ty shall ring three times more than usual. Once for the holy
Feast, and may the Lord bless it always! and once for my girl's
wedding. And once for the death and destruction of the Dragon of
Wantley."

"Hurrah!" said the united household.

"We'll have a nuptials that shall be the talk of our grandchildren's
children, and after them. We'll have all the people to see. And we'll
build the biggest pile of fagots that can be cut from my timber, and
the Dragon shall be chained on the top of it, and we'll cremate him
like an Ancient,--only alive! We'll cremate the monster alive!"

Elaine jumped. Geoffrey jumped. The chain round the Dragon loudly
clanked.

"Why--do you not find this a pleasant plan?" asked the Baron,
surprised.

"It seems to me, sir," stuttered Geoffrey, beating his brains for
every next word, "it seems to me a monstrous pity to destroy this
Dragon so. He is a rare curiosity."

"Did you expect me to clap him in a box-stall and feed him?" inquired
the Baron with scorn.

"Why, no, sir. But since it is I who have tracked, stalked, and taken
him with the help of no other huntsman," said Geoffrey, "I make bold
to think the laws of sport vest the title to him in me."

"No such thing," said Sir Godfrey. "You have captured him in my
cellar. I know a little law, I hope."

"The law about wild beasts in Poictiers----" Geoffrey began.

"What care I for your knavish and perverted foreign legalities over
the sea?" snorted Sir Godfrey. "This is England. And our Common Law
says you have trespassed."

"My dear sir," said Geoffrey, "this wild beast came into your premises
after I had marked him."

"Don't dear sir me!" shouted the Baron. "Will you hear the law for
what I say? I tell you this Dragon's my dragon. Don't I remember how
trespass was brought against Ralph de Coventry, over in Warwickshire?
Who did no more than you have done. And they held him. And there it
was but a little pheasant his hawk had chased into another's
warren--and you've chased a dragon, so the offence is greater."

"But if--" remonstrated the youth, "if a fox----"

"Fox me no foxes! Here is the case of Ralph de Coventry," replied Sir
Godfrey, looking learned, and seating himself on a barrel of beer.
"Ralph pleaded before the Judge saying, 'et nous lessamus nostre
faucon voler a luy, et il le pursuy en le garrein,'--'tis just your
position, only 'twas you that pursued and not your falcon, which does
not in the least distinguish the cases