The Dragon of Wantley: His Tale
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“Ha!” said Geoffrey, after thinking for a space. “Then you mean – ”
“Of course I do,” she interrupted. “The Dragon of Wantley is now down-stairs with papa eating dinner, and pretending he never drinks anything stronger than water. What do you say to that, sir?”
“This is a foul thing!” cried the knight. “Here have I been damnably duped. Here – ” but speech deserted him. He glared at the crocodile with a bursting countenance, then drove his toe against it with such vigour that it sailed like a foot-ball to the farther end of the hall.
“Papa has been duped, and everybody,” said Elaine. “Papa’s French wine – ”
“They swore to me in Flanders I should find a real dragon here,” he continued, raging up and down, and giving to the young lady no part of his attention. She began to fear he was not thinking of her.
“Geoffrey – ” she ventured.
“They swore it. They had invited me to hunt a dragon with them in Flanders, – Count Faux Pas and his Walloons. We hunted day and night, and the quest was barren. They then directed me to this island of Britain, in which they declared a dragon might be found by any man who so desired. They lied in their throats. I have come leagues for nothing.” Here he looked viciously at the distant hide of the crocodile. “But I shall slay the monk,” he added. “A masquerading caitiff! Lying varlets! And all for nothing! The monk shall die, however.”
“Have you come for nothing, Geoffrey?” murmured Elaine.
“Three years have I been seeking dragons in all countries, chasing deceit over land and sea. And now once more my dearest hope falls empty and stale. Why, what’s this?” A choking sound beside him stopped the flow of his complaints.
“Oh, Geoffrey, – oh, miserable me!” The young lady was dissolved in tears.
“Elaine – dearest – don’t.”
“You said you had come for n – nothing, and it was all st – stale.”
“Ha, I am a fool, indeed! But it was the Dragon, dearest. I had made so sure of an honest one in this adventure.”
“Oh, oh!” went Miss Elaine, with her head against his shoulder.
“There, there! You’re sweeter than all the dragons in the world, my little girl,” said he. And although this does not appear to be a great compliment, it comforted her wonderfully in the end; for he said it in her ear several times without taking his lips away. “Yes,” he continued, “I was a fool. By your father’s own word you’re mine. I have caught the Dragon. Come, my girl! We’ll down to the refectory forthwith and denounce him.”
With this, he seized Elaine’s hand and hastily made for the stairs.
“But hold, Geoffrey, hold! Oh – I am driven to act not as maidens should,” sighed Elaine. “He it is who ought to do the thinking. But, dear me! he does not know how. Do you not see we should both be lost, were you to try any such wild plan?”
“Not at all. Your father would give you to me.”
“Oh, no, no, Geoffrey; indeed, papa would not. His promise was about a dragon. A live or a dead dragon must be brought to him. Even if he believed you now, even if that dreadful Father Anselm could not invent some lie to put us in the wrong, you and I could never – that is – papa would not feel bound by his promise simply because you did that. There must be a dragon somehow.”
“How can there be a dragon if there is not a dragon?” asked Geoffrey.
“Wait, wait, Geoffrey! Oh, how can I think of everything all at once?” and Elaine pressed her hands to her temples.
“Darling,” said the knight, with his arms once more around her, “let us fly now.”
“Now? They would catch us at once.”
“Catch us! not they! with my sword – ”
“Now, Geoffrey, of course you are brave. But do be sensible. You are only one. No! I won’t even argue such nonsense. They must never know about what we have been doing up here; and you must go back into that cage at once.”
“What, and be locked up, and perhaps murdered to-night, and never see your face again?”
“But you shall see me again, and soon. That is what I am thinking about.”
“How can you come in here, Elaine?”
“You must come to me. I have it! To-night, at half-past eleven, come to the cellar-door at the Manor, and I will be there to let you in. Then we can talk over everything quietly. I have no time to think now.”
“The cellar! at the Manor! And how, pray, shall I get out of that cage?”
“Cannot you jump from the little window at the back?”
Geoffrey ran in to see. “No,” he said, returning; “it is many spans from the earth.”
Elaine had hurried into the closet, whence she returned with a dusty coil of rope. “Here, Geoffrey; quickly! put it about your waist. Wind it so. But how clumsy you are!”
He stood smiling down at her, and she very deftly wound the cord up and down, over and over his body, until its whole length lay comfortably upon him.
“Now, your breast-plate, quick!”
She helped him put his armour on again; and, as they were engaged at that, singing voices came up the stairs from the distant dining-hall.
“The Grace,” she exclaimed; “they will be here in a moment.”
Geoffrey took a last kiss, and bolted into his cage. She, with the keys, made great haste to push the crocodile and other objects once more into their hiding-place. Cups and flagons and all rattled back without regard to order, as they had already been flung not two hours before. The closet-door shut, and Elaine hung the keys from the lock as she had found them.
“Half-past eleven,” she said to Geoffrey, as she ran by his cage towards the stairs.
“One more, darling, – please, one! through the bars!” he besought her, in a voice so tender, that for my part I do not see how she had the heart to refuse him. But she continued her way, and swiftly descending the stairs was found by the company, as they came from the hall, busily engaged in making passes with Sir Godfrey’s sword, which he had left leaning near the door.
“A warlike daughter, Sir Godfrey!” said Father Anselm.
“Ah, if I were a man to go on a Crusade!” sighed Miss Elaine.
“Hast thou, my daughter,” said Father Anselm, “thought better of thy rash intentions concerning this Dragon?”
“I am travelling towards better thoughts, Father,” she answered.
But Sir Francis did not wholly believe the young lady; and was not at rest until Sir Godfrey assured him her good conduct should be no matter of her own choosing.
“You see,” insinuated the Abbot, “so sweet a maid as yours would be a treat for the unholy beast. A meal like that would incline him to remain in a neighbourhood where such dainties were to be found.”
“I’ll have no legends and fool’s tricks,” exclaimed the Baron. “She shall be locked in her room to-night.”
“Not if she can help it,” thought Miss Elaine. Her father had imprudently spoken too loud.
“’Twere a wise precaution,” murmured Father Anselm. “What are all the vintages of this earth by the side of a loving daughter?”
“Quite so, quite so!” Sir Godfrey assented. “Don’t you think,” he added, wistfully, “that another Crusade may come along soon?”
“Ah, my son, who can say? Tribulation is our meted heritage. Were thy thoughts more high, the going of thy liquors would not cause thee such sorrow. Learn to enjoy the pure cold water.”
“Good-afternoon,” said the Baron.
When all the guests had departed and the door was shut safe behind them, the Father and his holy companions broke into loud mirth. “The Malvoisie is drunk up,” said they; “to-night we’ll pay his lordship’s cellars another visit.”
CHAPTER VII.
Shows what Curious Things you may see, if you don’t go to Bed when you are sent
To have steered a sudden course among dangerous rocks and rapids and come safe through, puts in the breast of the helmsman a calm content with himself, for which no man will blame him. What in this world is there so lifts one into complacency as the doing of a bold and cool-headed thing? Let the helmsman sleep sound when he has got to land! But if his content overtake him still on the water, so that he grows blind to the treacherous currents that eddy where all looks placid to the careless eye, let him beware!
Sir Francis came in front of the cage where sat young Geoffrey inside, on the floor. The knight had put his head down between his knees, and seemed doleful enough.
“Aha!” thought Sir Francis, giving the motionless figure a dark look, “my hawk is moulting. We need scarcely put a hood on such a tersel.”
Next he looked at the shut door of the closet, and a shaft of alarm shot through him to see the keys hanging for anybody to make use of them that pleased. He thought of Elaine, and her leaving the table without his seeing her go. What if she had paid this room a visit?
“Perhaps that bird with head under wing in there,” he mused, looking once more at Geoffrey, “is not the simple-witted nestling he looks. My son!” he called.
But the youth did not care to talk, and so showed no sign.
“My son, peace be with you!” repeated Father Anselm, coming to the bars and wearing a benevolent mien.
Geoffrey remained quite still.
“If repentance for thy presumption hath visited thee – ” went on the Father.
“Hypocrite!” was the word that jumped to the youth’s lips; but fortunately he stopped in time, and only moved his legs with some impatience.
“I perceive with pain, my son,” said Father Anselm, “that repentance hath not yet visited thee. Well, ’twill come. And that’s a blessing too,” he added, sighing very piously.
“He plays a part pretty well,” thought Geoffrey as he listened. “So will I.” Then he raised his head.
“How long am I to stay in this place?” he inquired, taking a tone of sullen humour, such as he thought would fit a prisoner.
“Certainly until thy present unbridled state of sin is purged out of thee,” replied the Father.
“Under such a dose as thou art,” Geoffrey remarked, “that will be soon.”
“This is vain talk, my son,” said the Abbot. “Were I of the children of this world, my righteous indignation – ”
“Pooh!” said Geoffrey.
“ – would light on thee heavily. But we who have renounced the world and its rottenness” (here his voice fell into a manner of chanting) “make a holiday of forgiving injuries, and find a pleasure even in pain.”
“Open this door then,” Geoffrey answered, “and I’ll provide thee with a whole week of joy.”
“Nay,” said Father Anselm, “I had never gathered from thy face that thou wert such a knave.”
“At least in the matter of countenances I have the advantage of thee,” the youth observed.
“I perceive,” continued the Father, “that I must instruct thy spirit in many things, – submission, among others. Therefore thou shalt bide with us for a month or two.”
“That I’ll not!” shouted Geoffrey, forgetting his rôle of prisoner.
“She cannot unlock thee,” Father Anselm said, with much art slipping Elaine into the discourse.
Geoffrey glared at the Abbot, who now hoped to lay a trap for him by means of his temper. So he went further in the same direction. “Her words are vainer than most women’s,” he said; “though a lover would trust in them, of course.”
The knight swelled in his rage, and might have made I know not what unsafe rejoinder; but the cords that Elaine had wound about him naturally tightened as he puffed out, and seemed by their pressure to check his speech and bid him be wary. So he changed his note, and said haughtily, “Because thy cowl and thy gown shield thee, presume not to speak of one whose cause I took up in thy presence, and who is as high above thee in truth as she is in every other quality and virtue.”
“This callow talk, my son,” said the Abbot quietly, “wearies me much. Lay thee down and sleep thy sulks off, if thou art able.” Upon this, he turned away to the closet where hung the brass keys, and opened the door a-crack. He saw the hide of the crocodile leaning against it, and the overturned cups. “Just as that boy Hubert packed them,” he thought to himself in satisfaction; “no one has been prying here. I flatter myself upon a skilful morning’s work. I have knocked the legend out of the Baron’s head. He’ll see to it the girl keeps away. And as for yon impudent witling in the cage, we shall transport him beyond the seas, if convenient; if not, a knife in his gullet will make him forget the Dragon of Wantley. Truly, I am master of the situation!” And as his self-esteem grew, the Grand Marshal rubbed his hands, and went out of the hall, too much pleased with himself to notice certain little drops of wine dotted here and there close by the closet, and not yet quite dry, which, had his eye fallen upon them, might have set him a-thinking.
So Geoffrey was left in his prison to whatever comfort meditation might bring him; and the monks of Oyster-le-Main took off their gowns, and made themselves ready for another visit to the wine-cellars of Wantley Manor.
The day before Christmas came bleakly to its end over dingle and fen, and the last gray light died away. Yet still you could hear the hissing snow beat down through the bramble-thorn and the dry leaves. After evening was altogether set in, Hubert brought the knight a supper that was not a meal a hungry man might be over joyful at seeing; yet had Hubert (in a sort of fellowship towards one who seemed scarcely longer seasoned in manhood than himself, and whom he had seen blacken eyes in a very valiant manner) secretly prepared much better food than had been directed by his worship the Abbot.
The prisoner feigned sleep, and started up at the rattle which the plate made as it was set down under his bars.
“Is it morning?” he asked.
“Morning, forsooth!” Hubert answered. “Three more hours, and we reach only midnight.” And both young men (for different reasons) wished in their hearts it were later.
“Thou speakest somewhat curtly for a friar,” said Geoffrey.
“Alas, I am but a novice, brother,” whined the minstrel, “and fall easily back into my ancient and godless syntax. There is food. Pax vobiscum, son of the flesh.” Then Hubert went over to the closet, and very quietly unlocking the door removed the crocodile and the various other implements that were necessary in bringing into being the dread Dragon of Wantley. He carried them away to a remote quarter of the Monastery, where the Guild began preparations that should terrify any superstitious witness of their journey to get the Baron’s wine. Geoffrey, solitary and watchful in his chilly cage, knew what work must be going on, and waited his time in patience.
At supper over at Wantley there was but slight inclination to polite banter. Only the family Chaplain, mindful that this was Christmas Eve, attempted to make a little small talk with Sir Godfrey.
“Christmas,” he observed to the Baron, “is undoubtedly coming.”
As the Baron did not appear to have any rejoinder to this, the young divine continued, pleasantly.
“Though indeed,” he said, “we might make this assertion upon any day of the three hundred and sixty-five, and (I think) remain accurate.”
“The celery,” growled the Baron, looking into his plate.
“Quite so,” cried the Chaplain, cheerily. He had failed to catch the remark. “Though of course everything does depend on one’s point of view, after all.”
“That celery, Whelpdale!” roared Sir Godfrey.
The terrified Buttons immediately dropped a large venison pasty into Mrs. Mistletoe’s lap. She, having been somewhat tried of late, began screeching. Whelpdale caught up the celery, and blindly rushed towards Sir Godfrey, while Popham, foreseeing trouble, rapidly ascended the sideboard. The Baron stepped out of Whelpdale’s path, and as he passed by administered so much additional speed that little Buttons flew under the curtained archway and down many painful steps into the scullery, and was not seen again during that evening.
When Sir Godfrey had reseated himself, it seemed to the Rev. Hucbald (such was the Chaplain’s name) that the late interruption might be well smoothed over by conversation. So he again addressed the Baron.
“To be sure,” said he, taking a manner of sleek clerical pleasantry, “though we can so often say ‘Christmas is coming,’ I suppose that if at some suitable hour to-morrow afternoon I said to you, ‘Christmas is going,’ you would grant it to be a not inaccurate remark?” The Baron ate his dinner.
“I think so,” pursued the Rev. Hucbald. “Yes. And by the way, I notice with pleasure that this snow, which falls so continually, makes the event of a green Christmas most improbable. Indeed, – of course the proverb is familiar to you? – the graveyards should certainly not be fat this season. I like a lean graveyard,” smiled the Rev. Hucbald.
“I hate a – fool!” exclaimed Sir Godfrey, angrily.
After this the family fell into silence. Sir Godfrey munched his food, brooding gloomily over his plundered wine-cellar; Mrs. Mistletoe allowed fancy to picture herself wedded to Father Anselm, if only he had not been a religious person; and Elaine’s thoughts were hovering over the young man who sat in a cage till time came for him to steal out and come to her. But the young lady was wonderfully wise, nevertheless.
“Papa,” she said, as they left the banquet-hall, “if it is about me you’re thinking, do not be anxious any more at all.”
“Well, well; what’s the matter now?” said the Baron.
“Papa, dear,” began Elaine, winsomely pulling at a tassel on his dining-coat, “do you know, I’ve been thinking.”
“Think some more, then,” he replied. “It will come easier when you’re less new at it.”
“Now, papa! just when I’ve come to say – when I want – when you – it’s very hard – ” and here the artful minx could proceed no further, but turned a pair of shining eyes at him, and then looked the other way, blinking rapidly.
“Oh, good Lord!” muttered Sir Godfrey, staring hard at the wall.
“Papa – it’s about the Dragon – and I’ve been wrong. Very wrong. Yes; I know I have. I was foolish.” She was silent again. Was she going to cry, after all? The Baron shot a nervous glance at her from the corner of his eye. Then he said, “Hum!” He hoped very fervently there were to be no tears. He desired to remain in a rage, and lock his daughter up, and not put anything into her stocking this Christmas Eve; and here she was, threatening to be sorry for the past, and good for the future, and everything a parent could wish. Never mind. You can’t expect to get off as easily as all that. She had been very outrageous. Now he would be dignified and firm.
“Of course I should obey Father Anselm,” she continued.
“You should obey me,” said Sir Godfrey.
“And I do hope another Crusade will come soon. Don’t you think they might have one, papa? How happy I shall be when your wine is safe from that horrid Dragon!”
“Don’t speak of that monster!” shouted the Baron, forgetting all about firmness and dignity. “Don’t dare to allude to the reptile in my presence. Look here!” He seized up a great jug labelled “Château Lafitte,” and turned it upside down.
“Why, it’s empty!” said Elaine.
“Ha!” snorted the Baron; “empty indeed.” Then he set the jug down wrong side up, and remained glaring at it fixedly, while his chest rose and fell in deep heavings.
“Don’t mind it so much, papa,” said Elaine, coming up to him. “This very next season will Mistletoe and I brew a double quantity of cowslip wine.”
“Brrrrooo!” went Sir Godfrey, with a shiver.
“And I’m sure they’ll have another Crusade soon; and then my brother Roland can go, and the Drag – and the curse will be removed. Of course, I know that is the only way to get rid of it, if Father Anselm said so. I was very foolish and wrong. Indeed I was,” said she, and looked up in his face with eyes where shone such dear, good, sweet, innocent, daughterly affection, that nobody in the wide world could have suspected she was thinking as hard as she could think, “If only he won’t lock me up! if only he won’t! But, oh, it’s dreadful in me to be deceiving him so!”
“There, there!” said the Baron, and cleared his throat. Then he kissed her. Where were firmness and dignity now?
He let her push him into the chimney-corner, and down into a seat; and then what did this sly, shocking girl do but sit on his knee and tell him nobody ever had such a papa before, and she could never possibly love any one half so much as she loved him, and weren’t he and she going to have a merry Christmas to-morrow?
“How about that pretty young man? Hey? What?” said Sir Godfrey, in high good-humour.
“Who?” snapped Elaine.
“I think this girl knows,” he answered, adopting a roguish countenance.
“Oh, I suppose you mean that little fellow this morning. Pooh!”
“Ho! ho!” said her father. “Ho! ho! Little fellow! He was a pretty large fellow in somebody’s eyes, I thought. What are you so red about? Ho! ho!” and the Baron popped his own eyes at her with vast relish.
“Really, papa,” said Miss Elaine, rising from his knee, with much coldness, “I hardly understand you, I think. If you find it amusing (and you seem to) to pretend that I – ” she said no more, but gave a slight and admirable toss of the head. “And now I am very sleepy,” she added. “What hour is it?”
Sir Godfrey took out his grandfather’s sun-dial, and held it to the lamp. “Bless my soul,” he exclaimed; “it’s twenty-two o’clock.” (That’s ten at night nowadays, young people, and much too late for you to be down-stairs, any of you.)
“Get to your bed at once,” continued Sir Godfrey, “or you’ll never be dressed in time for Chapel on Christmas morning.”
So Elaine went to her room, and took off her clothes, and hung up her stocking at the foot of the bed. Did she go to sleep? Not she. She laid with eyes and ears wide open. And now alone here in the dark, where she had nothing to do but wait, she found her heart beating in answer to her anxious and expectant thoughts. She heard the wind come blustering from far off across the silent country. Then a snore from Mistletoe in the next room made her jump. Twice a bar of moonlight fell along the floor, wavering and weak, then sank out, and the pat of the snow-flakes began again. After a while came a step through the halls to her door, and stopped. She could scarcely listen, so hard she was breathing. Was her father going to turn the key in her door, after all? No such thought was any longer in his mind. She shut her eyes quickly as he entered. His candle shone upon her quiet head, that was nearly buried out of sight; then laughter shook him to see the stocking, and he went softly out. He had put on his bed-room slippers; but, as he intended to make a visit to the cellar before retiring, it seemed a prudent thing to wear his steel breast-plate; and over this he had slipped his quilted red silk dressing-gown, for it was a very cold night.
Was there a sound away off somewhere out-of-doors? No. He descended heavily through the sleeping house. When the candle burned upright and clear yellow, his gait was steady; but he started many times at corners where its flame bobbed and flattened and shrunk to a blue, sickly rag half torn from the wick. “Ouf! Mort d’aieul!” he would mutter. “But I must count my wine to-night.” And so he came down into the wide cellars, and trod tiptoe among the big round tuns. With a wooden mallet he tapped them, and shook his head to hear the hollow humming that their emptiness gave forth. No oath came from him at all, for the matter was too grievous. The darkness that filled everywhere save just next to the candle, pressed harder and harder upon him. He looked at the door which led from inside here out into the night, and it was comfortable to know how thick were the panels and how stout the bolts and hinges.
“I can hold my own against any man, and have jousted fairly in my time,” he thought to himself, and touched his sword. “But – um!” The notion of meeting a fiery dragon in combat spoke loudly to the better part of his valour. Suddenly a great rat crossed his foot. Ice and fire went from his stomach all through him, and he sprang on a wooden stool, and then found he was shaking. Soon he got down, with sweaty hands.
“Am I getting a coward?” he asked aloud. He seized the mallet that had fallen, and struck a good knock against the nearest hogshead. Ah – ha! This one, at least, was full. He twisted the wooden stop and drank what came, from the hollow of his hand. It was cowslip wine. Ragingly he spluttered and gulped, and then kicked the bins with all his might. While he was stooping to rub his toe, who should march in but Miss Elaine, dressed and ready for young Geoffrey. But she caught sight of her father in time, and stepped back into the passage in a flutter. Good heavens! This would never do. Geoffrey might be knocking at the cellar-door at any moment. Her papa must be got away at once.