the hour
of five
It was , as we have said , seven days after the execution of the traitor Roy . A truce for twelve hours had been concluded with the English , at the request of Sir Nigel Bruce , and safe conduct granted by the Earl of Hereford to those men , women , and children of the adjoining villages who chose even at this hour to leave the castle , but few , a very few took advantage of this permission , and these were mostly the widows and children of those who had fallen in the siege ; a fact which caused some surprise , as the officers and men-at-arms imagined it would have been eagerly seized upon by all those contentious spirits who had appeared so desirous of a league with England . A quiet smile slightly curled the lips of Nigel as this information was reported to him -- a smile as of a mind prepared for and not surprised at what he heard ; but when left alone , the smile was gone , he folded his arms on his breast , his head was slightly bent forward , but had there been any present to have remarked him , they would have seen his features move and work with the intensity of internal emotion . Some mighty struggle he was enduring ; something there was passing at his very heart , for when recalled from that trance by the heavy bell of the adjoining church chiming the hour of five , and he looked up , there were large drops of moisture on his brow , and his beautiful eye seemed for the moment strained and blood-shot . He paced the chamber slowly and pensively till there was no outward mark of agitation , and then he sought for Agnes . She was alone in an upper chamber of the keep , looking out from the narrow casement on a scene of hill and vale , and water , which , though still wintry from the total absence of leaf and flower , was yet calm and beautiful in the declining sun , and undisturbed by the fearful scenes and sounds which met the glance and ear on every other side , seemed even as a paradise of peace . It had been one of those mild , soft days of February , still more rare in Scotland than in England , and on the heart and sinking frame of Agnes its influence had fallen , till , almost unconsciously , she wept .