The White Gauntlet Part 48

Without waiting to examine the tracks any further, he glided forward to the doorway; and, stepping inside, traversed the narrow pa.s.sage which conducted to the antechamber--where Scarthe and his cornet had so silently a.s.sisted at the ceremony of the nocturnal a.s.semblage.

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 acc.u.mulating 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 part.i.tion did not escape his observation; nor the little spot upon the pane of gla.s.s 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 gla.s.s, 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 pa.s.sage, 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 circ.u.mstance 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 p.a.w.nbroker; 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 s.h.a.ggy 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 coa.r.s.e 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 circ.u.mstances 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 a.s.sistance.

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 XIII.

On the departure of his fellow conspirators--patriots we should rather call them--Holtspur, as we have already said, had pa.s.sed the remainder of the night engaged at his writing table.

The time was spent in the performance of a duty, entrusted to him by his friends, Pym and Hampden; with whom, and a few others, he had held secret conference beyond the hours allotted to the more public business of the meeting. It was a duty no less important, than the drawing up of a charge of attainder against Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford.

It was one which Holtspur could perform with all the ardour of a zealous enthusiasm--springing from his natural indignation against this gigantic wrongdoer.

A true hater of kings, he felt triumphant. His republican sentiments, uttered in the a.s.sembly just separated--so loudly applauded by those who listened to them--could not fail to find echo in every honest English heart; and the patriot felt that the time was nigh, when such sentiments need be no longer spoken in the conclave of a secret conference, but boldly and openly in the tribune of a nation.

The king had been once more compelled to call his "Commons" together.

In a few days the Parliament was to meet--that splendid Parliament afterwards known as the "Long"--and, from the election returns already received, Holtspur knew the character of most of the statesmen who were to compose it. With such men as Pym and Hampden at its head--with Hollis, Hazlerig, Vane, Martin, Cromwell, and a host of other popular patriots, taking part in its councils--it would be strange if something should not be effected, to stem the tide of tyranny, so long flowing over the land--submerging under its infamous waves every landmark of English liberty.

Swayed by thoughts like these, did Henry Holtspur enter upon the task a.s.signed him.

For over an hour had he been occupied in its performance--with scarce a moment's intermission; and then only, when the soft dream of love, stealing over his spirit, chased from it the sterner thoughts of statecraft and war, which had been the habitual themes of his later life.

He had well-nigh finished his work, when interrupted by the entrance of the Indian.

"Eh, Oriole?" demanded he, in some surprise, as, glancing up from his papers, he remarked the agitated mien of his attendant. "Anything the matter? You look as if something was amiss. I hope that you and Garth have not been quarrelling over your perquisites?"

The Indian made sign of a negative to this imputation--which he knew was only spoken in jest.

"Nothing about him, then? What is it, my brave?"

This question was answered by Oriole raising one of his feet--with the sole turned upwards, at the same time glancing to the ground with an angry e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n.

"Ha!" said Holtspur, who read those signs as easily as if they had been a written language--"An enemy upon the trail?"

Oriole held up three of his fingers--pointing perpendicularly towards the ceiling of the room.