About twenty men-at-arms, their armor and weapons hastily burnished, that no unseemly soil should mar the peaceful nature of the ceremony by recalling thoughts of war, were ranged on either side.

The church was lighted, dimly in the nave and aisles, but softly and somewhat with a holy radiance where the youthful couple knelt, from the large waxen tapers burning in their silver stands upon the altar.
The Abbot of Scone was at his post, attended by the domestic chaplain of Kildrummie; there was a strange mixture of admiration and anxiety on the old man's face, but Agnes saw it not; she saw nothing save him at whose side she knelt.
Nigel, even in the agitation of mind in which he had quitted Agnes--an agitation scarcely conquered in hastily informing his sister and her husband of all that had passed between them, and imploring their countenance and aid--yet made it his first care strictly to make the round of the walls, to notice all that might be passing within the courts, and see that the men-at-arms were at their posts.

In consequence of the truce, for the conclusion of which it still wanted some little time, there were fewer men on the walls than usual, their commanders having desired them to take advantage of this brief cessation of hostilities and seek refreshment and rest.

A trumpet was to sound at the hour of ten, half an hour before the truce concluded, to summon them again to their posts.

The men most acute in penetration, most firm and steady in purpose, Nigel selected as sentries along the walls; the post of each being one of the round towers we have mentioned, the remaining spaces were consequently clear.