From the store-room they entered a long passage, and so, by corridors that Merrylips knew well, came to a little study in the second story. There they found Captain Norris, who seemed to be waiting for Captain Brooke. "You come late, George," said Captain Norris. "I thought you lost. What news?" "They muster three hundred dragoons and a troop of pioneers, and thereto they have three pieces of ordnance, fetched from Ryeborough," reported Captain Brooke. "Peter Hatcher holdeth the chief command, and one of Lord Caversham's sons is there besides, come with the guns from Ryeborough. Their march is surely for Monksfield, and they are like to be upon us ere the dawn." Now when Merrylips heard all this, she knew that Rupert had told the truth and that the Roundheads were coming to attack them. At that thought she felt her heart beat faster. To be sure, she had lived two years among Roundheads. She knew that they were not three yards tall and that they did not dine on babies,--at least, not at Larkland. But she had heard so many tales of their cruelty, since she had come to Monksfield, that she had begun to think that the Roundheads who went to battle must be very different from Will Lowry. Besides, was not this Hatcher who commanded the enemy the selfsame Hatcher of Horsham that had made her brother Munn a prisoner? It was no wonder, perhaps, that when Merrylips thought of Colonel Hatcher, she had to finger her pistol, to give herself courage. Just then Captain Norris seemed for the first time to notice her. He asked sternly what she was doing there, and Captain Brooke told him how Merrylips had come upon him at the still-house and would not promise to be silent. Merrylips grew quite frightened, so vexed and impatient both men seemed. "I am main sorry, sirs," she faltered, "but indeed I could not promise. I'm a soldier, and a soldier must report to his commander a thing that seemeth so monstrous strange." "A soldier, are you?" said Captain Norris. "Well, some day, no doubt, you'll be one, and not a bad one neither. But for now, remember, not one word of what you have seen and heard this afternoon!" "I promise, sir," Merrylips answered, and saluted Captain Norris, as his officers did, and marched out of the room. She was very proud of the praise that Captain Norris had given her, and of the secret that she shared with the two officers. She wished only that Master Rupert, with his gun, knew how she had been honored! Still, she could not help wondering how Captain George Brooke had learned all that about the Roundheads in the cellar of the still-house. Perhaps he was a wizard, she concluded, and she so frightened herself with that thought that she fairly ran through the dim passages, and never stopped till she reached the lighted mess-room.