Volume 1 Chapter 18 - The White Gauntlet by Mayne Reid
“So, good, people!” said Scarthe, as soon as he and his companion had entered within the enclosure, “holding holiday are you? An admirable idea in such fine weather—with the azure sky over your heads, and the green trees before your faces. Pray don’t let us interrupt your Arcadian enjoyment. Go on with the sports! I hope you have no objection to our becoming spectators?”
“No! no!” cried several voices in response, “you are welcome, sirs! you are welcome!”
Having thus spoken their permission, the people once more dispersed themselves over the ground; while the two officers, arm in arm, commenced strolling through the encampment—followed by a crowd of the lower class of peasants, who continued to gratify their curiosity by gazing upon the steel-clad strangers.
Sir Marmaduke and his friends had returned to their former stand—upon the elevated crest of the moat, and at some distance from the causeway, where the officers had entered. The latter saunteringly proceeded in that direction; freely flinging their jests among the crowd who accompanied them; and now and then exchanging phrases of no very gentle meaning, with such of the peasant girls as chanced to stray across their path.
The host of the fête had resolved not to offer the intruders a single word of welcome. The rude demand made by the comet, coupled with the coarse dialogue between the two officers—part of which he had overheard—had determined Sir Marmaduke to take no notice of them, until they should of themselves declare their errand.
He had ordered the morris dance to be resumed. In front of where he stood the dancers had reformed their figures; and, with streaming ribbons and ringing bells, were again tripping it over the turf.
“By the toes of Terpsichore, a morris dance!” exclaimed the captain of cuirassiers, as he came near enough to recognise the costume and measure. “An age since I have seen one!”
“Never saw one in my life,” rejoined Stubbs; “except on the stage. Is it the same?”
No doubt Stubbs spoke the truth. He had been born in the ward of Cheap, and brought up within the sound of Bow-bells.
“Not quite the same,” drawled the captain, “though something like—if I remember aright. Let’s forward, and have a squint at it.”
Hastening their steps a little, the two officers soon arrived on the edge of the circle; and without taking any notice of the “people of quality,” who were stationed upon the platform above, they commenced flinging free jibes among the dancers.
Some of these made answer with spirit—especially Little John and the Jolly Friar, who chanced to be fellows of a witty turn; and who in their own rude fashion gave back to the two intruders full value for what they received.
Bold Robin—who appeared rather a surly representative of Sherwood’s hero—bore their sallies with an indifferent grace—more especially on perceiving that the eyes of the cuirassier captain became lit up with a peculiar fire, while following Maid Marian through the mazes of the dance.
But the heart of the pseudo-outlaw was destined to be further wrung. A climax was at hand. As Marian came to the close of one of her grandest pas, the movement had inadvertently brought her close to the spot where the cuirassier captain was standing.
“Bravo! beautiful Marian!” cried the latter, bending towards her, and clasping her rudely around the waist. “Allow a thirsty soldier to drink nectar from those juicy lips of thine.”
And without finishing the speech, or waiting for her consent—which he knew would be refused—he protruded his lips through the visor of his helmet, till they came in contact with those of the girl.
A blow from a clenched feminine fist, received right in his face, neither disconcerted nor angered the daring libertine; who answered it by a loud reckless laugh, in which he was joined by his cornet, and chorussed by some of the less sentimental of the spectators.
There were others who did not seem inclined to treat the affair in this jocular fashion.
Cries of “Shame!” “Pitch into him!” “Gie it him, Robin!” were heard among the crowd; and angry faces could be seen mingled with the merry ones.
The idol of England’s peasantry needed not such stimulus to stir him to action. Stung by jealousy, and the insult offered to his sweetheart, he sprang forward; and, raising his crossbow—the only weapon he carried—high overhead, he brought it down with a “thwack” upon the helmet of the cuirassier captain, which caused the officer to stagger some paces backward ere he could recover himself.
“Take that, dang thee!” shouted Robin, as he delivered the blow. “Take that; an’ keep thy scurvy kisses to thyself.”
“Low-born peasant!” cried the cuirassier, his face turning purple as he spoke, “if thou wert worthy a sword, I’d spit thee like a red-herring. Keep off, churl, or I may be tempted to take thy life!”
As he uttered this conditional threat, he drew his sword; and stood with the blade pointing towards the breast of bold Robin.
There was an interval of profound silence. It was terminated by a voice among the crowd crying out:—“Yonder comes the man that’ll punish him!”
All eyes were turned towards the elevated platform, on which stood the “people of quality.” There was a commotion among the cavaliers. One, who had separated from the rest, was seen hurrying down the sloping side of the moat, and making direct for the scene of the contention.
He had only a dozen steps to go; and, before either the pseudo-outlaw of Sherwood-forest, and his mailed adversary, could change their relative positions, he had glided in between them.
The first intimation the cuirassier had of a true antagonist, was, when a bright sword-blade rasped against his own, striking sparks of fire from the steel; and he beheld standing in front of him, no longer a “low-born peasant,” clad in Kendal Green, but a cavalier in laced doublet, elegantly attired as himself, and equally as determined.
This new climax silenced the spectators, as suddenly, as if the wand of an enchanter had turned them into stone; and it was not till after some seconds had elapsed that murmurs of applause rose round the ring, coupled with that popular cry, “Huzza for the black horseman!”
For a moment the captain of cuirassiers seemed awed into silence. Only for a moment, and only by the suddenness of the encounter. Swaggerer as he may have been, Scarthe was no coward; and under the circumstances even a coward must have shown courage. Though still under the influence of a partial intoxication, he knew that bright eyes were upon him; he knew that high-born dames were standing within ten paces of the spot; and, though hitherto, for reasons of his own, pretending to ignore their presence, he knew they had been spectators of all that had passed. He had no intention, therefore, of showing the white feather.
Perhaps it was the individual, who had thus presented himself, as much as his sudden appearance, that held him for the moment speechless: for in the antagonist before him, Scarthe recognised the cavalier, who in front of the roadside inn had daringly drunk—
“To the People!”
The souvenir of this insult, added to this new defiance, furnished a double stimulus to his resentment—which at length found expression in words.
“You it is, disloyal knave? You!”
“Disloyal or not,” calmly returned the cavalier, “I demand reparation for the slight you have offered to this respectable assemblage. Your free fashions may do for Flanders—where I presume you’ve been practising them—but I must teach you to salute the fair maidens of England in a different style.”
“And who are you, who propose to give the lesson?”
“No low-born peasant, Captain Richard Scarthe! Don’t fancy you can screen yourself behind that coward’s cloak. You must fight, or apologise?”
“Apologise!” shouted the soldier, in a furious voice, “Captain Scarthe apologise! Ha! ha! ha! Hear that Cornet Stubbs? Did you ever know me to apologise?”
“Never, by Ged!” muttered Stubbs in reply.
“As you will then,” said the cavalier, placing himself in an attitude to commence the combat.
“No, no!” cried Maid Marian, throwing herself in front of Holtspur, as if to screen his body with her own. “You must not, sir. It is not fair. He is in armour, and you, sir—”
“No—it arn’t fair!” proclaimed several voices; while at the same moment, a large fierce-looking man, with bushy black beard, was seen pushing his way through the crowd towards the spot occupied by the adversaries.
“Twoant do, Master Henry,” cried the bearded man as he came up. “You mustn’t risk it that way. I know ye’re game for any man on the groun’, or in England eyther; but it arn’t fair. The sodger captain must peel off them steel plates o’ his; and let the fight be a fair ’un. What say ye, meeats?”
This appeal to the bystanders was answered by cries of “Fair play! fair play! The officer must take off his armour!”
“Certainly,” said Walter Wade, at this moment coming up. “If these gentlemen are to fight, the conditions must be equal. Of course, Captain Scarthe, you will not object to that?”
“I desire no advantage,” rejoined the cuirassier captain. “He may do as he likes; but I shall not lay aside my armour on any account.”
“Then your antagonist must arm also,” suggested one of the gentlemen, who had accompanied Walter. “The combat cannot go on, till that be arranged.”
“No! no!” chimed in several voices, “both should be armed alike.”
“Perhaps this gentleman,” said one, pointing to the cornet, “will have no objection to lend his for the occasion? That would simplify matters. It appears to be about the right size.”
Stubbs looked towards his captain, as much as to say, “Shall I refuse?”
“Let him have it!” said Scarthe, seeing that the proposal could not well be declined.
“He’s welcome to it!” said the cornet, who instantly commenced unbuckling.
There were hands enough to assist Henry Holtspur in putting on the defensive harness; and, in a few minutes’ time, he was encased in the steel accoutrements of the cornet—cuirass and gorget, pauldrons, cuisses, and braces—all of which fortunately fitted, as if they had been made for him.
The helmet still remained in the hand of one of the attendants—who made a motion towards placing it upon Holtspur’s head.
“No!” said the latter, pushing it away. “I prefer wearing my beaver.” Then pointing to the trophy set above its brim, he added, “It carries that which will sufficiently protect my head. An English maiden has been insulted, and under the glove of an English maiden shall the insult be rebuked.”
“Don’t be so confident in the virtue of your pretty trophy,” rejoined Scarthe with a sarcastic sneer. “Ere long I shall take that glove from your hat, and stick it on the crest of my helmet. No doubt I shall then have come by it more honestly than you have done.”
“Time enough to talk of wearing, when you have won it,” quietly retorted the cavalier. “Though, by my troth,” added he, returning sneer for sneer, “you should strive hard to obtain it; you stand in need of a trophy to neutralise the loss of your spurs left behind you in the ford of Newburn.”
The “ford of Newburn” was Scarthe’s especial fiend. He was one of that five thousand horsemen, who under Conway had ignominiously retreated from the Tyne—spreading such a panic throughout the whole English army, as to carry it without stop or stay far into the heart of Yorkshire. Once before had Holtspur flung the disgraceful souvenir in his teeth; and now to be a second time reproached with it, before a crowd of his countrymen, before his own followers—many of whom had by this time entered within the camp—but above all, in presence of that more distinguished circle of proud and resplendent spectators, standing within earshot, on the moat above—that was the direst insult to which he had ever been subjected. As his antagonist repeated the taunting allusion, his brow already dark, grew visibly darker; while his thin lips whitened, as if the blood had altogether forsaken them.
“Base demagogue!” cried he, hissing the words through his clenched teeth, “your false tongue shall be soon silenced. On the escutcheon of Captain Scarthe there is no stain, save the blood of his enemies, and the enemies of his king. Yours shall be mingled with the rest.”
“Come!” cried Holtspur, with an impatient wave of his weapon. “I stand not here for a contest of tongues; in which no doubt the accomplished courtier Scarthe would prove my superior. Our swords are drawn! Are you ready, sir?”
“No,” responded Scarthe.
“No?” interrogated his antagonist with a look of surprise. “What—”
“Captain Scarthe is a cuirassier. He fights not a-foot.”
“You are the challenged party!” put in Stubbs, “You have the right of choice, captain.”
“Our combat then shall be on horseback.”
“Thanks for the favour, gentlemen!” responded Holtspur, with a pleased look, “My own wish exactly; though I had scarce hoped to obtain it. You have said the word—we fight on horseback.”
“My horse!” shouted Scarthe, turning to one of his troopers. “Bring him up; and let the ground he cleared of this rabble.”
There was no necessity for the order last issued. As soon as it had become known, that the combat was to be fought on horseback, the people scattered on all sides—rushing towards the crest of the moat, and there taking their stand—most of them delighted at the prospect of witnessing a spectacle, which, even in those chivalrous times, was of uncommon occurrence.