and the
children. She will shame you, I doubt not, by her coolness."

Two of the damsels alone were influenced by this address, and followed
their mistress, while the rest, every now and then giving way to a
shriek, ran up stairs as fast as they could go, to the nursery, where,
surrounding Bertha, who was sitting up with the children, they said the
mistress had sent them, and pulling away at her, entreated her to tell
them what was going to happen.

"Girls, girls; it is something very dreadful, I doubt not," she
answered, solemnly. "But shrieking and crying will not ward off the
danger. Let us rather silently pray to Him who can alone save us, for
protection and the safety of those we best love."

The girls were silent for a short time, but Bertha's address did not
seem to have much effect on them; and the sound of a volley of musketry,
which was soon afterwards heard again, set them off shrieking louder
than before.

The effects of the volley did not appear to have much availed the
defenders of the castle, for, almost before it had ceased, the
thundering blows on the gate were renewed with greater violence than
before, and the crashing noise which followed showed that it was
yielding to them. There were, as Bertha well knew, two small gates, one
within the other. The first had, as she suspected, given way to the
attack the assailants had first made, the crushing sound of which had
awakened her as it had Hilda. The second gate was the one against which
they were now directing their efforts. Lawrence had not been aware of
this, and he fancied that it was the outer gate alone which had to be
defended. On reaching the first storey of the tower, and on looking
from the window which commanded the space before this outer gate, he saw
a large group of armed men, apparently prepared for attacking it.

"There are the enemy! Have no parley with them! Fire, boys!" he
exclaimed, setting the example by discharging his musket. The rest
fired likewise, and apparently several of the enemy were hit; but,
instead of taking to flight, they fired in return, and several of the
Lunnasting party might have been hit had they not speedily retired from
the window. In the chamber below, however, there were several
loopholes, and in these they forthwith assembled, and commenced firing
away as before. Hilda had not used her musket; but she in no way felt
inclined to shrink from the contest, and her presence wonderfully
animated t