The White Gauntlet

“Doubtful? What mean you by that, Marion?”

“Suppose my father refuse to acknowledge him – then – ”

“Then I know what his daughter would do.”

“What would she do?”

“Run away with him; – I don’t mean with the venerable parent – the knight – but with the lover, the black horseman. By the way, what a romantic thing it would be to be abducted on that splendid steed! Troth, Marion! I quite envy you the chance.”

“For shame, you silly child! Don’t talk in such foolish fashion!”

Marion coloured slightly as she uttered the admonition. The thought of an elopement was not new to her. She had entertained it already; and it was just for this reason she did not desire her cousin to dwell upon it, even in jest. With her it had been considered in serious earnest; and might be again – if Sir Marmaduke should prove intractable.

“But you spoke of danger?” said Lora, changing the subject. “What danger?”

“Hush!” exclaimed Marion, suddenly starting back from the mirror, with her long yellow hair sweeping like sunbeams over her snow-white shoulders; “Did you hear something?”

“The wind?”

“No! it was not the wind. There is no wind; though, indeed, it’s dark enough for a storm. I fancied I heard horses going along the gravel-walk. Extinguish the light, Lora – so that we may steal up to the window, and see.”

Lora protruded her pretty lips close up to the candle, and blew it out.

The chamber was in utter darkness.

All unrobed as she was, Marion glided up to the casement; and, cautiously drawing aside the curtain, looked out into the lawn.

She could see nothing: the night was dark as pitch.

She listened all the more attentively – her hearing sharpened by the idea of some danger to her lover – of which, during all that day, she had been suffering from a vague presentiment.

Sure enough, she had heard the hoof-strokes of horses on the gravelled walk: for she now heard them again – not so loud as before – and each instant becoming more indistinct.

This time Lora heard them too.

It might be colts straying from the pastures of the park? But the measured fell of their feet, with an occasional clinking of shod hoofs, proclaimed them – even to the inexperienced ears that were listening – to be horses guided, and ridden.

“Some one going out! Who can it be at this hour of the night? ’Tis nearly twelve!”

“Quite twelve, I should think,” answered Lora. “That game of lansquenet kept us so long. It was half-past eleven, before we were through with it. Who should be going abroad so late, I wonder?”

Both maidens stood in the embayment of the window – endeavouring, with their glances, to penetrate the darkness outside.

The attempt would have been vain, had the obscurity continued; but, just then, a vivid flash of lightning, shooting athwart the sky, illuminated the lawn; and the park became visible to the utmost limit of its palings.

The window of Marion’s bedchamber opened upon the avenue leading out to the west. Near a spot – to her suggestive of pleasant memories – she now beheld, by the blaze of the electric brand, a sight that added to her uneasiness.

Two horsemen, both heavily cloaked, were riding down the avenue – their backs turned towards the house, as if they had just taken their departure from it. They looked not round. Had they done so at that instant, they might have beheld a tableau capable of attracting them back.

In a wide-bayed window, whose low sill and slight mullions scarce offered concealment to their forms, were two beautiful maidens – lovely virgins – robed in the negligent costume of night – their heads close together, and their nude arms mutually encircling one another’s shoulders, white as the chemisettes draped carelessly over them.

Only for an instant was this provoking tableau exhibited. Sudden as the recession of a dissolving view, or like a picture falling back out of its frame, did it disappear from the sight – leaving in its place only the blank vitreous sheen of the casement.

Abashed by that unexpected exposure – though it was only to the eye of heaven – the chaste maidens had simultaneously receded from the window, before the rude glare that startled them ceased to flicker against the glass.

Sudden, as was their retreating movement, previous to making it, they had recognised the two-cloaked horsemen, who were holding their way along the avenue.

“Scarthe!” exclaimed Marion.

“Stubbs!” ejaculated Lora.

Volume Two – Chapter Ten

The astonishment of the cousins, at seeing two travellers starting forth so late, and upon such a dismal night, might have been increased, could they have extended their vision beyond the palings of the park, and surveyed the forest-covered country for a mile or two to the north-west of it.

On the ramifications of roads and bridle-paths – that connected the towns of Uxbridge and Beaconsfield with the flanking villages of Fulmer, Stoke, Hedgerley, and the two Chalfonts – they might have seen, not two, but twenty travellers; all on horseback, and riding each by himself – in a few instances only two or three of them going together.

Though upon different roads – and heading in different directions – they all appeared to be making for the same central bourne; which, as they neared it, could be told to be the old house of Stone Dean.

One by one they kept arriving at this point of convergence; and, passing through the gate of the park, one after another, they rode silently on to the dwelling – where they as silently dismounted.

There, delivering up their horses to three men – who stood ready to take them – the visitors stepped unbidden within the open doorway; and, following a dark-skinned youth – who received them without saying a word – were conducted along the dimly-lighted corridor, and ushered into an inner apartment.

As they passed under the light of the hall lamp – or had been seen outside during the occasional flashes of the lightning – the costume and bearing of these saturnine guests proclaimed them to be men of no mean degree; while their travel-stained habiliments told that they had ridden some distance, before entering the gates of Stone Dean.

It might have been remarked as strange, that such cavaliers of quality were thus travelling unattended – for not one of them was accompanied by groom, or servant of any sort. It was also strange, that no notice was taken of this circumstance by the men who led off their horses towards the stables – all three performing their duty without the slightest exhibition either of curiosity or surprise.

None of the three wore the regular costume of grooms or stable-servants; nor had any of them the appearance of being accustomed to act in such capacity. The somewhat awkward manner in which they were fulfilling their office, plainly proclaimed that it was new to them; while their style of dress, though different in each, declared them to belong to other callings.

Two were habited in the ordinary peasant garb of the period – with a few touches that told them to be woodmen; and as the lightning flashed upon their faces it revealed these two personages to be – Dick Dancey and his coadjutor, Will Walford.

The dress of the third was not characteristic of any exact calling; but appeared rather a combination of several styles: as though several individuals had contributed a portion of their apparel to his make-up. There was a pair of buff-leather boots, which, in point of elegance, might have encased the feet and ankles of a cavalier – the wide tops turned down over the knees, showing a profusion of white lining inside. Above these dangled the legs of a pair of petticoat breeches, of coarse kersey, which strangely contrasted with the costly character of the boots. Over the waistband of the breeches puffed out a shirt of finest linen – though far from being either spotless or clean; while this was again overtopped by a doublet of homespun woollen cloth, of the kind known as “marry-muffe” – slashed along the sleeves with the cheapest of cotton velveteen. Surmounting this, in like contrast, was the broad lace collar band of a cavalier, with cuffs to correspond – both looking, as if the last place of deposit had been the buck-basket of a washerwoman, and the wearer had taken them thence, without waiting for their being submitted to the operations of the laundry.

Add to the above-mentioned habiliments a high-crowned felt hat – somewhat battered about the brim – with a tarnished tinsel band, but without any pretence at a plume; and you have the complete costume of the third individual who was acting as an extemporised stable-helper at the dwelling of Stone Dean.

Had there been light enough for the travellers to have scrutinised his features, no doubt they would have been somewhat astonished at this queer-looking personage, who assisted in disembarrassing them of their steeds. Perhaps some of them, seeing his face, might have thought twice before trusting him with the keeping of a valuable horse: for, in the tall stalwart figure, that appeared both peasant and gentleman, in alternate sections, they might have recognised an old, and not very trustworthy acquaintance – the famed footpad, Gregory Garth.

In the darkness, however, Gregory ran no risk of detection; and continued to play his improvised part, without any apprehension of an awkward encounter.

By the time that the great clock in the tower of Chalfont Church had ceased tolling twelve, more than twenty of the nocturnal visitors to Stone Dean had entered within the walls of that quaint old dwelling; and still the sound of shod hooves, clinking occasionally against the stones upon the adjacent road, told that an odd straggler had yet to arrive.

About this time two horsemen, riding together, passed in through the gate of the park. Following the fashion of the others, they continued on to the front of the house – where, like the others, they also dismounted, and surrendered their horses to two of the men who stepped forward to receive them.

These animals, like the others, were led back to the stables; but their riders, instead of entering the house by the front door – as had been done by all those who had preceded them – in this respect deviated slightly from the programme.

As soon as the two grooms, who had taken their horses, were fairly out of sight, they were seen to act in obedience to a sign given by the third; who, whispering to them to follow him, led the way, first along the front of the house, and then around one of its wings, towards the rear.

Even had there been moonlight, it would have been difficult to identify these new comers, who were so mysteriously diverted from making entrance by the front door. Both were muffled in cloaks – more ample and heavy – than the quality of the night seemed to call for. Scarcely could the threatening storm account for this providence on their part?