The White Gauntlet Part 53

"Wull Walford! Thee be a villain! How dar' thee call my daughter--a-- a--hic-c.o.c.k? Goo out o' my house this minute; or if thee doant-- hic-coo--if thee doant, I'll split thy skull like a withy! Get thee goo-oo-oone!"

"I'll do jest that!" answered Walford, sulkily rising from his chair, and scowling resentfully both on father and daughter. "I ha' got a house o' my own to go to; an' dang me, if I doant take along wi' me what be my own!"

Saying this, he whipped the stone jar from the table, stuck the cork into it; and placing it once more under his skirt, strode out of the deer-stealer's dwelling.

"Da-ang thee, d.i.c.k Dancey!" he shouted back, after stepping over the threshold. "Thee be-est an old fool--that's what thee be! An' as for thee," he added, turning fiercely towards Bet, "maybe thee hast seen thy fine fancy--for the last time. Hoora! _I've did that this night, 'll put iron bars atween thee an' him_. Dang thee, thou--"

And once more repeating the insulting epithet, the vile brute broke through the flimsy fence, and went reeling away into the woods. It was at this moment that his receding figure came under the eyes of Gregory Garth, just then approaching the cottage from the opposite direction.

"What be that he say 'bout iron bars?" inquired Dancey, slightly sobered by the unpleasant incident. "Who be he threatening, gurl?"

"I can't say, father," replied Bet, telling a white lie. "I think he don't know himself what he says. He is the worse for drink."

"That he be, ha! ha!--E-es--hic-coo--he must be full o't--that hol-hol-lands he had up there at the old house--hic-coo! that ha' done 'im up. The lad han't got much o' a head for drink. He be easy, to get over-c-c-come. Ha! ha! ha! I b'lieve Betsy, gurl, I've been a drinkin'

m'self? Never mind! Be all right after I ha' a wink i' the old arm-ch-ch-air. So here goo-go-es!"

With this wind-up, the deer-stealer let himself down into the great beechwood chair--as easily as his unmanageable limbs would allow him-- and, in less than ten seconds' time, his snoring proved that he was asleep.

Volume Two, Chapter XV.

The parting speech of her resentful lover had not fallen upon the ears of Bet Dancey without producing an effect.

It was not the opprobrious epithet concluding it that had caused the red to forsake her cheeks--leaving them, with her lips, blanched and bloodless. It was not the vilifying phrase, but the hint that preceded it, which caused her to start to her feet, and stand for some time gasping with suspended breath.

"_Maybe thee hast seen thy fine fancy for the last time. Ha! I've did that this night 'll put iron bars atween thee and him_."

Such were Walford's exact words.

Between her and whom? Holtspur? Who else? Who but Holtspur was in _her_ mind? And who but he could be in the mind of Walford?

She knew that Walford was fiercely jealous of the black horseman. Glad would she have been for the latter to have given him cause. Alas! she alone had exhibited the signs that had conducted Walford to this jealousy.

Iron bars--a prison--for him--the man who in her own wild way she almost adored!

What did it mean? Was it in prospect, this threatened prison for Holtspur? Or might it mean that he was already incarcerated?

The latter could scarce be--else something relating to it would have escaped from the lips either of her father or his guest, during their babble over the bottle of Hollands?

They had been at Stone Dean throughout the whole night. The girl knew it, and knew how they had been employed; knew also something of the character of the company convened there--enough to convince her that it was some sort of a secret a.s.semblage, dangerous to be held under the light of day.

The unlettered, but intelligent maiden, knew, moreover, that the cavalier was a man of peculiar inclinings--that is, one who was suspected of not being loyal to the king. She had heard all this in whispers, and from the lips of her father--who was accustomed to make no secret of his own disloyalty.

Bet regarded not the republican leanings of the man she admired.

Perhaps on this account she admired him all the more? Not because they were in consonance with the professions of her own father; but from the courage required to avow such sentiments in such times; and courage was just the virtue to challenge the admiration of this bold-hearted beauty.

If there was aught to interfere with her approval of Holtspur's political proclivities, it was a vague sense of his being in danger from holding them. This, from time to time, had rendered her uneasy on his account.

The words of Walford had changed this uneasiness into a positive anxiety.

True, he appeared to have uttered them in spite; but not the less likely was his conditional threat to have a foundation in some fact about transpiring, or that had already transpired.

"There _is_ danger," muttered the maiden, as Walford went off. "Master Holtspur must be warned of it--if I have to go myself. I _shall_ go,"

she added, as she saw her father sink helplessly into his chair, "and this very instant."

She whipped her hooded cloak from its peg, flung it loosely over her shoulders; and, casting another glance towards the sleeper in the chair, was about to set forth on her half-spoken errand; when, just at that moment, the lurcher gave out his note of alarm.

The intoxicated deer-stealer heard the bark; stirred slightly on his seat; muttered some incoherent syllables; and wandered off into a fresh maze of drunken dreaming.

"If it should be Will coming back?" said Bet, moving on tiptoe towards the door; "I wouldn't be a bit surprised."

"Thank the stars, it's not! Some one from the direction of Stone Dean!

Oh! if it should be--"

An exclamation of disappointment interrupted the speech, as a tall, motley-clad figure, a dark-skinned face, and black bushy whiskers presented themselves a short distance off, under the branches of the trees.

"It's that new friend of father's--_his_ friend, too," muttered the girl. "I heard them say he was at the Dean last night. Perhaps _he_ can tell? Maybe he comes--"

"Morrow, my gurl!" saluted Gregory Garth, interrupting Bet's speculations as to the object of his visit. "Niceish weather. Old bird back to his roost yet?"

"My father, you mean?" rejoined Bet, not showing any displeasure at the bizarre style, either of the salute, or the interrogatory.

"Why, sartin, I means him. Theer an't no other old bird as belongs to this nest, be there? At home, eh?"

"He is. He's asleep in his chair. You see him there?"

"Well, he do appear to be somethin' o' that sort, sureish enough.

Asleep, eh? He snorts like a good un! An't he a leetlish bit more than sleepin'?" continued the interrogator, seeing that Bet hesitated to make reply to this last interrogatory. "Eh, gurl?"

"Well! I won't ask ye to answer the question--seein' he be thy father.

But theer sartinly be a strongish smell here. Ah! it be coomin' from these cups, I suppose."

Garth, as he said this, lifted one of the drinking vessels from the table; and held it up to his nose.

"That's been Hollands in that 'ere. Same in t'other," he added, smelling the second cup. "Got the exact _bokay_--as the French say 'bout their wines--o' some o' them spirits over at the Dean. But surely the old un don't need both cups to drink out o'. There's been another un at it? It wan't thyself?"

"No!" replied Bet, p.r.o.nouncing the denial with a slightly indignant emphasis.

"Doant be 'fended, gurl! I war only a jokin' thee. But who war the other jovial?"

"A friend of father's. You know him, master? Will Walford it was."

"A friend o' your father's, eh? A great friend o' yer father's, aint he?"

"Father thinks a deal of him--more than he ought to, may be."

"Then it's not true, Mistress Betsey, that you be so sweet upon this Wull Walford?"

"Sweet upon _him_! Who said I was?"