Love and
generous compassion, which give singly such powerful impulse to the
female heart, were in this case united, and championed her to the last
extremity of hazard.
It was an hour past midnight. All in the tower slept sound but those
who had undertaken to guard the English prisoner; or if sorrow and
suffering drove sleep from the bed of Dame Glendinning and her
foster-daughter, they were too much wrapt in their own griefs to
attend to external sounds. The means of striking light were at hand
in the small apartment, and thus the Miller's maiden was enabled to
light and trim a small lamp. With a trembling step and throbbing
heart, she undid the door which separated her from the apartment in
which the Southron knight was confined, and almost flinched from her
fixed purpose, when she found herself in the same room with the
sleeping prisoner. She scarcely trusted herself to look upon him, as
he lay wrapped in his cloak, and fast asleep upon the pallet bed, but
turned her eyes away while she gently pulled his mantle with no more
force than was just equal to awaken him. He moved not until she had
twitched his cloak a second and a third time, and then at length
looking up, was about to make an exclamation in the suddenness of his
surprise.
Mysie's bashfulness was conquered by her fear. She placed her fingers
on her lips, in token that he must observe the most strict silence,
and then pointed to the door to intimate that it was watched.
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