"They did—no such thing!" answered Rupert, jerkily.
He shifted himself from Dick Fowell's hold and sat up, with his arm about her.
"And I blacked—one fellow's eye for him—the scurvy rogue! And I didn't—drink for none on 'em! And we're both—king's men!" he ended, lifting his face to Dick Fowell. "And you can hang us—if you will! And we're not afeard! And God save the king!"
"God save the king!" quavered Merrylips.
And then they clung to each other, and wondered what would happen to them.
Kit Woolgar began to talk, and the idlers and the tavern folk, who had crowded into the room, began to question and exclaim. But Dick Fowell bade them be silent, and in the silence he spoke briefly to the musketeers. Merrylips hoped that never in her life should she be spoken to by any one in a voice like that. When he had said the little that was to be said to men that found their sport in bullying children, he dismissed them, with a promise to speak further to their captain.
Then Fowell turned to Kit Woolgar and bade him tell his story. And Woolgar told how he had taken up the two children at Long Wesselford, and how they had slipped from him, and all the false tale with which they had cheated him. At that Merrylips remembered how kind Polly and Kit had been, and how she and Rupert had deceived them, and she blushed and hung her head for shame.
"Truth," said Fowell, when the tale was ended, "I must be that kinsman Smith whom these young ones sought in Ryeborough—eh, Tibbott Venner?"
"You're merry, sir," replied Woolgar. "You're no carabineer in my lord's troop. You're my lord Caversham's son, and well I know your honor."
"In any case," said Fowell, "I'll charge me with the custody of these two arrant king's men."