uncertainty
of suspense; there was something so fearful, so horrible in the idea
that his own faithful Agnes was among those blackened and mangled
bodies, which Lancaster informed him had been discovered beneath the
ruins, something so sickening, so revolting, he could not take advantage
of the earl's offer to examine them himself, though, Lancaster added, it
would not be of much use, for he challenged their dearest friends to
recognize them. He could not believe such was her fate. Dermid had not
been seen since the fatal conclusion of their marriage; he knew his
fidelity, his interest in both Agnes and himself, and he could not, he
would not believe the maniac had decoyed her from his care. But where
was she?--where, in such a moment, could he have conveyed her?--what
would be her final fate?--how would she rejoin him? were questions ever
thronging on his heart and brain, struggling with doubts, with the
horrible suspicion still clinging to that shriek which had sounded as
the ruins fell. Darker and more forebodingly oppressive grew these
conflicting thoughts, as day after day passed, and still she came not,
nor were there any tidings of the seer.

A very brief interval sufficed for the English earls to conclude their
arrangements at Kildrummie, and prepare to march southward, Berwick
being the frontier town to which the Scottish prisoners were usually
conveyed. Their loss had been greater than at any other similar siege;
more than a third of their large army had fallen, several others were
wounded, and not much above a third remained who were fitted to continue
in arms. It was a fearful proof of the desperate valor of the besieged,
but both earls felt it would so exasperate their sovereign against the
Scottish commanders, as to remove the slightest hope of mercy. The ruins
were with some labor cleared away, the remains of the outer wall
levelled with the earth, except the tower communicating with the
drawbridge and barbacan, which could be easily repaired. The inner wall
Hereford likewise commanded to be restored; the keep he turned into a
hospital for the wounded, leaving with them a sufficient garrison to
defend the castle, in case of renewed incursions of the Scottish
patriots, a case, in the present state of the country, not very
probable. True to his promise, these men-at-arms who survived, and whose
wounds permitted their removal, Hereford set at liberty, not above ten
in number; dispirited, heart-broken, he fe