Outside the gate the soldier halted.
"Any more lasses in the house?" he asked.
"They have all gone," Annot answered. "I and uncle, and the man, were all who stayed when the cannons began this morning. The rest left us."
"Thy uncle? eh! poor lass, poor lass! come away," he said on that. "Where do we take her, comrade?"
"Out of the town, to a mill a mile or more eastward down the river. It will be safe going enough, for we can get away by by-lanes."
So we went on hastily, meeting few people at that hour in the dark alleys of the town, and were soon across a breach in the old useless walls, and in the quiet meadows along the Tyne side. Annot walked quickly and firmly enough, though she was hard put to it not to weep now and then.
We had hardly gone the breadth of two meadows beyond the last cottages, when a trumpet call rang sharply through the night, and the soldier pricked up his ears.
"Ho, comrade, I am wanted, and must get back. That call is for guard changing, and my name is never missing on roll-call," he said. "Good luck go with you, you are safe now. Forgive me, pretty lass, if I told you bad news over-roughly just now—but you can but ken the worst once."
With that he nodded to me, and was off, but he turned to call once more, "Name of John Sykes of Birkbeck's company. Bring me word how you fare."
There were more half-lost words about ale-drinking over the adventure, but he was running fast, and I hardly listened, for Annot was speaking to me, calling me by the name I had taken when my own was not to be used any longer. They were wont to call me "Barvill of the Peel" in the old days, and so I kept some remembrance of the name, as it were.