of thieves--robbed, and we may thank our stars we haven't
been murdered!"

"Why, it's horrid, uncle! Didn't you hear them, then?"

"Hear them, no! I heard nothing till you knocked something off on to
the floor. Here, stop a moment, boy! My purse! It was in my trousers
pocket."

"Then it's gone, uncle," cried Rodd.

"Ah! Horror! My gold watch and seals!"

"Well, they weren't in your trousers, uncle."

"No, boy; I remember winding it up and laying it on the chimney-piece."

"It isn't there, uncle."

"My gold presentation watch, that I wouldn't have lost for five hundred
pounds! Call up that wretched woman."

"Uncle, I can't!"

"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 hav