“Art thou not infected with Queen Margaret’s suspicions, Nigel?  Why ponder on such uneasy dreams?”

“Because, my best love, I am a better adept in the perusal of men’s countenances and manners than many, and there are signs of lowering discontent and gloomy cowardice, arguing ill for unity of measures, on which our safety greatly rests.  Yet my fancies may be wrong, and at all hazards my duty shall be done.  The issue is in the hands of a higher power; we cannot do wrong in committing ourselves to Him, for thou knowest He giveth not the battle to the strong, and right and justice we have on Scotland’s side.”

Agnes looked on his face, and she saw, though he spoke cheerfully, his thoughts echoed not his words.  She would not express her own anxiety, but led him gently to explain to her his plan of defence, and prepare her for all she might have to encounter.

Five days passed, and all within and without the walls remained the same; the sixth was the Sabbath, and the greater part of the officers and garrison were assembled in the chapel, where divine service was regularly read by the Abbot of Scone, whom we should perhaps before have mentioned as having, at the king’s especial request, accompanied the queen and her attendants to Kildrummie.  It was a solemn yet stirring sight, that little edifice, filled as it was with steel-clad warriors and rude and dusky forms, now bending in one prayer before their God.  The proud, the lowly, the faithless, and the true, the honorable and the base, the warrior, whose whole soul burned and throbbed but for his country and his king, the coward, whose only thought was how he could obtain life for himself and save the dread of war by the surrender of the castle—­one and all knelt there, the workings of those diverse hearts known but to Him before whom they bent.  Strangely and mournfully did that little group of delicate females gleam forth amidst the darker and harsher forms around, as a knot of fragile flowers blooming alone, and unsheltered amidst some rude old forest trees, safe in their own lowliness from the approaching tempest, but liable to be overwhelmed in the fall of their companions, whom yet they would not leave.  As calmly as in his own abbey the venerable abbot read the holy service, and administered the rites of religion to all who sought.  It was in the deep silence of individual prayer which preceded the chanting of the conclusion of the service that a shrill, peculiar blast of a trumpet was heard.  On the instant it was recognized as the bugle of the warder stationed on the centre turret of the keep, as the blast which told the foe was at length in sight.  Once, twice, thrice it sounded, at irregular intervals, even as Nigel had commanded; the notes were caught up by the warders on the walls, and repeated again and again.  A sudden cry of “The foe!” broke from the soldiers scattered round, and again all was silence.  There had been a movement, almost a confusion in some parts of the church, but the officers and those who had followed them from the mountains neither looted up nor stirred.  The imperative gesture of the abbot commanded and retained order and silence, the service proceeded; there might have been some faltering in the tones of the choir, but the swelling notes of the organ concealed the deficiency.