"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.

[Illustration: The Baron pursueth Whelpdale into the Buttery]

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.

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

CHAPTER II

How his Daughter, Miss Elaine, behaued in Consequence

[Illustration: ELAINE MISTLETOE]

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 his