CHAPTER XVIII
TO ARMS!
For two weeks and more Merrylips had lived at Monksfield. In a hole in her mattress she had hidden the silver ring that had been Lady Sybil's. As long as she had been a girl, she had worn the ring about her neck, but she felt that it did not become a boy to wear it so.
She had changed her girlish little smock for one of Munn's loose shirts. Over her ruddy brown doublet she wore a sleeveless jerkin of leather, which had been made for her from an old coat of Munn's. In her sash she carried a pistol with a broken lock that Nick Slanning had given her.
And she had learned to cock her hat like Lieutenant Crashaw, and stride like Captain Norris, and say, "Body a' truth!" loud and fierce, like Lieutenant Digby. In short, she felt that she now was truly a boy, such as all her life she had hoped to be. And she was willing to stay and be a boy, there at Monksfield, forever and ever.
But there came a day when Merrylips found that things were different. At dinner she sat unnoticed by her friends, the officers, while they talked of beeves and sacks of corn and kegs of powder. Before the meal was over Lieutenant Crashaw left the mess-room, and Captain George Brooke did not come to table at all.
When Merrylips went among her friends, the troopers, she found them busy with their arms. They bade her run away, or else told her the grimmest stories that they yet had told about the cruelties of the wicked Roundheads. Still, she did not quite catch what was in the air, until she came upon Rupert. She found him sitting on a bench against the stable wall. He had his sleeves turned up, and between his lips he held a straw, just as a grown man would have held a pipe, and he was cleaning an old carabine.
At Merrylips' step Rupert looked up, and for the first time in days spoke to her of his own accord.
"Look 'ee, Master Venner," said he, "thou wert best be at home wi' thy mammy. The Roundheads will be down upon us, and they be three yards tall, every man of 'em, and for the most part make their dinners off babes such as thou."
Merrylips felt her cheeks grow hot.
"I've lived two years amongst the Roundheads," she said, "and I know such tales be lies, and thou art a Jack fool to believe 'em."
"Wait and see!" laughed Rupert, and then, as if he were glad of any one to listen to him, he held up the carabine.
"This ismygun," he said proudly, "and I shall be fighting with it at Claus Hinkel's side. I've a powder flask, and a touch-box, and a bullet pouch, and a piece of match as long as thine arm."
"Pooh!" sniffed Merrylips, though indeed she was bitterly jealous. "Ihave a pistol."
"With a broken lock," jeered Rupert. "To be sure, they'd not trust thee with a gun—a little lad like thou."
"Do thou but wait and see what I shall have!" cried Merrylips, hotly.
"Ay, we shall see!" said Rupert.
Then Merrylips walked away, with a stride that was like Captain Norris's. At that moment she quite hated Rupert, and she did not believe his story that the Roundheads were coming to attack Monksfield. She was sure that he had said it only in the hope of frightening her. But before the day was over, she found that Rupert had spoken the truth.
Late in that same afternoon Merrylips was playing with her ball in a little paved court at the north side of the great house. In the old days, a hundred years before, Monksfield had been a monastery, and many of the ancient buildings, with their quaint flagged courtyards, still were standing. At one side of the court where Merrylips played was a wall with a locked gate that led into what had been the herb garden, and on this garden abutted the still-house that the old monks had used.
Presently in her play, Merrylips cast her ball clear over this wall. She did not wish to lose her toy, so she fetched a form from the wash-house, close by, and set it on end against the wall. By climbing upon it, she was able to scramble over into the garden.
She landed in a pathway of sloping flags, along which she guessed that the ball must have rolled. So she followed the path till it pitched down a sunken stairway which led to an oaken door beneath the still-house. At the foot of the stairs lay the ball, and she had just bent to pick it up, when the door opened, right upon her, and a man stepped out.
At her first glance Merrylips saw only that he was a rough fellow, in a smock frock and frieze breeches, and coarse brogues, and that he wore a patch upon one eye. So little did she like his looks that she turned to run up the steps, faster than she had come down, but just then she heard her name spoken:—
"Tibbott Venner!"
The voice was one that she knew. She halted and looked again, and this time, under the black patch and the walnut juice with which the man's face was stained, she recognized the features of Captain George Brooke.
"What bringeth you hither?" Captain Brooke asked sternly, and took her by both shoulders, as she stood a step or two above him on the stairway.
In answer Merrylips held out the ball.
"Tibbott," said the captain then, less sternly but still in a grave voice, "you can keep a secret, can you not? Then remember, lad, you are never to tell to any one in Monksfield that you saw me come from the still-house cellar, nor that you saw me in this garb. Promise me!"
Merrylips shook her head. She feared that she should anger Captain Brooke, and she was sorry, for she liked him, but still she said:—
"I cannot promise. I must tell Captain Norris all that I have seen."
"Now on my word!" said Captain Brooke. "Do you think me about some mischief, Tibbott—a traitor plotting to betray the garrison, perchance? Come, then, and tell all unto Captain Norris, an you will, you little bandog!"
So saying, Captain Brooke locked the door of the cellar with a key that he took from his pocket, and then he led the way in silence across the herb garden. Through a door which he unlocked they entered a wing of the great house, where sacks of flour and barrels of biscuit were stowed. There he took down a cloak that hung upon a peg and cast it about him, so that his mean garments were hidden, and he laid aside the patch that was over his eye.
From the store-room they entered a long passage, and so, by corridors that Merrylips knew well, came to a little study in the second story. There they found Captain Norris, who seemed to be waiting for Captain Brooke.
"You come late, George," said Captain Norris. "I thought you lost. What news?"
"They muster three hundred dragoons and a troop of pioneers, and thereto they have three pieces of ordnance, fetched from Ryeborough," reported Captain Brooke. "Peter Hatcher holdeth the chief command, and one of Lord Caversham's sons is there besides, come with the guns from Ryeborough. Their march is surely for Monksfield, and they are like to be upon us ere the dawn."
Now when Merrylips heard all this, she knew that Rupert had told the truth and that the Roundheads were coming to attack them. At that thought she felt her heart beat faster.
To be sure, she had lived two years among Roundheads. She knew that they were not three yards tall and that they did not dine on babies,—at least, not at Larkland. But she had heard so many tales of their cruelty, since she had come to Monksfield, that she had begun to think that the Roundheads who went to battle must be very different from Will Lowry.
Besides, was not this Hatcher who commanded the enemy the selfsame Hatcher of Horsham that had made her brother Munn a prisoner? It was no wonder, perhaps, that when Merrylips thought of Colonel Hatcher, she had to finger her pistol, to give herself courage.
Just then Captain Norris seemed for the first time to notice her. He asked sternly what she was doing there, and Captain Brooke told him how Merrylips had come upon him at the still-house and would not promise to be silent.
Merrylips grew quite frightened, so vexed and impatient both men seemed.
"I am main sorry, sirs," she faltered, "but indeed I could not promise. I'm a soldier, and a soldier must report to his commander a thing that seemeth so monstrous strange."
"A soldier, are you?" said Captain Norris. "Well, some day, no doubt, you'll be one, and not a bad one neither. But for now, remember, not one word of what you have seen and heard this afternoon!"
"I promise, sir," Merrylips answered, and saluted Captain Norris, as his officers did, and marched out of the room.
She was very proud of the praise that Captain Norris had given her, and of the secret that she shared with the two officers. She wished only that Master Rupert, with his gun, knew how she had been honored!
Still, she could not help wondering how Captain George Brooke had learned all that about the Roundheads in the cellar of the still-house. Perhaps he was a wizard, she concluded, and she so frightened herself with that thought that she fairly ran through the dim passages, and never stopped till she reached the lighted mess-room.
Well, she did not breathe a word, of course, for she had given her promise. It must have been Captain Norris himself that had the news spread abroad at Monksfield. At any rate, inside an hour every soul in the garrison knew that they were likely to be attacked at daybreak.
That night at supper, you may be sure, nothing was talked of among the Monksfield officers but the numbers and the strength of the enemy.
"So one of my lord Caversham's sons is of the attacking party?" asked Nick Slanning.
"What would you?" said Captain Brooke, who still was very brown of face, for he had found the walnut stain hard to wash off.
"They are all rank rebels, the whole house of Caversham," he went on. "His Lordship, old Rob Fowell, the white-haired hypocrite, is in command for the Parliament at Ryeborough. And did he not give his eldest daughter in marriage to that arrant Roundhead, Peter Hatcher? 'Tis but in nature that one of my lord's hopeful sons should march against us at Hatcher's right hand."
"By chance, do you know which one of Caversham's sons it is that cometh with Hatcher?" Lieutenant Digby looked up suddenly to ask.
"'Tis the third son, Dick Fowell," Captain Brooke made answer.
"Dick Fowell?" cried Digby, and flushed dully. "Heaven be thanked for good luck!"
"You know him?" asked Slanning.
"At home I dwell a neighbor to Lord Caversham," Digby answered. "Yes, I know Dick Fowell, and if we meet in the fight, by this hand! he'll have good cause to know me."
As he spoke, Digby laughed, and when he left the room, he still was laughing. But in his laughter there was something that made a dry place come in Merrylips' throat and an emptiness at the pit of her stomach.
Hastily she pulled out her pistol, and she went and sat by the fire, and rubbed it with a rag, just as she had seen Rupert clean his carabine. But while she seemed so busy, she could not help hearing Captain Brooke and Cornet Slanning, who were left alone at table, speak together. She knew that it was of her that they spoke.
"'Twere better," said Slanning, "that Captain Norris had ventured it, after all, and sent the little rogue hence a week agone."
"Not to be thought on!" Captain Brooke replied. "You know well that the ways were straitly laid. And who'd 'a' dreamed the assault would be made so soon!"
Merrylips could not keep from glancing up. Then, when they saw that she was listening, the two men instantly laid off their grave looks, and began to chaff her.
"What dost thou think to do with that murderous pistol, eh, Rittmeister?" said Slanning.
Merrylips ran to him, and leaning against his shoulder, said:—
"Good Cornet Slanning, I could do far more, an you gave me a carabine, such as Rupert Hinkel hath, and a flask of powder, and a touch-box, and a pouch, and a piece of match as long as my arm."
"That's a gallant lad!" said Captain Brooke. "I see well, Tibbott, that thou art not afraid."
"Body a' truth!" cried Merrylips, and stood up very straight. "I'm not feared of the scurvy Roundheads, no, not I! I shall fight 'em to-morrow—the base rogues that have taken my brother prisoner! Ay, and with mine own hand I have good hope to kill some among 'em!"