A VENNER TO THE RESCUE!
"Sybil! Hey, Sybil! Why dost not answer when I speak thee fair?"
It was Herbert Lowry that spoke from the threshold of the hall, where
Merrylips sat alone at her knitting. She raised her eyes from the
tiresome stitches, and saw him standing there, and she thought to
herself that never had she seen him look so well.
He was wearing breeches and doublet of reddish brown stuff, with gilt
buttons,--a suit that pleased her best of all his clothes. In the
autumn sunlight that slanted through the door, his hair was touched
with yellow, and the color of his skin seemed almost healthy. He had
spoken too in a friendly voice. It was clear that he was ready to make
up, after the quarrel of two weeks ago in which she had struck him.
She was not sorry to be friends with him again. After all, she found
Herbert better company than no company at all.
"Look 'ee, Sybil!" said Herbert, as he met her eyes.
He tiptoed into the hall, and held up before her a little creel and a
long line.
"The cook-maid hath given me a dainty bit to eat, and I've here a brave
new line. What sayst thou if we go angling for gudgeons to-day in the
brook under Nutfold wood?"
Merrylips clapped her hands and forgave Herbert everything.
"A-fishing? Wilt take me, Herbert? I've not cast a line in a
twelvemonth. Oh, wilt thou truly take me, Herbert?" she cried.
"Now hush!" he snapped. "'Tis like a silly girl to be squawking it out
so all the house may hear. To be sure, I'll be gracious to take thee
with me, Sybil, if thou'lt be good--"
"I will!" promised Merrylips, headlong.
"And do as I bid thee--"
"Yes, yes!" cried Merrylips. "Let us be gone!"
Deep in her heart she mistrusted that Herbert had planned this trip
without telling his mother. She doubted if Mistress Lowry would let
her ramble off the three miles to Nutfold with no better guard than
this young boy. So she was much afraid lest she should be called back
and forbidden to go a-fishing. She fairly tiptoed out of the house at
Herbert's side, and never drew a long breath till she heard the garden
gate close behind them.
The two children were now quite sure of not being seen and stopped.
But none the less Herbert, who was sly by nature, picked their path in
the shelter of walls and hedges and through copses. In this stealthy
way they went westward toward the wood that lay by the hamlet of
Nutfold. Herbert was empty-handed. He bade Merrylips carry the creel
in which their luncheon was packed, and true to her word, she did his
bidding.
When they reached the brook Herbert said:--
"Now thou mayst dig for worms, Sybil, while I cut me a fish-rod."
Well, well! She had promised to do as he asked, and a gentleman must
keep his word, so she took a stick and grubbed in the dirt for bait,
while Master Herbert sat at his ease and trimmed an alder branch with
his knife. As she worked, she wondered if she had not been foolish to
come with Herbert. She should be punished, surely, for running away and
leaving her knitting undone. And meanwhile she was not having at all a
good time.
As the morning passed, Merrylips found less and less pleasure in the
sport to which she had looked forward. Again and again Herbert bade her
bait his hook for him, and he made her carry the creel, but not once
did he let her cast the line.
It was his line, he said, when she timidly asked to have it only for
one throw. It was his line, and he should use it, and in any case she
could not catch a fish. She was but a girl.
"I'd not need to be a skilled angler to do better than thou," answered
Merrylips. "Thou hast not taken a fish this morning."
"'Tis because thou hast frighted them away with thy clitter-clatter,"
scolded Herbert. "A fool I was to let thee come with me!"
Almost at an open quarrel, they stumbled through the tangled sedges
and trailing underwood upon the bank of the stream. The tireder
Herbert grew, the crosser he was, and the worse luck he had with his
fishing--and he had very bad luck!--the surer he was that Merrylips was
to blame.
Soon he began to mock and to tease her, and once, when she tripped over
a fallen branch, he laughed outright.
"You may laugh," cried Merrylips, "but haply you'd not find it easy to
keep your feet, if you bore a great basket, and if you wore hateful
petticoats a-dangling round your feet. I would that you had to wear
petticoats but once!"
"Thou'rt weeping now!" jeered Herbert.
Merrylips made herself laugh in his face.
"'Tis only silly boys that weep," said she. "When their fathers beat
them, they snivel, and run with tales to their mothers."
The quarrel had begun in earnest. For the next half mile the tired
children tramped in angry silence. Then Herbert snatched the creel from
Merrylips.
"'Tis mine!" he said.
He sat down on a grassy bank and opened the creel. Within it were spice
cakes and cheese and a little chicken pasty, and every crumb that
greedy boy munched down himself, and never offered so much as one spice
cake to Merrylips.
Perhaps he hoped that she would ask for a share of the luncheon, but
in that case he was disappointed. Merrylips was hungry indeed, after
the long walk in the autumn air, but she would have starved before she
would have begged of Herbert.
She went a little way off, but only a little way, for she could not
help hoping that he might offer her some of the food. She sat down on
the edge of the brook and flung clods of dirt into the water. She sang,
too, because she wished Herbert to think that she did not care at all,
but out of the corner of her eye she watched the chicken pasty and the
cheese and the spice cakes till the last crumb was gone.
Then Merrylips lay down and drank from the brook, for she saw that
a drink of water was all the luncheon that she was to have. As she
leaned over the brook, the silver ring that hung about her neck slipped
from the bosom of her gown and swung at the end of the cord on which
she wore it.
"What's that?" said Herbert.
He too had come to the edge of the brook to drink, and he stood near
Merrylips.
"Let me look upon it, Sybil."
"Go finish your dinner!" Merrylips answered as she put the ring back
within her gown.
Her tone angered Herbert even more than her words.
"You show me that as I bid you!" he cried. "How dare you disobey me?
You're going to be my wife some day--father saith so--and then I'll
learn you! Now you show me that silver thing, mistress, or I'll beat
you!"
"Try it!" flashed Merrylips.
But for all her brave words, she did not wish to fight with Herbert.
She felt too tired and hungry to fight, and besides, if she beat
Herbert, she knew that she should be punished for it by Mistress Lowry.
So when Herbert put out his hand to seize her, she dodged him and took
to her heels through the wood. She knew that she could outrun him.
She heard him crashing among the bushes behind her. She felt the sting
of the bare branches that whipped her face as she ran. Blindly she
sped along till right at her feet she saw the ground open where a
sunken bridle-path ran between steep banks. Far off on the path she
heard, as something that did not concern her, like a sound in a dream,
a muffled padding of horse-hoofs.
Panting and spent, she jumped down the bank into the path, and as
she did so, she caught her skirt on a prickly bush of holly. She was
brought to her knees by the sudden jerk, and before she could free her
skirt and rise she felt Herbert's grasp close on her arm.
"You jade! I'll learn you now!" Herbert cried.
All the time she had heard the horse-hoofs, nearer and nearer, and she
heard now a deep voice.
"Lord 'a' mercy! Ye little fools!" the voice said. "Will ye be ridden
down?"
Horses, two horses, that looked to Merrylips as tall as steeples, were
halted right above her. In the saddle of one a big man in a steel cap
and a leathern coat sat gaping. From the saddle of the other there had
vaulted down a slim young fellow in a shiny cuirass, with a plumed hat
on his head and a sword slung from his baldric. He caught Herbert by
the neck.
"Learn her, wilt thou?" he cried in a clear, youthful voice. "Faith,
here's a schooling in which I'll bear a hand, my pretty gentleman!"
[Illustration: "FAITH, HERE'S A SCHOOLING IN WHICH I'LL BEAR A
HAND, MY PRETTY GENTLEMAN!"]
There was something in the voice, something in the figure, that brought
to Merrylips the sight of Walsover, and the sound of voices that she
had not heard in two long years. She scrambled to her feet, and with a
loud cry flung her arms about the young man.
"'Tis thou! 'Tis thou!" she cried. "'Tis thou at last, and I did not
know thee! Oh, Munn! mine own dear brother!"