t the large
window wide open.

"No fear of Master Pawson playing any tricks," he said to himself with a
laugh as he undressed and lay down, wondering whether the general was
going to attack some place, being in perfect ignorance of everything but
the fact that he had gone on some expedition.

He fell asleep directly, and lay breathing hard till, in the midst of an
uneasy dream, he was awakened suddenly by feeling a hand pressed upon
his mouth.

Like a flash through the darkness he saw everything: Master Pawson had
climbed up to his window from the court, entered silently, and was about
to strangle him as he lay.

But before he could attempt to resist, a pair of warm lips were pressed
upon his brow, and then glided to his ear to whisper--

"Roy, my boy, not a sound! Don't speak! It is I--your father."

The lad's breast rose as a great sob of joy struggled to his lips, while
his hands seized that upon his mouth, pressed it closer, kissed the
palm, and were then passed round the neck of him who knelt by his bed.

They did not stay there a moment; for one began to feel the face, and
the other was passed over the head.

No moustache and pointed beard, no long flowing curls, only stubble and
short hair, and a long patch of plaster extending from the hair about
the left temple to the right eyebrow.

Roy's mental eyes were opened; he saw it all now. At last! His gallant
father had risked his life to come to them in the disguise of a
Roundhead trooper, and the general must have been sent on a fool's
errand so that the castle could be captured again.

_Thump, thump, thump_! went Roy's heart as these thoughts rushed through
his brain. Then the lips at his ear said, and it sounded strangely
incongruous--almost mocking:

"Go on snoring as you were, so that the sentry at your door may hear."

Roy obeyed, and imitated the real thing as well as he could.

"Your mother? If safe and well press my hand."

The pressure was given, and the whisper went on through the snoring.

"Roy, I have come at great risk through the accident of the capture of a
messenger with a despatch. The general has gone where he was desired,
but we have had time to take our men in another direction. To-night two
hundred Cavaliers will have ridden in as near as they dare, and then one
hundred and fifty will have dismounted and marched silently under cover
of the darkness opposite the gates.--Snore, boy, snore!"

Roy had ceased his hard brea