Lark (Sally Watson Family Tree Series)

by Sally Watson

  The lark song began again after the verse, and James breathed more easily. But then the reckless words came in again, and a moment later there was a man’s angry voice.

  It would have been sensible of James to avoid investigating a scene which could so easily get himself and his king’s work into difficulties. But James was not the sort to avoid difficulties. He was a Cavalier himself—and he could never resist adventure. He hurried around the knoll at the river bend to see what was happening.

  The lark turned out to be a small girl dressed in brown. She was looking with alarm at a thick-set young man, also in Puritan dress, who advanced toward her angrily. Her brother, no doubt, and none of James’s business. But an instant later he made it his business. For the young man gave the little girl a clout on the ear that knocked her to the ground, and James saw red.

  But when James saw red it was always with great calmness. Moreover, he did not believe in resorting to violence unless it became necessary. He sauntered over to where the young man was looming over the lark, and regarded them with interest. The lark, he observed, was sitting up, apparently more scared than hurt.

  The young man turned his stocky figure toward James. “If this is your sister,” he growled, “you had best discipline her. She was singing a vile, ungodly song.”

  So the young man didn’t know the lark, after all! James raised his eyebrow. “I have never heard of a Commandment that said ‘Thou shalt not sing,’ “ he observed mildly. “However, I do seem to remember a passage in the Bible that says ‘Judge not, that ye be not judged.’ ”

  The young man glowered, and James perceived that he was not much impressed. Puritans much preferred the Old Testament to the New. He tried again. “Or there is the Proverb: Cursed is he who smiteth the young and helpless,” he added.

  The young man looked baffled. Clearly he had never heard this proverb, which was not surprising, since James had just made it up on the spur of the moment. Encouraged, James put his literary skill to work once more. “Or Isaiah,” he continued pleasantly. “He who raiseth his arm against one of these, my children, him the Lord hateth and shall cast into eternal fire.”

  The young man by now looked distinctly uneasy, and James might have left well enough alone. But he had got into the spirit of the thing, and could not resist going on. “Or Ezekiel,” he said. “He who is a great lout with the face of a pig and the mind of a weasel, let him keep his hands to himself.”

  At that, the great lout gave a bellow of rage and threw himself at James; and in the twinkling of an eye a brisk battle was in progress.

  Lark scrambled to her feet to avoid being trampled, and tried to decide what to do. Whoever the brown young man was, he was doing battle for her, and she felt a great love for him. However, it seemed that love would not be of much help at the moment, for the other man was much larger. More active assistance was needed, so Lark leaped at the back of the lout and clung, her feet locked firmly about his legs.

  The lout staggered and tried to shake her off. James glanced at her and yelled for her to get away, and in that instant received a large fist right in his eye. After that he was too busy to take much notice. Lark clung until she was thrown off, and then came back for more. This time she managed to find a section of arm, and—being quite unversed in the rules of polite fighting—bit it. The lout yelled, Lark flew off again, and the two men rolled to the ground.

  Lark, panting from the effort, saw clearly that Her Hero was going to be severely beaten if she didn’t do something more constructive than biting. Heroism alone could not always make up for sheer physical force. But what could she do? She picked up a stone, but they were rolling around so much that she was afraid of hitting the wrong one. Then the fight rolled to the very edge of the bank that overhung the river.

  Lark hurled her small self with all her might at the tangle, and the three of them went over the bank and into the river with a huge splash.

  Things were extremely confused for the next few minutes. The current at that spot was surprisingly strong for such a mild looking river, and Lark felt herself turned over and swirled under the water and away from the bank. She could swim a tiny bit—more than most girls—but not, she felt sure, well enough for this. It was all she could do to struggle to the surface and take a deep breath before she went under again, and she found herself thinking that Uncle Jeremiah must have been right after all, and God was taking His vengeance upon her.

  Then she felt herself caught up in a strong arm, and her face was out of the water again, and a voice said, “Just hold still, little girl, and I’ll have you safe in a minute.”

  Lark obeyed, realizing that perhaps God wasn’t angry after all, and that she was once more being saved by the fine young man, whom she trusted completely. A few minutes later he had found a low place on the bank, heaved her up so that she could catch hold of a bush, climbed up the bank himself, and was lifting her easily to a sunny, grassy place well away from that frightening river. They looked around for the enemy and saw him, some distance down the river, scrambling ashore on the other side. They both gave sighs of relief and looked at each other.

  Lark saw that although he wore cropped hair and plain homespun breeches and jerkin like any Puritan, there was laughter in his brown eyes . . . or at least in the one which was not rapidly closing and turning purple. Because of that and one or two other things, she did not think he was any more a dyed-in-the-wool Puritan than she was. She did not, for that matter, really care if he were. She liked him tremendously, and he had saved her twice.

  James saw a baby face with round, widely spaced eyes the color of green moss seen through peaty brown water. There was an enchanting snub nose, and a short round chin, and an unexpected dimple just under one corner of her mouth when she gave him a sudden and delightful smile. A charming child, he thought. James liked children, and had always wished for a little sister.

  “Thank you,” said Lark earnestly. “He was ever so much bigger than you, and I think you’re just terribly brave and noble.”

  “Not at all, poppet,” said James. He sat down on the grass beside her, feeling quite fatherly, and took her hands in his to see if she were chilled from her sudden bath. They were small hands, quite warm and alive in his, although she was dripping wet. He smiled back at her. “We’ll have to get you home and into dry clothes,” he said. “Where do you live, little lark?”

  Lark’s eyes widened. “My family always called me Lark!” she said delightedly. “How did you know?”

  “I didn’t,” said James. “But you were singing like one—and please don’t sing that Cavalier song again unless you are perfectly sure no one is around. I can’t think where you learned it, to begin with. Now, where is your home, my poppet?”

  “I haven’t any,” Lark told him. And looking into his nice but startled eyes, she felt that he was a friend. “You see,” she confided, “I’ve run away from my wicked uncle.”

  James’s eyebrows raised halfway up his forehead and he swallowed a little. He supposed he would have to coax her, calm her down, and then take her back himself. But the first thing was to get her dry. “You’re shivering,” he pointed out. “And I left my cloak back there where we fell into the river.”

  “I left mine there too,” Lark remembered. “And my bag.” They got up and started back up the river bank. “What is your name?” she asked presently, feeling that they really knew each other now except for that minor point.

  James hesitated for just an instant. The child clearly came from a Puritan home, and it was as well if she didn’t know his whole name, but he didn’t want to lie to her. “I don’t think we need to be formal now, do you?” he suggested with an engaging smile. “Why don’t you just call me James? And what is your name?”

  Lark smiled back cheerfully. “Lark is what I like best to be called, so you can go right on calling me that,” she announced. And then, at his disconcerted look, she added candidly, “You see, if you knew my right name and where I lived, you might think it was your duty
to send me back, but this way your conscience needn’t bother you.”

  James stared. His experience with small girls had not led him to expect this kind of shrewdness—especially not from such an innocent-faced lark-child as this. He found it extremely confusing.

  “But you’ll have to go home—I mean back to your uncle—sooner or later,” he explained kindly. “After all, where else can you go?”

  “To Scotland,” Lark told him as casually as if she had said “across the road.”

  “Awp!” said James inadequately, and then became speechless.

  “You see,” Lark explained, “my uncle brought his soldiers and stole me away from my mother and father, and then my family was put out of their house and they had to go to France and be exiles, and I can’t go to them because I haven’t a boat. But my sister is in Scotland, and I don’t need a boat to get there, so I’m going to live with her.”

  “Scotland!” echoed James. “My sweet Lark, you can’t possibly go to Scotland! It’s out of the question. You mustn’t even consider such a thing! You have no idea—You must go back to your uncle at once. At least you’ll be safe there.”

  Lark shook her head. The independence and originality Mistress Tillyard had seen were very much in evidence, and her chin, though small, showed possibilities of unbelievable stubbornness. James argued in vain all the way back to where they had left their things on the sunny river bank, and then decided to postpone the battle until they were dry.

  He looked at the bulging workbag which lay by her cloak. “I don’t suppose you have a change of clothing in there,” he suggested without much hope.

  “I have a clean collar and cap,” said Lark, “and my nightgown. I could put that on while my clothes get dry. It’s such a hot day that it shouldn’t take long.”

  “Nightgown?” James echoed dubiously. It seemed an odd thing to be taking to Scotland—and he wasn’t sure it was proper for her to wear it right out in the open air like this. He said so.

  Lark looked at him. “Well, it’s the only other thing I’ve got,” she pointed out. “And I don’t see why it isn’t perfectly respectable. After all, it covers just as much of me as my skirt and bodice do.”

  Defeated by this logic, James draped both of their cloaks tent-like over a willow sapling, and then obligingly turned his back and watched out to see that no more great louts were coming along while Lark changed. When he turned around and came back, she looked even younger and more vulnerable than before in the full white folds of the nightgown, with a snowy ruff tied demurely under her chin. Half of her hair, released from its braid, fell over her shoulders into her lap and spilled down to the ground.

  “It will dry faster,” explained Lark, beginning on the other braid. “Are you hungry? I am. There’s some food in my bag.”

  James guessed that it was her only food, meant to last all the way to Scotland, and he was deeply touched at such generosity. But he could hardly refuse—and in any case, he was going to see her back to her uncle safely—so he brought out the nuts and raisins and cheese. They ate together, sitting face to face in the high warm grass. Her hair, as it dried, fascinated him. It was straight and thick, curling just a trifle at the ends, which fell below her hips. And it was an odd light brown with a silvery sheen to it, as if it were being seen in the moonlight. A lovely child! Not pretty, exactly, but lovely.

  He reluctantly broke the contented silence with a return to the disputed matter of Scotland. “Believe me, little Lark,” he said. “You can’t possibly make a trip like that. It’s too far and too hard, and there are too many dangers. Soldiers and bandits and hunger and cold—and I doubt if you would have nearly enough food or money to get a quarter of the way. You’d be stopped and questioned even if you didn’t starve, and besides, there are two armies between here and Scotland, and you might end up right in the middle of a battle.”

  “But I have to go,” Lark said simply. “I’d rather face all of those things than go back. Besides,” she remembered, shuddering, “just think what my uncle would do!” She deliberately stopped there, leaving James to imagine far worse things than Uncle Jeremiah would probably actually do to her—although the reality would be quite bad enough, even at best.

  James could see in his mind the welts that would appear on Lark’s fragile skin; and her small bones—bones like a bird—in the callous grip of a brutal and sadistic uncle. He could feel the humiliation, which he knew instinctively would hurt this child even more than pain. He groaned. What on earth was he to do?

  Lark glanced up at him from under long lashes. The look of a trusting babe was on her face. “Where are you going, James?” she asked.

  James looked at her helplessly.

  4

  The Wish

  “It’s out of the question!” said James for at least the fiftieth time. They were walking along a pleasant path in the general direction of Salisbury.

  Lark smiled at him. They were heading roughly northward, which was the right direction for Scotland, and she felt sure that James would take care of her, so she was not inclined to argue the point just now.

  James felt that he wasn’t getting anywhere. “Why don’t you wait until after the battle?” he asked, humoring her. “Then if King Charles wins, your parents can come back and get you, and everything will be all right.”

  Lark had thought of that, too, of course. But she wasn’t going back now. She changed the subject. “Is King Charles really our king now?” she asked. “Uncle Jeremiah said not.”

  “I’m not sure, myself,” James admitted, forgetting her extreme youth for the moment. “I suppose it depends on how you look at it. Some say he became king the minute his father was beheaded, because he was heir to the throne; but others say he has to be properly crowned. Of course he was crowned in Scotland last winter, but I’m not sure if that counts for England or not. You see, poppet, England and Scotland were always two separate countries with two rulers until Queen Elizabeth died, and then King James became ruler of both countries. Then each country split into two sides when the civil war began: for the king and against him. And you know the Royalists lost and Charles I had his head chopped off; only now the Scots have decided they want Charles II, so they’re invading England with him, to make him king of both countries and throw out Cromwell, and—” He paused, feeling that he had got much too complicated for a small girl. As a matter of fact, it was a bit muddled even for him.

  But Lark was less confused than he supposed. “Well, then,” she decided, going straight to the heart of the matter with what James considered admirably straightforward logic. “Charles is king, isn’t he?”

  “As far as I’m concerned,” agreed James, smiling at her. Trust a child to see the main point, he thought. Babes didn’t bother with all the little side issues that were so apt to muddle grownups. . . . Lark, for her part, was thinking how clever James was to be able to present all sides of the question so clearly. She smiled back at him admiringly, and encouraged him to explain some more things.

  “I thought the Scots were on Cromwell’s side.” She frowned. “Didn’t they capture the first King Charles themselves, and then give him to Cromwell to be executed?”

  “They did,” James agreed bleakly. “But you see they have never really been on any side but their own, and they’re so narrow and ultra-Puritan that even Cromwell thinks they go too far. And when they found that Cromwell wasn’t going to let them run both countries, they got young Charles to come back from Holland and be crowned, so they could turn around and fight Cromwell. Only then they started quarreling among themselves—trust the Scots for that—and made Charles sign all sorts of humiliating things, so that he said he thought he’d better apologize for having been born.”

  “Why does he let them do that to him?” asked Lark, going again to the heart of the matter.

  James shrugged. “Well, for one thing, they have him. And I expect he hopes, as the rest of us do, that if he can beat Cromwell, then all England can unite and settle the Scots. The only troub
le is,” he added gloomily, “that a lot of Englishmen who might have supported Charles by himself have turned against him for bringing in the Scots.” He sighed, for optimist though he was, he could see nothing but disaster ahead.

  In addition, James now had a new problem of his own. He looked down at Lark and wondered what on earth he was going to do with her. He couldn’t take her back, since she wouldn’t tell him her name or where she came from. He couldn’t take her on the king’s business, since this would be dangerous both for the cause and for Lark. And he couldn’t just abandon her. The only possibility was to leave her with friends along the way. He began to feel quite elderly and burdened.

  “What is that place?” asked Lark, who knew very little about geography except that Scotland was to the north. She pointed to a slender spire that rose above roofs and treetops some little distance ahead.

  “Salisbury,” replied James, looking at it doubtfully. He would have felt fairly comfortable passing through the town as a tinker of obviously Puritan convictions, or even as a lad taking tinker’s tools to his father. But the presence of Lark, he felt, was going to complicate matters. He stopped near a large oak tree, looked up it speculatively, and began to climb.

  “What are you doing?” asked Lark with great interest.

  “Hiding my tinker’s tools,” he informed her, doing so. “A tinker wouldn’t have his little sister along with him,” he explained with a rather wry grin when he got back down to earth. “You’re my little sister, in case you didn’t know, and I’m taking you to stay with dear old Aunt Prudence, who needs you to help about the house. She lives in—um—oh, near Tilshead will do.” And he concealed a very small sigh, so as not to hurt the child’s feelings. It was true that she was complicating his life and work in a most distracting way, but that wasn’t her fault, was it?

  Lark was nodding happily at this splendid story, and putting on her cap and collar and a sober and holy look for the occasion. It was a slightly different role from the one she had used for Uncle Jeremiah, she decided, and rather a challenge. For she must be completely convincing in her part, without allowing James to notice what a good actress she was. Lark had no real doubt of her ability to meet the challenge. She had, so her own family frequently told each other, inherited the acting ability of both grandparents. And they in turn had actually acted in Master Shakespeare’s plays way back in the days of Queen Elizabeth.