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 is _my_ gun," 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. "_I_
have 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!"