“But you aren’t going to die, Master Roy, you will live and do great things yet.”

Roy shook his head a little sadly.

“Sometimes I wonder if I ever will.  I won’t give up trying, but I shall never be anything but half a man, with my cork leg and my weak chest.  Dudley would make a much grander master.  Still there’s one thing I can do.  I can serve God—­and I’ve sent you to serve the Queen, and I can try to serve my fellow creatures.  Good-bye, dear Rob, will you kiss me.”

And then forgetting his dignity, Roy flung his arms round Rob’s neck and hugged him passionately.  “I’ll never forget you carrying me home that night,” he whispered in his ear, “I loved you from that time.  And Rob you’ll do what father told me to do—­serve God first.”

Rob nodded, and as he knelt on the ground holding the frail little figure to him, he made a promise there and then in his heart that he would never do or say anything that he would be ashamed of Roy’s hearing.

“They’re calling me, Master Roy, good-bye.”

He was gone, and Roy sitting down on the floor, leaned his head against his bed and burst into tears.

Dudley found him there, and soon comforted him.

“Look here, if you like it, let us get upon the wall and see Rob and the sergeant drive by; we can just see the high road, and Rob had to go to the inn first, so we shall have plenty of time.”

Roy’s whole face beamed, he seized his stick and limped after Dudley without a thought of his leg, but when he reached the wall he came to a standstill.

“I’m afraid I can’t climb it, Dudley, I’ve never been on it since my leg was broken!”

But Dudley would take no denial.

“Oh, yes, you can, I’ll hoist you up, we’ll manage it.”

And “manage it” they did to Roy’s intense delight, though Mrs. Bertram would have been horror-struck at the narrow escape the little invalid had, of falling to the ground during the proceeding.

When they saw the trap in the distance, they set up a wild cheer, and waved their handkerchiefs frantically, and when they were answered by a cheer and a fluttering piece of white, they felt quite satisfied at their farewell.

Before they got down from their high perch, Roy said, earnestly, “If God sent us Rob as an opportunity, Dudley, I wonder if we did him good.”

“Well, you see he was such a lot bigger than us, and Aunt Judy says she never saw such a steady good boy; it’s very difficult to do good to good people, because you want to be so extra good yourself.”

“At any rate, we’ve made him the Queen’s soldier.”

“Yes,” argued Dudley, provokingly; “but he was the first one that thought of it!”

“Oh, shut up,” was Roy’s impatient retort; “he told me himself it was the song of Jake and Jim that did it, and—­and my talking to him.”

“And I expect the sergeant thinks it’s all his doing.”