OWEN WISTER Ultimate Collection: Western Classics, Adventure & Historical Novels (Including Non-Fiction Historical Works). Owen Wister
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monster moved, and from his nostrils (as it seemed) shot a plume of flame.
Popham clutched the cook, and the nine house-maids sank instantly into the arms of the seven footmen without the slightest regard to how unsatisfactorily nine goes into seven.
“Good heavens!” said the Baron, getting behind a hogshead, “what a brute!”
“Perhaps it might be useful if I excommunicated him,” said the Rev. Hucbald, who had come in rather late, with his clerical frock-coat buttoned over his pyjamas.
“Pooh!” said the Baron. “As if he’d care for that.”
“Very few men can handle a dragon,” said Geoffrey, unconcernedly, and stroked his upper lip, where a kindly-disposed person might see there was going to be a moustache some day.
“I don’t know exactly what you mean to imply by that, young man,” said the Baron, coming out from behind the hogshead and puffing somewhat pompously.
“Why, zounds!” he exclaimed, “I left you locked up this afternoon, and securely. How came you here?”
Geoffrey coughed, for it was an awkward inquiry.
“Answer me without so much throat-clearing,” said the Baron.
“I’ll clear my throat as it pleases me,” replied Geoffrey hotly. “How I came here is no affair of yours that I can see. But ask Father Anselm himself, and he will tell you.” This was a happy thought, and the youth threw a look at the Dragon, who nodded slightly. “I have a question to ask you, sir,” Geoffrey continued, taking a tone and manner more polite. Then he pointed to the Dragon with his sword, and was silent.
“Well?” said Sir Godfrey, “don’t keep me waiting.”
“I fear your memory’s short, sir. By your word proclaimed this morning the man who brought you this Dragon should have your daughter to wife if she—if she——”
“Ha!” said the Baron. “To be sure. Though it was hasty. Hum! Had I foreseen the matter would be so immediately settled—she’s a great prize for any lad—and you’re not hurt either. One should be hurt for such a reward. You seem entirely sound of limb and without a scratch. A great prize.”
“There’s the Dragon,” replied Geoffrey, “and here am I.”
Now Sir Godfrey was an honourable man. When he once had given his word, you could hold him to it. That is very uncommon to-day, particularly in the matter of contracts. He gathered his dressing-gown about him, and looked every inch a parent. “Elaine,” he said, “my dear?”
“Oh, papa!” murmured that young woman in a die-away voice.
Geoffrey had just time to see the look in her brown eye as she turned her head away. And his senses reeled blissfully, and his brain blew out like a candle, and he ceased to be a man who could utter speech. He stood stock-still with his gaze fixed upon Elaine. The nine house-maids looked at the young couple with many sympathetic though respectful sighings, and the seven footmen looked comprehensively at the nine house-maids.
Sir Godfrey smiled, and very kindly. “Ah, well,” he said, “once I—but tush! You’re a brave lad, and I knew your father well. I’ll consent, of course. But if you don’t mind, I’ll give you rather a quick blessing this evening. ’Tis growing colder. Come here, Elaine. Come here, sir. There! Now, I hate delay in these matters. You shall be married to-morrow. Hey? What? You don’t object, I suppose? Then why did you jump? To-morrow, Christmas Day, and every church-bell in the county shall ring three times more than usual. Once for the holy Feast, and may the Lord bless it always! and once for my girl’s wedding. And once for the death and destruction of the Dragon of Wantley.”
“Hurrah!” said the united household.
“We’ll have a nuptials that shall be the talk of our grandchildren’s children, and after them. We’ll have all the people to see. And we’ll build the biggest pile of fagots that can be cut from my timber, and the Dragon shall be chained on the top of it, and we’ll cremate him like an Ancient,—only alive! We’ll cremate the monster alive!”
Elaine jumped. Geoffrey jumped. The chain round the Dragon loudly clanked.
“Why—do you not find this a pleasant plan?” asked the Baron, surprised.
“It seems to me, sir,” stuttered Geoffrey, beating his brains for every next word, “it seems to me a monstrous pity to destroy this Dragon so. He is a rare curiosity.”
“Did you expect me to clap him in a box-stall and feed him?” inquired the Baron with scorn.
“Why, no, sir. But since it is I who have tracked, stalked, and taken him with the help of no other huntsman,” said Geoffrey, “I make bold to think the laws of sport vest the title to him in me.”
“No such thing,” said Sir Godfrey. “You have captured him in my cellar. I know a little law, I hope.”
“The law about wild beasts in Poictiers——” Geoffrey began.
“What care I for your knavish and perverted foreign legalities over the sea?” snorted Sir Godfrey. “This is England. And our Common Law says you have trespassed.”
“My dear sir,” said Geoffrey, “this wild beast came into your premises after I had marked him.”
“Don’t dear sir me!” shouted the Baron. “Will you hear the law for what I say? I tell you this Dragon’s my dragon. Don’t I remember how trespass was brought against Ralph de Coventry, over in Warwickshire? Who did no more than you have done. And they held him. And there it was but a little pheasant his hawk had chased into another’s warren—and you’ve chased a dragon, so the offence is greater.”
“But if—” remonstrated the youth, “if a fox——”
“Fox me no foxes! Here is the case of Ralph de Coventry,” replied Sir Godfrey, looking learned, and seating himself on a barrel of beer. “Ralph pleaded before the Judge saying, ‘et nous lessamus nostre faucon voler à luy, et il le pursuy en le garrein,’—’tis just your position, only ’twas you that pursued and not your falcon, which does not in the least distinguish the cases.”
“But,” said Geoffrey again, “the Dragon started not on your premises.”
“No matter for that; for you have pursued him into my warren, that is, my cellar, my enclosed cellar, where you had no business to be. And the Court told Ralph no matter ‘que le feisant leva hors de le garrein, vostre faucon luy pursuy en le garrein.’ So there’s good sound English law, and none of your foppish outlandishries in Latin,” finished the Baron, vastly delighted at being able to display the little learning that he had. For you see, very few gentlemen in those benighted days knew how to speak the beautiful language of the law so fluently as that.
“And besides,” continued Sir Godfrey suddenly, “there is a contract.”
“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 Godfrey. “’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!”