Volume 1 Chapter 14 - The White Gauntlet by Mayne Reid
The bells of Uxbridge were tolling the hour of noon. Scarthe’s Cuirassiers were still by the roadside inn, though in full armour, and each trooper standing by the side of his horse, ready to take saddle.
It was a late hour to begin their march; but they had been detained. The freshly rasped hoofs of the horses might declare the cause of the detention. The forges of Uxbridge had been called into requisition, for the shoeing of the troop.
There was no special need for haste. They had not far to go; and the duty upon which they were bent, could be entered into at any hour. At twelve they were all ready for the route.
“To horse!” was uttered in the usual abrupt tone of command; and at the same instant, the two officers were seen issuing from the doorway of the inn.
The clattering of steel, as the cuirassiers sprang to their saddles, could be heard on the calm air of the autumn noon, to the distance of a mile. The shopkeepers of Uxbridge heard it; and were only too glad when told its interpretation. All night long Scarthe’s royal swashbucklers had been swaggering through the streets, disturbing the tranquillity of their town, and leaving many a score unsettled.
No wonder they rejoiced, when that clinking of sabres, and clashing of cuisses, declared the departure of Captain Scarthe and his following from the hostelry of the Saracen’s Head.
Their men having mounted, the two officers betook themselves to their saddles, though with less alertness. The cornet seemed to have a difficulty in finding his stirrup; and, after he had succeeded in getting into his seat, it appeared an open question whether he should be able to keep it. Stubbs was intoxicated.
His superior officer was affected in a similar fashion, though to a less degree. At all events he did not show his tipsiness so palpably. He was able to mount into the saddle, without the hand of a helper; and when there, could hold himself upright. Habit may have given him this superiority over his comrade: for Scarthe was an old soldier, and Stubbs was not.
The carouse of the preceding night had commenced at the roadside inn—early in the evening.
The incident that had there occurred—not of the most comforting nature, either to Scarthe or his subaltern—had stimulated them to continue at their cups—only transferring the scene to the inns of Uxbridge. A stray cavalier or two, picked up in the town, had furnished them with the right sort of associates for a midnight frolic; and it was not till the blue light of morn was breaking over the meadows of the Colne, that the wearied roisterers staggered across the old bridge, and returned to their temporary quarters at the roadside inn.
While the horses of the troop were in the hands of the farriers, the two officers had passed an hour or two, tossing upon a brace of the best beds the inn afforded; and it was close upon twelve at noon when Scarthe awoke, and called for a cup of burnt sack to steady his nerves—quivering after the night’s carouse.
A slight breakfast sufficed for both captain and cornet. This despatched, they had ordered the troop to horse, and were about to continue their march.
“Comrades!” cried Scarthe, addressing himself to his followers, as soon as he felt fairly fixed in the saddle. “We’ve been spending the night in a nest of rebels. This Uxbridge is a town of traitors—Quakers, Dissenters and Puritans—alike disloyal knaves.”
“They are by Gec-gec-ged!” hiccuped Stubbs, trying to keep himself upright on his horse.
“They are; you speak true, captain—they’re all you say,” chorussed several of the troopers, who had come away without settling their scores.
“Then let them go to the devil;” muttered Scarthe, becoming alike regardless of Uxbridge and its interests. “Let’s look to what’s before us. No—not that. First what’s behind us. No pretty girls in the inn here. Ah! that’s a pity. Never mind the women, so long as there’s wine. Hillo, Old Boniface! Once more set your taps a-flowing. What will you drink, vagabonds? Beer?”
“Ay, ay—anything you like, noble captain.”
“Beer, Boniface; and for me more sack. What say you, Stubbs?”
“Sack, sa-a-ck!” stammered the cornet. “Burnt sa-a-ck. Nothing like it, by Ge-ged!”
“Who pays?” inquired the landlord, evidently under some apprehension as to the probability of this ultimate order being for cash.
“Pays, knave!” shouted Scarthe, pulling a gold piece from his doublet, and shieing it in the landlord’s face. “Do you take the king’s cuirassiers for highway robbers? The wine—the wine! Quick with it, or I’ll draw your corks with the point of my sword.”
With the numerous staff, which an inn in those times could afford to maintain, both the beer and the more generous beverage were soon within reach of the lips of those intended to partake of them. The national drink was brought first; but out of deference to their officers, the men refrained partaking of it, till the sack was poured into the cups.
Scarthe seized the goblet presented to him and raising it aloft, called out:—
“The King!”
“The King, by Ge-ged,” seconded Stubbs.
“The King—the King!” vociferated the half hundred voices of their followers—the bystanders echoing the phrase only in faint murmuring.
“Goblets to the ground!” commanded the captain—at the same time tossing his own into the middle of the road.
The action was imitated by every man in the troop—each throwing away his empty vessel, till the pavement was thickly strewn with pots of shining pewter.
“Foorward—ma-r-ch!” cried Scarthe, giving the spur to his charger; and with a mad captain at their head, and a maudlin cornet in the rear, the cuirassiers filed out from the inn; and took the road in the direction of Red Hill.
Despite the wine within him, the captain of the cuirassiers, was at that moment, in a frame of mind, anything but contented. One of his reasons for having drunk so deeply, was to drown the recollection—yet rankling in his bosom—of the insult he fancied himself to have suffered on the preceding night, and which he further fancied to have lowered him in the estimation of his followers. Indeed, he knew this to be the case; for as he rode onward at the head of his troop, his whole thoughts were given to the black horseman, and the mode by which he might revenge himself on that mysterious individual.
Scarthe was on the way to country quarters—near which he had been told, the black horseman had his home—and he comforted himself with the thought, that should these prove dull, he would find amusement, in the accomplishment of some scheme, by which his vengeance might be satisfied.
Could his eye at that moment have penetrated the screen of foliage rising above the crest of Red Hill, he might have seen behind it, the man he meant to injure—mounted on that sable steed from which he derived his sobriquet. He might have seen him suddenly wheel back from the bushes, and gallop off in the direction in which he and his cuirassiers were marching—towards Bulstrode Park—the residence of Sir Marmaduke Wade.
Though Scarthe saw not this, his midday march was not performed without his meeting with an incident—one worth recording, even for its singularity; though it was otherwise of significant interest to the cuirassier captain.
In front of a dilapidated hovel upon Jarret’s Heath, both he and his troop were brought to a sudden stand, on hearing a strange noise which appeared to proceed from the ruin. It was a groan—or rather a series of groans—now and then varied by a sharp scream.
On entering the hut, the cause of this singular fracas was at once discovered: a man lying upon the floor—stripped to his shirt, and bound hand and foot! This semi-nude individual informed them, that he had just awakened from a horrid dream; which he now feared was no dream, but a reality! He proclaimed himself a courier of the King, bound to Bulstrode Park, with a despatch for Captain Scarthe! But the despatch was lost, with everything else he had borne upon his body—even to the horse that had borne him!
After the full explanation had been given, Scarthe’s chagrin at the failure of the King’s message, was counterbalanced by the amusement caused by the misadventure of the messenger; and, after remounting the unfortunate man, and sending him whence he had come, he continued his march, making the wild waste of Jarret’s Heath ring with a loud and long continued cachinnation.