Though his force did not amount to half that of his opponent, Rodolph, enraged by the crimes he could not prevent, would have gone to meet his competitor, but for the unanimous opposition of his nobles.  While the Suabian party were deliberating upon the best course to pursue, Henry, by a forced march, fell unexpectedly upon their rear.  Taken by surprise and overpowered by numbers, they fled in all directions, and Rodolph, accompanied only by a remnant of his army, escaped with difficulty into Saxony.  Suabia was now at the mercy of the victor.

Tidings of this disastrous defeat had not yet reached the Lady Margaret.  The scanty intelligence she could occasionally glean was not such as to brighten the melancholy caused by the absence of her father and brother.  Her fears thickened daily, as rumor, for once unable to exaggerate, divulged the massacres and impieties of the old imperialists.  Her only relief was in the Sacraments, administered by the saintly Herman, and in prayer.  The wives of the yeomen, not knowing when to expect the enemy, sought shelter in the castle with their parents and children.  There were gathered the innocent, the aged, the young, the beautiful, and the Lady Margaret experienced some relief in administering to their wants and calming their anxiety.  She did not rely much upon the few faithful soldiers who were left to guard the castle; but though womanly apprehension would often blanch her cheek, and her frame quiver as some recent deed of shame was unfolded, her confidence in God continued unabated.

One afternoon, as the Lady Margaret, surrounded by the inmates of the castle, was seated in the hall, Bertha, clad in a black mantle, stole silently into the room, and glancing wildly around, began to traverse the apartment with rapid strides.  Her excited manner attracted much attention, and many anxious conjectures were made as to the cause of her meaning gestures.  At length, stopping before the Lady Margaret, who watched her movements with a troubled eye, she sang, almost in a whisper: 

  The sunbeam was bright on their shields as they came,
    But dim on their blood-rusted spears;
  They gave up the hamlet to pillage and flame,
    And scoffed at the kneeling one’s tears!

“Perhaps the enemy are upon us,” said a graycoated palmer, who for some days had shared the bounty of the Lady Margaret.

At these words, a general murmur ran round the group, and then all was still as death.

Bertha resumed, in a louder tone: 

  They come—­they come—­the groan, the shout
  Of death and life ring wildly out! 
  The sky is clouding at their cry,
  As they toss their reeking blades on high;
  Arm, gallants all! and watch ye well,
  Or to-morrow’s chime will be your knell.

As she concluded the rough fragment, she extended her arm to the south, and shaking her finger menacingly, muttered, “They come!”