She felt his grasp tighten on her arm. She knew that he meant to strike her. But before the blow had time to fall, Rupert had thrust himself in front of her. "Do not you touch him!" he cried in a quavering voice. "'A is too little! Ye shall not touch him." "Let the brat drink that pledge. 'Tis a good pledge!" cried one. "Faith, you shall drink it yourself, you pestilence meddler!" said the fellow who had first laid hold of Merrylips. He turned from her and caught Rupert by the arm. Some one gave him a cup of ale, and he thrust it into Rupert's hand. "Down with it!" he ordered. "Drink! To the devil wi' false King Charles!" Rupert had talked lightly enough of how he should pass himself off for a Roundhead. But now that the time had come, he hesitated. Then his face turned gray and set, as it had been on the day when Lieutenant Digby had bidden him sing. "Drink!" the Roundhead bade again. "I'll see you dead first!" Rupert cried. "I am no rebel!" Merrylips threw her arm across her eyes. In very truth she thought that Rupert would be killed. She heard men cry out, and she heard them laugh. The sound of their laughter seemed to her more terrible than any threats. One shouted, "Make him drink now!" Then Rupert cried shrilly, "Away wi' thee, Merrylips! Run! The window!" Right beside Merrylips a casement stood open. She looked toward it, but she did not stir. She wondered how Rupert could think that she would run away and leave him. Beyond the casement she saw the sun slanting peacefully upon the market-place, and through the sunlight she saw a horseman go ambling. He wore a bandage round his head, and in the strong light his chestnut hair was ruddy, like her brother Munn's. It all happened in a second. Before the noise of laughter and Rupert's shrill cry had ceased, she had leaped on a bench beneath the window and cast herself over the sill. She fell upon the cobbles without. She sprang up and ran stumbling across the market-place. As she ran, she screamed. She heard her own voice, thin, like a voice in a nightmare:-- "Dick Fowell! Oh, Dick Fowell! Help! Help! Help!" CHAPTER XXIX A FRIEND IN NEED For a long time after, indeed until she was a grown woman, Merrylips used to dream of that run across the market-place. She would wake all breathless and trembling with fear lest she might not reach Dick Fowell. Truly it seemed as if she never could make him hear. He was riding with his face to the front, headed for the street that led upward to the castle, and in the clatter of his horse's hoofs he heard no other sound. But Merrylips screamed with all her might, and the men lounging by the market-cross raised their voices too, and some idle boys took up the cry. Through the haze that wavered before her eyes, she saw Fowell check his horse and turn in the saddle. She reeled forward, and caught and clung to his stirrup.