Volume 3 Chapter 6 - The White Gauntlet by Mayne Reid
On arriving at the rear of the garden, Holtspur had emerged out of the moat, and struck across the open pasture in a direct line for the timber. The darkness was still sufficiently obscure to hinder his being seen—at least, from any great distance; though there were those standing within the shadow of the trees who had marked his approach.
A low whistle—peculiarly intoned—told him that he was observed, and by friends: for in that whistle he recognised an old hunting signal of his ancient henchman—Gregory Garth.
There was no need to make reply. In an instant after, Garth was by his side—accompanied by the deer-stealer.
The plan of further proceedings took not much time to concert.
The programme had been already traced out, subject to such contingencies as might unexpectedly arise.
Dancey was to hurry back to his cottage, where Oriole had been left in charge of Garth’s horse—that steed of the royal stables—which, along with Dancey’s nag, was the only mount that could be provided for the occasion. But as Dancey himself was to stay behind—there being no call for his expatriation just at that crisis—and as the Indian could track it afoot almost as fast as on horseback, the two horses had been deemed sufficient for the necessity.
The woodman’s dwelling lay near the Oxford highway; and as it would waste some time to bring the horses across to the back road, running past Hedgerley, it had been decided that they should be taken along a private path through Wapsey’s Wood, by Dancey and the Indian—there to be met by Holtspur and Garth going afoot along the parallel, but less frequented, road.
This arrangement, cunningly schemed by Garth, had in view the possibility of a pursuit, with the probability, in such case, that the pursuers would naturally keep along the high road.
The rendezvous having been arranged, the deer-stalker took his way back towards his own domicile; while Garth, conducting Holtspur, through the tract of timber, with which he had already made himself acquainted, climbed out over the palings of the park; and turned along the bridle road running towards Hedgerley.
Half a mile brought them to a point where Wapsey’s Wood skirted the road—separated from it by a rude fence.
Garth was going in the advance, and for a time keeping silence—as if busied with some abstruse calculation.
“There be a tidyish bit o’ night left yet,” he at length remarked, glancing up to the sky, “I shed think I’ve time enough for that business.”
The remark was made to himself, rather than to his companion, and as if to satisfy his mind, about some doubt he had been indulging in.
“Time enough for what?” asked Holtspur, who had overheard the muttered observation.
“Oh! nothin’ muchish, Master Henry—only a little bit o’ business I’ve got to attend to over in the wood there. ’Twon’t take ten minutes; and, as time’s preecious, I can tell ye about it when I gets back. Ah! theear’s the gap I war lookin’ for. If ye’ll just keep on at yer leisure, I’ll overtake you afore you can get to t’other side o’ the wood. If I doan’t, pleeze wait a bit. I’ll be up in three kicks o’ an old cow.”
Saying this, the ex-footpad glided through the gap; and, striking off among the trees, soon disappeared behind their close standing trunks.
Holtspur, slackening his pace, moved on along the road—not without wondering what could be the motive that had carried his eccentric conductor so suddenly away from him.
Soon, however, his thoughts reverted to her from whom he had so late separated; and, as he walked under the silent shadows of the trees, his spirit gave way to indulgence in a retrospect of that sweet scene, with which his memory was still warmly glowing.
From the rain that had fallen, the flowers, copiously bedewed, were giving out their incense on the soft air of the autumn night. The moon had suddenly made her appearance, amid banks of fleecy clouds, that were fantastically flitting across the face of the azure heaven.
Under her cheering light Holtspur sauntered leisurely along, reviewing over and over again the immediate and pleasant past; which, notwithstanding the clouds that lowered over his future, had the effect of tingeing it with a roseate effulgence.
There were perils before, as well as behind him. His liberty, as his life, was still in danger. He knew all this; but in the revel of that fond retrospect—with the soft voice of Marion Wade yet ringing in his ears—her kisses still clinging to his lips—how could he be otherwise than oblivious of danger?
Alas! for his safely he was so—recklessly oblivious of it—forgetful of all but the interview just ended, and which seemed rather a delicious dream than an experience of sober real life.
Thus sweetly absorbed, he had advanced along the road to the distance of some two or three hundred yards, from the place where Garth had left him. He was still continuing to advance, when a sound, heard far off in the wood, interrupted his reflections—at the same time causing him to stop and listen.
It was a human voice; and resembled the moaning of a man in pain; but at intervals it was raised to a higher pitch, as though uttered in angry ejaculation!
At that hour of the night, and in such a lonely neighbourhood—for Holtspur knew it was a thinly-peopled district—these sounds seemed all the stranger; and, as they appeared to proceed from the exact direction in which Garth had gone, Holtspur could not do otherwise than connect them with his companion.
Gregory must be making the noises, in some way or other? But how? What should he be groaning about? Or for what were those exclamations of anger?
Holtspur had barely time to shape these interrogatories, before the sound became changed—not so much in tone as in intensity. It was still uttered in moanings and angry ejaculations; but the former, instead of appearing distant and long-drawn as before, were now heard more distinctly; while the latter, becoming sharper and of more angry intonation, were not pronounced as before in monologue, but in two distinct voices—as if at least two individuals were taking part in the indignant duetto!
What it was that was thus waking up the nocturnal echoes of Wapsey’s Wood was a puzzle to Henry Holtspur; nor did it assist him in the elucidation, to hear one of the voices—that which gave out the melancholy moanings—at intervals interrupted by the other in peals of loud laughter! On the contrary it only rendered the fearful fracas more difficult of explanation.
Holtspur now recognised the laughing voice to be that of Gregory Garth; though why the ex-footpad was giving utterance to such jovial cachinnations, he could not even conjecture.
Lonely as was the road, on which he had been so unceremoniously forsaken, he was not the only one traversing it at that hour. His pursuers were also upon it—not behind but before him—like himself listening with mystified understandings to those strange sounds. Absorbed in seeking a solution of them, Holtspur failed to perceive the half-dozen figures that, disengaging themselves from the tree-trunks, behind which they had been concealed, were closing stealthily and silently around him.
It was too late when he did perceive them—too late, either for flight or defence.
He sprang to one side; but only to be caught in the grasp of the stalwart corporal of the guard.
The latter might have been shaken off; but the sentry Withers—compromised by the prisoner’s escape, and therefore deeply interested in his detention—had closed upon him from the opposite side; and in quick succession, the others of the cuirassier guard had flung themselves around him.
Holtspur was altogether unarmed. Resistance could only end in his being thrust through by their swords, or impaled upon their halberts; and once more the gallant cavalier, who could not have been vanquished by a single antagonist, was forced to yield to that fate which may befall the bravest. He had to succumb to the strength of superior numbers.
Marched afoot between a double file of his captors, he was conducted back along the road, towards the prison from which he had so recently escaped.
The mingled groans and laughter, still continued to wake up the echoes of Wapsey’s Wood.
To Holtspur they were only intelligible, so far as that the laughing part in the duet was being performed by the ex-footpad—Gregory Garth. The soldiers, intent upon retaining their prisoner, gave no further heed to them, than to remark upon their strangeness. But for the merry peals at intervals interrupting the more lugubrious utterance, they might have supposed that a foul murder was being committed. But the laughter forbade this supposition; and Holtspur’s guard passed out of hearing of the strange noises, under the impression that they came from a camp of gipsies, who, in their nocturnal orgies, were celebrating some ceremony of their vagrant ritual.
She who had been the instrument of Holtspur’s delivery, had also played the chief part in his recapture. Following his captors under the shadow of the trees, unseen by him and them, she had continued a spectator to all that passed; for a time giving way to the joy of her jealous vengeance.
Soon, however, on seeing the rude treatment to which her victim was subjected—when she witnessed the jostling, and heard the jeers of his triumphant captors, her spirit recoiled from the act she had committed; and, when, at length, the courtyard gate was closed upon the betrayed patriot, the daughter of Dick Dancey fell prostrate upon the sward, and bedewed the grass with tears of bitter repentance!