The White Gauntlet

Oriole, leading off the steed, passed out of sight as silently as if both had been the images of a dissolving view.

“I hope it is one from London,” soliloquised the cavalier, as he entered the house. “I want a messenger to the City, and cannot spare either Dancey or Walford. Likely enough Scarthe’s coming down is known there before this; but Sir Marmaduke’s accession to the cause will be news, and good news, both to Pym and Hampden.”

“I shall not wait for Oriole to show him into my room,” he continued, after a moment’s reflection. “He will be in the old dining-hall, I suppose. I shall go to him at once.”

So reflecting, the cavalier entered the room where he expected to salute his nocturnal visitor.

Finding it empty, he proceeded to explore another apartment, into which Oriole might have ushered the stranger; and then another; and at last the library – the apartment habitually used by himself, and where he had desired his guest to be shown in to him.

The library was also found untenanted. No visitor was there.

The cavalier was beginning to feel surprised; when a light glimmering in the kitchen, and a sound heard from it, led him to proceed in that direction.

On entering this homely apartment, he beheld the individual, who had done him the honour to await his coming home at such a late hour of the night. A glance inside betrayed the presence of Gregory Garth.

The ex-footpad was stretched along a large beechwood bench, in front of the fire; which, though originally a good one, was now in a somewhat smouldering condition – the half-burnt fagots having parted in twain, and tumbled down on each side of the andirons.

There was no lamp; but from the red embers, and the blaze that intermittently twinkled, there came light enough to enable the cavalier to identify the form and features of his visitor.

Their owner was as sound asleep, as if in his own house, and reclining under the coverlet of his own couch; whilst a stentorian snore, proceeding from his spread nostrils, proclaimed a slumber from which it would require a good shaking to arouse him.

“So Gregory Garth!” muttered the cavalier, bending over the sleeper, and gazing with a half-quizzical expression, into the countenance of his quondam retainer. “It’s you, my worthy sir, I have the honour of entertaining?”

A prolonged snore – such as might proceed from the nostrils of a rhinoceros – was the only response.

“I wonder what’s brought him here to-night, so soon after – . Shall I awake him, and ask; or leave him to snore away till the morning?”

Another trumpet-like snort seemed intended to signify the assent of the sleeper to the latter course of proceeding.

“Well,” continued the cavalier, “I’m rather pleased to find him here. It looks as if he had kept his promise, and disbanded those terrible brigands of his. I trust he has done so. There’s a spark of good in the rascal, or used to be, though who knows whether it hasn’t been trampled out before this. Judging from the soundness of that slumber, one can scarcely think there’s anything very heavy upon his conscience. Whatever he has done, it’s to be hoped he has kept clear of – ”

The cavalier hesitated to pronounce the word that had come uppermost in his thoughts.

“Holding a ten-foot pike within twelve inches of a man’s breast, is ugly evidence against him. Who knows what might have been the result, if I hadn’t identified those features in time?”

“Shall I let him sleep on? It’s rather a hard couch; though I’ve often slept upon no better myself; and, I dare say, Gregory hasn’t been accustomed to the most luxurious style of living. He’ll take no harm where he is. I shall leave him till the morning.”

Gregory’s former master was about turning away – with the intention of retiring to his own chamber – when something white in the hand of the sleeper caught his eye, causing him to step nearer and examine it.

Touching up the embers with the toe of his boot, and starting a blaze, he saw that the white object was a piece of paper, folded in the form of a letter.

It was one of goodly dimensions, somewhat shrivelled up between the fingers of the ex-footpad, that were clutching it with firm muscular grasp. A large red seal was visible on the envelope which the cavalier – on scrutinising it more closely – could perceive to bear the impress of the Royal Arms.

“A letter from the King!” muttered he, in a tone of surprise. “To whom is it directed, I wonder? And how comes this worthy to have been so suddenly transformed, from a robber on the King’s highway into a King’s courier?”

The first question might have been answered by reading the superscription; but this was hidden by the broad horny palm against which the back of the letter rested.

To obtain the solution to either mystery it would be necessary to arouse the sleeper; and this the cavalier now determined upon doing.

“Gregory Garth!” cried he, in a loud voice, and placing his lips within an inch of the footpad’s ear, “Gregory Garth! Stand and deliver!”

The well-known summons acted upon the sleeper like an electric shock – as when often pronounced by himself it had upon others – though perhaps with a different significance.

Starting into an erect attitude – and nearly staggering into the fire, before he could get upon his legs – Garth instinctively repeated the phrase:

“Stand and deliver!”

Then, in the confusion of his half-awakened senses, he continued his accustomed formula: – “Your money or your life! Keep your ground, comrades! They won’t resist. They’re civil gents – ”

“Ha! ha! ha!” interrupted the cavalier, with a shout of laughter, as he seized his ci-devant servitor by the shoulder, and pushed him back upon the bench. “Be quiet, Gregory; or you’ll scare the rats out of the house.”

“O Lor – O Lord! Master Henry – you it be! I war a dreamin’ – I arn’t awake yet – a thousand pardons, Master Henry!”

“Ha! ha! ha! Well, Gregory – Fortunately there’s nothing but the rats to listen to these dreams of yours; else you might be telling tales upon yourself that would lead to the losing of your new commission.”

“My new commission! What mean ye by that, Master Henry?”

“Why, from that which you carry in your hand,” replied the cavalier, nodding significantly towards the letter. “I take it, you’ve turned King’s courier?”

“Ah I now I understan’ ye. Master Henry, King’s cooreer ’ideed! That ’ud be a tidyish bizness for Gregory Garth. If I beant that myself tho’, I’ve been and met one as is. It war all ’bout this bit o’ a letter I coomed over here the night – else I’d a made my call at a more seezonable hour.”

“Is it for me?”

“Well, Master Henry, it aint ’zactly ’dressed to you, nor written to ye neyther; but, as far as I’m able to make out the meenin’ o’ ’t, I think as how there be somethin’ in’t you oughter know about. But ye can tell better after you ha’ read it.”

Gregory handed the letter to the cavalier; who now perceived, that, although the seal was intact, the envelope had been torn open at the edges.

“A king’s despatch! And you’ve opened it, Gregory?”

“Ye-es, Master Henry,” drawled the footpad. “It coomed somehow apart atween my fingers. May be I’ve done wrong? I didn’t know it war a king’s despatch. And may be if I had know’d,” he added in an under tone, “I should a opened it all the same.”

The cavalier looked at the superscription: —

For

Ye Captain Scarthe, Command: H.M. Royal Cuirassiers,

Bulstrode Park, Shire of Buckingham.

“This is not for me, Garth. It is addressed to – ”

“I know all that, Master Henry; though I didn’t last night when I got the thing. I heerd o’ their coomin’ up the road this mornin’, but – ”

“But how came you by the despatch?”

“How coomed I by it?”

“Yes, who gave it to you?”