"Do thou but wait and see what I shall have!" cried Merrylips, hotly.
"Ay, we shall see!" said Rupert.
Then Merrylips walked away, with a stride that was like Captain Norris's. At that moment she quite hated Rupert, and she did not believe his story that the Roundheads were coming to attack Monksfield. She was sure that he had said it only in the hope of frightening her. But before the day was over, she found that Rupert had spoken the truth.
Late in that same afternoon Merrylips was playing with her ball in a little paved court at the north side of the great house. In the old days, a hundred years before, Monksfield had been a monastery, and many of the ancient buildings, with their quaint flagged courtyards, still were standing. At one side of the court where Merrylips played was a wall with a locked gate that led into what had been the herb garden, and on this garden abutted the still-house that the old monks had used.
Presently in her play, Merrylips cast her ball clear over this wall. She did not wish to lose her toy, so she fetched a form from the wash-house, close by, and set it on end against the wall. By climbing upon it, she was able to scramble over into the garden.
She landed in a pathway of sloping flags, along which she guessed that the ball must have rolled. So she followed the path till it pitched down a sunken stairway which led to an oaken door beneath the still-house. At the foot of the stairs lay the ball, and she had just bent to pick it up, when the door opened, right upon her, and a man stepped out.
At her first glance Merrylips saw only that he was a rough fellow, in a smock frock and frieze breeches, and coarse brogues, and that he wore a patch upon one eye. So little did she like his looks that she turned to run up the steps, faster than she had come down, but just then she heard her name spoken:—
"Tibbott Venner!"
The voice was one that she knew. She halted and looked again, and this time, under the black patch and the walnut juice with which the man's face was stained, she recognized the features of Captain George Brooke.
"What bringeth you hither?" Captain Brooke asked sternly, and took her by both shoulders, as she stood a step or two above him on the stairway.