Part 47 (1/2)
”Shall he wear _the white gauntlet_ in his beaver?” he continued, pondering over new modes of humiliating his adversary. ”There would be something sweet in such a sublime mockery? No: better not--he will appear more ridiculous with his head bare--bound like a felon! Ha! ha!
ha!”
Again he gave way, unchecked, to his exultant laugh, till the room rang with his fierce cachinnations.
”Zounds!” exclaimed he, after an interval, during which the shadow of some doubt had stolen over his face. ”If she should smile upon him in that hour, then my triumph would be changed to chagrin! Oh! under her smile he would be happier than I!”
”Aha!” he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, after another pause, in which he appeared to have conceived a thought that chased away the shadow. ”Aha! I have it now.
She shall _not_ smile. I shall take precautions against it. Phoebus!
what a splendid conception! He shall appear before her, _not_ bareheaded, but with beaver on--bedecked with a bunch of flowers!”
”Let me see! What sort were those the girl gave him? Red, if I remember aright,--ragged robin, corn poppies, or something of the kind.
No matter about that, so long as the colour be in correspondence. In the distance, Marion could scarce have distinguished the species. A little faded, too, they must be: as if kept since the day of the fete.
_She_ will never suspect the _ruse_. If she smile, after beholding the flowers, then shall I know that there is nothing between them. A world to see her smile? To see her do the very thing, which but an instant ago, I fancied would have filled me with chagrin!”
”Ho!” he again e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, in a tone of increasing triumph. ”Another splendid conception! My brain, so d.a.m.nably dull all through the night, brightens with the coming day. As our French queen is accustomed to exclaim, '_une pensee magnifique_!' 'Twill be a home thrust for Holtspur. If _he_ love _her_--and who can doubt it--then shall his heart be wrung, as he has wrung mine. Ha! ha! _The right hand glove shall triumph over the left_!”
As Scarthe said this, he strode towards the table on which lay his helmet; and, taking from the breast of his doublet the gauntlet of Marion Wade--the one she had really lost--he tied it with a piece of ribbon to the crest;--just under the _panache_ of plumes.
”Something for him to speculate upon, while inside the walls of his prison! Something to kill time, when he is awake, and dream of, when asleep! Ha! ha! A sweet revenge 'twill be--one worthy the craft of an inquisitor!”
A footstep coming along the corridor put a period to his changing soliloquy.
It was the footstep of Stubbs; and in the next instant the flat face of the cornet presented itself in the half-opened door.
”Thirty in armour, captain--ready for the road,” was the announcement of the subaltern.
”And I am ready to head them,” answered his superior officer--setting his helmet firmly upon his head, and striding towards the door, ”Thirty will be more than we need. After all, 'tis best to make sure. We don't want the fox to steal away from his cover; and he might do so, if the earths be not properly stopped. We're pretty sure to find him in his swaddling clothes at this hour. Ha! ha! ha! What a ludicrous figure our fine cavalier will cut in his nightcap! Won't he, Stubbs?”
”Ought to, by Ged!”
And, with this gleeful antic.i.p.ation, Scarthe, followed by his subaltern, stepped lightly along the pa.s.sage leading towards the courtyard--where thirty troopers, armed _cap-a-pied_--each standing on the near side of his steed--awaited the order to spring into their saddles.
In two seconds' time the ”Mount and forward!” was given--not by signal-call of the bugle, but by word of command, somewhat quietly p.r.o.nounced. Then, with captain and cornet at its head, the troop by twos, filed out through the arched entrance--directing their march towards the gateway that opened upon the Oxford Road, treading in the direction of Beaconsfield.
It was by this same entrance the two officers had come in only a short while before. They saw the hoof-prints of their horses in the dust-- still saturated with the rain that had fallen. They saw also the track of a third steed, that had been travelling the same direction: towards the house.
They found the gate closed. They had left it open. Some less negligent person had entered the park after them!
”Our host has got safe home!” whispered Scarthe to his subaltern.
”So much the better,” he--added with a significant smile, ”I don't want to capture _him_--at least, not now; and if I can make _a captive_ of his daughter--not at all. If I succeed not in that, why then--then--I fear Sir Marmaduke will have to accept the hospitality of his Majesty, and abide some time under the roof of that royal mansion that lies eastward of Cheap--erst honoured by the residence of so many distinguished gentlemen. Ha! ha! ha!”
Having delivered himself of this jocular allusion to the Tower, he pa.s.sed through the park gate; and at the head of his troopers continued briskly, but silently, along the king's highway.
On went the glittering phalanx--winding up the road like some destroying serpent on its way to wickedness--the pattering of their horses' feet, and the occasional clink of steel scabbards, striking against stirrups and _cuisses_, were the only sounds that broke upon the still air of the morning--to proclaim the pa.s.sage of armed and mounted men.
Volume Two, Chapter XII.