CHAPTER IX
ALL IN THE NIGHT
For a thousand years, it seemed to Merrylips, she had been climbing a hill. It was a long, long hill, and very steep, but at the top, she knew, was Walsover, and only by gaining the top could she reach home. So she climbed and she climbed, with the breath short in her throat and her body aching with weariness, but climb as she would, she was just as far as ever from the top.
She knew also—how, she could not say,—that she had no time to lose. She must reach the top of the hill very soon, or something dreadful would happen. Between weariness and fright she found herself sobbing, yet all the time she kept saying to herself:—
"'Tis a dream! 'Tis naught but a dream!"
Then she heard Mawkin's voice.
"Hasten, hasten, mistress!" Mawkin was saying. "Rise and don your clothes! Rise, else 'tis too late!"
"Oh, I be trying, Mawkin! Indeed, I try, but 'tis so far to climb!" Merrylips heard her own voice wail in answer.
She wondered why she troubled herself to answer, when it was nothing but a dream.
Before her eyes flashed a candle, as bright as if it were real. Round her she seemed to see the wainscotted walls of her little chamber, and the carved chair by the bedside, on which her clothes were laid. She seemed to see Mawkin bending over her, with her hair disordered and her eyes wild—so clear and lifelike had this dream become!
"'Tis the soldiers!" Mawkin was saying. "The loyal folk at Rofield have sent to warn us. The wicked Roundheads will be down on Larkland this same night. You must forth at once, little mistress, with no staying for coaches. You must go a-horseback, you and her Ladyship, and Roger to guard you. You must go, and without more staying. Waken, waken, little slug-abed, if you be fain to see Walsover!"
"I know! I know!" moaned Merrylips. "I've this long hill to climb."
Then, in her dream, she felt hands laid upon her.
"Quickly, quickly, you must don your clothes!" Mawkin was crying.
With all her strength Merrylips struggled against her and struck with her hands.
"Oh, thou art cruel," she sobbed, "so to hold me back from this hill! Thou art cruel—cruel! Let me go, Mawkin! Let me go!"
She heard Mawkin crying and coaxing, and at last calling for help, but she heard her far off in the dream. Once more she was struggling up the long hill to Walsover, and the time, she knew, ran every moment shorter.
For one instant the dream was at a standstill. Heavy-headed and weak and sick, Merrylips found herself. She lay in her own bed, in her own chamber. On the table close by shone a candle, which made strange shadows on the wall, and through the casement she saw a thin moon riding down the sky. At the foot of the bed, stood Mawkin, and, just as she had done in the dream, she was wringing her hands and talking and crying.
But, not as it had been in the dream, Lady Sybil, in the green gown and the cloak into which, that afternoon, the jewels had been sewn, was bending over the bed. Her arms were round Merrylips, and her hand, on the little girl's forehead, felt cool and soft. It was the touch of her hand, thought Merrylips, that had ended the dream.
"Little one!" Lady Sybil was saying. "Thou dost know me, mine own lass?"
"Ay, godmother," Merrylips tried to answer, but could make no sound.
"Oh, your Ladyship!" Mawkin began to blubber. "She's fever-stricken, my poor, bonny lamb! She can never forth and ride with this sickness upon her. She must e'en bide here at Larkland. And when the soldiers come, haply they will—"
"Peace, thou silly fool!" Lady Sybil spoke sharply. "No harm will be done the child. And yet, ill as she is and in sore need of my care—oh, how can I leave thee, Merrylips? How can I leave thee?"
Upon her face Merrylips felt hot tear-drops fall. She thought that she must be dreaming again. It could not be her godmother who was weeping so!
Once more she had set her tired feet to the dream-hill that she must climb, when she heard a heavy step in the chamber. Beside the bed she saw old Roger stand. He wore a leathern coat, and at his side he bore a rusted old sword. She wondered where he had hidden it at the time when Will Lowry searched the house of Larkland.
"Your Ladyship!" said old Roger.
He spoke in the curt, soldierly fashion that must have been his when he was a young man and served against the Irish kern in Connaught.
"Your horses stand ready at the door," he went on. "Your enemies are yonder on Cuckstead common, not a mile away. An you will come, with that which you bear upon you, you must come now, or never!"
Merrylips lay with her head upon Lady Sybil's bosom, and she felt that bosom shaken with sobbing.
"Oh, Roger! My good Roger!" said a broken voice, which, Merrylips felt, could only in a dream be Lady Sybil's voice. "What shall I do? What can I do? This child—my little lass! She hath fallen ill. I cannot take her with me in my flight. Yet I cannot leave her."
Old Roger answered in a voice that rang through the dream.
"'Tis a sweet little lady and winsome,—ay, and dear unto mine old heart, your Ladyship! But the king's cause is dearer than any child unto us, who are your father's poor servants. Your Ladyship, 'tis to save your wealth for the good cause you go. 'Tis for the king you ride to-night!"
"The king!" whispered Merrylips. "God save him!"
"Hath not the child herself said it?" cried old Roger. "Come, your Ladyship!"
For one instant Merrylips felt on her forehead the touch of Lady Sybil's lips. For one instant she heard that dear voice in her ear.
"For the king, my little true heart—to bear him aid—only for that I leave thee! And oh! God keep thee, Merrylips, till I may come to thee again! God keep thee!"
But Merrylips heard the voice now, drowsily and far off. Far off, too, she heard the sound of footsteps hurrying from the room, and the sound of some one—was it Mawkin?—sobbing. Fainter, still farther off, she heard a ringing of horse-hoofs—a ringing sound that soon died away. She saw the slit of a moon and the candle at the bedside shrink till they were dim dreamlights.
Once again she was climbing the long hill that never had an end. But as she struggled on and on, with breath that failed and feet that were so tired, she told herself that it was all a dream, and nothing but a dream. The hill was a dream, and the terror that followed her a dream, and oh! most surely of all, it was a black and not-to-be-believed-in dream that Lady Sybil could have gone from Larkland and left her there alone.