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 ............