"Get her away," my comrade howled in my ear; "they will be round to the back directly."
Then blows fell on the door that had just been barred, and Annot started away from it towards us. And at that my comrade, not in the least knowing who this girl was, and most likely thinking her but a servant, went close to her.
"Come away, lass, I tell thee. The master is slain, and the knaves will likely burn the house."
She turned to me with a blanched face, as if to ask if this could be true, and I could only nod in assent, and I thought that she was about to faint; so did my comrade, and we took her arms and led her out into the yard, where the noise was less.
"Come, Mistress Annot," I said, "it may not be so bad as that, but it is true that you must leave here. Let us take you to the miller, and I will come back for your uncle."
"I am frightened," she said, "and cannot rightly understand. Were you sent for me?"
"Ay—sent—both of us," answered the soldier promptly. "Miller could not come himself, in times like these. Quickly, mistress, or they will catch us."
"I will go with you," she said, "but it is cold, and I would find a cloak."
But there was no time for that now. The barred door was splintering as men swung a bench against it, and that sight decided her. She bade us lead her, and we hurried out into the lane, and away down it in the direction opposite to that in which the market-place lay. Across that end of the lane the crowd that the scuffle had attracted was gathering thickly, and for that reason, perhaps, the lane was empty. But I knew that it would not be long before outsiders would take part in wrecking a tavern, and then a rush would be made to the back, of course.