“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.”
“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.
“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