"Oh, I am betrayed!" Hubert sang out. Then he added, "But there is a
plenty where that came from." And with that he reached for his gown,
and, fetching out a bunch of great brass keys, proceeded towards a
tall door in the wall, and turned the lock. The door swung open, and
Hubert plunged into the dark recess thus disclosed. An exclamation of
chagrin followed, and the empty hide of a huge crocodile, with a pair
of trailing wings to it, came bumping out from the closet into the
hall, giving out many hollow cracks as it floundered along, fresh from
a vigourous kick that the intemperate minstrel had administered in his
rage at having put his hand into the open jaws of the monster instead
of upon the neck of the demijohn that contained the Malvoisie.

"Beshrew thee, Hubert!" said the voice of a new-comer, who stood
eyeing the proceedings from a distance, near where he had entered;
"treat the carcase of our patron saint with a more befitting
reverence, or I'll have thee caged and put upon bread and water.
Remember, that whosoever kicks that skin in some sort kicks me."

"Long life to the Dragon of Wantley!" said Hubert, reappearing, very
dusty, but clasping a plump demijohn.

"Hubert, my lad," said the new-comer, "put back that vessel of
inebriation; and, because I like thee well for thy youth and thy sweet
voice, do not therefore presume too far with me."

A somewhat uneasy pause followed upon this; and while Hubert edged
back into the closet with his demijohn, Father Anselm frowned slightly
as his eyes turned upon the scene of late hilarity.

But where is the Dragon in his den? you ask. Are we not coming to him
soon? Ah, but we have come to him. You shall hear the truth. Never
believe that sham story about More of More Hall, and how he slew the
Dragon of Wantley. It is a gross fabrication of some unscrupulous and
mediocre literary person, who, I make no doubt, was in the pay of More
to blow his trumpet so loud that a credulous posterity might hear it.
My account of the Dragon is the only true one.

[Illustration]

CHAPTER IV

Tells all about him

[Illustration]

In those days of shifting fortunes, of turbulence and rapine, of
knights-errant and minstrels seeking for adventure and love, and of
solitary pilgrims and bodies of pious men wandering over Europe to
proclaim that the duty of all was to arise and quell the pagan
defilers of the Holy Shrine