nt down to where Roy was waiting in the secretary's door-way.

"Can't wake him, Ben. Come along; I am tired now."

"Feel as if an hour's sleep wouldn't do me much harm, sir," said the old
soldier; and they went on along the corridor, whose windows looked out
upon the pleasaunce. "Master Pawson's in the right of it. Once a man's
well asleep, it's a woundy, tiresome thing to be wakened up.
Good-night, sir."

"Good-morning, you mean, Ben," said Roy, laughing.

"Oh, I calls it all night till the sun's up again, sir. You and me'll
have to try the old ruins, I s'pose, though I don't expect we shall find
anything there."

Roy went straight to his room, half undressed, and threw himself upon
the bed, to begin dreaming directly that he had discovered the entrance
to the secret passage at the other end, but it was so blocked up with
stones and tree-roots that there was no way in, and would not be until
he had persuaded his mother to do away with the garden, cut down the
trees, and turn the place back into a regular court-yard such as old Ben
wished.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

FARMER RAYNES BRINGS NEWS.

It was the loud blast of a trumpet which roused Roy from his slumbers to
find that it was a gloriously clear morning, and that the call was
bringing the little garrison together for the early parade.

The trumpeter was the youngest of the three men from his father's
regiment, and consequently the call rang out in the true martial style,
echoing through the garden court, and sounding exhilarating to the boy
as he sprang off his bed and began to dress.

It roused the jackdaws, too, from their resting-places, and sent them
sailing about in the clear sunny air, their black forms reflected from
the moat, and their sharp, petulant cries sounding like protests against
this disturbance.

For they had had a hard time of it lately. Under Ben's superintendence
every loop-hole had been cleared, every collection of nesting ruins
carefully removed, and they had no other married quarters but the holes
in the walls, half-shaded by the green pellitory which rooted and
flourished in company with the moss, that acted as sponges to retain
enough moisture for its sustenance.

Roy was not long in dressing, buckling on his sword, and hurrying down
to the tiny parade ground, for in his character of castellan he liked to
be present every morning when the men who were to relieve the garrison
assembled at the gate-way, across the moat, and