As she spoke, she approached the door and opened it. Annie Walton followed close upon her steps, and gazed into the room beyond. It was a sad and fearful scene. The bed-chamber of Lady Margaret, in which the principal struggle had taken place, was comparatively dark, receiving its only light from the glare of the lamp and sconces in the drawing-room on the other side. The room was well-nigh filled with men; others were seen through the open door, and every sort of attitude into which the human figure can be thrown was displayed amongst them. At the further end of the table appeared Captain Hargood and some eight or nine of the militia, their arms cast down, and gloomy, sullen despondency upon their faces. Near them lay three or four others, still and motionless; one fallen upon his back, with his arms extended; one upon his face, his limbs doubled up beneath him. A little more in advance was another militia-man, sitting on the ground, supporting himself with one hand upon a chair, while the other was pressed tightly upon his side; and beside Lady Margaret's bed knelt a young Cavalier, his long and fair curling hair streaming down his shoulders, and his face buried in the bed-clothes. Several of the royalist party were stretched upon the ground near; the faces and hands of most of the others were bloody and begrimed with gunpowder; and several were seen in different parts of the room, tying up the wounded limb or staunching the flowing blood. In the front stood Lord Walton and the Earl of Beverley; the one armed, and with the stern frown of vehement excitement upon his lofty brow; the other with no arms but a sword, and with his fine and speaking countenance animated certainly, but calm and open. Hanging in a thick cloud over the whole were wreaths of smoke, and a stream of a lighter colour was finding its way through the open door, and slowly mingling with that which the discharge of firearms had produced. The party of the Cavaliers was by far the more numerous, and at the moment when Lady Margaret looked in, several of them were advancing to secure the prisoners. Lord Walton was in the act of giving various orders, from which it was apparent that the house was surrounded by a considerable party of the royalist cavalry; but no one seemed to notice, in the interest of the scene before them, the fact that there was, as Lady Margaret had observed, a strong and growing smell of burning wood, or that ever and anon, across the smoke which was finding its way in from the next room, came a fitful flash, unlike the quiet and steady light of the candles. For a short time, even Lady Margaret's attention was withdrawn from what she had remarked to the striking scene before her; but after a moment's pause she exclaimed-- "Charles, Charles! there is something on fire in the drawing-room."