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.
"Rupert! Rupert!" she wailed. "They're killing him—yonder at the Spotted Dog! Oh, they're killing Rupert!"
Somebody snatched her out of harm's way, as Dick Fowell swung his horse about. She saw him go galloping across the market-place, and she staggered after him. She felt a grasp on her arm, and she saw that it was Kit Woolgar who was holding her up. But she was past being surprised or frightened at anything.
She did not remember how she had crossed the market-place. She was at the door of the Spotted Dog, and beside it she saw Dick Fowell's horse, with the saddle empty and a potboy holding the bridle. She was stumbling down the flagged passage. She had pitched into the taproom. There, on a bench, in the midst of the little group of musketeers, who were far from laughing now, sat Dick Fowell, and Rupert leaned against his arm.
Rupert was white about the mouth, and he had one sleeve torn from his doublet. He was drinking from a cup that Fowell held to his lips, and he steadied it with a hand that shook a great deal. Between swallows he caught his breath, with a sobbing sound.
Merrylips ran to his side and threw her arms about him.
"I thought they would ha' slain thee!" she gasped.