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 Godfrey.
"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 Godfrey. "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 lusty 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 nobody 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 assist thy distress."
He put so much hatred and scorn into his tones that Geoffrey flamed up. "Take care!" he muttered angrily.
"That's right!" the prisoner said, laughing dryly. "Draw thy sword and split our secret open. It will be a fine wedding-day thou'lt have then. Our way out of this is plain enough. Did not the Baron say that Father Anselm was to be present at the burning? He shall be present."
"Yes," said the youth. "But how to get out of the pit? And how can there be a dragon to burn if thou art to be Father Anselm? And how----" he stopped.
"I am full of pity for thy brains," said Sir Francis.
"Here's the pit!" said the voice of Sir Godfrey. "Bring him along."
"Hark!" said Sir Francis to Geoffrey. "Thou must go to Oyster-le-Main with a message. Darest thou go alone?"
"If I dare?" retorted Geoffrey, proudly.
"It is well. Come to the pit when the Baron is safe in the house."
Now they were at the iron door. Here the ground was on a level with the bottom of the pit, but sloped steeply up to the top of its walls elsewhere, so that one could look down inside. The Baron unlocked the door and entered with his cowslip wine, which (not being a very potent decoction) began to be covered with threads of ice as soon as it was set down. The night was growing more bitter as its frosty hours wore on; for the storm was departed, and the wind fallen to silence, and the immense sky clean and cold with the shivering glitter of the stars.
Then Geoffrey led the Dragon into the pit. This was a rude and desolate hole, and its furniture of that extreme simplicity common to bear-pits in those barbarous times. From the middle of the stone floor rose the trunk of a tree, ragged with lopped boughs and at its top forking into sundry limbs possible to sit among. An iron trough was there near a heap of stale greasy straw, and both were shapeless white lumps beneath the snow. The chiselled and cemented walls rose round in a circle and showed no crevice for the nails of either man or bear to climb by. Many times had Orlando Crumb and Furioso Bun observed this with sadness, and now Sir Francis observed it also. He took into his chest a big swallow of air, and drove it out again between his teeth with a weary hissing.
"I will return at once," Geoffrey whispered as he was leaving.
Then the door was shut to, and Sir Francis heard the lock grinding as the key was turned. Then he heard the Baron speaking to Geoffrey.
"I shall take this key away," he said; "there's no telling what wandering fool might let the monster out. And now there's but little time before dawn. Elaine, child, go to your bed. This excitement has plainly tired you. I cannot have my girl look like that when she's a bride to-day. And you too, sir," he added, surveying Geoffrey, "look a trifle out of sorts. Well, I am not surprised. A dragon is no joke. Come to my study." And he took Geoffrey's arm.
"Oh, no!" said the youth. "I cannot. I--I must change my dress."
"Pooh, sir! I shall send to the tavern for your kit. Come to my study. You are pale. We'll have a little something hot. Aha! Something hot!"
"But I think----" Geoffrey began.
"Tush!" said the Baron. "You shall help me with the wedding invitations."
[Illustration: Sir Francis decideth to go down agayne]
"Sir!" said Geoffrey haughtily, "I know nothing of writing and such low habits."
"Why no more do I, of course," replied Sir Godfrey; "nor would I suspect you or any good gentleman of the practice, though I have made my mark upon an indenture in the presence of witnesses."
"A man may do that with propriety," assented the youth. "But I cannot come with you now, sir. 'Tis not possible."
"But I say that you shall!" cried the Baron in high good-humour. "I can mull Malvoisie famously, and will presently do so for you. 'Tis to help me seal the invitations that I want you. My Chaplain shall write them. Come."
He locked Geoffrey's arm in his own, and strode quickly forward. Feeling himself dragged away, Geoffrey turned his head despairingly back towards the pit.
"Oh, he's safe enough in there," said Sir Godfrey. "No need to watch him."
Sir Francis had listened to this conversation with rising dismay. And now he quickly threw off the crocodile hide and climbed up the tree as the bears had often done before him. It came almost to a level with the wall's rim, but the radius was too great a distance for jumping.
"I should break my leg," he said, and came down the tree again, as the bears had likewise often descended.
The others were now inside the house. Elaine with a sinking heart retired to her room, and her father after summoning the Rev. Hucbald took Geoffrey into his study. The Chaplain followed with a bunch of goose-quills and a large ink-horn, and seated himself at a table, while the Baron mixed some savoury stuff, going down his private staircase into the buttery to get the spice and honey necessary.
"Here's to the health of all, and luck to-day," said the Baron; and Geoffrey would have been quite happy if an earthquake had come and altered all plans for the morning. Still he went through the form of clinking goblets. But his heart ached, and his eyes grew hot as he sat dismal and lonely away from his girl.
"Whom shall we ask to the wedding?" queried the Rev. Hucbald, rubbing his hands and looking at the pitcher in which Sir Godfrey had mixed the beverage.
"Ask the whole county," said Sir Godfrey. "The more the merrier. My boy Roland will be here to-morrow. He'll find his sister has got ahead of him. Have some," he added, holding the pitcher to the Rev. Hucbald.
"I do believe I will take just a little sip," returned the divine. "Thanks! ah--most delicious, Baron! A marriage on Christmas Day," he added, "is--ahem!--highly irregular. But under the unusual, indeed the truly remarkable, circumstances, I make no doubt that the Pope----"
"Drat him!" said Sir Godfrey; at which the Chaplain smiled reproachfully, and shook a long transparent taper finger at his patron in a very playful manner, saying, "Baron! now, Baron!"
"My boy Roland's learning to be a knight over at my uncle Mortmain's," continued Sir Godfrey, pouring Geoffrey another goblet. "You'll like him."
But Geoffrey's thoughts were breeding more anxiety in him every moment.
"I'll get the sealing-wax," observed the Baron, and went to a cabinet.
"This room is stifling," cried Geoffrey. "I shall burst soon, I think."
"It's my mulled Malvoisie you're not accustomed to," Sir Godfrey said, as he rummaged in the cabinet. "Open the window and get some fresh air, my lad. Now where the deuce is my family seal?"
As Geoffrey opened the window, a soft piece of snow flew through the air and dropped lightly on his foot. He looked quickly and perceived a man's shadow jutting into the moonlight from an angle in the wall. Immediately he plunged out through the casement, which was not very high.
"Merciful powers!" said the Rev. Hucbald, letting fall his quill and spoiling the first invitation, "what an impulsive young man! Why, he has run clean round the corner."
"'Tis all my Malvoisie," said the Baron, hugely delighted, and hurrying to the window. "Come back when you're sober!" he shouted after Geoffrey with much mirth. Then he shut the window.
"These French heads never can weather English brews," he remarked to the Chaplain. "But I'll train the boy in time. He is a rare good lad. Now, to work."
Out in the snow, Geoffrey with his sword drawn came upon Hubert.
"Thou mayest sheathe that knife," said the latter.
"And be thy quarry?" retorted Geoffrey.
"I have come too late for that!" Hubert answered.
"Thou hast been to the bear-pit, then?"
"Oh, aye!"
"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.
[Illustration: 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 accumulated 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 asserted, 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 passed 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.
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