"There's big quarry there!" observed Geoffrey, tauntingly. "Quite a royal bird."

"So royal the male hawk could not bring it down by himself, I hear,"

Hubert replied. "Nay, there's no use in waxing wroth, friend! My death now would clap thee in a tighter puzzle than thou art in already--and I should be able to laugh down at thee from a better world," he added, mimicking the priestly cadence, and looking at Geoffrey half fierce and half laughing.

He was but an apprentice at robbery and violence, and in the bottom of his heart, where some honesty still was, he liked Geoffrey well. "Time presses," he continued. "I must go. One thing thou must do. Let not that pit be opened till the monks of Oyster-le-Main come here. We shall come before noon."

"I do not understand," said Geoffrey.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Brother Hvbert goeth back to Oyster-le-Main for ye last Time]

"That's unimportant," answered Hubert. "Only play thy part. 'Tis a simple thing to keep a door shut. Fail, and the whole of us are undone. Farewell."

"Nay, this is some foul trick," Geoffrey declared, and laid his hand on Hubert.

But the other shook his head sadly. "Dost suppose," he said, "that we should have abstained from any trick that's known to the acc.u.mulated wisdom of man? Our sport is up."

"'Tis true," Geoffrey said, musingly, "we hold all of you in the hollow of one hand."

"Thou canst make a present of us to the hangman in twenty minutes if thou choosest," said Hubert.

"Though 'twould put me in quite as evil case."

"Ho! what's the loss of a woman compared with death?" Hubert exclaimed.

"Thou'lt know some day," the young knight said, eying Hubert with a certain pity; "that is, if ever thou art lucky to love truly."

"And is it so much as that?" murmured Hubert wistfully. "'Twas good fortune for thee and thy sweetheart I did not return to look for my master while he was being taken to the pit," he continued; "we could have stopped all your mouths till the Day of Judgment at least."

"Wouldst thou have slain a girl?" asked Geoffrey, stepping back.

"Not I, indeed! But for my master I would not be so sure. And he says I'll come as far as that in time," added the apprentice with a shade of bitterness.

"Thou art a singular villain," said Geoffrey, "and wonderfully frank spoken."

"And so thou'rt to be married?" Hubert said gently.

"By this next noon, if all goes well!" exclaimed the lover with ardour.

"Heigho!" sighed Hubert, turning to go, "'twill be a merry Christmas for somebody."

"Give me thy hand," cried Geoffrey, feeling universally hearty.

"No," replied the freebooter; "what meaning would there be in that? I would sever thy jugular vein in a moment if that would mend the broken fortunes of my chief. Farewell, however. Good luck attend thee."

The eyes of both young men met, and without unkindness in them.

"But I am satisfied with my calling," Hubert a.s.serted, repudiating some thought that he imagined was lurking in Geoffrey's look. "Quite content! It's very dull to be respectable. Look! the dawn will discover us."

"But this plan?" cried Geoffrey, hastening after him; "I know nothing."

"Thou needest know nothing. Keep the door of the pit shut. Farewell."

And Geoffrey found himself watching the black form of Hubert dwindle against the white rises of the ground. He walked towards the tavern in miserable uncertainty, for the brief gust of elation had pa.s.sed from his heart. Then he returned irresolute, and looked into the pit. There was Sir Francis, dressed in the crocodile.

"Come in, come in, young fellow! Ha! ha! how's thy head?" The Baron was at the window, calling out and beckoning with vigour.

Geoffrey returned to the study. There was no help for it.

"We have written fifty-nine already!" said the Rev. Hucbald.

But the youth cast a dull eye upon the growing heap, and sealed them very badly. What pleasure was it to send out invitations to his own wedding that might never be coming off?

As for Hubert out in the night, he walked slowly through the wide white country. And as he went across the cold fields and saw how the stars were paling out, and cast long looks at the moon setting across the smooth snow, the lad's eyes filled so that the moon twinkled and shot rays askew in his sight. He thought how the good times of Oyster-le-Main were ended, and he thought of Miss Elaine so far beyond the reach of such as he, and it seemed to him that he was outside the comfortable world.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER X

The Great White Christmas at Wantley.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Now are all the people long awake and out of their beds. Wantley Manor is stirring busily in each quarter of the house and court, and the whole county likewise is agog. By seven o'clock this morning it was noised in every thatched cottage and in every gabled hall that the great Dragon had been captured. Some said by Saint George in person, who appeared riding upon a miraculous white horse and speaking a tongue that n.o.body could understand, wherefore it was held to be the language common in Paradise. Some declared Saint George had nothing to do with it, and that this was the pious achievement of Father Anselm.

Others were sure Miss Elaine had fulfilled the legend and conquered the monster entirely by herself. One or two, hearing the event had taken place in Sir G.o.dfrey's wine-cellar, said they thought the Baron had done it,--and were immediately set down as persons of unsound mind. But n.o.body mentioned Geoffrey at all, until the Baron's invitations, requesting the honour of various people's presence at the marriage of his daughter Elaine to that young man, were received; and that was about ten o'clock, the ceremony being named for twelve that day in the family chapel. Sir G.o.dfrey intended the burning of the Dragon to take place not one minute later than half-past eleven.

Accordingly, besides the invitation to the chapel, all friends and neighbours whose position in the county or whose intimacy with the family ent.i.tled them to a recognition less formal and more personal, received a second card which ran as follows: "Sir G.o.dfrey Disseisin at home Wednesday morning, December the twenty-fifth, from half after eleven until the following day. Dancing; also a Dragon will be roasted. R. S. V. P." The Disseisin crest with its spirited motto, "Saute qui peult," originated by the venerable Primer Disseisin, followed by his son Tortious Disseisin, and borne with so much renown in and out of a hundred battles by a thousand subsequent Disseisins, ornamented the top left-hand corner.

"I think we shall have but few refusals," said the Rev. Hucbald to Sir G.o.dfrey. "Not many will be prevented by previous engagements, I opine." And the Chaplain smiled benignly, rubbing his hands. He had published the banns of matrimony three times in a lump before breakfast. "Which is rather unusual," he said; "but under the circ.u.mstances we shall easily obtain a dispensation."

"In providing such an entertainment for the county as this will be,"

remarked the Baron, "I feel I have performed my duty towards society for some time to come. No one has had a dragon at a private house before me, I believe."

"Oh, surely not," simpered the sleek Hucbald. "Not even Lady Jumping Jack."

"Fiddle!" grunted the Baron. "She indeed! Fandangoes!"

"She's very pious," protested the Rev. Hucbald, whom the lady sometimes asked to fish lunches in Lent.

"Fandangoes!" repeated the Baron. He had once known her exceedingly well, but she pursued variety at all expense, even his. As for refusals, the Chaplain was quite right. There were none. n.o.body had a previous engagement--or kept it, if they had.

"Good gracious, Rupert!" (or Cecil, or Chandos, as it might be,) each dame in the county had exclaimed to her lord on opening the envelope brought by private hand from Wantley, "we're asked to the Disseisins to see a dragon,--and his daughter married."

"By heaven, Muriel, we'll go!" the gentleman invariably replied, under the impression that Elaine was to marry the Dragon, which would be a show worth seeing. The answers came flying back to Wantley every minute or two, most of them written in such haste that you could only guess they were acceptances. And those individuals who lived so far away across the county that the invitations reached them too late to be answered, immediately rang every bell in the house and ordered the carriage in frantic tones.