Sir Nigel was not long after him.  The enemy was driven back with fearful loss.  Scaling-ladders were thrown down; the archers on the walls, better accustomed to their ground, marking their foes by the torches they carried, but concealed themselves by the darkness, dealt destruction with as unerring hand as their more famous English brethren.  Shouts and cries rose on either side; the English bore back before the sweeping stroke of Nigel Bruce as before the scythe of death.  For the brief space of an hour the strife lasted, and still victory was on the side of the Scots—­glorious victory, purchased with scarce the loss of ten men.  The English fled back to their camp, leaving many wounded and dead on the field, and some prisoners in the hands of the Scots.  Ineffectual efforts were made to harass the Scots, as with a daring coolness seldom equalled, they repaired the outworks, and planted fresh palisades to supply those which had fallen in the strife, in the very face of the English, many of them coolly detaching the arrows which, shot at too great distance, could not penetrate the thick lining of their buff coats, and scornfully flinging them back.  Several sharp skirmishes took place that day, both under the walls and at a little distance from them; but in all the Scots were victorious, and when night fell all was joy and triumph in the castle; shame, confusion, and fury in the English camp.

For several days this continued.  If at any time the English, by superiority of numbers, were victorious, they were sure to be taken by surprise by an impetuous sally from the besieged, and beaten back with loss, and so sudden and concealed were the movements of Nigel and Seaton, that though the besiegers lay closer and closer round the castle, the moment of their setting forth on their daring expeditions could never be discovered.

“Said I not we should do well, right well, sweet Agnes,” exclaimed Nigel, one night, on his return from an unusually successful sally, “and are not my words true?  Hast thou looked forth on the field to-day, and seen how gloriously it went?  Oh, to resign this castle to my brother’s hands unscathed, even as he intrusted it; to hold it for him, threatened as it is!”

He smiled gayly as he spoke, for the consciousness of power was upon him—­power to will and do, to win and to retain—­that most blessed consciousness, whether it bless a hero’s breast or poet’s soul, a maiden’s heart or scholar’s dream, this checkered world can know.

“I did look forth, my Nigel, for I could not rest; yet ask me not to tell thee how the battle went,” she added, with a faint flush, as she looked up in his noble face, beaming as it was with every feeling dear to the heart that loved, “for I traced but the course of one charger, saw but the waving of one plume.”

“And thou didst not fear the besiegers’ arrows, my beloved?  Didst stand in the shelter I contrived?  Thou must not risk danger, dearest; better not list the urgings of thy noble spirit than be aught exposed.”