BROTHER OFFICERS
When Merrylips next woke, she wondered for a minute where she was.
Then she remembered last night. She remembered how Lieutenant Crashaw
had led her across the courtyard, and through dim halls and passages,
and up a narrow stair. She remembered how he had opened the door of a
little chamber and had said:--
"This is thy b-brother's quarters. Thou canst l-lie here for now."
So it was Munn's own room in which she woke. Munn's coats hung on the
wall, and on the table, beneath the window, were paper and ink and two
bitten apples. Munn must have sat there, writing and eating, before he
started on the march from which he had not come back.
At the thought of her lost brother, Merrylips hid her face in the
pillow. She was sorry for Munn, who was left a prisoner in the hands of
the cruel Roundheads. And she was sorry for herself, too, and sorely
afraid of what might happen to her. For if it had seemed hard to be a
boy at Monksfield, when Munn was to be there to help her, what did it
not seem, now that he was taken from her and she was left to play her
part alone?
Still, she never dreamed of telling any one, not even friendly
Lieutenant Crashaw, that she was a little girl. She had promised Munn
to bear herself as a boy, as long as she stayed at Monksfield. And a
gentleman must keep his promise, whatever might happen.
So presently, as a little boy, she should have to meet those brother
officers that Munn had told her about. She thought of Captain George
Brooke, who would tease, and Lieutenant Miles Digby, who was apt to
bully, and Captain Tibbott Norris, from whose path she had been warned
to keep herself. She felt that she should never, never have the courage
to show her face among them.
But as the morning passed, poor Merrylips grew hungry. And she doubted
if there was any one in Monksfield who would bring dinner to a lazy
little boy that stayed in bed.
So she got up, and brushed her hair, and smoothed her doublet and
breeches, which she had sadly rumpled in her sleep. Then she took from
the wall an old red sash and tied it round her waist in a huge bow. It
was an officer's sash, and Munn's sash, too. Somehow she felt braver
when she had it on.
Like a little soldier and Munn's brother, she marched out of the room
and down the stairs into a flagged corridor. Right before her she saw
a door that was ajar, and in the room beyond she heard a murmur of
men's voices. She shrank back, but just then she smelled the savor of
bakemeat. And indeed she was very hungry!
So she sidled through the crack of the door, like a very timid little
boy. She found herself in a rude old hall, which was paved with stone
and very damp, in spite of the great fire that blazed upon the hearth.
Against the wall were benches, and in the middle of the room was
an oaken table on which dinner was set out--a chine of beef, and a
bakemeat, and leathern jacks full of beer.
Round the table, on forms and stools, were seated five men, who all
wore the red sashes of Cavalier officers. At the sound of Merrylips'
step on the echoing floor, they looked up, every one of them. In her
alarm, she came near dropping them a courtesy like a girl.
"Yonder's l-little Venner, whereof I told you, sir," spoke a voice that
Merrylips remembered for Lieutenant Crashaw's.
Then a harsh voice that she did not remember struck in:--
"Come you hither, sirrah!"
A long, long way it seemed to Merrylips she went. She crossed the floor
that echoed in a startling manner. She passed the faces that were bent
upon her. At last she halted at the head of the table.
The man who sat there was dark, and ill-shaven, and bearded, and his
hair was touched with gray. His leathern coat was worn and stained, and
his great boots were muddied. Yet Merrylips did not doubt that he was
commander in that place. This was the man whom even her big brother
feared--the dreaded Captain Tibbott Norris.
For a moment Captain Norris looked at Merrylips, and she looked bravely
back at him, for all that she breathed a little faster.
"So you're Venner's brother!" he said at last. "Well, an you grow to be
as gallant a lad as Venner, your kinsmen need find no fault in you."
When Merrylips heard Captain Norris, whom Munn had feared, praise him
so generously, now that he was gone, she wanted to cry. But she blinked
fast and said, with only a little quaver:--
"I thank you--for my brother's sake, sir!"
Captain Norris noticed the struggle that she made. Into his sombre eyes
there came a spark of interest.
"How do they call ye, lad?" he asked.
Before she had thought, out popped her own name.
"Merrylips, an't like you, sir."
She heard a chuckle go round the table. She did not realize that
Merrylips was a nickname that might be given to a boy as well as to a
girl. So she did not dream that the officers were laughing at a little
boy who told his pet-name to strangers. Instead she thought that she
had told her secret and that they knew her for a girl. At that she was
so frightened that she hardly knew what she did.
Captain Norris broke out impatiently:--
"No, no, ye little bufflehead! I asked your given name."
In her fright Merrylips could think of but one name, among all the
boys' names in the world. That was the one that had so taken her fancy
the day before. She knew that she must not say it. But while she was
thinking how dreadful it would be if she did say it, she let it slip
off her tongue:--
"Tibbott, sir."
Then indeed she knew that Captain Norris would be angry at her for
taking his name. She would have run away, if she had not been too
scared to move.
Strangely enough, Captain Norris did not seem angry. He stared at her
for a moment. Then he gave a sort of laugh, which the men around him
echoed. Indeed, to them it seemed droll, that such a scrap of a lad
should bear the very name that Captain Norris had made feared through
all the countryside.
"My namesake, are you?" said Captain Norris.
He laid a hand on Merrylips' shoulder, but not unkindly, and drew her
to him.
[Illustration: HE LAID A HAND ON MERRYLIPS' SHOULDER AND DREW HER
TO HIM.]
"Sit you down, sir," he bade, "and do me the honor to dine with me,
Master Tibbott."
So Merrylips sat beside Captain Norris, on the form at the head of
the table, and ate her share of the bakemeat, like a soldier and a
gentleman. She meant to be as still as a mouse, for she bore in mind
all Munn's warnings. But when she was spoken to, she had to answer, and
she was spoken to a great deal.
For those tall officers were very tired of doing and saying the same
thing, day after day. They were as pleased with this round-eyed, sober
little boy as Merrylips herself would have been with a new plaything.
They chaffed her and asked her foolish questions, only to make her talk.
Captain George Brooke, who was tall, with shrewd eyes, asked her if she
hoped to win a commission before Christmastide. Nick Slanning, who was
hardly older than Merrylips' brother Longkin, wished to know how many
rebels she thought she could kill in a day. And when dinner was eaten
and the men were lighting their pipes, Miles Digby urged her to take
tobacco with him.
Merrylips drew back, a little frightened, but there Captain Norris
struck in.
"Let the child be," he ordered sternly. "He's overyoung for such
jesting, Digby."
For the first time in hours Merrylips smiled. She moved a little nearer
to Captain Norris. Indeed, she would have much liked to say to him,
"Thank you!"
But just at that moment the door was pushed open, and a boy came into
the mess-room. He did not come timidly, as Merrylips had come. He
clanged across the floor, swaggering like a trooper, with his head up.
He wore a sleeveless leathern coat, as if he were a truly soldier.
At first Merrylips was so envious of that coat that she did not look at
the boy's face. But when he halted at Captain Brooke's side and swung
his hand to his forehead in salute, she looked up. Then she saw that he
was a handsome boy, brown-haired and gray-eyed, and she knew him for
Rupert, Claus Hinkel's little comrade in the far-off times at Larkland.
Now Merrylips might have guessed that if Claus were at Monksfield,
Rupert would be there too. But she had not thought about it at all, so
now she was taken aback at the sight of him.
She heard Rupert say something to Captain Brooke about what the farrier
said of a horse that was sick. She did not much heed the words.
Indeed, Rupert himself seemed to make them only an excuse for coming
to the mess-room. He lingered, when he had done his errand, as if he
waited to be spoken to. But the officers all were busy talking to
Merrylips.
They scarcely noticed Rupert till they all rose from table. Then
Captain Brooke said:--
"Here, young Venner! Yonder's a playfellow of your own years. Go you
with Rupert Hinkel."
So Merrylips was dismissed, with a clap on the shoulder. And presently
she found herself outside the house, in a little walled space that once
had been a garden.
There she stood and looked at Rupert, and Rupert looked at her. His
cheeks were red, and his level brows were knit. She knew that she
disliked and feared him, because he had run away from Larkland. And she
felt that he disliked her twice as much, but she could not guess why.
"Shall we sit and tell riddles?" drawled Rupert. "Thou art overyoung
for me to take thee where the horses are. Thou shouldst not be in
garrison, but at home wi' thy mother."
"Thou art not thyself so wonderful old," Merrylips answered hotly.
Rupert laughed.
"Thy sash is knotted unhandily," he said. "Let me put it aright. Thou
hast tied it like a girl."
At that word Merrylips grew red and frightened.
"Do not thou touch it!" she cried. "It liketh me as it is."
She spoke so angrily, in her fright, that Rupert grew angry too.
"In any case," he said, "thou hast no right to wear that sash. Thou art
no officer."
"Then," said Merrylips, "thou hast no right to wear that soldier's
coat. Thou art thyself but a young lad and no soldier."
Surely, there would have been a bitter quarrel, then and there, but
just at that moment Slanning and Lieutenant Crashaw sauntered into the
garden.
"Hola, young Venner!" Slanning sang out.
"Go to thy friends!" Rupert said, in a low voice. "They'll use thee
fairly. I care not, I! 'Tis only little boys like thou are fain to be
made much of."
Then Rupert marched away, very stiffly, and Merrylips stood wondering
what it was all about. But while she was wondering, Slanning and
Crashaw came to the spot where she stood. They set to playing a fine
game that Merrylips' brothers had often played at Walsover, a game in
which they pitched horseshoes over a crowbar that was driven into the
ground some twenty paces away. And part of the time they let Merrylips
play too.
So friendly were they all three together that at last Merrylips
ventured to ask a question.
"If it like you, Cornet Slanning, may I not wear this sash, even though
I be not an officer?"
"Who saith thou art not?" Slanning answered.
Merrylips shook her head. Though she thought Rupert a rude lad, she
could not bear tales of him.
"I--I did but wonder," she stammered.
"W-wonder no more!" bade Crashaw. "To be sure, thou art an officer--the
youngest one at M-Monksfield, and b-brave as the best, eh, Tibbott?"
"I'll try, sir!" Merrylips answered, and saluted him, just as Rupert
had saluted Captain Brooke.
And she did not see why those new brother officers of hers should have
laughed aloud!