The White Gauntlet

It is difficult to say what may have been occupying the thoughts of the young savage. Perhaps they were dwelling upon scenes of the past – memories of his forest home, thousands of miles away – memories of his early years – of his tawny companions, and their sports – memories, perhaps more tender, of sister or mother? Whether or no, they stirred him not from his silent attitude; and for a long half hour he remained motionless, wrapped in speechless reverie.

It was only on seeing the first streaks of the dawn, stealing over the beech-clad crests of the hills, that he began to arouse himself; and then only in his eyes were exhibited signs of activity.

These, instead of being directed towards the sky, were turned towards the ground – scrutinising a space in front of the door-step, where the close crowding of hoof-prints told of the many horsemen who had late made their departure from the place.

For some time the Indian kept his eyes upon the ground, without exhibiting any apparent interest in the tracks. And yet he appeared to be tracing them: perhaps only in obedience to a habit learnt, and indulged in, from earliest childhood.

After a while, his glance wandered to a wider range; and something, observed at a few paces distance, appeared more seriously to engage his attention.

His statuesque attitude became at once disarranged; and, gliding down from the steps, he walked rapidly along the gravelled walk, leading to the left side of the house.

On arriving at the angle of the wall, he stooped downward – as if to examine some object at his feet.

After remaining motionless for a few seconds, he continued on – still with body bent – towards the back part of the dwelling.

He proceeded slowly, but without making a stop – till he had arrived near the rear of the mansion. There a narrow doorway, opening into the eastern wing, was before his eyes; and into this he stood gazing – evidently in some surprise. It could not be at seeing the door: for he knew of it already. It was its being open that elicited that look of astonishment.

During his stay at Stone Dean he had never known that side door to be otherwise than shut, and locked too. As there was only himself, and his master, who had the right to unlock it, he was naturally surprised at finding it ajar.

He might not have heeded the circumstance but for another, which seemed to connect itself with the open door. He had observed the footprints of two men, plainly impressed in the damp dust. They ran all along the wall, parallel to, and a few paces from it. Near the angle of the building, they were joined by a third set of footmarks; and from that point the three proceeded together till lost among the horse-tracks around the entrance in front.

It was these footmarks that had first attracted the Indian from his stand upon the steps; and, in tracing them, he had been conducted to the side doorway.

To examine the tracks, either of man or animal, and wherever seen, is a habit – indeed almost an instinct – with an Indian; and, ruled by this peculiarity of his people, Oriole had hastened to scrutinise the “sign.”

The act was not altogether unaccompanied by a process of ratiocination. Slightly as he understood the bearings of those political schemes, in which his master was engaged, the faithful follower knew that there was reason for secrecy, as well as suspicion in regard to the men, with whom he was brought in contact. It was some vague thought of this kind, that had caused him to take notice of the tracks.

He remembered having conducted all the gentlemen outward by the front door, on their departure, as he had conducted them inward on their arrival. He remembered that all had ridden directly away. Which of them, then, had gone round to the rear of the building, without his having observed them?

There were three distinct sets of footprints, not going towards the back, but returning towards the front. One set had been made by hobnailed shoes. These might be the tracks of one of the three helpers; but the other two were those of gentlemen.

Almost intuitively had the Indian arrived at this conclusion, when his analysis was interrupted by seeing the side door standing open – a circumstance which strengthened his incipient suspicion that there was something in the “sign.”

Without waiting to examine the tracks any further, he glided forward to the doorway; and, stepping inside, traversed the narrow passage which conducted to the antechamber – where Scarthe and his cornet had so silently assisted at the ceremony of the nocturnal assemblage.

The keen eye of the American aboriginal – even under the sombre light of the unused apartment – at once detected evidences of its late occupancy. The unshut doors afforded this; but the deep dust, that for years had been accumulating on the floors, showed traces of having been recently stirred by shuffling feet – leaving no doubt upon the mind of Oriole, that men had been in that room, and had gone out of it, only an hour or two before.

The disturbed spider webs upon the glazed partition did not escape his observation; nor the little spot upon the pane of glass that had been rubbed clean.

Oriole placed his eye to it. He could see the whole of the apartment, late occupied by his master’s guests. He could see that master, now alone – seated before his writing table – utterly unconscious of being observed.

The Indian was about to tap upon the glass, and communicate the discovery he had made; but, remembering his own misfortune, and that he could only speak by signs, he glided back through the passage, with the intention of reaching the library by the front entrance.

Daylight had come down – sufficiently clear to enable him to make scrutiny of the tracks with more exactness; and he lingered awhile retracing them – in the hope of finding some solution of the mystery of their existence. The sun had not yet risen; but the red rays of the aurora already encrimsoned the crests of the surrounding ridges, tinting also the tops of the tall trees that overhung the old dwelling of Stone Dean. The light, falling upon the roosts of the rooks, had set the birds astart, and caused them to commence the utterance of their cheerful cawing.

Whether it was the clamour of the crows, or the rustling of the riotous rats – as they chased one another along the empty shelves, and behind the decayed wainscotting of the old kitchen – or whether the circumstance was due to some other, and less explicable cause, certain it is that the slumbers of Gregory Garth were at that crisis interrupted.

His snoring suddenly came to a termination; and he awoke with a start.

It was a start, moreover, that led to a more serious disturbance: for, having destroyed his equilibrium on the beechwood bench – which chanced to be of somewhat slender dimensions – his body came down upon the hard stone flags of the floor, with a concussion, that for several seconds completely deprived him of breath.

On recovering his wind – and along with it his senses – which had for a while remained in a state of obfuscation – the ex-footpad soon comprehended the nature of the mishap that had befallen him.

But the unpleasant tumble upon the flagged floor, had cured him of all inclination to return to his treacherous couch; and, instead, he strolled out into the open air, to consult the sun – his unfailing monitor – as to the time of day.

Only the morning before, Gregory had been the proprietor of a watch – whether honestly so need not be said; but this timepiece was now ticking within the pigeon-hole depository of an Uxbridge pawnbroker; and the duplicate which the ex-footpad carried in his fob could give him no information about the hour.

In reality, he had not been asleep more than twenty minutes; but his dreams – drawn from a wide range of actual experiences – led him to believe that he had been slumbering for a much longer time.

He was rather surprised – though not too well pleased – when, on reaching the door, and “squinting” outside, he perceived by the sky that it was still only the earliest hour of the day; and that, after all his dreaming, he had not had the advantage of over half an hour’s sleep.

He was contemplating a return to his bench-bedstead; when, on casting a stray glance outwards, his eye fell upon the figure of a man moving slowly around one of the angles of the mansion. He saw it was Oriole.

As Gregory knew that Oriole was the proper butler of the establishment – or at all events carried the key of the wine-cellar – it occurred to him that, through the intervention of the Indian, he might obtain a morning dram, to refresh him after his uneasy slumber.

He was proceeding outside – intending to make known his wish – when he perceived that Oriole was engaged in a peculiar occupation. With his body half bent, and his eyes keenly scrutinising the ground, the Indian was moving slowly along the side of the house, parallel to the direction of the wall.

Seeing this strange action Garth did not attempt to interrupt it; but, taking his stand by the angle of the building, silently watched the movement.

Somewhat to the surprise of the footpad, he saw the redskin crouch cautiously forward to a door, which stood open; and, with all the silent stealth, that might have been observed by the most accomplished cracksman, Garth saw him creep inside – as if afraid of being detected in the act!

“Humph!” muttered Gregory, with a portentous shake of his shaggy occiput; “I shouldn’t wonder if Master Henry ha’ got a treetor in his own camp. What he be about, I shud like to know – a goodish bit I shud like it. Can’t a be wittels, or drink, the dummy’s after? No – can’t a be neyther: seein’ he ha’ got charge o’ the keys, and may cram his gut whensomever he pleezes. It be somethin’ o’ more consarn than eatin’ or drinkin’. That be it, sureish. But what the Ole Scratch kin it be?”

As Gregory put this last interrogatory, he inserted his thick, knotty digits into the mazes of his matted mop, and commenced pulling the hair over his forehead, as if by that means to elicit an answer.

After tossing his coarse curly locks into a state of woolly frowsiness, he seemed to have arrived no nearer to an elucidation of the Indian’s mysterious conduct; as was evinced by another string of muttered interrogatories that proceeded from his lips.

“Be the redskin a playin’ spy? They be ticklish times for Master Henry, I knows that. But surely a tongueless Indyen lad, as ha’ followed him from tother side o’ the world, and been faithful to him most the whole o’ his life – he ha’ told me so – surely sich a thing as that an’t goin’ to turn treetor to him now? Beside, what kin a Indyen know o’ our polyticks? A spy, – pish! It can’t a be that! It may be a stealin’. That’s more likelyish; but whatsomdever it do be, heear go to find out.”

Garth was about moving towards the side door – into which Oriole had made his stealthy entrance – when he saw the latter coming out again.

As the Indian was seen to return towards the front, in the same cautious manner in which he had gone from it – that is, with body stooped, and eyes eagerly scrutinising the path – Garth also turned his glance towards the ground.

Though no match for the American in reading the “sign” – either of the heavens or the earth – the ex-footpad was not altogether unpractised in the translating of tracks.

It had been long – alas! too long – a branch of his peculiar calling; and the footpad’s experience now enabled him to perceive, that such was the occupation in which Oriole was engaged.

He saw the footprints which the Indian was following up, – not now as before in a backward direction; but in that by which they who had made them must have gone.

All at once a new light flashed into the brain of the retired robber. He no longer suspected the Indian of being a spy; but, on the contrary, perceived that he was in the act of tracking some individual, or individuals, more amenable to this suspicion. He remembered certain circumstances that had transpired during the night: odd expressions and actions that had signalised the behaviour of his fellow-helper, Walford. He had remarked the absence of the latter at a particular time; and also on the occasion of Walford’s taking two horses from the stable – the first led out – that he had used some arguments, to dissuade both Dancey and himself from giving him assistance.

Garth supposed at the time, that Walford had been actuated simply by a desire to secure the perquisites; but now, that he looked upon the tracks – which Oriole was in the act of scrutinising – a new thought rushed into his mind: a suspicion that, during that eventful night, treason had been stalking around the dwelling of Stone Dean.

Excited by this thought, the ex-footpad threw himself alongside the Indian, and endeavoured by signs to convey the intelligence he had obtained by conjecture – as well as to possess himself of that which the redskin might have arrived at, by some more trustworthy process of reasoning.

Unfortunately Gregory Garth was but a poor pantomimist. His grimaces and gestures were rather ludicrous, than explanatory of his thoughts; so much so, that the Indian, after vainly endeavouring to comprehend them, answered with an ambiguous shake of the head. Then, gliding silently past, he ascended the steps, and hurried on towards the apartment – in which he proposed to hold more intelligible communion with his master.

Volume Two – Chapter Thirteen