TO PUT IT TO THE TOUCH
At last Merrylips gathered courage to look. Then she saw that just
inside the door stood a young man, who blinked as if he had newly come
from a dark place.
He looked worn and tired. He seemed to have slept in his clothes. His
coat, an old one, was too big for him, and his hair was dishevelled,
and his face unshaven. But for all his sorry attire and his altered
face, Merrylips knew him.
"Munn! Oh, my brother Munn!" she cried.
She flew across the room and cast her two arms about the young man, who
caught her to him and crushed her in a grip that fairly hurt.
"Merrylips!" he said in a shaky voice. "'Tis never Merrylips! How
comest thou here? Why art thou still in that dress--"
"I promised!" Merrylips answered. "I told no one, save only Rupert. I
kept my promise, indeed I kept it, Munn!"
If Munn had been younger, Merrylips would have thought that there were
tears in his eyes, as he looked down at her.
"All these days," he said slowly, "among men--and used as a boy--and
through my blame! Merrylips, thou poor little wench!"
"Come, come, Venner!" Dick Fowell's voice struck in, as he bent over
the two. "Sure, man, your days in prison have clouded your wits. Do you
not know your own brother, Tibbott?"
"Brother?" retorted Munn, in a high tone that sounded like his old
self. "'Tis you are crazed, sir. This is my young sister, Sybil Venner."
Now if ever a young man who enjoyed surprising other folk, was neatly
served, that young man was Lieutenant Dick Fowell. He stared at
Merrylips, and rubbed his forehead, as if he could trust neither his
eyes nor his ears.
The elder of the two girls broke into laughter and clapped her hands.
"Oh, Dick, thou shalt never hear the last of this!" she cried.
But the other girl looked at Merrylips, and she seemed ready to weep.
"Poor little lass!" she murmured.
Then up stood Lady Caversham, in her gown of silk tabby.
"Give that child unto me!" she said.
She came across the room and without asking leave of any one, took
Merrylips out of Munn's arms.
Merrylips found herself sitting in Lady Caversham's lap, in a great
chair by the hearth. The blaze of the fire winked and blurred through
the tears that came fast to her eyes--why, she could not tell.
"Oh!" she said. "I'm glad Munn told you. I'm wearied o' being a boy.
I'm a little girl--a girl!"
With that she dropped her head on Lady Caversham's kind breast and
cried as in all her life she had never cried before.
When Merrylips next took note of what went on round her, the younger
girl was kneeling by her and loosing the broken shoes from her feet.
The older girl was hovering near with a cup of wine, and as for good
Lady Caversham, in the pauses of soothing Merrylips as if she were a
baby, she was scolding Munn. Munn looked puzzled, and Dick Fowell, who
stood near him, had for once not a single word to say.
"Had you no wit at all?" said Lady Caversham to Munn. "Hush thee,
precious child!" she spoke in quite a different tone to Merrylips. "To
set this poor little tender maid in boy's dress and cast her among rude
men! 'Tis all well now, poor little heart! Whilst you went about your
riotous pleasures--"
At that Dick Fowell and Munn exchanged nervous grins. Lady Caversham
was a good woman, but sorely misinformed, if she thought riotous
pleasures were to be found in a Roundhead prison.
"No man can say what harm might have befallen her," Lady Caversham went
on. "Cry, if 'twill ease thee, sweeting, but thou hast now no cause to
weep! If you were son of mine, sirrah, I would cause you to repent this
piece of stark folly. Come, honey, 'tis rest and quiet thou dost need."
Up got Lady Caversham, with Merrylips still clasped in her arms.
"Let me take him, mother," offered Dick Fowell. "Her, I should say."
Lady Caversham waved him aside.
"Methinks she hath been left long enough to the tendance of men," she
said. "And blind as an owl thou must have been, Son Dick, not to have
known her for a little maid."
So Merrylips was borne away. She would have been glad to speak further
with her brother Munn, but she felt too tired to ask that favor. She
let herself be carried to an upper chamber, and there she was undressed
and bathed and wrapped in fresh linen and laid in a soft bed.
When she was cosey among the pillows, the older girl, Betteris,
brought her a goblet of warm milk, and the younger girl, Allison, fed
her with morsels of white bread and of roasted chicken. They would
scarcely let the waiting-women touch her. It seemed as if they could
not do enough for the little girl who in pity had helped their brother
Dick in his time of need.
Merrylips felt sure that now all would be well with her, and with
Rupert, and with Munn. So she fell gently asleep, and when she woke,
the sunlight was shining in the room.
Allison and Betteris came in to see her soon. When they found her
awake, Allison brought her bread and honey, and milk to drink. She told
her, while she ate, that a gown was being made for her from one that
was her own, and to-morrow, when it was ready, she should rise and
dress and run about once more.
While Allison was talking, Betteris came into the chamber again, and
with her was Munn. Only he was now clean and shaven and wore a coat of
Dick Fowell's and a fresh shirt, so that, for all that his face was
thinner than it used to be, he looked himself again.
Presently the two young girls stole from the room, and Merrylips and
Munn were left together. What a talk they had, while he sat upon the
bed and held her two hands fast, as if he were afraid to let her go!
Munn told Merrylips how he and Stephen Plasket had been made prisoners
at Loxford, and how troubled he had been for her, when he thought about
her, there at Monksfield, with never a friend to help her. In the hope
of getting to her, he and Stephen had tried to escape, when they were
being taken under guard to London. Stephen had got away, but he himself
had been retaken. After that he had been closely guarded, and not
over-tenderly treated, Merrylips guessed, but of that part Munn would
not speak.
Then he told her how puzzled he had been, when an order came to the
prison where he had been placed that he should be sent to Ryeborough.
He confessed that he had been much afraid lest he should be brought
before Will Lowry, and made to answer for carrying off Merrylips and
using Herbert so roughly.
In that fear he had passed several unhappy hours, a prisoner in the
gatehouse of Ryeborough castle. And then he had been ordered into the
long parlor, and there he had found Merrylips.
"A rare fright Lieutenant Fowell set me in, with all this precious
mystery," Munn grumbled. "But of a truth I owe him too much to grudge
that he should have his sport. For he is right friendly, thanks to
his old comradeship with Longkin and the affection that he hath to
the little lad he thought thee. So he holdeth me here, a prisoner
on parole, and through my lord Caversham thinketh soon to give me in
exchange for one of their own officers."
In her turn Merrylips told Munn all her adventures and all the kindness
that she had met with at Monksfield. She told him everything, except
the greatest thing of all--that Rupert was nephew to Lady Sybil
Fernefould.
For when Merrylips spoke Rupert's name, and asked how he fared, and why
was he not come, too, to speak with her, Munn stiffened a little. In a
careless voice he said:--
"That little horseboy, Hinkel? Ay, to be sure, he hath served thee
fairly. A brisk lad, no doubt! Our father will reward him handsomely."
So Merrylips said no more about Rupert. But after Munn had left her,
she thought about him. She wondered, with a sinking heart, if indeed
Rupert had been in the right, when he had said it would be hard work to
make the grown folk believe his story.
While she lay wondering, and perhaps dozing a little, in bustled pretty
Betteris Fowell.
"Art waking, Tibbott-Merrylips?" she cried. "Then art thou well enough
to rise? Here's my father is fain to have a sight of the little maid
that footed it, like a little lad, from Monksfield unto Ryeborough."
"But I've no clothes," Merrylips said sadly, for indeed she longed to
get up.
"And so said my sister Allison and my lady mother," Betteris replied.
"But my father said surely thy boy's dress was seemly to-day as it was
yesterday, and vowed he'd see thee in that same attire. So up with
thee, and be a lad again!"
Now that she was well rested, Merrylips thought it would be sport to be
a boy once more, for a little while. She scrambled laughing from the
bed, and as if it were a masking frolic, she dressed, with Betteris to
help her. She put on a little clean smock and stockings, and the ruddy
brown doublet and breeches. They had been neatly brushed, so that they
did not look so much like the clothes of a beggar child. Last of all,
she put on her warlike little leather jerkin, and then she felt herself
a lad again.
Quite gallantly, Merrylips left the chamber at Betteris's side, but on
the staircase she paused.
"Where is Rupert?" she said. "For 'twas Rupert brought us hither. He
found the way, and won us food, and was brave when the soldiers did
affright us. Surely, my lord, your father, is more eager to see Rupert
than to look on me."
At first Betteris seemed likely to laugh and say nay, but when she
looked at Merrylips' earnest little face, she changed her mind.
"It shall be as thou wilt," she said, and bent and kissed her.
So they waited in the hall, while a servant fetched Rupert from the
kitchen. He came almost at once, and he was clean and brushed and had
new shoes, but he was shyer and more sullen than Merrylips remembered
him. He did not even offer to take her hand.
Betteris led them to an open door. Beyond it stood a screen of carved
wood.
"My father sitteth yonder at dinner," she said. "Come thy ways in,
Merrylips, and fear not, for he is a kind soul."
And then she added, in a little different tone, to Rupert:--
"Come you, too, boy!"
Rupert hung back.
"My lord doth not wish to see me," he muttered. "Let me be gone whence
I came."
"Why, go, an thou wilt, sirrah," said Betteris, lightly.
But Merrylips caught Rupert's hand.
"No, no!" she cried. "Rupert, 'tis as well now as any time, since she
doth say my lord is kind. Oh, Rupert, come with me, and we will tell
him who thou art, and haply he will believe us."
"Dost thou dare?" said Rupert, breathlessly.
In Merrylips' eyes he saw that indeed she did dare. So he too lifted
his head, and they walked bravely into Lord Caversham's presence.