She whispered the name, "Munn Venner," and she felt the start of surprise that Fowell gave.
"Venner?" said he. "Sure, thou art never one of the Venners of Walsover? Then by all that's marvellous I knew thine eldest brother, Tom Venner, two years agone at New College. A proper merry lad he was! And thou art a brother of Tom's! Thou must be the little one he called Flip, though I had judged him to be older."
Merrylips answered neither yes nor no. She hoped it was no fib to let Dick Fowell think that she was her brother Flip, and not a little girl. Whatever happened, she must keep the secret that Munn had bidden her to keep. But she thought it no harm, in answer to Fowell's questions, to tell him how she had dwelt in Will Lowry's household at Larkland and had come to Monksfield by Munn's aid. Indeed she was glad to talk with Fowell. He seemed like an old friend, since he had known her brother Longkin at Oxford.
But soon Dick Fowell said: "I'm loath to part with thee, little truepenny, but haply thy gentle friends in garrison will not be over-pleased at the company thou art keeping here. Were it not best thou shouldst slip hence and leave me?"
Merrylips hesitated, and then he added, smiling:—
"Have no fear, child! Lieutenant Digby and I will do each other no mortal damage."
Merrylips feared that her next question was uncivil, but she had to put it. Point-blank she asked:—
"Why doth Lieutenant Digby hate you so?"
"A long tale," said Fowell, and frowned, though perhaps it was only with the pain of his hurt head.
"We Fowells," he went on, "dwell neighbors to the Digbys yonder in Berkshire, and since my grandfather's time, faith, there hath been little love lost between us. There was at first a dispute over some lands, and then a plenty of wrongs and insults,—on both sides, no doubt. As little lads, Miles Digby and I came more than once to fisticuffs. And then, two years agone, he shot my dog that ran at my heels, vowing that I did trespass on his father's lands. For that I gave him such a trouncing as it seemeth he hath not forgot."