CHAPTER XXII
A PARTING OF THE WAYS
In the mess-room, where the candles were lighted, Captain Tibbott Norris sat alone at the table. Before him were a dish of stewed meat and a cup of wine, and he ate and drank steadily, but all the time his eyes were bent upon a map that was spread open at his elbow. He had not shaved in two days, and his unkempt face looked old and tired.
For a full minute Merrylips must have hesitated on the threshold before Captain Norris noticed that she was there. Then he peered at her through the candlelight, and said he:—
"Thou, is it, Tibbott? And young Hinkel, too? Come you in, both lads, and shut to the door."
At heart Merrylips was glad that Rupert was to stay in the room. She was almost afraid to be left alone with the stern captain. But when he spoke again, she went to him obediently, and halted at his side. He turned and laid his hand on her shoulder, just as he had done on the day when she first had entered the mess-room. And suddenly, as she met the look in his tired eyes, she no longer feared him.
But when Captain Norris spoke, it was to Rupert, not to Merrylips, that he said the words.
"Young Hinkel," he began, "I've marked you for long as a brisk lad, of riper wit than many of like years. So to-night, when I cannot spare one man from the garrison, I shall trust you, a lad, with a man's work."
Rupert's eyes shone. He drew himself up as tall as he could, and stood at salute, while he listened to the captain.
"This child," said Captain Norris, and drew Merrylips to stand against his knee, "must leave Monksfield to-night. But to send him as a non-combatant, under a white flag, to Colonel Hatcher, would mean to return him to the Roundhead kinsfolk from whom his brother snatched him."
"Prithee, not that!" begged Merrylips.
She would have said more, if she had not found comfort in the captain's next words.
"So the only course left," he went on, "is to set him outside our lines, and let him make his own way unto the nearest of our garrisons. You, Rupert Hinkel, shall go with him. Take him unto his kindred, and they will requite you well. Fail the lad, or play him false, and I shall seek you out and hang you."
This last the captain said as quietly as if he promised Rupert a box on the ear, or a ha'penny, or some such trifle. Yet quiet as his voice was, there was in it something that made Merrylips shrink and Rupert stiffen.
"I will not fail him, sir, on the faith of a gentleman," Rupert promised, in a voice almost as quiet as the captain's own.
Then Captain Norris made Rupert stand by him, on the side opposite Merrylips, whom he still held fast, and he pointed out to him on the map lines that were paths and little specks that stood for villages. Point by point he taught Rupert the way to the nearest Cavalier outpost at King's Slynton, fifteen miles distant, and he gave him a pass-word, by which the commander of that garrison should know that he came indeed from Monksfield, and was to be helped upon his journey.
"He will find means to send you both to Walsover," said Captain Norris. "Your troubles all are at an end when once you reach King's Slynton, and the distance thither is not great."
Then he laid upon the table a handful of small coins, shillings and sixpences and groats. These he bade Rupert hide within his clothes.
"Show but one piece at a time," he cautioned. "'Twill rouse question if so young a boy seem too well stored with money."
"And shall I take my carabine, sir, for our defence?" asked Rupert.
He was fairly a-quiver with eagerness, and his face fell when the captain answered, "No."
But Rupert felt better when the captain pointed to the form by the fire and said that yonder lay what they must bear upon their journey. For on the form was not only a packet of what seemed food, and a flask, but a small pistol, with a steel patron full of cartridges and a touch-box, all complete.
"You have your orders," said Captain Norris. "Now rest you here till you are sent for, and eat your suppers too."
He rose as if the talk were at an end, and for the first time spoke to Merrylips.
"Thou must lay off that Cavalier sash, be sure," he said. "And art thou warmly clad against this journey?"
"Ay, sir," Merrylips answered.
She spoke cheerily. For she was going to leave Monksfield, that in the last hours she had found so hateful. Almost she could have laughed for joy.
"That's a brave lad!" said Captain Norris; yet somehow he seemed a little disappointed that she bore it so bravely.
"Well, God speed thee, Tibbott, and farewell!" he added after a moment, and then suddenly, with his hand upon her shoulder, bent and kissed her.
She felt the roughness of his untrimmed beard against her cheek, and then, in that same minute, he was gone from the mess-room.
The hours that followed seemed to her like a dream. She laid aside her sash, as the captain had bidden, against her journey through the enemy's country. She watched Rupert hide away the coins, one by one, within the lining of his doublet and in his pockets. She sat at the table, because Rupert did so, and she ate some cold beef and bread, though she could scarcely taste the food. She was going to leave Monksfield—that was her one thought. And for all the dangers that she might meet upon the road, and for all that she must travel with Rupert, her little enemy, she was glad to be gone.
Only one thing troubled her. How were she and Rupert to pass through the rebel lines that were drawn so closely now round Monksfield? She wanted to ask Rupert that question, but she was too proud to be the first to break the silence that was between them.
So she sat playing with the wax that guttered from the candle on the table, and blinking at the light. Perhaps for a minute she had nodded, with her head upon her breast, when she felt a blast of cold air from the open door, and found that Captain Brooke was standing at her elbow.
"Briskly, lads!" he bade.
Already Rupert had pocketed the pistol and the flask, and taken up the packet of food. With scarcely a moment lost, they were all three outside the mess-room, in the flagged passage, and just then a shadow fell across their path, and before them stood Miles Digby.
"Going hence, eh?" he said. "Then God be wi' ye, Tibbott."
Digby held out his hand, and for the life of her Merrylips could not have helped doing what she did. All in an instant she seemed to see the face that he had worn when he struck Fowell, who stood wounded and helpless before him. She put her two hands behind her and shrank from him.
He laughed, but his laughter was half-hearted, and he swore an oath. Then she heard no more of him, for Captain Brooke was heading down the passage, as if he had no time to waste, and she ran after him.
Through corridors that she knew well they went, half lighted by the dark lantern that the captain carried. They crossed the echoing space of the great store-room, and through a narrow door stepped out beneath the stars. They stood in the herb garden, and Merrylips had guessed where they were going, even before the captain led them down the steps to the door beneath the still-house.
"Do we go this way, even as you came?" she said to him.
She spoke in a whisper, lest Rupert, who did not share the secret, might overhear.
"Ay, by the same path," said Captain Brooke. "'Tis a buried passage that the monks must have builded in old days. Keep silent touching it, you two," he added gravely, and in the archway of the door turned the light full upon their faces. "To set you beyond danger we trust you with a secret that might be the ruin of the garrison."
Then Merrylips knew that on the day when she had seen Captain Brooke come from the still-house, he had been out by the passage to spy upon the enemy. She wondered that she had been so stupid as not to have guessed as much.
Through the damp cellar, where the long, slimy tracks of snails gleamed on the walls, they reached the low entrance of the buried passage. The walls were all of stone that sweated with moisture, and the roof was so low that Captain Brooke had to stoop as he went. Underfoot the ground was uneven. More than once Merrylips stumbled as she hurried to keep up with the captain's strides. Every moment, too, she found it harder to draw breath. Not only was she panting with the haste that she must make, but the air seemed lifeless in the passage, and in the dark lantern the candle burned blue and feeble.
"Journey's end, boys!" Captain Brooke spoke at last, as it seemed to her from a great distance.
Over his shoulder she saw a patch of dark sky, where stars were twinkling. Across the patch ran inky black lines that were leafless stalks of bushes. The fresh air of the upper world came keen and sweet to her nostrils.
"Below you lieth the mere, upon the north of the rebel lines. Take your bearings by it, Rupert," said the captain. "Steer your course as Captain Norris bade, and so, good speed unto you both!"
For a moment Rupert and Merrylips stood in the low opening, which was screened by hazel bushes and a bit of ivy-covered stonework. In the passage that they had just left they watched the light of the captain's lantern till they could no longer see it in the darkness.
"So we're quit of Monksfield!" Merrylips said then, and as she thought of her last hours in the garrison, she spoke in a happy voice.
"You're rejoiced, eh?" Rupert answered harshly. "Truth, I'm not! The best friend I have I left yonder, old Claus! And I'll not be near him now, in the last fight."
"Last fight—" echoed Merrylips.
"Dost thou not understand, little fool?" whispered Rupert. "The rebels will attack to-morrow, and we're now so weak that it well may be—Dost thou not see? 'Tis to save thy life the captain sendeth thee away, and for that thou art glad to leave him, Tibbott Venner, thou little coward!"