But there came a day when Merrylips found that things were different. At dinner she sat unnoticed by her friends, the officers, while they talked of beeves and sacks of corn and kegs of powder. Before the meal was over Lieutenant Crashaw left the mess-room, and Captain George Brooke did not come to table at all.
When Merrylips went among her friends, the troopers, she found them busy with their arms. They bade her run away, or else told her the grimmest stories that they yet had told about the cruelties of the wicked Roundheads. Still, she did not quite catch what was in the air, until she came upon Rupert. She found him sitting on a bench against the stable wall. He had his sleeves turned up, and between his lips he held a straw, just as a grown man would have held a pipe, and he was cleaning an old carabine.
At Merrylips' step Rupert looked up, and for the first time in days spoke to her of his own accord.
"Look 'ee, Master Venner," said he, "thou wert best be at home wi' thy mammy. The Roundheads will be down upon us, and they be three yards tall, every man of 'em, and for the most part make their dinners off babes such as thou."
Merrylips felt her cheeks grow hot.
"I've lived two years amongst the Roundheads," she said, "and I know such tales be lies, and thou art a Jack fool to believe 'em."
"Wait and see!" laughed Rupert, and then, as if he were glad of any one to listen to him, he held up the carabine.
"This is my gun," he said proudly, "and I shall be fighting with it at Claus Hinkel's side. I've a powder flask, and a touch-box, and a bullet pouch, and a piece of match as long as thine arm."
"Pooh!" sniffed Merrylips, though indeed she was bitterly jealous. "I have a pistol."
"With a broken lock," jeered Rupert. "To be sure, they'd not trust thee with a gun—a little lad like thou."