CHAPTER III
OUT IN THE WORLD
At first Merrylips found it easy to be brave. She was given a pretty new cloak and gown. She was pitied by the serving-maids, and envied by her sisters, and petted by her brothers, because she was going on a long journey.
Better still, she found it easy to be, not only brave, but merry, like herself, on the autumn morning when she was mounted on a pillion behind one of the serving-men in her father's little cavalcade. For, girl though Flip had called her, she was leaving Walsover at last on that wondrous journey to great London town.
For five long days they rode among the scenes that Merrylips knew from her father's tales. They passed through fields that were brown with autumn, and villages where homely smoke curled from the chimneys. They clattered through towns where beggar children ran at the horses' stirrups and whined for ha'pennies. They crossed great wastes of common, where Merrylips half hoped that they might meet with padders, so sure was she that her father and his stout serving-men could guard her from all harm.
For four wonderful nights they halted at snug inns, where civil landladies courtesied to Merrylips. They supped together, Merrylips and her father, and he plied her with cakes and cream and oyster pies that she felt her mother would have forbidden. After supper she sat on his knee, while he sipped his claret by the blazing fire, till for very weariness she drooped her head against his shoulder and slept. Then, if she woke in the night, she would find herself laid in a big, strange bed, and she would wonder how she had ever come there.
A happy journey it was, through the clear autumn weather! But the happiest day of all was the one when, toward sunset, Merrylips was shown a pile of roofs, where spires and towers rose sharp against the pale glow of the eastern sky. Yonder was London, so her father said.
A little later, in the twilight, they were clattering through paved streets. Above them frowned dim houses, and on all sides were hurrying folk that jostled one another. This was London, Merrylips said over and over to herself, and in the London of her dreams she planned to have many gay hours, like those of the days that were just passed.
But in this Merrylips was sadly disappointed. Next morning Sir Thomas, who had been her playmate since they left Walsover, was closeted with some of his friends,—men who wore long swords and talked loudly of church and king. He had no time to spend with his little daughter, so Merrylips had to go walk with Mawkin, the stout Walsover lass who was to wait upon her, and a serving-man who should guard them through the streets.
On this walk Merrylips found that though there were raisins of the sun, and oranges, and sugar candy in the London shops, just as she had dreamed, these sweets—unlike her dreams!—were to be had only by paying for them. She found too that the streets of London were rough and dirty and full of rude folk. They paid no heed to her pretty new cloak and gown, but jostled her uncivilly.
Once Merrylips and her companions were forced to halt by a crowd of staring folk that blocked the way. In the midst of the crowd they saw that a prentice lad and a brisk young page were hard at fisticuffs.
"Rogue of a Cavalier!" taunted the prentice.
In answer the other lad jeered: "Knave of a Roundhead!"
Then the spectators took sides and urged them on to fight.
"What be they, Cavaliers and Roundheads that they prate of, good Mawkin?" asked Merrylips.
Mawkin, who was gaping at the fight, said tartly that she knew not.
But the serving-man, Stephen Plasket, said: "'Tis thus, little mistress: all gentlefolk who are for our gracious king are called by the name of Cavaliers, while the vile knaves who would resist him are Roundheads."
"Then I am a Cavalier," said Merrylips.
At that moment Mawkin cried: "Lawk! he hath it fairly!"
There was the young page tumbled into the mud, with his nose a-bleeding!
"O me!" lamented Merrylips. "If Munn were but here,hewould 'a' learned that prentice boy a lesson, not to mock at us Cavaliers. I would that my brother Munn stood here!"
Not till she had spoken the words did Merrylips realize how from her heart she wished that Munn were there. She wanted him, not only to beat the rude prentice boy, but to cheer her with the sight of his face. For the first time she realized that she longed to see Munn, or even prim Pug, or any of the dear folk that she had left at Walsover.
When once she had realized this, she found that London was a dreary place, and she was tired of her journey in the world. From that moment she found it quite useless to try to be merry, and hard even to seem brave, and every hour she found it harder.
There was the bad hour of twilight, when she sat alone by the fire in her father's chamber. She listened to the rumble of coaches in the street below and the cry of a street-seller: "Hot fine oat-cakes, hot!" She found something in the sound so doleful that she wanted to cry.
There was the lonely hour when she woke in the night and did not know where she was. When she remembered at last that she was in London, bound for Larkland in Sussex, she lay wide-eyed and wondered what would happen to her at her godmother's house, till through the chamber window the dawn came, bleak and gray.
Last, and worst, there was the bitter hour when she sat, perched on high at Mawkin's side, in a carrier's wagon. She looked down at her father, and he stood looking up at her. She knew that in a moment the wagon would start on its long journey into Sussex, and he would be left behind in London town.
Merrylips managed to smile, as she waved her hand to her father in farewell, but it was an unsteady little smile. And when once the clumsy wagon had lumbered out of the inn-yard, and she could no longer catch a glimpse of her father's sturdy figure, she hid her face against Mawkin's shoulder.
"Cheerly, mistress my pretty!" comforted Mawkin. "Do but look upon the jolly fairings your good father hath given you. If here be not quince cakes—yes, and gingerbread, and comfits! Mercy cover us! Comfits enough to content ye the whole journey, even an ye had ten mouths 'stead o' one. And as I be christom woman, here are fair ribbons, and such sweet gloves,—yes, and a silver shilling in a little purse of silk. Do but look thereon!"
"Oh, I care not for none of 'em," said Merrylips. "Leave me be, good Mawkin!"
But all that day Mawkin chattered. She pointed out sheep and kine and crooked-gabled houses, and men that were scouring ditches or mending hedges. Indeed, she tried her best to amuse her young mistress.
Merrylips found her talk wearisome, but next day, when Mawkin, who was vexed at her dumpishness, kept sulkily silent, she found the silence harder still to bear. She did not wish to think too much about her godmother, for the nearer she came to her, the more afraid of her she grew. So, to take up her mind, she ate the comfits and the cakes with which her father had heaped her lap. It was no wonder, then, that on the third day of her journey she had an ache in the head that was almost as hard to bear as the ache in her heart.
About mid-afternoon a chill, fine rain began to fall. Mawkin, all huddled in her cloak, slept by snatches, and woke at the lurching of the wagon, and grumbled because she was wakened. But Merrylips dared not sleep lest she tumble from her place. So she sat clinging fast to Mawkin's cloak with her cold little hands, while through the drizzling rain she stared at the plashy fields and the sheep that cowered in the shelter of the dripping hedges.
At last, in the deepening twilight, she saw the dim fronts of houses where candles, set in lanterns, were flaring gustily. She knew that the wagon had halted in the ill-smelling court of an inn. She saw the steam curl upward from the horses' flanks, and heard the snap of buckles and clatter of shafts, as the stable-lads unhitched the wagon.
"Come, little mistress!" spoke the big carrier, who had clambered on the wheel near Merrylips. "Here we be, come to the inn at Horsham and the end of our journey. Ye must light down."
"I will not!" cried Merrylips, and clung to the seat with stiffened hands. "I'll sit here forever till ye go back unto London. I'll not bide here in your loathly Sussex. I do hate your Sussex. I'll not light down. I'll not, I tell ye!"
Mawkin, half awake, spoke sharply: "Hold your peace, I pray you, mistress!"
One of the stable boys laughed, and with that laughter in her ears, Merrylips felt herself lifted bodily into the big carrier's arms and set down on her feet in the courtyard. The world was all against her, she thought, and it was a world of rain and darkness in which she felt small and weak and lonely. In sudden terror she caught at the carrier's sleeve.
"Oh, master, take me back to London!" she cried. "I'll give ye my new silver shilling. I cannot bide here—indeed, you know not! I like not your Sussex—and I be feared of mine old godmother. Oh, master, take me back wi' you to my daddy in London town!"
Then, while she pleaded, Merrylips felt two hands, eager hands but gentle, laid on her shoulders.
"Little lass!" said a woman's voice. "Thou art cold and shivering. Do thou come in out of the storm."
"I'm fain to go back!" cried Merrylips.
She turned toward this stranger who was friendly, but saw her all blurred through a mist of rain and of tears.
"All in good time!" the kind voice went on. "If thou art fain to be gone, thou shalt go, but for now—come in from the storm."
Merrylips went obediently, with her hand in the hand that was held out to her. Too tired to question or to wonder, she found herself in a snug, warm chamber where candles burned on the table and a fire snapped on the hearth. She found herself seated in a great cushioned chair, with the shoes slipped from her numbed feet and the wet cloak drawn from her shoulders. She found herself drinking new milk and eating wheaten bread, that tasted good after the sweets on which she had feasted, and always she found her new friend with the kind voice moving to and fro and ministering to her.
Shyly Merrylips looked upon the stranger. She saw that she was a very old woman, no doubt, for her soft brown hair was touched with gray, but she had fresh cheeks and bright eyes and the kindest smile in the world. Then she saw the kind face mistily, and knew that she had nodded with sleepiness.
A little later she found herself laid in a soft bed, between fair sheets of linen, and she was glad to see that the stranger, her friend, was seated by the bedside.
"Oh, mistress!" said Merrylips, and stretched forth her hand. "Did you mean it in sober truth—that you will aid me to go back to London—away from mine old godmother?"
Then the gentlewoman laughed, with eyes and lips.
"Oh, my little lass!" she said, and knelt and put her arms about Merrylips where she lay. "Hast thou not guessed that I am that poor old godmother thou wouldst run from? I pray thee, dear child, stay with me but a little, for I am sadly lonely."
All in a moment, as she looked into the face that bent above her, Merrylips grew sorry that she had thrown the poor doll on the floor and kicked it too. She felt almost as if she had struck a blow at this kind soul who had come to befriend her when she had felt so tired and lost.
She spoke no word, because of the lump that rose in her throat, but she put both arms about her godmother's neck.
And when her godmother said: "We shall be friends, then, little Merrylips?" Merrylips nodded, with her head nestled against her godmother's breast.