"What contract?" asked Geoffrey.

"A good and valid one. When I said this morning that I would give my daughter to the man who brought me the Dragon alive or dead, did I say I would give him the Dragon too? So choose which you will take, for both you cannot have."

At this Elaine turned pale as death, and Geoffrey stood dumb.

Had anybody looked at the Dragon, it was easy to see the beast was much agitated.

"Choose!" said Sir G.o.dfrey. "'Tis getting too cold to stay here. What?

You hesitate between my daughter and a miserable reptile? I thought the lads of France were more gallant. Come, sir! which shall it be?

The lady or the Dragon?"

"Well," said Geoffrey, and his blood and heart stood still (and so did Elaine's, and so did another person's), "I--I--think I will choose the l--lady."

"Hurrah!" cheered the household once more.

"Oh, Lord!" said the Dragon, but n.o.body heard him.

"Indeed!" observed Sir G.o.dfrey. "And now we'll chain him in my bear-pit till morning, and at noon he shall be burned alive by the blazing f.a.gots. Let us get some sleep now."

The cloud of slimly-clad domestics departed with slow steps, and many a look of fear cast backward at the captured monster.

"This Dragon, sir," said Geoffrey, wondering at his own voice, "will die of thirst in that pit. Bethink you how deep is his habit of drinking."

"Ha! I have often bethought me," retorted Sir G.o.dfrey, rolling his eyes over the empty barrels. "But here! I am a man of some heart, I hope."

He seized up a bucket and ran to the hogshead containing his daughter's native cowslip wine.

"There!" he observed when the bucket was pretty well filled. "Put that in to moisten his last hours."

Then the Baron led the way round the Manor to the court-yard where the bear-pit was. His daughter kept pace with him not easily, for the excellent gentleman desired to be a decent distance away from the Dragon, whom young Geoffrey dragged along in the rear.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HVCKBALD BELIEVES HE WILL TAKE JVST A LITTLE SIP]

CHAPTER IX

Leaues much Room for guessing about Ch. X

[Ill.u.s.tration]

As they proceeded towards the bear-pit, having some distance to go, good-humour and benevolence began to rise up in the heart of Sir G.o.dfrey.

"This is a great thing!" he said to Miss Elaine. "Ha! an important and joyful occurrence. The news of it will fly far."

"Yes," the young lady replied, but without enthusiasm. "The cattle will be safe now."

"The cattle, child! my Burgundy! Think of that!"

"Yes, papa."

"The people will come," continued the Baron, "from all sides to-morrow--why, it's to-morrow now!" he cried. "From all sides they will come to my house to see my Dragon. And I shall permit them to see him. They shall see him cooked alive, if they wish. It is a very proper curiosity. The brute had a wide reputation."

To hear himself spoken of in the past tense, as we speak of the dead, was not pleasant to Sir Francis, walking behind Geoffrey on all fours.

"I shall send for Father Anselm and his monks," the Baron went on.

Hearing this Geoffrey started.

"What need have we of them, sir?" he inquired. To send for Father Anselm! It was getting worse and worse.

"Need of Father Anselm?" repeated Sir G.o.dfrey. "Of course I shall need him. I want the parson to tell me how he came to change his mind and let you out."

"Oh, to be sure," said Geoffrey, mechanically. His thoughts were reeling helplessly together, with no one thing uppermost.

"Not that I disapprove it. I have changed my own mind upon occasions.

But 'twas sudden, after his bundle of sagacity about Crusades and visions of my ancestor and what not over there in the morning. Ha! ha!

These clericals are no more consistent than another person. I'll never let the Father forget this." And the Baron chuckled. "Besides,"

he said, "'tis suitable that these monks should be present at the burning. This Dragon was a curse, and curses are somewhat of a church matter."

"True," said Geoffrey, for lack of a better reply.

"Why, bless my soul!" shouted the Baron, suddenly wheeling round to Elaine at his side, so that the cowslip wine splashed out of the bucket he carried, "it's my girl's wedding-day too! I had clean forgot. Bless my soul!"

"Y--yes, papa," faltered Elaine.

"And you, young fellow!" her father called out to Geoffrey with l.u.s.ty heartiness. "You're a lucky rogue, sir."

"Yes, sir," said Geoffrey, but not gayly. He was wondering how it felt to be going mad. Amid his whirling thoughts burned the one longing to hide Elaine safe in his arms and tell her it would all come right somehow. A silence fell on the group as they walked. Even to the Baron, who was not a close observer, the present reticence of these two newly-betrothed lovers was apparent. He looked from one to the other, but in the face of neither could he see beaming any of the soft transports which he considered were traditionally appropriate to the hour. "Umph!" he exclaimed; "it was never like this in my day." Then his thoughts went back some forty years, and his eyes mellowed from within.

"We'll cook the Dragon first," continued the old gentleman, "and then, sir, you and my girl shall be married. Ha! ha! a great day for Wantley!" The Baron swung his bucket, and another jet of its contents slid out. He was growing more and more delighted with himself and his daughter and her lover and everybody in the world. "And you're a stout rogue, too, sir," he said. "Built near as well as an Englishman, I think. And that's an excellent thing in a husband."

The Baron continued to talk, now and then almost falling in the snow, but not permitting such slight mishaps to interrupt his discourse, which was addressed to n.o.body and had a general nature, touching upon dragons, marriages, Crusades, and Burgundy. Could he have seen Geoffrey's more and more woe-begone and distracted expression, he would have concluded his future son-in-law was suffering from some sudden and momentous bodily ill.

The young man drew near the Dragon. "What shall we do?" he said in a whisper. "Can I steal the keys of the pit? Can we say the Dragon escaped?" The words came in nervous haste, wholly unlike the bold deliberateness with which the youth usually spoke. It was plain he was at the end of his wits.

"Why, what ails thee?" inquired Sir Francis in a calm and unmoved voice. "This is a simple matter."

His tone was so quiet that Geoffrey stared in amazement.

"But yonder pit!" he said. "We are ruined!"

"Not at all," Sir Francis replied. "Truly thou art a deep thinker!

First a woman and now thine enemy has to a.s.sist thy distress."

He put so much hatred and scorn into his tones that Geoffrey flamed up. "Take care!" he muttered angrily.