Chapter 5

That baron he to his castle fled,
To Barnard Castle then fled he;
The uttermost walls were eathe to win,
The Earls have won them speedilie;-
The uttermost walls were stone and brick;
But though they won them soon anon,
Long ere they won the inmost walls,
For they were hewn in rock of stone.
PERCY'S RELICS OF ANCIENT POETRY.

The unhappy fate of the battle was soon evident to the anxious
spectators upon the watch-towers of the Garde Doloureuse, which
name the castle that day too well deserved. With difficulty the
confessor mastered his own emotions to control those of the
females on whom he attended, and who were now joined in their
lamentation by many others--women, children, and infirm old men,
the relatives of those whom they saw engaged in this unavailing
contest. These helpless beings had been admitted to the castle for
security's sake, and they had now thronged to the battlements,
from which Father Aldrovand found difficulty in making them
descend, aware that the sight of them on the towers, that should
have appeared lined with armed men, would be an additional
encouragement to the exertions of the assailants. He urged the
Lady Eveline to set an example to this group of helpless, yet
intractable mourners.

Preserving, at least endeavouring to preserve, even in the
extremity of grief, that composure which the manners of the times
enjoined--for chivalry had its stoicism as well as philosophy--
Eveline replied in a voice which she would fain have rendered
firm, and which was tremulous in her despite--"Yes, father, you
say well--here is no longer aught left for maidens to look upon.
Warlike meed and honoured deed sunk when yonder white plume
touched the bloody ground.--Come, maidens, there is no longer
aught left us to see--To mass, to mass--the tourney is over!"

There was wildness in her tone, and when she rose, with the air of
one who would lead out a procession, she staggered, and would have
fallen, but for the support of the confessor. Hastily wrapping her
head in her mantle, as if ashamed of the agony of grief which she
could not restrain, and of which her sobs and the low moaning
sounds that issued from under the folds enveloping her face,
declared the excess, she suffered Father Aldrovand to conduct her
whither he would.

"Our gold," he said, "has changed to brass, our silver to dross,
our wisdom, to folly--it is His will, who confounds the counsels
of the wise, and shortens the arm of the mighty. To the chapel--to
the chapel, Lady Eveline; and instead of vain repining, let us
pray to God and the saints to turn away their displeasure, and to
save the feeble remnant from the jaws of the devouring wolf."

Thus