"Scarcely dost thou need to express thy wish again," said the friar; "for, lo, the day dawneth in the east, and the shadows flee away before it; the winds have gone to their chambers to sleep, and the rains are over and gone. Let us walk forth and see how the darkness fadeth before the face of the day, and all that is stirring abroad on the fair face of the creation." The Master did not move, for it was yet but twilight, and nothing could be seen distinctly; but the friar stepped down to the battlements, and Charlie, who looked on him as their only safeguard, followed. The poet would doubtless have followed also to have seen the dawn of the morning after a storm; but, like all the rhyming race to this day, he was enslaved by the eyes of a maid, languished in chains, and could not move but as she moved. Alas for the poor amorous poet! The others lay in a sluggish and restless slumber. The friar and the bold yeoman strode together along the paved way, and looked abroad; but they could see only the clouds whitening in the eastern horizon, without being able to distinguish wood from waste, or land from water. "Let us kneel down and pray, my son," said the friar, "even in this quiet place, where we shall be freed from the interruptions of the wicked one; for great and manifold are the dangers that surround us. I see not what remains for us, but either to throw ourselves from the walls and perish, or remain where we are and feed upon one another." "It is an awsome eternitive, man," answered Charlie; "I'm sure an ye think praying will do ony good, I shall take off my bonnet and kneel down on my knees, and hearken weel; but what mair can I do?" "You can join with me in spirit, my son," said the friar, "and pray with your heart." "I am sure, gin I but kend the process, I am very willing," said Charlie. With that he took off his steel belted bonnet, and kneeled reverendly beside the friar, who prayed so fervently and sublimely for deliverance, that Charlie looked about every minute, not only then, but all that morning, to see by what means they were to be delivered; for he had no doubt but they would be set free to a certainty, and that in a very short time. When they arose, the first word that the friar said was the following fervent exclamation--"Blessed Virgin! What do I see?" Charlie looked all about for some approaching miracle; he had even some hopes of seeing a detachment from the warden's army; but his eye ranged the dusky fields in vain. "What a strange world we live in!" rejoined the friar: "Yea surely there are things in heaven and in the earth, and in the waters,--yea many things, of which man knoweth nothing! Why art thou gazing abroad on all nature, my son? Turn thine eyes toward the east, and tell me what thou seest."