The Dragon of Wantley Part 10

"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 G.o.dfrey.

The terrified b.u.t.tons 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 G.o.dfrey, while Popham, foreseeing trouble, rapidly ascended the sideboard. The Baron stepped out of Whelpdale's path, and as he pa.s.sed by administered so much additional speed that little b.u.t.tons flew under the curtained archway and down many painful steps into the scullery, and was not seen again during that evening.

When Sir G.o.dfrey 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 G.o.dfrey, angrily.

After this the family fell into silence. Sir G.o.dfrey 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 ta.s.sel 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 G.o.dfrey, 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 G.o.dfrey.

"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 "Chateau 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 quant.i.ty of cowslip wine."

"Brrrrooo!" went Sir G.o.dfrey, 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 n.o.body 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 n.o.body 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 G.o.dfrey, 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 G.o.dfrey 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 G.o.dfrey, "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 bl.u.s.tering 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GEOFFREY GOETH TO MEET THE DRAGON]

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 pa.s.sage 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 G.o.dfrey sprang into the air, throwing mallet and candle against the wine-b.u.t.ts. 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 pa.s.sage, 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 G.o.dfrey! 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?"