rning out of his chamber, but he is to keep the
lower place?"

"Yes; that is the arrangement, Ben; and you can have the upper chamber
for use at once."

"Well, that's a good thing for the men who'll be up there, sir; but what
does Master Pawson want with that lower room? I meant to have three
firelock men there."

"Be content with what you can have, Ben. My mother did not want to be
too hard upon Master Pawson."

"No, sir; she wouldn't be. But you've come all round the ramparts?"

"Yes."

"Kep' looking out of course, sir? What did you hear?"

"I? Nothing."

"Then you didn't try."

"Yes, I did; twice on each rampart. There was nothing to hear."

Ben chuckled.

"Ears aren't so sharp for night-work as they will be, sir, before you've
done. I heard them on the move every time I stopped."

"What! the enemy?"

"Yes, sir; they're padrolling the place round and round. You listen."

Roy reached over the battlement, and gazed across the black moat, trying
to pierce the transparent darkness of the dull soft night. The dew that
was refreshing the herbage and flowers of field, common, and copse sent
up a deliciously moist scent, and every now and then came the call of a
moor-hen paddling about in the moat, the soft piping and croaking of the
frogs, and the distant _hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo_! of an owl, but he could make
out nothing else, and said so.

"No; they're pretty quiet now, sir; don't hear nothing myself.--Yes;
there!"

"Yes, I heard that," said Roy; "it was a horse champing his bit; and
there again, that must have been the jingle of a spur."

"Right, sir, right. You'll hear plenty of that sort of thing if you
keep on listening. There, hear that?"

"Yes, plainly. A horse stumbled and plunged to save itself."

"Enough to make it," said Ben, gruffly; "going to sleep, and him on it
jigged the spurs into its flanks to rouse it up. There, you can hear
'em on the move again, going to and fro."

"Yes, quite plainly," whispered Roy; "why, they must have come in much
nearer."

"No, sir. Everything's so quiet that the sounds seem close. They won't
come in nigher for fear of a shot."

"But they must know we could not see them."

"Not yet, sir; but the moon'll be up in a couple of hours, and they know
it'll rise before long, and won't run any risks after what they've seen
of my gunners--I mean your--sir. Ah! it's a bad job about those ten
poor lads. They would have been able to shoot. Master Rayne