‘Ah, my young friend!’ he said at last. ‘Is it, then, the custom of this part of the country to carry your visitor’s rooms by storm or escalado in the early hours of the morning?’ ‘Is it the custom,’ I answered sternly, ‘to barricade up your door when you are sleeping under the roof-tree of an honest man? What did you fear, that you should take such a precaution?’ ‘Nay, you are indeed a spitfire,’ he replied, sinking back upon the pillow, and drawing the clothes round him, ‘a feuerkopf as the Germans call it, or sometimes tollkopf, which in its literal significance meaneth a fool’s head. Your father was, as I have heard, a strong and a fierce man when the blood of youth ran in his veins; but you, I should judge, are in no way behind him. Know, then, that the bearer of papers of import, _documenta preciosa sed periculosa_, is bound to leave nought to chance, but to guard in every way the charge which hath been committed to him. True it is that I am in the house of an honest man, but I know not who may come or who may go during the hours of the night. Indeed, for the matter of that--but enough is said. I shall be with you anon.’ ‘Your clothes are dry and are ready for you,’ I remarked. ‘Enough! enough!’ he answered. ‘I have no quarrel with the suit which your father has lent me. It may be that I have been used to better, but they will serve my turn. The camp is not the court.’ It was evident to me that my father’s suit was infinitely better, both in texture and material, than that which our visitor had brought with him. As he had withdrawn his head, however, entirely beneath the bedclothes, there was nothing more to be said, so I descended to the lower room, where I found toy father busily engaged fastening a new buckle to his sword-belt while my mother and the maid were preparing the morning meal. ‘Come into the yard with me, Micah,’ quoth my father; ‘I would have a word with you.’ The workmen had not yet come to their work, so we strolled out into the sweet morning air, and seated ourselves on the low stone bankment on which the skins are dressed. ‘I have been out here this morning trying my hand at the broadsword exercise, ‘said he; ‘I find that I am as quick as ever on a thrust, but my cuts are sadly stiff. I might be of use at a pinch, but, alas! I am not the same swordsman who led the left troop of the finest horse regiment that ever followed a kettledrum. The Lord hath given, and the Lord hath taken away! Yet, if I am old and worn, there is the fruit of my loins to stand in my place and to wield the same sword in the same cause. You shall go in my place, Micah.’ ‘Go! Go whither?’ ‘Hush, lad, and listen! Let not your mother know too much, for the hearts of women are soft. When Abraham offered up his eldest born, I trow that he said little to Sarah on the matter. Here is the letter. Know you who this Dicky Rumbold is?’ ‘Surely I have heard you speak of him as an old companion of yours.’