ow are all the people long awake and out of their beds. Wantley Manor is stirring busily in each quarter of the house and court, and the whole county likewise is agog. By seven o’clock this morning it was noised in every thatched cottage and in every gabled hall that the great Dragon had been captured. Some said by Saint George in person, who appeared riding upon a miraculous white horse and speaking a tongue that nobody could understand, wherefore it was held to be the language common in Paradise. Some declared Saint George had nothing to do with it, and that this was the pious achievement of Father Anselm. Others were sure Miss Elaine had fulfilled the legend and conquered the monster entirely by herself. One or two, hearing the event had taken place in Sir Godfrey’s wine-cellar, said they thought the Baron had done it,—and were immediately set down as persons of unsound mind. But nobody mentioned Geoffrey at all, until the Baron’s invitations, requesting the honour of various people’s presence at the marriage of his daughter Elaine to that young man, were received; and that was about ten o’clock, the ceremony being named for twelve that day in the family chapel. Sir Godfrey intended the burning of the Dragon to take place not one minute later than half-past eleven. Accordingly, besides the invitation to the chapel, all friends and neighbours whose position in the county or whose intimacy with the family entitled them to a recognition less formal and more personal, received a second card which ran as follows: “Sir Godfrey Disseisin at home Wednesday morning, December the twenty-fifth, from half after eleven until the following day. Dancing; also a Dragon will be roasted. R. S. V. P.” The Disseisin crest with its spirited motto, “Saute qui peult,” originated by the venerable Primer Disseisin, followed by his son Tortious Disseisin, and borne with so much renown in and out of a hundred battles by a thousand subsequent Disseisins, ornamented the top left-hand corner.
“I think we shall have but few refusals,” said the Rev. Hucbald to Sir Godfrey. “Not many will be prevented by previous engagements, I opine.” And the Chaplain smiled benignly, rubbing his hands. He had published the banns of matrimony three times in a lump before breakfast. “Which is rather unusual,” he said; “but under the circumstances we shall easily obtain a dispensation.”
“In providing such an entertainment for the county as this will be,” remarked the Baron, “I feel I have performed my duty towards society for some time to come. No one has had a dragon at a private house before me, I believe.”
“Oh, surely not,” simpered the sleek Hucbald. “Not even Lady Jumping Jack.”
“Fiddle!” grunted the Baron. “She indeed! Fandangoes!”
“She’s very pious,” protested the Rev. Hucbald, whom the lady sometimes asked to fish lunches in Lent.
“Fandangoes!” repeated the Baron. He had once known her exceedingly well, but she pursued variety at all expense, even his. As for refusals, the Chaplain was quite right. There were none. Nobody had a previous engagement—or kept it, if they had.
“Good gracious, Rupert!” (or Cecil, or Chandos, as it might be,) each dame in the county had exclaimed to her lord on opening the envelope brought by private hand from Wantley, “we’re asked to the Disseisins to see a dragon,—and his daughter married.”
“By heaven, Muriel, we’ll go!” the gentleman invariably replied, under the impression that Elaine was to marry the Dragon, which would be a show worth seeing. The answers came flying back to Wantley every minute or two, most of them written in such haste that you could only guess they were acceptances. And those individuals who lived so far away across the county that the invitations reached them too late to be answered, immediately rang every bell in the house and ordered the carriage in frantic tones.