coated and helmeted men was received by such a shower of
stones and missiles that many stumbled and were crushed on the steep
pathway. Not even Cromwell's men could continue to face such a
reception, and before very long the Governor could embrace his wife in
the knowledge that the great attack had failed.

In between such scenes as these, when the air was filled with the shouts
and yells of attackers and besieged, when the crack of the muskets and
the intermittent reports of the cannon almost deafened her, Lady
Cholmley was assiduously attending to the wounded and the many cases of
scurvy, which was rampant among the garrison. One of her maids who
shared these labours crept out of the castle one night with a view to
reaching the town and escaping further drudgery and privations; but a
Roundhead sentry discovered her and sent her back to the castle,
thinking that she was a spy. When the great keep was partially
destroyed, Lady Cholmley was forced 'to lie in a little cabbin on the
ground several months together, when she took a defluction of rhume upon
one of her eyes, which troubled her ever after, and got also a touch of
the scurvy then rife in the castle, and of which it is thought she was
not well after.' Who can wonder that Sir Hugh appreciated the courage of
this noble lady, and I marvel still more at her fortitude when I read of
the frailties her husband mentions so gently, fearing, no doubt, that
without a few shadows no one would accept his picture as genuine. 'If
she had taken impression of anything, it was hard to remove it with
reason or argument, till she had considered of it herself; neither could
she well endure adversity or crosses, though it pleased the Lord to
exercise her with them, by my many troubles and the calamity of the
times. She would be much troubled at evils which could neither be
prevented nor remedied, and sometimes discontented without any great
cause, especially in her disposition of health; for, being of a tender
constitution, and spun of a fine thread, every disaster took impression
on her body and mind, and would make her both sick and often inclinable
to be melancholy, especially in my absence.'

At last, on July 22, 1645--his forty-fifth birthday--Sir Hugh was forced
to come to an agreement with the enemy, by which he honourably
surrendered the castle three days later. It was a sad procession that
wound its way down the steep pathway, littered with the debris of broken
masonry: for