Figures seemed to rise and die, to advance and to flee, and from the midst of the spectre throng this awful summons came:—­“Prince, prelate, potentate and peer, I summon one and all to answer at my tribunal.”

    “Then thunder’d forth a roll of names: 
     The first was thine, unhappy James! 
       Then all thy nobles came;
     Crawford, Glencairn, Montrose, Argyle,
     Ross, Bothwell, Forbes, Lennox, Lyle,
     Why should I tell their separate style? 
       Each chief of birth and fame,
     Of Lowland, Highland, Border, Isle,
     Foredoomed to Flodden’s carnage pile,
       Was cited there by name;
     And Marmion, Lord of Fontenaye.

    “Prone on her face the Abbess fell,
     And fast, and fast, her beads did tell;
     She mark’d not, at the scene aghast,
     What time, or how, the Palmer pass’d.”

The following day, Marmion and the brave Douglas journeyed to fair Tantallon.  The Palmer still was with the band, as Angus commanded that no one should roam at large.  A wondrous change had come to the holy Palmer.  He freely spoke of war; he looked so high, and rode so fast, that old Hubert said he never saw but one who could sit so proud, and rein so well.

A half hour’s march behind, came Fitz-Eustace, escorting the Abbess, the fair Lady Clare, and all the nuns.

Marmion had sought no audience, fearing to increase Clara’s hatred.  He preferred to wait until she was removed from the convent and in her uncle’s care.  He hoped then, with the influence of her kinsman and her King, to gain her consent to be the Lady Marmion.  He longed to command,

    “O’er luckless Clara’s ample land,”

yet he hated himself when he thought of the meanness to which he stooped for conquest, when he remembered his own lost honor; for,

    “If e’er he lov’d, ’twas her alone,
     Who died within that vault of stone.”

Near Berwick town they came upon a venerable convent pile, and halted at its gate.  In answer to the bell, a door opened, and an aged dame appeared to ask St. Hilda’s Abbess to rest here with her nuns until a barque was provided to bear her back to Whitby.

The courtesy of the Scottish Prioress was most joyfully received, and the delighted maidens gladly left their palfreys; but when Lady Clara attempted to dismount, Fitz-Eustace gently refused, saying: 

“I grieve, fair lady, to separate you from your friends.  Think it no discourtesy of mine, but lords’ commands must be obeyed, and Marmion and Douglas order that you shall return directly to your kinsman, Lord Fitz-Clare.”

The startled Abbess loud exclaimed, but Clara was speechless and deadly pale.

“Cheer thee, my child!” the Abbess cried; “they dare not tear thee from my care, to ride alone among soldiers.”

“Nay, nay, holy mother,” interrupted Fitz-Eustace, “the lovely lady, while in Scotland, will be the immediate ward of Lady Angus Douglas, and when she rides to England, female attendance will be provided befitting the heir of Gloster.  My Lord Marmion will not address Lady Clare by word or look.”