CHAPTER I
A MAID OF OLD
The little girl's name was Sybil Venner, but she was known as Merrylips. For Sir Thomas Venner, her jolly, bluff father, never by any chance called a child of his by its baptismal name. His tall eldest son, Thomas, answered, whether he liked it or not, to the nickname of Longkin, and Edmund and Philip, the two younger lads, became Munn and Flip, and Katharine, the oldest girl, was Puss, and prim Lucy was Pug.
So when Sir Thomas came riding home from London town and first saw his little daughter Sybil, a baby of three months old, crowing and laughing in her cradle, he cried:—
"'Truth, here's a merry lass! Come to thy dad, little Merrylips."
Thus it was that little Sybil was christened anew, and Merrylips she remained, to all who loved her, to the end of her story.
The home of little Merrylips was a great old house called Walsover, which stood below a hill hard by a sleepy village of a half-score thatched cottages. The village, too, was called Walsover, and it lay in that pleasant part of merry England known as the county of Wilts.
A remote countryside it was in the days, now more than two long centuries ago, when our Merrylips was romping and laughing in Walsover hall. From Walsover to Salisbury, the market-town, was a journey of many hours on horseback, by roads that were narrow and hard to follow, and full of ruts and stones, and oftentimes heavy with mire.
From Salisbury to London was a journey of days, in a carrier's clumsy wain or on horseback, over downs where shepherds kept their flocks, through country lanes where the may bloomed white in the hedgerows, past little villages that nestled in the shadow of stumpy church towers, through muddy towns where half-timbered gables and latticed casements overhung the crooked streets, across wide commons—this far oftener than was pleasant!—where, in the fear of highwaymen or "padders," the traveller kept a hand upon his pistols, and so at last into the narrow streets amid the jostling crowd, under the jangling of the bells that swung in the many steeples of great London town.
Of this long, perilous journey Merrylips, from a little child, never tired of hearing her father tell. Four times a year he rode to London, at the head of a little cavalcade of serving-men in blue coats, that made a brave show as they gathered for the start in the courtyard at Walsover. And four times a year, when he came back from London, he brought in his pockets treasures of sugar candy, and green ginger, and raisins of the sun. No wonder that Merrylips longed to take that great journey to London town, to have adventures by the way, and, at the end, come to the place where such sweets were to be found!
But meantime, while she was too young for journeys and adventures, Merrylips lived at Walsover as happily, it would seem, as a little maid might live. Walsover was a rare place in which to play. The house was old and rambling, with odd little chambers hidden beneath the eaves, and odd little windows tucked away among the vines, and odd little steps, when you went from room to room, that you fell up or down—and Merrylips found it hard to remember which!
In the upper story was a long gallery in which to run and romp on the days—and there were many such in the green county of Wilts!—when the rain fell softly. Downstairs were a great hall, with a balcony for musicians, and dim parlors, all wainscotted in dark wood, where Merrylips grew almost afraid of the pattering sound of her own footsteps.
Better to her liking was the kitchen, with its paved floor and vast fireplace, and the group of buildings that lay beyond the kitchen. There was a brew-house, and a bakehouse, and a dairy, each with its own flagged court, where delightful tasks were always being done. Hard by the dairy was the cow-house, and barns full of sweet-scented hay, and great stables, where Merrylips knew by name and loved all the horses, from her father's bright bay courser to the honest draught beasts. Over against the stables were kennels full of dogs, both for hunting and for fowling. There were rough-coated staghounds, and fleet greyhounds, and setters, and spaniels.
Round this block of buildings and little courts lay gardens and orchards, where wallflowers flamed and roses blew, and apricots and cherries ripened in the sun. And beyond the gardens were on one side rich fields, and on the other a park where rabbits burrowed and deer fed in the dappled shade.
So Merrylips had charming places in which to play, and she had, too, playfellows in plenty. She was the youngest child at Walsover, so she was the pet of every one, from the least scullery wench in the kitchen and the least horseboy in the stable, to her big, bluff father, Sir Thomas.
Above all, she was dearly loved by her three big brothers. As soon as she was able to toddle, she had begun to follow them about, at their work or play, and when they found her merry always and afraid of nothing, the lads began, half in sport, to give her a share in whatever they took in hand.
From those kind big brothers Merrylips learned to climb and to vault, to pitch a quoit and toss a ball, to sit a horse, and whip a trout-brook, to play fair always, and to keep back the tears when she was hurt. These were good lessons for a little girl, but Merrylips learned others that were not so good. She learned to speak hard words when she was angry, to strike with her little fists, to be rough and noisy. And because it seemed to them droll to see such a mite of a girl copy these faults of theirs, her brothers and sometimes even her father laughed and did not chide her.
In all the house of Walsover there was no one to say Merrylips nay except her mother, Lady Venner. Of her mother Merrylips stood in great fear. Lady Venner was a silent woman, who was very busy with the cares of her large household and of the whole estate, which was left to her management when her husband was away. She had little time to spend on her youngest daughter, and that little she used, as seemed to her wise, in trying to correct the faults that her husband and sons had fostered in the child. So Merrylips soon came to think of her mother as always chiding her, or forbidding her some pleasure, or setting her some task.
These tasks Merrylips hated. She did not mind so much when she was taught to read and write by the chaplain, for Munn and Flip, before they went away to Winchester School, had also had lessons to say to him. But when she was set down with a needle, to be taught all manner of stitches by her mother's waiting-woman, or bidden to strum a lute, under sister Puss's instruction, she fairly cried with rage and rebellion.
For down in her little heart, so secret that none had suspected, Merrylips kept the hope that she might grow up a boy. To be a boy meant to run and play, with no hindering petticoats to catch the heels and trip the toes. It meant to go away to school or to camp. It meant to be a soldier and have adventures, such as her father had had when he was a captain in the Low Countries.
To be a girl, on the other hand, meant to sew long seams and sit prettily in a quiet room, until the time, years and years away, when one was very old. Then one married, and went to another house, and there sat in another quiet room and sewed more seams till the end of one's life. No wonder Merrylips prayed with all her heart to grow up a boy!
To her mind the granting of this prayer did not seem impossible. To be sure, she wore petticoats, but so had Longkin and Munn and Flip when they were little. If she did all the things that boys did, she had no doubt that in time she should, like them, pass beyond the stage of petticoats.
But in this plan she was balked by her mother's orders to sew and play the lute and help in the still-room and do all the foolish things that girls were set to do. That was why Merrylips cried and raged over her needlework, and she raged still harder on the day about which you now shall hear.
Sir Thomas, who had been to Salisbury market, came riding home, one sweet summer evening, and cried lustily in the hall:—
"Merrylips! Halloo! Where beest thou, little jade?"
When Merrylips came running down the staircase, with her flyaway hair all blown about her face, he caught her and tossed her in his arms and said, laughing:—
"Hast got thee a sweetheart without thine old dad's knowing? Here's a packet for thine own small self, come by carrier to Salisbury town."
Now when Merrylips looked at the packet of which her father spoke, a little box that lay upon the table beside his whip and gloves, her eyes sparkled, for she guessed what it held. Only the month before her brother Munn, in a letter that he wrote from Winchester, had promised to send her a fish-line of hair that she much wanted and a four-penny whittle that should be her very own.
"'Tis from Munn!" she cried, and struggled from her father's arms, though he made believe to hold her hard, and ran to the table.
"There you are out, little truepenny!" said Sir Thomas.
He cast himself into a chair that his man might draw off his great riding boots. Lady Venner and tall Puss and rosy Pug, who loved her needle, had come into the hall at the sound of his voice, and to Lady Venner he now spoke:—
"'Tis a packet come out of Sussex, from thine old gossip, Lady Sybil Fernefould."
"Ay, our Sybil's godmother," said Lady Venner. "What hath she sent thee, little one?"
All flushed with joy and pride, for never in her life had she received a packet all her own—nor, for that matter, had Puss or Pug—Merrylips tore open the box. Instantly she gave a sharp cry of anger. Within the box, wrapped in a piece of fair linen, lay a doll, made of cloth, and daintily dressed in a bodice and petticoat of thin figured silk, with little sleeves of lawn and a neat cloak and hood.
"'Tis a mammet—a vild mammet!" screamed Merrylips, and dashed it to the floor and struck it with her foot.
"Oh, Merrylips!" cried Pug, in her soft voice, and caught up the doll and cuddled it to her breast. "'Tis so sweet a baby! Look, Puss! It hath a whisket of lawn, and the under-petticoat, 'tis of fair brocade."
"A mammet—a girl's toy!" repeated Merrylips, and stamped her foot. "My godmother shall not send me such. I will not be a girl. I'll be a lad."
"Well said! And so thou shalt, if wishing will do't, my bawcock!" laughed Sir Thomas.
But Lady Venner looked on in silence, and her face was grave.