The White Gauntlet

by Mayne Reid

It was still only the earliest dawn of morning when the brace of worthies, returning home after their night’s stable work, entered under the shadows of Wapsey’s Wood; but there was light enough to show that the steps of neither were as steady as they should have been. Both kept repeatedly stumbling against the trees; and once Walford went head foremost into a pool of muddy water—from which he emerged with his foul complexion still fouler in appearance.

The rain, which had rendered the path slippery, might have accounted for this unsteadiness in the steps of the two foresters. But there was also observable in their speech an obliquity, which could not have been caused by the rain, but was clearly the consequence of exposure to a more potent fluid.

Dancey conversed glibly and gleefully—interlarding his speech with an occasional spell of chuckling laughter. He had come away perfectly satisfied with the proceedings of the night; the proceeds of which—a fistful of silver—he repeatedly pulled out of his pocket, and held up to the dim light—tossing it about to assure himself that it was the real coin of the realm that chinked between his fingers.

Walford’s palm seemed not to have been so liberally “greased;” but for all that he was also in high spirits. Something besides his perquisites had put him in a good humour with himself; though he did not impart the secret of this something to his companion. It was not altogether the contents of the stone jar which he had abstracted from the cellars of Stone Dean; though it might have been this that was causing him to talk so thickly, and stumble so frequently upon the path.

There was a stimulant to his joy more exciting than the spirit he had imbibed out of the bottle. It was the prospect of proximate ruin to the man, whose bread he had been just eating, and whose beer he had been drinking.

It was by no means clear to him how this ruin would be brought about. His new patron had not given him so much as a hint of the use he intended making of that night’s work. But, dull as was the brain of the brute Walford, he knew that something would follow likely to rid him of his rival; and this, too, without any further risk, or exertion, on his part. Both the danger and the trouble of avenging himself—for he felt vengeful towards Holtspur—were not only taken out of his hands, but he was also promised a handsome reward for his easy and willing service. This was the real cause of his secret glee: at the moment heightened by the repeated potations in which he had been indulging.

On arriving at the cottage of his companion, it was not to be expected that Walford, in this state of feeling, would pass without looking in. Nor was Dancey in the mind to let him pass: for it so chanced that the jar of Hollands, which the younger woodman had abstracted from the cellars of Stone Dean, was carried under the skirt of his doublet, and Dancey knew that it was not yet empty.

The challenge of the old deer-stealer, to enter his cottage and finish the gin, was readily responded to by his confrère; and both, staggering inside the hut, flung themselves into a couple of rush-bottomed chairs. Walford, uncorking the “grey beard,” placed it upon the table; and, tin cups having been procured, the two woodmen continued the carouse, which their homeward scramble had interrupted.

It had now got to be daylight; and the beautiful Betsey, who had been astir long before sunrise, was summoned to attend upon them.

Neither cared for eating. The larder of Stone Dean had spoiled the appetites of both; while its cellar had only sharpened their craving for drink.