Volume 2 Chapter 14 - The White Gauntlet by Mayne Reid
On perceiving that his presence could no longer be of any service to his patron, and might be detrimental to himself, Gregory Garth had betaken his body to a place of concealment—one of the garrets of Stone Dean—where, through a dormer window, he had been witness to all that transpired outside.
As the last of Scarthe’s troopers passed out through the gateway of Stone Dean, the ex-footpad came down from his hiding-place, and reappeared in front of the house.
Guided by a similar instinct, the Indian had also made himself invisible; and now reappearing at the same time, the two stood face to face; but without the ability to exchange either word or idea.
Gregory could not understand the pantomimic language of the Indian; while the latter knew not a word of English—the cavalier always conversing with him in his native tongue.
It is true that neither had much to say to the other. Both had witnessed the capture of their common patron and master. Oriole only knew that he was in the hands of enemies; while Garth more clearly comprehended the character of these enemies, and their motive for making him a prisoner.
Now that he was a prisoner, the first and simultaneous thought of both was—whether there was any chance of effecting his escape.
With the American this was an instinct; while perhaps with any other Englishman, than one of Garth’s kidney, the idea would scarce have been entertained.
But the ex-footpad, in the course of his professional career, had found his way out of too many prisons, to regard the accomplishment of such a feat as either impossible or improbable, and he at once set about reflecting upon what steps should be taken for the rescue, and release of Henry Holtspur.
Garth was sadly in need of a second head to join counsel with his own. That of the Indian, however good it might be, was absolutely of no use to him: since there was no way of getting at the ideas it contained.
“The unfort’nate creetur!” exclaimed he, after several vain attempts at a mutual understanding of signs; “he an’t no good to me—not half so much as my own old dummies: for they wur o’ some sarvice. Well, I maun try an’ manage ’ithout him.”
Indeed Gregory, whether wishing it or not, was soon reduced to this alternative: for the Indian, convinced that he could not make himself intelligible, desisted from the attempt. Following out another of his natural instincts, he parted from the ex-footpad, and glided off upon the track of the troopers—perhaps with some vague idea of being more serviceable to his master if once by his side again.
“The dummy’s faithful to him as a hound,” muttered Gregory, seeing the Indian depart; “same as my ole clo’ pals war to me. Sir Henry ha’ did ’im a sarvice some time, I dar say—as he does everybody whenever he can. Now, what’s to be done for him?”
The footpad stood for some minutes in a reflecting attitude.
“They’ve ta’en him up to Bulstrode, whar they’re quartered. No doubt about that. They won’t keep him there a longish time. They mean no common prison to hold him. Newgate, or the Tower—one o’ the two are sure o’ bein’ his lodging afore the morrow night?
“What chance o’ a rescue on the road? Ne’er a much, I fear. Dang seize it! my dummies wouldn’t do for that sort o’ thing. There’ll go a whole troop o’ these kewreseers along wi’ him? No doubt o’t.
“I wonder if they’ll take him up the day? Maybe they woant; an’ if they doant, theer mout be a chance i’ the night. I wish I had some one to help me with a good think.
“Hanged if I kin believe ole Dancey to be a treetur. ’Tan’t possible, after what he ha’ sayed to me, no later than yesterday mornin’. No, ’tan’t possible. He ha’ know’d nothin’ ’bout this bizness; and it be all the doin’s o’ that devil’s get o’ a Walford.
“I’ll go see Dancey. I’ll find out whether he had a hand in’t or no. If no, then he’ll do summat to help me; and maybe that daughter o’ his’ll do summat? Sartin she will. If my eyes don’t cheat me, the girl’s mad after Sir Henry—mad as a she hare in March time.
“I’ll go to Dancey’s this very minnit. I’ve another errand in that same direction; an’ I kin kill two birds with the one stooan. Cuss the whey-faced loon Walford! If I doant larrup him, as long as I can find a hard spot inside his ugly skin. Augh!”
And winding up his soliloquy with the aspirated exclamation, he re-entered the house—as if to prepare for his proposed visit to the cottage of Dancey.
Although he had promised himself to start on the instant, it was a good half hour before he took his departure from Stone Dean. The larder lay temptingly open—as also the wine-cellar; and although the captors of Henry Holtspur had foraged freely upon both, the short time allowed them for ransacking had prevented their making a clear sweep of the shelves. The ex-footpad, therefore, found sufficient food left to furnish him with a tolerable breakfast, and wine enough to wash it down.
In addition to the time spent in appeasing his appetite, there was another affair that occupied some twenty minutes longer. In his master’s bedroom—and other apartments that had not been entered by the cuirassiers—there by a number of valuable articles of a portable kind. These, that might also be said to be now ownerless, were of course no longer safe—even within the house. Any thief might enter, and carry them away under his cloak.
The man, who made this reflection, was not one to leave such chattels unsecured; and procuring a large bag, he thrust into it, silver cups, and candlesticks, with several other costly articles of luxe, dress, and armour—one upon top of the other—until the sack was filled to the mouth. Hoisting it on his shoulders, he marched out of the house; and, after carrying the spoil to some distance among the shrubbery, he selected for it a place of concealment.
As this was an act in which the ci-devant footpad was an adept, he bestowed the property in such a manner, that the sharpest eye might have passed within six feet without perceiving it.
It is not justice to Gregory to say that he was stealing this treasure. He was merely secreting it, against the return of its owner. But it would be equally untrue to assert, that, while hiding the bag among the bushes, his mind did not give way to some vague speculation as to the chances of a reversion.
Perhaps it occurred to him that in the event of Holtspur never returning to Stone Dean,—or never being again seen by him, Garth—the contents of that sack would be some compensation for the loss of his beloved master.
Certainly some such thought flitted vaguely through his brain at the moment; though it could not have taken the shape of a wish: for in the very next instant he took his departure from Stone Dean—eagerly bent on an errand, which, if successful, would annihilate all hope of that vaguely contemplated reversion.
As may be surmised from his soliloquised speeches, his route lay direct to the dwelling of Dick Dancey; and in due time he arrived within sight of this humble abode.
Before coming out into the slight clearing that surrounded it, he observed some one staggering off upon the opposite side. He only caught a glimpse of this person—who in the next instant disappeared among the trees—but in that glimpse Garth identified the individual. It was the woodman Walford—who, from the way he was tracking it, appeared to be in a state of intoxication.
Garth comprehending the cause, came easily to this conclusion: and making no further pause—except to ascertain that the woodman was continuing his serpentine promenade—passed on towards the cottage.
He had made a correct guess as to Walford’s condition: for at that moment the woodman was perhaps as drunk as he had ever been in is life. How he came to get into this state will be made clear, by giving in brief detail some incidents that had transpired since his departure from Stone Dean—in which he and his coadjutor Dancey had been the chief actors.
It was still only the earliest dawn of morning when the brace of worthies, returning home after their night’s stable work, entered under the shadows of Wapsey’s Wood; but there was light enough to show that the steps of neither were as steady as they should have been. Both kept repeatedly stumbling against the trees; and once Walford went head foremost into a pool of muddy water—from which he emerged with his foul complexion still fouler in appearance.
The rain, which had rendered the path slippery, might have accounted for this unsteadiness in the steps of the two foresters. But there was also observable in their speech an obliquity, which could not have been caused by the rain, but was clearly the consequence of exposure to a more potent fluid.
Dancey conversed glibly and gleefully—interlarding his speech with an occasional spell of chuckling laughter. He had come away perfectly satisfied with the proceedings of the night; the proceeds of which—a fistful of silver—he repeatedly pulled out of his pocket, and held up to the dim light—tossing it about to assure himself that it was the real coin of the realm that chinked between his fingers.
Walford’s palm seemed not to have been so liberally “greased;” but for all that he was also in high spirits. Something besides his perquisites had put him in a good humour with himself; though he did not impart the secret of this something to his companion. It was not altogether the contents of the stone jar which he had abstracted from the cellars of Stone Dean; though it might have been this that was causing him to talk so thickly, and stumble so frequently upon the path.
There was a stimulant to his joy more exciting than the spirit he had imbibed out of the bottle. It was the prospect of proximate ruin to the man, whose bread he had been just eating, and whose beer he had been drinking.
It was by no means clear to him how this ruin would be brought about. His new patron had not given him so much as a hint of the use he intended making of that night’s work. But, dull as was the brain of the brute Walford, he knew that something would follow likely to rid him of his rival; and this, too, without any further risk, or exertion, on his part. Both the danger and the trouble of avenging himself—for he felt vengeful towards Holtspur—were not only taken out of his hands, but he was also promised a handsome reward for his easy and willing service. This was the real cause of his secret glee: at the moment heightened by the repeated potations in which he had been indulging.
On arriving at the cottage of his companion, it was not to be expected that Walford, in this state of feeling, would pass without looking in. Nor was Dancey in the mind to let him pass: for it so chanced that the jar of Hollands, which the younger woodman had abstracted from the cellars of Stone Dean, was carried under the skirt of his doublet, and Dancey knew that it was not yet empty.
The challenge of the old deer-stealer, to enter his cottage and finish the gin, was readily responded to by his confrère; and both, staggering inside the hut, flung themselves into a couple of rush-bottomed chairs. Walford, uncorking the “grey beard,” placed it upon the table; and, tin cups having been procured, the two woodmen continued the carouse, which their homeward scramble had interrupted.
It had now got to be daylight; and the beautiful Betsey, who had been astir long before sunrise, was summoned to attend upon them.
Neither cared for eating. The larder of Stone Dean had spoiled the appetites of both; while its cellar had only sharpened their craving for drink.
At first Walford scarce regarded the chill reception extended to him by the daughter of his host. He was too much elated at the prospect—of being soon disembarrassed of his dreaded rival—to pay attention to the frowns of his mistress. At that moment he believed himself in a fair way of becoming master of the situation.
By little and little, however, his jealous misgivings began to rise into the ascendant—mastering even the potent spirit of the juniper.
A movement which Bet had made towards the door—where she stood looking wistfully out, as if expecting some one—forcibly arrested Walford’s attention; and, notwithstanding the presumed restraint of her father’s presence, he broke out in a strain of resentful recrimination.
“Da-ang thee!” he exclaimed, angrily blurting out the phrase, “Thee be a’ stannin’ in that door for no good. I wonder thee allows it, Dick Dancey?”
“Eh! lad—hic-hic-ough!—what is’t, Wull? Say Bets’! what ha’ ye—hic-hic-ough—eh?”
“She be danged! An’ thee be a old fool, Dick—to let her go on so wi’ that fellow.”
“Eh, Wull? Wha’ fella—who ye meean, lad?—hic-cuff!”
“She know who I mean—she know well enough, wi’ all her innocent looks. Ha! He’ll make a — of her, if he han’t did it a’ready.”
“Father! will you listen to this language?” cried Bet, turning in from the door, and appealing to her natural protector against the vile term which her drunken suitor had applied to her. “It isn’t the first time he has called me by that name. Oh, father! don’t let him say it again!”
“Your father ’ll find out some day that it be only the truth,” muttered Walford doggedly.
“Troos!” repeated Dancey, with a maudlin stare, “Troos—what is’t, lad?—what is’t, Betsey, gurl?”
“He called me a —,” answered the girl, reluctantly repeating the opprobrious epithet.
“He did! called you a —, Betsey? If he called ye th’-th’-that, I’ll sm-a-a-ash him into faggots!”
As the woodman uttered this characteristic threat, he attempted to raise himself into an upright attitude—apparently with the intention of carrying it into execution.
The attempt proved a failure; for, after half-regaining his legs, the intoxicated deer-stealer sank back into his chair—the “rungs” of which bent and cracked under his ponderous weight, as if about to part company with each other.
“Ee-s!” tauntingly continued the accuser, gaining confidence by the helplessness of Old Dick—otherwise dreaded by him. “Thee deserves to be called it! Thee be all I say—a—”
“You hear him, father? He has said it again!”
“Said what—what, Bets, gurl?”
“That I’m a—”
And Betsey once more repeated the offensive word, this time pronouncing it with fuller emphasis.
The second appeal called forth a more energetic response. This time Dancey’s attempt to get upon his feet was more successful.
Balancing himself against the back of his great arm-chair, he cried out:—
“Wull Walford! Thee be a villain! How dar’ thee call my daughter—a—a—hic-cock? Goo out o’ my house this minute; or if thee doant—hic-coo—if thee doant, I’ll split thy skull like a withy! Get thee goo-oo-oone!”
“I’ll do jest that!” answered Walford, sulkily rising from his chair, and scowling resentfully both on father and daughter. “I ha’ got a house o’ my own to go to; an’ dang me, if I doant take along wi’ me what be my own!”
Saying this, he whipped the stone jar from the table, stuck the cork into it; and placing it once more under his skirt, strode out of the deer-stealer’s dwelling.
“Da-ang thee, Dick Dancey!” he shouted back, after stepping over the threshold. “Thee be-est an old fool—that’s what thee be! An’ as for thee,” he added, turning fiercely towards Bet, “maybe thee hast seen thy fine fancy—for the last time. Hoora! I’ve did that this night, ’ll put iron bars atween thee an’ him. Dang thee, thou—”
And once more repeating the insulting epithet, the vile brute broke through the flimsy fence, and went reeling away into the woods. It was at this moment that his receding figure came under the eyes of Gregory Garth, just then approaching the cottage from the opposite direction.
“What be that he say ’bout iron bars?” inquired Dancey, slightly sobered by the unpleasant incident. “Who be he threatening, gurl?”
“I can’t say, father,” replied Bet, telling a white lie. “I think he don’t know himself what he says. He is the worse for drink.”
“That he be, ha! ha!—E-es—hic-coo—he must be full o’t—that hol-hol-lands he had up there at the old house—hic-coo! that ha’ done ’im up. The lad han’t got much o’ a head for drink. He be easy, to get over-c-c-come. Ha! ha! ha! I b’lieve Betsy, gurl, I’ve been a drinkin’ m’self? Never mind! Be all right after I ha’ a wink i’ the old arm-ch-ch-air. So here goo-go-es!”
With this wind-up, the deer-stealer let himself down into the great beechwood chair—as easily as his unmanageable limbs would allow him—and, in less than ten seconds’ time, his snoring proved that he was asleep.