At length Rose suddenly felt her young mistress shiver in her embrace, and then Eveline's hand grasped her arm rigidly as she whispered, "Do you hear nothing?" "No--nothing but the hooting of the owl," answered Rose, timorously. "I heard a distant sound," said Eveline,--"I thought I heard it-- hark, it comes again!--Look from the battlements, Rose, while I awaken the priest and thy father." "Dearest lady," said Rose, "I dare not--what can this sound be that is heard by one only?--You are deceived by the rush of the river." "I would not alarm the castle unnecessarily," said Eveline, pausing, "or even break your father's needful slumbers, by a fancy of mine--But hark--I hear it again--distinct amidst the intermitting sounds of the rushing water--a low tremulous sound, mingled with a tinkling like smiths or armourers at work upon their anvils." Rose had by this time sprung up on the banquette, and flinging back her rich tresses of fair hair, had applied her hand behind her ear to collect the distant sound. "I hear it," she cried, "and it increases--Awake them, for Heaven's sake, and without a moment's delay!" Eveline accordingly stirred the sleepers with the reversed end of the lance, and as they started to their feet in haste, she whispered in a hasty but cautious voice, "To arms--the Welsh are upon us!" "What--where?" said Wilkin Flammock,--"where be they?" "Listen, and you will hear them arming," she replied. "The noise is but in thine own fancy, lady," said the Fleming, whose organs were of the same heavy character with his form and his disposition. "I would I had not gone to sleep at all, since I was to be awakened so soon." "Nay, but listen, good Flammock-the sound of armour comes from the north-east." "The Welsh lie not in that quarter, lady," said Wilkin; "and besides, they wear no armour." "I hear it--I hear it!" said Father Aldrovand, who had been listening for some time. "All praise to St. Benedict!--Our Lady of the Garde Doloureuse has been gracious to her servants as ever!-- It is the tramp of horses--it is the clash of armour--the chivalry of the Marches are coming to our relief-Kyrie Eleison!" "I hear something too," said Flammock,--"something like the hollow sound of the great sea, when it burst into my neighbour Klinkerman's warehouse, and rolled his pots and pans against each other. But it were an evil mistake, father, to take foes for friends--we were best rouse the people." "Tush!" said the priest, "talk to me of pots and kettles?--Was I, squire of the body to Count Stephen Mauleverer for twenty years, and do I not know the tramp of a war-horse, or the clash of a mail-coat?--But call the men to the walls at any rate, and have me the best drawn up at the base-court--we may help them by a sally."