Wister Owen
The Dragon of Wantley: His Tale

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.

“Papa! papa!” she cried, running in.

Sir Godfrey sprang into the air, throwing mallet and candle against the wine-butts. Then he saw it was only his daughter.

“Wretched girl! you – you – if you don’t want to become an orphan, never tamper like that with my nerves again in your life. What are you come here for? How dare you leave your bed at such an hour?”

“Oh, mercy forgive us!” whimpered a new voice.

There was Mistletoe at the door of the passage, a candle lifted high above her head and wobbling, so that it shook the grease all over her night-cap. With the other hand she clutched her camisole, while beneath a yellow flannel petticoat her fat feet were rocking in the raw-wool foot-mittens she wore.

“Oh, dear: oh, Sir Godfrey! Oh, me!” said she.

“Saint Charity! What do you want? Holy Ragbag, what’s the matter? Is everybody in my house going stark mad?” Here the Baron fell over the stool in the dark. “Give me my candle!” he roared. “Light my candle! What business have either of you to come here?”

“Please, sir, it’s Miss Elaine I came for. Oh, me! I’ll catch my death of cold. Her door shutting waked me up-stairs. Oh, dear! Where are we coming to?”

“You old mattrass!” said Sir Godfrey. Then he turned to his daughter. But this young lady had had a little time to gather her thoughts in. So she cut short all awkward questionings with excellent promptness.

“Papa!” she began, breathlessly. “There! I heard it again!”

“Heard it? What?” cried the Baron, his eyes starting.

“It waked me up-stairs, and I ran to get you in your room, and you – ”

“It – it? What’s it? What waked you?” broke in Sir Godfrey, his voice rising to a shriek.

“There it is again!” exclaimed Elaine, clasping her hands. “He’s coming! I hear him. The Dragon! Oh!”

With this, she pretended to rush for the passage, where the squeaks of Mistletoe could be heard already growing distant in the house. Away bolted Sir Godfrey after her, shouting to Elaine in terror undisguised, “Lock your door! Lock your door!” as he fled up-stairs.

So there stood Miss Elaine alone, with the coast clear, and no danger from these two courageous guardians. Then came a knock from outside, and her heart bounded as she ran through the cellar and undid the door.

“You darling!” said Geoffrey, jumping in with legs all covered with snow. He left the door open wide, and had taken four or five kisses at the least before she could stop him. “The moon was out for a while,” he continued, “and the snow stopped. So I came a long way round-about, that my tracks should not be seen. That’s good strategy.”

But this strange young lady said no word, and looked at him as if she were going to cry.

“Why, what’s the matter, dear?” he asked.

“Oh, Geoffrey! I have been deceiving papa so.”

“Pooh! It’s not to be thought of.”

“But I can’t help thinking. I never supposed I could do so. And it comes so terribly easy. And I’m not a bit clever when I’m good. And – oh!” She covered her face and turned away from him.

“Stuff and nonsense!” Geoffrey broke out. “Do be reasonable. Here is a dragon. Isn’t there?”

“Yes.”

“And everybody wants to get rid of him?”

“Yes.”

“And he’s robbing your father?”

“Yes.”

“So you’re acting for your father’s good?”

“Y – yes.”

“Then – ”

“Now, Geoffrey, all your talking doesn’t hide the badness in the least bit.”

She was silent again; then suddenly seemed greatly relieved. “I don’t care,” she declared. “Papa locked me up for a whole week, when all I wanted was to help him and everybody get rid of the Dragon. And I am too old to be treated so. And now I am just going to pretend there’s a dragon when there’s not. Oh, what’s that?”

This time it was no sham. Faint and far from the direction of Oyster-le-Main came the roar of the Dragon of Wantley over fields and farms.