“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,