Two or three of the people round besought her to forbear, especially the priest and the principal chorister; but the abbess not only persisted in her resolution, but besought them to accompany her, in a tone which did not admit of refusal; and, walking on with an air of more dignity than one would have supposed her little plump figure could display, she ascended the stairs in the left hand tower of the portal, and presented herself at the grated window just above the gates. The part of the green nearest to the abbey was now covered with armed men, principally on horseback, though some had dismounted and were approaching the gates. A group of six or seven, who were apparently leaders, were seen at a little distance on the left, and one of them was at that moment raising his voice to an armed peasant who had appeared upon the walls. The abbess, however, cut short this oratory in the commencement, by demanding, in that shrill high key which makes itself heard so much farther than even a louder voice at a lower note: "What want ye here, my masters? How come you here in arms before the abbey of St. Clare? Bid those men keep back from the gates! Else I will instantly bid the soldiers shoot and the cannon fire." "Cannons!" cried one of the leaders with a laugh. "By my fay, the place seems a fortress instead of an abbey." "You will find it so to your cost, uncivil churl, if you attempt to plunder here," cried the abbess. "Bid them keep back, I say, or bide the consequence!" "Halt, there, keep back!" cried the leader who had before spoken; and pushing his own horse under the window where the abbess stood, he looked up, saying, "They were but going to ring the bell. Are you the lady abbess?" "What need of six men to ring the bell?" exclaimed the abbess. "If you need so many hands to do small work, you will require more than you have brought here to get the gates open. I am the lady abbess, and I bid you go hence and leave me and my children at peace, upon pain of anathema, and the greater and the lesser excommunication. I know not whether ye be the same who came to plunder us some time ago; but, if ye be, ye will find us better prepared now than we were then, though it cost you dear, even at that time." "Listen, listen, good lady," said the horseman; "for, if you do not hear, you cannot understand, and a woman's tongue is sometimes worse than a cannon." "You will find the thunder of the church worse still," cried the lady. "Of that we are not afraid," answered the other; "for we come not to plunder, or commit any act of violence, unless we are driven to it." "Pardieu, this is all chattering and nonsense," cried another man, who had ridden up from behind. "Break open the gates, Sir John. If you do not, I will; for they will convey the man away, and by Heaven, if they do, I will burn the place about their ears!"