The rumour of approaching troops kept gathering, and at every fresh report Scudamore’s eyes shone.

‘Sir Rowland,’ said the governor one day, ’hast not had enough of fighting yet for all thy lame shoulder?’

‘’Tis but my left shoulder, my lord,’ answered Scudamore.

‘Thou lookest for the siege as an’ it were but a tussle and over—­a flash and a roar.  An’ thou had to answer for the place like me—­well!’

’Nay, my lord, I would fain show the roundheads what an honest house can do to hold out rogues.’

‘Ay, but there’s the rub!’ returned lord Charles:  ’will the house hold out the rogues?  Bethink thee, Rowland, there is never a spot in it fit for defence except the keep and the kitchen.’

‘We can make sallies, my lord.’

’To be driven in again by ten times our number, and kept in while they knock our walls about our ears!  However, we will hold out while we can.  Who knows what turn affairs may take?’

It was towards the end of April when the news reached Raglan that the king, desperate at length, had made his escape from beleaguered Oxford, and in the disguise of a serving man, betaken himself to the headquarters of the Scots army, to find himself no king, no guest even, but a prisoner.  He sought shelter and found captivity.  The marquis dropped his chin on his chest and murmured, ‘All is over.’

But the pang that shot to his heart awoke wounded loyalty:  he had been angry with his monarch, and justly, but he would fight for him still.

‘See to the gates, Charles,’ he cried, almost springing, spite of his unwieldiness, from his chair.  ’Tell Casper to keep the powder-mill going night and day.  Would to God my boy Ned were here!  His majesty hath wronged me, but throned or prisoned he is my king still—­the church must come down, Charles.  The dead are for the living, and will not cry out.’  For in St. Cadocus’ church lay the tombs of his ancestors.

On deliberation it was resolved, however, that only the tower, which commanded some portions of the castle, should fall.  To Dorothy it was like taking down the standard of the Lord.  She went with some of the ladies to look a last look at the ancient structure, and saw mass after mass fall silent from the top to clash hideous at the foot amidst the broken tomb-stones.  It was sad enough! but the destruction of the cottages around it, that the enemy might not have shelter there, was sadder still.  The women wept and wailed; the men growled, and said what was Raglan to them that their houses should be pulled from over their heads.  The marquis offered compensation and shelter.  All took the money, but few accepted the shelter, for the prospect of a siege was not attractive to any but such as were fond of fighting, of whom some would rather attack than defend.

The next day they heard that sir Trevor Williams was at Usk with a strong body of men.  They knew colonel Birch was besieging Gutbridge castle.  Two days passed, and then colonel Kirk appeared to the north, and approached within two miles.  The ladies began to look pale as often as they saw two persons talking together:  there might be fresh news.  His father and his wife were not the only persons in the castle who kept sighing for Glamorgan.  Every soul in it felt as if, not to say fancied that, his presence would have made it impregnable.