Let us look at the shadow of Lucy Hutchinson. She tranquilly sits in one of the upper chambers of the old and ruinous castle of which her husband is appointed governor. It is a summer evening of 1643. In that tower, built upon the top of the rock, tradition says that Queen Isabel received her paramour Mortimer; and at the base of the rock are still shown Mortimer's Well, and Mortimer's Hole, as Lady Hutchinson saw them two centuries ago. She looks out of the narrow windows by which her chamber is lighted. There is the Trent, peacefully flowing on one side, amid flat meadows. On the other is the town of Nottingham. The governor has made the ruinous castle a strong fortress, with which he can defy the Cavaliers should they occupy the town beneath. Opposite the towers is the old church of St. Nicholas, whose steeple commands the platform of the castle. The Governor has sent away his horse, and many of his foot, to guard the roads by which the enemy could approach Nottingham. There is no appearance of danger. The reveille is beat. Those who have been watching all night lounge into the town. It is in the possession of the Cavaliers. The scene is changed. The din of ordnance rouses Lucy from her calm gaze upon the windings of the Trent. For five days and nights there is firing without intermission. Within the walls of the castle there are not more than eighty men. The musketeers on St. Nicholas steeple pick off the cannoniers at their guns. Now and then, as the assailants are beaten from the walls, they leave a wounded man behind, and he is dragged into the castle. On the sixth day, after that terrible period of watchfulness, relief arrives. The Cavaliers are driven from the town with much slaughter, and the castle is filled with prisoners. Lucy has been idle during those six days of peril. There was a task to be performed,--a fitting one for woman's tenderness. Within the castle was a dungeon called the Lion's Den, into which the prisoners were cast; and as they were brought up from the town, two of the fanatical ministers of the garrison reviled and maltreated them. Lucy reads the commands of her Master after another fashion. As the prisoners are carried bleeding to the Lion's Den, she implores that they should be brought in to her, and she binds up and dresses their wounds. And now the two ministers mutter--and their souls abhor to see this favor done to the enemies of God--and they teach the soldiers to mutter. But Lucy says, "I have done nothing but my duty. These are our enemies, but they are our fellow-creatures. Am I to be upbraided for these poor humanities?" And then she breathes a thanksgiving to Heaven that her mother had taught her this humble surgery. There is a tear in John's eye as he gazes on this scene. That night the Cavalier officers sup with him, rather as guests than as prisoners.