She tried to show Rupert that she was willing to meet him halfway, if he wished to make up. She put herself into his path, but he only scowled at her and so passed by. She hung about, smiling and trying to catch his eye, but he would not even look at her. She could not guess why he should hate her so. But one day she heard a horseboy jeer at Rupert. "Thou mayst carry thy crest lower now, young Hinkel," the horseboy laughed. "Thou art level wi' the rest of us, my lad, now that some one else is white-boy, yonder 'mongst the gentry coves." Very slowly Merrylips began to see what she had done to Rupert. From a word here and a sentence there she gathered that before she came to Monksfield he had been by several years the youngest lad in the garrison, and, as such, a favorite with the officers. They had had him into the mess-room to sing for them, when they were idle, and had laughed and jested with him as a towardly lad. But now that she was there, a younger child and a newer plaything, Rupert was forgotten by his patrons. When Merrylips found that she had taken Rupert's place, she remembered how she herself had felt when Herbert Lowry came to Larkland, where for such a long time she had been the only child. With all her heart she was sorry for Rupert, and she wondered how she could make up to him for the wrong that innocently she had done him. While Merrylips was wondering, something happened so dreadful that she feared it could never be put right. Late one afternoon she was trudging across the great court at Lieutenant Digby's side. She was good friends with Lieutenant Digby, for all that Munn had thought him apt to bully. He had been teaching her to handle a quarter-staff, and had given her some hard knocks, too. But a little boy must not mind hard knocks! Merrylips quite swaggered at the lieutenant's side, and as she went whistled--or thought that she whistled!--most boyishly. But, to her surprise, the lieutenant cried:-- "Name o' Heaven, what tune is it thou dost so mangle, lad? Is it _The Buff-coat hath no Fellow_ thou dost hit at? Yonder's a knave can sing it like a blackbird, and shall put thee right." Then, before Merrylips had guessed what he meant to do, he shouted:-- "Rupert! Ay, thou, young Hinkel! Come hither!" Rupert was at the well in the middle of the courtyard, where he was drawing a bucket of water for the cooks. He must have heard the lieutenant, for he looked up; but when he saw that Merrylips was with him, he dropped his eyes and did not stir. Then Lieutenant Digby called a second time, and now his face was stern. So Rupert came unwillingly. He slouched across the court, coatless, with his sleeves turned up, and halted by the porch where the lieutenant and Merrylips were standing. "Quicken thy steps next time," said Lieutenant Digby, "else they'll be quickened for thee. And now thou'rt here, off with these sullens and sing _The Buff-coat_ for Master Venner." Rupert's straight brows met in a scowl.