Mayne Reid - The White Gauntlet

“Well,” continued the cavalier, preserving the most perfect sang froid , “you can’t say but that we’ve been quick enough in obeying your first command? You see we have both come to a stand instanter ? As for your second, it requires consideration. Before delivering , we must know the why, and the wherefore – above all, to whom we are to unburthen ourselves. You won’t object, to obliging us with your name – as also your reason for making such a modest request?”

“Curse your palaver?” vociferated the man, with an impatient flourish of the pike. “There be no names given on the road, nor reasons neyther. Yer money, or yer blood! It be no use yer tryin’ to get out o’ it. Look thear! Ye see there be a dozen o’ us! What’s the good o’ resistin’? Ye’re surrounded.”

And as he said this, the robber with a sweep of his formidable weapon indicated the circle of shrubbery – near the centre of which the scene was being enacted.

The eyes of the two travellers involuntarily followed the pointing of the pike.

Sure enough they were surrounded. Six or seven fierce-looking men, all apparently armed with the same sort of weapon as that in the hands of their leader, stood at equal distances from each other around the opening – their forms half concealed by the trees and gorse. They were all standing perfectly motionless. Not even their weapons seemed to stir; and not one of them had as yet spoken, or stepped forward; though it might have been expected they would have done so – if only to strengthen the demand made by their spokesman.

“Keep your places, comrades!” commanded the latter. “There’s no need for any o’ ye to stir. These are civilish gentlemen. We don’t want to hurt them. They bean’t a-goin’ to resist.”

“But they be ” interrupted the cavalier, in a mocking but determined tone, at the same time whipping a pistol from its holster – “ I am to the death; and so too will the gallant youth by my side.”

Walter had drawn his slender rapier – the only weapon he possessed.

“What! yield to a pack of cowardly footpads?” continued the cavalier, cocking his pistol, as he spoke. “No – sooner – ”

“Your blood on your own head then!” shouted the robber, at the same time rushing forward, and extending his pike so that its steel point was almost in contact with the counter of the cavalier’s horse.

The moonlight shone full upon the footpad, showing a face of fierce aspect – features of wild expression – black beard and whiskers – a thick shock of dark hair matted and tangled – eyes bloodshot, and gleaming with a lurid light!

It was fortunate for their owner, that the moonlight favoured the identification of those fear-inspiring features – else that moment might have been his last.

The cavalier had levelled his cocked pistol. His finger was upon the trigger. In another second the shot would have been discharged; and in all likelihood his assailant would have been lying lifeless at the feet of his horse.

All at once, the outstretched arm was seen to drop; while at the same instant from the horseman’s lips issued an exclamation of singular import.

“Gregory Garth!” cried he, “you a highwayman – a robber? About to rob – to murder – ”

“My old master!” gasped out the man, suddenly lowering the point of his pike. “Be it you? Pardon! O pardon, Sir Henry! I didn’t know ’twas you.”

And as the speaker gave utterance to the last words, he dashed his weapon to the ground, and stood over it in a cowering and contrite attitude – not daring to raise his eyes to the face of him who had brought the affair to such an unexpected ending.

“O Master Henry!” he again cried, “will you forgive me! Brute as I am, ’twould ha’ broke my heart to a hurted a hair o’ your head. Curse the crooked luck that’s brought me to this!”

For some moments there was a profound silence – unbroken by any voice. Even the companions of the robber appeared to respect the situation : since not one of them moved or made remark of any kind!

Their humiliated chief was himself the first to put a period to this interval of embarrassment.

“O Master Henry!” he exclaimed, apparently in a paroxysm of chagrin. “Shoot me! Kill me if ye like! After what’s passed, I doan’t desarve no better than to die. There’s my breast! Send yer bullet through it; an’ put an end to the miserable life o’ Greg’ry Garth!”

While speaking, the footpad pulled open the flap of his doublet – laying bare before the moonlight a broad sinewy breast, thickly covered with coarse black hair.

Advancing close to the cavalier’s horse he presented his bosom, thus exposed – as if to tempt the death he had so strangely solicited. His words, his looks, his whole attitude, proclaimed him to be in earnest.

“Come, come, Garth!” said the cavalier in a soothing tone – at the same time returning the pistol to its holster. “You’re too good a man – at least you were once – to be shot down in that off-hand fashion.”

“Ah! once Master Henry. May be that’s true enough. But now I desarve it.”

“Spare your self-recrimination, Gregory. Your life, like my own, has been a hard one. I know it; and can therefore look more leniently on what has happened now. Let us be thankful it’s no worse; and hope it will be the means of bringing about a change for the better.”

“It will, Master Henry; it will! I promise that.”

“I’m glad to hear you say so; and doubt not but that you’ll keep your word. Meanwhile give orders to your trusty followers – by the way a well-behaved band – not to molest us. To-morrow morning there will be travellers along this way, upon whom I have not the slightest objection that both you and yours should practise your peculiar avocation; and to your heart’s content. Please desire those gentlemen to keep their distance. I don’t wish them to make any nearer approach – lest I might have the misfortune to find in their ranks some other old acquaintance, who like yourself has fallen from the paths of virtue.”

As the footpad stood listening to the request, a singular expression was observed to steal over his fierce features – which gradually gathered into a broad comical grin.

“Ah! Master Henry,” he rejoined, “I may order ’em, to obleege ye, but they woant obey. Yer needn’t be afeerd o’ ’em for all that. You may go as near ’em as you like — they an’t a-goin’ to molest you. You may run your sword through and through ’em, and never a one o’ ’em’s goin’ to cry out he be hurt.”

“Well, they seem patient fellows in all sincerity. But enough – what do you mean, Gregory?”

“That they be nobodies, Master Henry – reg’lar nobodies. They be only dummies – a lot o’ old coats and hats, that’s no doubt done good sarvice to their wearers ’fore they fell into the hands o’ Gregory Garth – ay, and they ha’ done some good sarvice since – o’ a different kind, as ye see.”

“So these fellows are only scarecrows? I had my suspicions.”

“Nothing more nor less, master. Harmless as I once was myself, but since that time – you know – when the old hall was taken from you, and you went abroad – since then I’ve been – ”

“I don’t want to hear your history, Garth,” said his former Master, interrupting him, “at least not since then . Let the past be of the past, if you will only promise me to forsake your present profession for the future. Sooner or later it will bring you to the block.”

“But what am I to do?” inquired the footpad, in a tone of humble expostulation.

“Do? Anything but what you have been doing. Get work – honest work.”