Here I can scarce know friend from foe; traitors may be around me, nay, in my very confidence, and I know it not." "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.