He smiled at her.
"That we are! And always shall be!" he said.
"And for the other matter," Merrylips added hastily, for she heard Dick and Munn coming down the passage, "I'll aid thee if I may in that, as in all else. But indeed they are but little things thou hast to learn, Rupert, and will come unto thee quickly."
So Merrylips did her best to teach Rupert to bear himself as became Captain Lucas's son, and Rupert, who was a quick-witted lad, learned when to pluck off his hat and bow, and how to walk into a room without blushing, and he stopped using some of the words that he had picked up in the camps.
When Dick and Munn saw what the children were about, they helped Rupert in many quiet ways. For as soon as Munn had grasped the fact that Rupert was not a little impostor, he was grateful to him for the care that he had taken of Merrylips. So he was almost as kind as if Rupert had been his own young brother.
Like good comrades, then, the four went riding westward. They went in brave state, with a trumpeter and four men to attend them. They put up at snug inns, where they slept soft and ate and drank of the best,—how different from the last journey that Rupert and Merrylips had made! Sometimes they lay at fortified places, at first of the Roundheads and later of the Cavaliers, for they bore safe conducts and rode beneath a flag of truce.
They made short stages, for Rupert and Merrylips were but young riders. Sometimes, in cold or stormy weather, they lay by for a day or two. Thus it happened that it was hard December weather and almost Christmas time, when they came at last to the end of their journey.
All that afternoon they had ridden briskly. In rising excitement Munn and Merrylips had pointed out to each other the landmarks that they remembered. Merrylips was grieved to see that a farm-house by the road, where Mawkin's father had lived, was burned to the ground. She could scarcely believe Munn when he said that the Roundheads had done this.
For the first time she realized that the war had swept close to her own dear home. And she tried to fancy what Walsover would seem like. For she knew that she should find it fortified with walls and ditches, just as Monksfield had been, and garrisoned with troops of soldiers.
While she thought about this change, they rode up the long slope of some downs, in the bleak yellow sunset light. On the road before them they saw the black bulk of a horseman against the sky. He had paused to watch them, and presently, as if he had seen their white flag, he rode to meet them.