The Dragon of Wantley: His Tale

Wister Owen

The Dragon of Wantley: His Tale

TO

MY ANCIENT PLAYMATES IN APPIAN

WAY CAMBRIDGE THIS LIKELY

STORY IS DEDICATED FOR REASONS

BEST KNOWN TO THEMSELVES

Preface

When Betsinda held the RoseAnd the Ring decked Giglio’s fingerThackeray! ’twas sport to lingerWith thy wise, gay-hearted prose.Books were merry, goodness knows!When Betsinda held the Rose.Who but foggy drudglings dozeWhile Rob Gilpin toasts thy witches,While the Ghost waylays thy breeches,Ingoldsby? Such tales as thoseExorcised our peevish woesWhen Betsinda held the Rose.Realism, thou specious pose!Haply it is good we met thee;But, passed by, we’ll scarce regret thee;For we love the light that glowsWhere Queen Fancy’s pageant goes,And Betsinda holds the Rose.Shall we dare it? Then let’s closeDoors to-night on things statistic,Seek the hearth in circle mystic,Till the conjured fire-light showsWhere Youth’s bubbling Fountain flows,And Betsinda holds the Rose.

Preface to the second edition

We two – the author and his illustrator – did not know what we had done until the newspapers told us. But the press has explained it in the following poised and consistent criticism:

“Too many suggestions of profanity.”

– Congregationalist, Boston, 8 Dec. ’92.

“It ought to be the delight of the nursery.”

– National Tribune, Washington, 22 Dec. ’92.

“Grotesque and horrible.”

– Zion’s Herald, Boston, 21 Dec. ’92.

“Some excellent moral lessons.”

– Citizen, Brooklyn, 27 Nov. ’92.

“If it has any lesson to teach, we have been unable to find it.”

– Independent, New York, 10 Nov. ’92.

“The story is a familiar one.”

– Detroit Free Press, 28 Nov. ’92.

“Refreshingly novel.”

– Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, 17 Dec. ’92.

“It is a burlesque.”

– Atlantic Monthly, Dec. ’92.

“All those who love lessons drawn from life will enjoy this book.”

– Christian Advocate, Cincinnati, 2 Nov. ’92.

“The style of this production is difficult to define.”

– Court Journal, London, 26 Nov. ’92.

“One wonders why writer and artist should put so much labor on a production which seems to have so little reason for existence.”

– Herald and Presbyterian, Cincinnati.

Now the public knows exactly what sort of book this is, and we cannot be held responsible.

CHAPTER I.

How Sir Godfrey came to lose his Temper

There was something wrong in the cellar at Wantley Manor. Little Whelpdale knew it, for he was Buttons, and Buttons always knows what is being done with the wine, though he may look as if he did not. And old Popham knew it, too. He was Butler, and responsible to Sir Godfrey for all the brandy, and ale, and cider, and mead, and canary, and other strong waters there were in the house.

Now, Sir Godfrey Disseisin, fourth Baron of Wantley, and immediate tenant by knight-service to His Majesty King John of England, was particular about his dogs, and particular about his horses, and about his only daughter and his boy Roland, and had been very particular indeed about his wife, who, I am sorry to say, did not live long. But all this was nothing to the fuss he made about his wine. When the claret was not warm enough, or the Moselle wine was not cool enough, you could hear him roaring all over the house; for, though generous in heart and a staunch Churchman, he was immoderately choleric. Very often, when Sir Godfrey fell into one of his rages at dinner, old Popham, standing behind his chair, trembled so violently that his calves would shake loose, thus obliging him to hasten behind the tall leathern screen at the head of the banquet-hall and readjust them.

Twice in each year the Baron sailed over to France, where he visited the wine-merchants, and tasted samples of all new vintages, – though they frequently gave him unmentionable aches. Then, when he was satisfied that he had selected the soundest and richest, he returned to Wantley Manor, bringing home wooden casks that were as big as hay-stacks, and so full they could not gurgle when you tipped them. Upon arriving, he sent for Mrs. Mistletoe, the family governess and (for economy’s sake) housekeeper, who knew how to write, – something the Baron’s father and mother had never taught him when he was a little boy, because they didn’t know how themselves, and despised people who did, – and when Mrs. Mistletoe had cut neat pieces of card-board for labels and got ready her goose-quill, Sir Godfrey would say, “Write, Château Lafitte, 1187;” or, “Write, Chambertin, 1203.” (Those, you know, were the names and dates of the vintages.) “Yes, my lord,” Mistletoe always piped up; on which Sir Godfrey would peer over her shoulder at the writing, and mutter, “Hum; yes, that’s correct,” just as if he knew how to read, the old humbug! Then Mistletoe, who was a silly girl and had lost her husband early, would go “Tee-hee, Sir Godfrey!” as the gallant gentleman gave her a kiss. Of course, this was not just what he should have done; but he was a widower, you must remember, and besides that, as the years went on this little ceremony ceased to be kept up. When it was “Château Lafitte, 1187,” kissing Mistletoe was one thing; but when it came to “Chambertin, 1203,” the lady weighed two hundred and twenty-five pounds, and wore a wig.

But, wig and all, Mistletoe had a high position in Wantley Manor. The household was conducted on strictly feudal principles. Nobody, except the members of the family, received higher consideration than did the old Governess. She and the Chaplain were on a level, socially, and they sat at the same table with the Baron. That drew the line. Old Popham the Butler might tell little Whelpdale as often as he pleased that he was just as good as Mistletoe; but he had to pour out Mistletoe’s wine for her, notwithstanding. If she scolded him (which she always did if Sir Godfrey had been scolding her), do you suppose he dared to answer back? Gracious, no! He merely kicked the two head-footmen, Meeson and Welsby, and spoke severely to the nine house-maids. Meeson and Welsby then made life a painful thing for the five under-footmen and the grooms, while the nine house-maids boxed the ears of Whelpdale the Buttons, and Whelpdale the Buttons punched the scullion’s eye. As for the scullion, he was bottom of the list; but he could always relieve his feelings by secretly pulling the tails of Sir Godfrey’s two tame ravens, whose names were Croak James and Croak Elizabeth. I never knew what these birds did at that; but something, you may be sure. So you see that I was right when I said the household was conducted on strictly feudal principles. The Cook had a special jurisdiction of her own, and everybody was more or less afraid of her.

Whenever Sir Godfrey had come home with new wine, and after the labels had been pasted on the casks, then Popham, with Whelpdale beside him, had these carefully set down in the cellar, which was a vast dim room, the ceilings supported by heavy arches; the barrels, bins, kegs, hogsheads, tuns, and demijohns of every size and shape standing like forests and piled to the ceiling. And now something was wrong there.

“This ’ere’s a hawful succumstence, sir,” observed Whelpdale the Buttons to his superior, respectfully.

“It is, indeed, a himbroglio,” replied Popham, who had a wide command of words, and knew it.

Neither domestic spoke again for some time. They were seated in the buttery. The Butler crossed his right leg over his left, and waved the suspended foot up and down, – something he seldom did unless very grievously perturbed. As for poor little Whelpdale, he mopped his brow with the napkins that were in a basket waiting for the wash.

Then the bell rang.

“His ludship’s study-bell,” said Popham. “Don’t keep him waiting.”

“Hadn’t you better apprise his ludship of the facks?” asked Whelpdale, in a weak voice.

Popham made no reply. He arose and briefly kicked Buttons out of the buttery. Then he mounted a chair to listen better. “He has hentered his ludship’s apawtment,” he remarked, hearing the sound of voices come faintly down the little private staircase that led from Sir Godfrey’s study to the buttery: the Baron was in the habit of coming down at night for crackers and cheese before he went to bed. Presently one voice grew much louder than the other. It questioned. There came a sort of whining in answer. Then came a terrific stamp on the ceiling and a loud “Go on, sir!”

“Now, now, now!” thought Popham.

Do you want to hear at once, without waiting any longer, what little Whelpdale is telling Sir Godfrey? Well, you must know that for the past thirteen years, ever since 1190, the neighbourhood had been scourged by a terrible Dragon. The monster was covered with scales, and had a long tail and huge unnatural wings, beside fearful jaws that poured out smoke and flame whenever they opened. He always came at dead of night, roaring, bellowing, and sparkling and flaming over the hills, and horrid claps of thunder were very likely to attend his progress. Concerning the nature and quality of his roaring, the honest copyholders of Wantley could never agree, although every human being had heard him hundreds of times. Some said it was like a mad bull, only much louder and worse. Old Gaffer Piers the ploughman swore that if his tomcat weighed a thousand pounds it would make a noise almost as bad as that on summer nights, with the moon at the full and other cats handy. But farmer Stiles said, “Nay, ’tis like none of your bulls nor cats. But when I have come home too near the next morning, my wife can make me think of this Dragon as soon as ever her mouth be open.”

This shows you that there were divers opinions. If you were not afraid to look out of the window about midnight, you could see the sky begin to look red in the quarter from which he was approaching, just as it glares when some distant house is on fire. But you must shut the window and hide before he came over the hill; for very few that had looked upon the Dragon ever lived to that day twelvemonth. This monster devoured the substance of the tenantry and yeomen. When their fields of grain were golden for the harvest, in a single night he cut them down and left their acres blasted by his deadly fire. He ate the cows, the sheep, the poultry, and at times even sucked eggs. Many pious saints had visited the district, but not one had been able by his virtue to expel the Dragon; and the farmers and country folk used to repeat a legend that said the Dragon was a punishment for the great wickedness of the Baron’s ancestor, the original Sir Godfrey Disseisin, who, when summoned on the first Crusade to Palestine, had entirely refused to go and help his cousin Godfrey de Bouillon wrest the Holy Sepulchre from the Paynim. The Baron’s ancestor, when a stout young lad, had come over with William the Conqueror; and you must know that to have an ancestor who had come over with William the Conqueror was in those old days a much rarer thing than it is now, and any one who could boast of it was held in high esteem by his neighbours, who asked him to dinner and left their cards upon him continually. But the first Sir Godfrey thought one conquest was enough for any man; and in reply to his cousin’s invitation to try a second, answered in his blunt Norman French, “Nul tiel verte dedans ceot oyle,” which displeased the Church, and ended forever all relations between the families. The Dragon did not come at once, for this gentleman’s son, the grandfather of our Sir Godfrey, as soon as he was twenty-one, went off to the Holy Land himself, fought very valiantly, and was killed, leaving behind him at Wantley an inconsolable little wife and an heir six months old. This somewhat appeased the Pope; but the present Sir Godfrey, when asked to accompany King Richard Lion Heart on his campaign against the Infidel, did not avail himself of the opportunity to set the family right in the matter of Crusades. This hereditary impiety, which the Pope did not consider at all mended by the Baron’s most regular attendance at the parish church on all Sundays, feast days, fast days, high days, low days, saints’ days, vigils, and octaves, nor by his paying his tithes punctually to Father Anselm, Abbot of Oyster-le-Main (a wonderful person, of whom I shall have a great deal to tell you presently), this impiety, I say, finished the good standing of the House of Wantley. Rome frowned, the earth trembled, and the Dragon came. And (the legend went on to say) this curse would not be removed until a female lineal descendant of the first Sir Godfrey, a young lady who had never been married, and had never loved anybody except her father and mother and her sisters and brothers, should go out in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve, all by herself, and encounter the Dragon single handed.

Now, of course, this is not what little Whelpdale is trying to tell the Baron up in the study; for everybody in Wantley knew all about the legend except one person, and that was Miss Elaine, Sir Godfrey’s only daughter, eighteen years old at the last Court of Piepoudre, when her father (after paying all the farmers for all the cows and sheep they told him had been eaten by the Dragon since the last Court) had made his customary proclamation, to wit: his good-will and protection to all his tenantry; and if any man, woman, child, or other person, caused his daughter, Miss Elaine, to hear anything about the legend, such tale-bearer should be chained to a tree, and kept fat until the Dragon found him and ate him. So everybody obligingly kept the Baron’s secret.

Sir Godfrey is just this day returned from France with some famous tuns of wine, and presents for Elaine and Mrs. Mistletoe. His humour is (or was, till Whelpdale, poor wretch! answered the bell) of the best possible. And now, this moment, he is being told by the luckless Buttons that the Dragon of Wantley has taken to drinking, as well as eating, what does not belong to him; has for the last three nights burst the big gates of the wine-cellar that open on the hillside the Manor stands upon; that a hogshead of the Baron’s best Burgundy is going; and that two hogsheads of his choicest Malvoisie are gone!

One hundred and twenty-eight gallons in three nights’ work! But I suppose a fire-breathing Dragon must be very thirsty.

There was a dead silence in the study overhead, and old Popham’s calves were shaking loose as he waited.

“And so you stood by and let this black, sneaking, prowling, thieving” (here the Baron used some shocking expressions which I shall not set down) “Dragon swill my wine?”

“St – st – stood by, your ludship?” said little Whelpdale. “No, sir; no one didn’t do any standing by, sir. He roared that terrible, sir, we was all under the bed.”

“Now, by my coat of mail and great right leg!” shouted Sir Godfrey. The quaking Popham heard no more. The door of the private staircase flew open with a loud noise, and down came little Whelpdale head over heels into the buttery. After him strode Sir Godfrey in full mail armour, clashing his steel fists against the banisters. The nose-piece of his helmet was pushed up to allow him to speak plainly, – and most plainly did he speak, I can assure you, all the way down stairs, keeping his right eye glaring upon Popham in one corner of the buttery, and at the same time petrifying Whelpdale with his left. From father to son, the Disseisins had always been famous for the manner in which they could straddle their eyes; and in Sir Godfrey the family trait was very strongly marked.

Arrived at the bottom, he stopped for a moment to throw a ham through the stained-glass window, and then made straight for Popham. But the head Butler was an old family servant, and had learned to know his place.

With surprising agility he hopped on a table, so that Sir Godfrey’s foot flew past its destined goal and caught a shelf that was loaded with a good deal of his wedding china. The Baron was far too dignified a person to take any notice of this mishap, and he simply strode on, out of the buttery, and so through the halls of the Manor, where all who caught even the most distant sight of his coming, promptly withdrew into the privacy of their apartments.

CHAPTER II.

How his Daughter, Miss Elaine, behaved herself in Consequence

The Baron walked on, his rage mounting as he went, till presently he began talking aloud to himself. “Mort d’aieul and Cosenage!” he muttered, grinding his teeth over these oaths; “matters have come to a pretty pass, per my and per tout! And this is what my wine-bibbing ancestor has brought on his posterity by his omission to fight for the True Faith!”

Sir Godfrey knew the outrageous injustice of this remark as well as you or I do; and so did the portrait of his ancestor, which he happened to be passing under, for the red nose in the tapestry turned a deeper ruby in scornful anger. But, luckily for the nerves of its descendant, the moths had eaten its mouth away so entirely, that the retort it attempted to make sounded only like a faint hiss, which the Baron mistook for a little gust of wind behind the arras.

“My ruddy Burgundy!” he groaned, “going, going! and my rich, fruity Malvoisie, – all gone! Father Anselm didn’t appreciate it, either, that night he dined here last September. He said I had put egg-shells in it. Egg-shells! Pooh! As if any parson could talk about wine. These Church folk had better mind their business, and say grace, and eat their dinner, and be thankful. That’s what I say. Egg-shells, forsooth!” The Baron was passing through the chapel, and he mechanically removed his helmet; but he did not catch sight of the glittering eye of Father Anselm himself, who had stepped quickly into the confessional, and there in the dark watched Sir Godfrey with a strange, mocking smile. When he had the chapel to himself again, the tall gray figure of the Abbot appeared in full view, and craftily moved across the place. If you had been close beside him, and had listened hard, you could have heard a faint clank and jingle beneath his gown as he moved, which would have struck you as not the sort of noise a hair-shirt ought to make. But I am glad you were not there; for I do not like the way the Abbot looked at all, especially so near Christmas-tide, when almost every one somehow looks kinder as he goes about in the world. Father Anselm moved out of the chapel, and passed through lonely corridors out of Wantley Manor, out of the court-yard, and so took his way to Oyster-le-Main in the gathering dusk. The few people who met him received his blessing, and asked no questions; for they were all serfs of the glebe, and well used to meeting the Abbot going and coming near Wantley Manor.

Meanwhile, Sir Godfrey paced along. “To think,” he continued, aloud, “to think the country could be rid of this monster, this guzzling serpent, in a few days! Plenty would reign again. Public peace of mind would be restored. The cattle would increase, the crops would grow, my rents treble, and my wines be drunk no more by a miserable, ignorant – but, no! I’m her father. Elaine shall never be permitted to sacrifice herself for one dragon, or twenty dragons, either.”

“Why, what’s the matter, papa?”

Sir Godfrey started. There was Miss Elaine in front of him; and she had put on one of the new French gowns he had brought over with him.

“Matter? Plenty of matter!” he began, unluckily. “At least, nothing is the matter at all, my dear. What a question! Am I not back all safe from the sea? Nothing is the matter, of course! Hasn’t your old father been away from you two whole months? And weren’t those pretty dresses he has carried back with him for his little girl? And isn’t the wine – Zounds, no, the wine isn’t – at least, certainly it is – to be sure it’s what it ought to be —what it ought to be? Yes! But, Mort d’aieul! not where it ought to be! Hum! hum! I think I am going mad!” And Sir Godfrey, forgetting he held the helmet all this while, dashed his hands to his head with such violence that the steel edge struck hard above the ear, and in one minute had raised a lump there as large as the egg of a fowl.

“Poor, poor papa,” said Miss Elaine. And she ran and fetched some cold water, and, dipping her dainty lace handkerchief into it, she bathed the Baron’s head.

“Thank you, my child,” he murmured, presently. “Of course, nothing is the matter. They were very slow in putting the new” (here he gave a gulp) “casks of wine into the cellar; that’s all. ’Twill soon be dinner-time. I must make me ready.”

And so saying, the Baron kissed his daughter and strode away towards his dressing-room. But she heard him shout “Mort d’aieul!” more than once before he was out of hearing. Then his dressing-room door shut with a bang, and sent echoes all along the entries above and below.

The December night was coming down, and a little twinkling lamp hung at the end of the passage. Towards this Miss Elaine musingly turned her steps, still squeezing her now nearly dry handkerchief.

“What did he mean?” she said to herself.

“Elaine!” shouted Sir Godfrey, away off round a corner.

“Yes, papa, I’m coming.”

“Don’t come. I’m going to the bath. A – did you hear me say anything particular?”

“Do you mean when I met you?” answered Elaine. “Yes – no – that is, – not exactly, papa.”

“Then don’t dare to ask me any questions, for I won’t have it.” And another door slammed.

“What did papa mean?” said Miss Elaine, once more.

Her bright brown eyes were looking at the floor as she walked slowly on towards the light, and her lips, which had been a little open so that you could have seen what dainty teeth she had, shut quite close. In fact, she was thinking, which was something you could seldom accuse her of. I do not know exactly what her thoughts were, except that the words “dragon” and “sacrifice” kept bumping against each other in them continually; and whenever they bumped, Miss Elaine frowned a little deeper, till she really looked almost solemn. In this way she came under the hanging lamp and entered the door in front of which it shone.

This was the ladies’ library, full of the most touching romances about Roland, and Walter of Aquitaine, and Sir Tristram, and a great number of other excitable young fellows, whose behaviour had invariably got them into dreadful difficulties, but had as invariably made them, in the eyes of every damsel they saw, the most attractive, fascinating, sweet, dear creatures in the world. Nobody ever read any of these books except Mrs. Mistletoe and the family Chaplain. These two were, indeed, the only people in the household that knew how to read, – which may account for it in some measure. It was here that Miss Elaine came in while she was thinking so hard, and found old Mistletoe huddled to the fire. She had been secretly reading the first chapters of a new and pungent French romance, called “Roger and Angelica,” that was being published in a Paris and a London magazine simultaneously. Only thus could the talented French author secure payment for his books in England; for King John, who had recently murdered his little nephew Arthur, had now turned his attention to obstructing all arrangements for an international copyright. In many respects, this monarch was no credit to his family.

When the Governess heard Miss Elaine open the door behind her, she thought it was the family Chaplain, and, quickly throwing the shocking story on the floor, she opened the household cookery-book, – an enormous volume many feet square, suspended from the ceiling by strong chains, and containing several thousand receipts for English, French, Italian, Croatian, Dalmatian, and Acarnanian dishes, beginning with a poem in blank verse written to his confectioner by the Emperor Charles the Fat. German cooking was omitted.

“I’m looking up a new plum-pudding for Christmas,” said Mistletoe, nervously, keeping her virtuous eyes on the volume.

“Ah, indeed!” Miss Elaine answered, indifferently. She was thinking harder than ever, – was, in fact, inventing a little plan.

“Oh, so it’s you, deary!” cried the Governess, much relieved. She had feared the Chaplain might pick up the guilty magazine and find its pages cut only at the place where the French story was. And I am grieved to have to tell you that this is just what he did do later in the evening, and sat down in his private room and read about Roger and Angelica himself.

“Here’s a good one,” said Mistletoe. “Number 39, in the Appendix to Part Fourth. Chop two pounds of leeks and – ”