Above all, she was dearly loved by her three big brothers. As soon as she was able to toddle, she had begun to follow them about, at their work or play, and when they found her merry always and afraid of nothing, the lads began, half in sport, to give her a share in whatever they took in hand.
From those kind big brothers Merrylips learned to climb and to vault, to pitch a quoit and toss a ball, to sit a horse, and whip a trout-brook, to play fair always, and to keep back the tears when she was hurt. These were good lessons for a little girl, but Merrylips learned others that were not so good. She learned to speak hard words when she was angry, to strike with her little fists, to be rough and noisy. And because it seemed to them droll to see such a mite of a girl copy these faults of theirs, her brothers and sometimes even her father laughed and did not chide her.
In all the house of Walsover there was no one to say Merrylips nay except her mother, Lady Venner. Of her mother Merrylips stood in great fear. Lady Venner was a silent woman, who was very busy with the cares of her large household and of the whole estate, which was left to her management when her husband was away. She had little time to spend on her youngest daughter, and that little she used, as seemed to her wise, in trying to correct the faults that her husband and sons had fostered in the child. So Merrylips soon came to think of her mother as always chiding her, or forbidding her some pleasure, or setting her some task.
These tasks Merrylips hated. She did not mind so much when she was taught to read and write by the chaplain, for Munn and Flip, before they went away to Winchester School, had also had lessons to say to him. But when she was set down with a needle, to be taught all manner of stitches by her mother's waiting-woman, or bidden to strum a lute, under sister Puss's instruction, she fairly cried with rage and rebellion.
For down in her little heart, so secret that none had suspected, Merrylips kept the hope that she might grow up a boy. To be a boy meant to run and play, with no hindering petticoats to catch the heels and trip the toes. It meant to go away to school or to camp. It meant to be a soldier and have adventures, such as her father had had when he was a captain in the Low Countries.
To be a girl, on the other hand, meant to sew long seams and sit prettily in a quiet room, until the time, years and years away, when one was very old. Then one married, and went to another house, and there sat in another quiet room and sewed more seams till the end of one's life. No wonder Merrylips prayed with all her heart to grow up a boy!
To her mind the granting of this prayer did not seem impossible. To be sure, she wore petticoats, but so had Longkin and Munn and Flip when they were little. If she did all the things that boys did, she had no doubt that in time she should, like them, pass beyond the stage of petticoats.
But in this plan she was balked by her mother's orders to sew and play the lute and help in the still-room and do all the foolish things that girls were set to do. That was why Merrylips cried and raged over her needlework, and she raged still harder on the day about which you now shall hear.
Sir Thomas, who had been to Salisbury market, came riding home, one sweet summer evening, and cried lustily in the hall:—
"Merrylips! Halloo! Where beest thou, little jade?"