Like frightened hares they darted toward the entrance of the courtyard. They slipped on the frosty cobbles. They stumbled, for they were cramped and stiff with lying still so long. Behind them they heard men shout, and at that sound they ran the faster. Outside the gate they dived into a narrow alley. At the farther end was a wall, over which they flung themselves. Beyond the wall were squalid courts, and frost-nipped gardens, and walls, and more walls. At last they halted in a damp courtyard. They were too spent to run a step farther. They crept into a great empty cask, which lay on its side among some rubbish against a blank wall. There they crouched and waited, while they listened for the coming of pursuers. They heard no sound, but long after they had got breath again they stayed in their hiding-place. They ate Polly Woolgar's gingerbread, and still they were very hungry. They found it cold, too, in that damp court. And because they were hungry and cold they could not stay there forever. About the middle of the afternoon they crawled out of the cask, and with hearts in their mouths stole into the streets of the rebel town. "If we ask questions," said Rupert, "they'll know us for strangers. So we'll make as if we knew the way, and stroll about like idle boys, and in time we'll hit upon a gate. And then mayhap we can slip through it into the open country." Merrylips smiled unsteadily. She felt as if she could not breathe until she was outside of the rebel town. She kept tight hold of Rupert's hand, and whenever they met a Roundhead soldier, pressed closer to Rupert's side. They had threaded a maze of little lanes that were overhung with dingy houses, and now they came into the pale sunlight of an open space. In the middle of this space stood a market-cross, and at the right a steep street wound upward to the castle. "Sure, here's the centre of things!" Rupert began joyfully. "Now I will take my bearings. Cheerly, Merrylips! We'll soon be clear o' this coil." Right in the middle of his brave words, he stopped, with his lips parted and his eyes wide. Merrylips looked up in great fright. There by the market-cross, not twenty paces from them, a group of men were lounging, and one of them was a tall young fellow in a smock frock. "'Tis Kit Woolgar himself!" whispered Rupert. "Quick, ere he see us! Turn in at this door!" Right beside them, as Rupert's quick eye had noted, a door stood open. Over it hung a board, on which was painted a spotted dog, and a bush of evergreen, which meant that wine was sold inside. The house was a tavern, then, and it was called the Spotted Dog. A rough place it seemed, but Rupert and Merrylips were glad of any port in storm. Hurriedly they turned in at the open door. They went down a flagged passage. They stepped into a low-ceiled taproom. There, on benches by the fire, lounged a half-dozen burly musketeers, who wore the colors of the Parliament.