Beulah Marie Dix

“ My good Roger!" said a broken voice, which, Merrylips felt, could only in a dream be Lady Sybil's voice. "What shall I do? What can I do? This child—my little lass! She hath fallen ill. I cannot take her with me in my flight. Yet I cannot leave her."
Old Roger answered in a voice that rang through the dream.
"'Tis a sweet little lady and winsome,—ay, and dear unto mine old heart, your Ladyship! But the king's cause is dearer than any child unto us, who are your father's poor servants. Your Ladyship, 'tis to save your wealth for the good cause you go. 'Tis for the king you ride to-night!" ”

“ Merrylips thought that now surely he had hit upon her secret. She was so frightened that she could only stare at him without speaking.
"I thought thou hadst mettle in thee, for a young one," Rupert went on. "But to go sneaking away and coddle a vile rebel, only for that he had come by a bump in the head, as he well had merited! Tibbott Venner, thou art no better than a girl!"
In her relief that she was not yet found out, Merrylips did not care what she said.
"Then is a girl a better gentleman than thou, thou horseboy!" she answered back. "And I be glad that I am like a girl!" ”

“ I be as apt to go as thou, Flip Venner. Thou hast but four years the better of me."
"Ay, but I am a lad, and thou art but a wench," said Flip.
He had had the worst of the game with his elder brothers, poor Flip! So he was not in the sweetest of humors.
"I care not!" Merrylips said stoutly. "Where thou canst go, Flip, I can go!"
At this they all laughed, even that tall youth Longkin, who was growing to stand upon his dignity.
"Come, Merrylips!" Longkin teased. "What wilt thou do an Flip get him a long sword and go to war? 'Tis likely he may do so." ”

“ It was a torn and tossed little heart that Merrylips carried to her godmother to be quieted, at the hour of twilight when they usually talked together.
"It is not true," she said stormily. "Oh, dear godmother, now that you have seen Rupert, you know it is not true—the evil things they all are saying of him."
"I know that he is ill and weary, poor lad!" said Lady Sybil, but when Merrylips would have protested further, she hushed her.
"Think not too harshly of thine old friends that they suspect this new friend thou hast made," she counselled. ”

“ It was almost as sad when Merrylips left the old woman and sought out Roger, the butler. She found him loading an old snaphance, over which he cocked his head wisely. These were troublous times, he hinted, and there were those not a thousand miles away who might be fain to see the inside of Larkland. Let them but try, and they should see more than they bargained on, he ended, with a grim chuckle, as he fondled his snaphance.
"But they are friends unto us, Rupert and Claus," cried Merrylips. "They are soldiers to the king whom we serve." ”

“ In those quiet days at Larkland she began to grow up and to realize, with bitter disappointment, that she was likely to grow up a girl. She talked of this sometimes at twilight with her godmother, and was much comforted.
"For thou mayst have all the true virtues of a lad, dear little heart," Lady Sybil would say. "Thou canst be brave and truthful as any of thy brothers, not fearing to bear hard knocks, but fearing to bestow them on any that be weaker than thyself. I do not chide thee that thou wouldst be a man, my Merrylips, but I would have thee more than that—a gentleman." ”

“ When they were tired, Lady Sybil and Merrylips would sit by the hearth and roast crabs or crack nuts, and Merrylips, like a little gentleman, would pick out the nut-meats for Lady Sybil.
By day, in the pale sunlight, they would walk in the garden and scatter crumbs for the birds that found it hard to live in the rimy days of winter. Or they would stroll through tiny Cuckstead village, where Lady Sybil would talk with the cottage women, and Merrylips would talk with the rosy village lads of lark-traps and badger hunts and the best way in which to cover a hand-ball. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This godmother Merrylips knew only by name, as the Lady Sybil Fernefould, her mother's old friend, a dread and distant being to whom, in her mother's letters, she was trained to send her duty. She had never seen Lady Sybil, nor, after the gift of the doll, did she wish to see her.
Through the summer days that followed Merrylips was busy with matters of deeper interest than dolls and godmothers. She rode on the great wains, loaded with corn, that lumbered behind the straining horses to the barns of Walsover. She helped to gather fruit—plums and pears and rosy apples. ”

“ But dearer to Merrylips even than Roger, the butler, or Goody Trot, the old nurse, or even Mawkin, her own kind maid from Walsover, was her godmother, Lady Sybil. For Lady Sybil, dwelling in that forgotten corner of Sussex, with only her few servants, was, as she had said, a lonely woman. She had a heartful of love to give to Merrylips, and it was a love that had wisdom to find the way to lead the little maid to what was for her good. So Merrylips, to her own surprise, found herself presently sewing seams and making tarts and toiling over lessons. ”

“ But will the grown folk believe me—thy godmother, and thy father, and thy brothers? Oh, Merrylips, dost think in truth that they will believe that I am son to Captain Lucas?"
For one instant Merrylips hesitated. They were strange folk indeed, the grown folk. Even dear Lady Sybil had thought Claus and Rupert spies when they came, sick and weary, to Larkland. Even her brother Munn had looked on and smiled at the distress of the poor people at Storringham. They did not always believe and pity so quickly as did she, who was young and foolish. ”

“ More than once they had to pause and sit by the path, while the lad rested.
After that she talked with Claus. Had they come from far, she asked him?
"From beyond seas," he answered with a clumsy gesture to the south. "Yonder—they call it Brighthelmstone—we came a-land. We are bound to the king's army."
"Ay, the king," said Rupert, suddenly, and opened his eyes. "I am going to fight for the king of England, even as my father fought. For," said he, and his eyes sought Merrylips' face, yet seemed not to see her, "I am English born." ”

“ He was grown such a fine young gallant that Merrylips found it hard to believe that he had ever done such an undignified thing as to romp with his brothers on the terrace. After Longkin, Flip came running. He was all legs and arms, and he squeezed Merrylips as if she were a bear or another boy.
"And oh! Flip," she heard her own voice saying, "I ha' been to the wars, for all I am but a wench! I ha' been in a siege, and fired upon a many times, and chased by the enemy, and a prisoner among the Roundheads. And thou, what battles hast thou been fighting, Flip?"
"I'm a gentleman volunteer!" ”

“ Up and down the many stairs of Larkland she sought in vain for the old woman, till at last, as a most unlikely place, she looked into her chamber. And there she found Goody Trot, all in a flutter, busied in sewing a tawdry necklace and three broad pieces into the covering of her bolster.
"Never do I look to see the light of morn!" cried the poor old soul, as soon as she saw Merrylips. "We's all be robbed of goods and gear and slain as well, with two murderous Spanish spies lying beneath our roof."
It was useless for Merrylips to say that Claus and Rupert were neither spies nor Spaniards. ”

“ Dick Fowell's brother swore that such a young liar deserved a whipping. Munn Venner, who was as loud as any, vowed that such a tale, of a lost child of Lady Venetia's, was too strange for belief. And all the time Merrylips and Rupert held each other fast by the hand and wondered what they should say next.
But in the midst of this clamor, Lord Caversham himself spoke out.
"When you lads are older," said he,—and even in her distress, Merrylips wondered to hear Dick Fowell and her brother Munn called "lads,"—"you'll know that the stranger a story sound, the likelier it is to be the truth." ”