The princess, the knights, and the dragon

 I believe I had Felicia telling a story similar to this to fractious children at some point, so the thing had to be written

The Princess, the knights, and the dragon

 

It was a traditional sort of problem; one king, slightly used, with one daughter, fresh and dewy, no heir for the kingdom, ravaged by a dragon, in need of one noble knight to deal with the dragon and marry the dewy fresh princess and subsequently rule.

Princess Amarantha was certain that whichever suitor killed the dragon, it would probably not be one she wanted to marry. However she dutifully danced with each of the suitors who had turned up, to give them some incentive to succeed.

Prince Alaric of Gothmania was a big, floridly handsome youth with coarse skin and a loud laugh.

“Don’t worry, doll, I’ll soon deal with this big lizard and come back to swive you well. You’re a pretty piece, I might not even manage to remove all my armour save the relevant bit.”

“Do you even need to wear armour on the relevant bit?” asked Amarantha. “I’d have said it was too unimportant to bother to protect it.”

“Huh?” said Alaric.

Lord Bogdan of Bydlov Zobora was also large, bovine, and with an immobile face and big liquid brown eyes.

“I can, like, yeah, do what’s like needed,” he said. “Dragon, yeah. Kill the dragon.”

“You don’t need to be shy and tongue-tied, you know,” said Amarantha. “There has to be more going on behind your face than you show the world.”

“Wot?” said Bogdan.

Or perhaps not.

Sir Carl of Ǫlker had a red and shiny nose, and somehow Amarantha thought that there was something disappointing in the realisation that he would never go down in history.  Unless there was a record for the amount of ale any man could sink at one sitting and still manage to – approximately – stand up to dance.

“Th’ problem wi’ dragons is they are big. And scary,” said Sir Carl. “Or do I mean sig and bary?  Doesn’ matter. Gonna drink plenty, an ... an... challenge dragon to a competition s...setting light to farts. An’ I’ll wear drawers, an’ the dragon will win, but ... point is to startle it in full blow so it gets blowback.  An’ with bein’ firebreathin’ it oughta explode.”

“Ought to?”

“Haven’t I killed a dozen dragons the same way?” said Carl.  “And all of them for you three pretty ladies.”

Prince Dollin of Ben Herisson was a slender, slight, dark man with bright blue, intelligent eyes.

“Princess, I have no idea how to kill a dragon, other than boring it with someone else’s poetry,” he said. “But I have seen you once, and I have to make an attempt, or die in the process. Your slightest whim is my command, because your hair of gold outshines the sun in brilliance and splendour, your eyes put the stars to shame, your skin is as white as a lily and as soft as its petals, and I worship at your incomparable feet.”

“I have red hair and freckles,” said Amarantha.

“Oh, details,” said Prince Dollin, waving a hand. “In my mind and in my poetry, you have golden hair and skin like a lily. We can see about dyeing your hair and putting lemon juice on the freckles when we are married.”

“I hope you get eaten from your own incomparable feet up an inch at a time,” said Amarantha.

Sir Edward of Ffing got right to the point.

“Right, the best way to deal with this stupid dragon is to undertake a good naval barrage,” he said. “A mix of roundshot to soften it up with chainshot to make a mess of its wings, and then bring up a bomb ketch to drop a mortar on it to finish it off. What do you think of that?”

“I am wondering what the range of your weapons are,” said Amarantha, cautiously. “And the draught of your ship.”

“Oh, I can drop an accurate broadside at almost a mile, and we draw some twenty feet.”

“I can think of two flaws to your plan,” said Amarantha.

“Surely not, dear lady; after all, you are a nice little woman, and I’m an expert in naval tactics.”

“Yes, but the flaws are that the dragon lives three hundred miles from the nearest body of water, and the nearest river is twelve feet deep in flood season,” said Amarantha.

 

Prince Alaric leaned off his horse, smelling of sweat and metal, to embrace Amarantha.

“You keep your bed warm for me, doll, you don’t know what you’re missing,” he said.

Amarantha forced a smile.

“Try not to poison the dragon,” she said.

“Oh, I wouldn’t use so cowardly a method, I will charge it with my lance,” he said.

 

Prince Alaric’s horse, which had more brains than its rider, returned home in the evening without him.  It was unable to tell them that Alaric had thrown a temper tantrum at the dragon as it started to eat him, declaring that a prophesy at his birth had said that he would be memorable.  The prophesy was fulfilled in another land in another time when a writer called Jo renamed Alaric ‘James’.

The dragon, who was polite, sent a written note, thanking the king for the snack, and mentioning that canned food was not his favourite, especially when it did not wash its feet.

 

Lord Bogdan gave an exhibition of horsemanship, which was more impressive than his level of social intercourse.

He brought the letter from the dragon back himself, thanking the king for the after-dinner entertainment, and asking for twenty cows and a princess.

Lord Bogdan sneaked away in the night, clinking rather from the golden reward for his horse-tricks which had so entertained the dragon.

 

Sir Carl returned bemused, sober, singed [mostly around the nether regions] with a letter declaring that jesters were all very well, but the level of entertainment was dropping, and the twenty cows and princess were still not forthcoming, and by the way, he now wanted thirty cows.

 

Prince Dollin had a suit of armour which was all over spikes, with which he hoped to deter the dragon from eating him. He declaimed poetry at Amarantha before he left.

“Oh Princess of incomparable beauty

What joy it is to do my duty

And lay my life at beauty’s feet

When I defy the dragon’s heat.

To risk my all for beauty’s charms

And hope I’ll soon be in your arms!”

He performed this with actions, throwing out each arm at a time for each line and finishing with both arms crossed across his chest in dramatic fashion.

“Don’t call us, we’ll call you,” murmured Amarantha.

 

Prince Dollin did not return and nor did his horse.

The dragon sent a letter.

“Please inform your knights when embellishing armour that solder flux melts at a low temperature.  I have 72 unwanted armour spikes. Also I am still waiting for 30 cows and a princess only make it 40 cows.”

 

It took Sir Edward several days to portage his cannon overland, using magic, to bombard the dragon, which promptly retired into its cave. Sir Edward used up all his ammunition and began to retire, and future generations were to wonder why there was a thirty-six gun frigate half-way up the hill with a well-incinerated poop.

The dragon wrote to thank the king for the cows, sheep, pigs and chickens from the ship, as well as the rum, salt beef and pickled herrings.

“I have acquired a liking for fish; send more when you send the princess,” he wrote.

 

Amarantha shook her head.

Plainly there was no point sending a man to do a princess’s job. She put on the armour she had had made, and rode out, leaving a note for her father, and a request that he pay the fishmonger for the salmon.

She rode all day until she got to the dragon’s lair.

“Dragon!” she called. “I am a princess, and I have salmon for you!”

A large red-gold head poked out of the cave.

“Is that fish?” asked the dragon, smoking slightly.

“Yes, and it’s fresh, which is more than the pickled herring was,” said Amarantha.

The dragon gobbled up most of the salmon.

“Do you like your share cooked?” he asked.

“You left me a share?” said Amarantha.

“I do have manners,” said the dragon.

“I like it baked in its own juices,” said Amarantha.

The dragon went back into his cave and came back with a helmet.

“This should work,” he said. “It’s been fire-cleansed.”  He put the last salmon fillet in the helmet and breathed softly to poach it.

Amarantha also had manners and accepted the salmon with some trepidation. It was surprisingly good.

“Well that was very nice, but if the salmon was an aperitif for princess, you’ll have to fight me before you can eat me,” said Amarantha.

“Who wants to eat you?” said the dragon.

“I thought that was what you were after, a princess to eat,” said Amarantha.

“Oh, not at all. I only eat people if they really irritate me,” said the dragon.

“You ate Prince Alaric, Prince Dollin and Sir Edward,” said Amarantha.

“Prince Alaric, yes.  He really annoyed me,” said the dragon.  “Prince Dollin ran away when I disparaged his poetry. I made him cry.  And Sir Edward ... well, all right, I incinerated him.  He damaged the decor of my home.”

“I suppose you had good reasons,” said Amarantha.  “Why did you want a princess, then?”

“To break the spell on me which turned me into a dragon,” said the dragon. “I used to be King Florian of Fairmeadows.”

“But that’s my kingdom! And ... and King Florian disappeared hundreds of years ago! How is this?”

“You’ve heard of wicked stepmothers?”

“Of course; who hasn’t?”

“Well, I never had one of those, but I did have a wicked mother-in-law,” said Florian. “She was a witch and she turned me into a dragon so my wife could re-marry. Nobody told me her heart was already engaged or I wouldn’t have followed my father’s dying wish to marry the wench.  But she went along with her mother’s plan instead of asking me for her freedom.  So I’ve been stuck as a dragon until a princess was prepared to kiss me.”

A tear rolled out of his eye and dropped to the sand, boiling gently.

“Oh! How sad!” cried Amarantha, and kissed him on the nose.

In a brilliant flash, a naked, but kingly, man was there on all fours instead of a dragon. Amarantha wrapped her cloak around him and regarded him critically. He was on the right side of thirty, tanned, and with auburn hair.

“You appear to be intact and not aged to three hundred years old,” she said.

“Dragons live a long time,” said Florian. “What a beautiful girl you are!”

“If you want me to change my hair or put lemon juice on the freckles, you can get lost,” said Amarantha.

“But your freckles are charming!” said Florian. “And as my hair is a darker shade of your own hair colour, we tone most beautifully. I bet you have a fiery temper, too, what fun we shall have quarrelling and making up. You will marry me, won’t you?” he said, hopefully. “I don’t write poetry, unless you count limericks, I’m not romantic, and I’m only martial when it’s necessary.”

“You sound ideal,” said Amarantha. “But will you let my father finish his rule and retire when he sees fit?”

“Sounds a splendid idea,” said Florian. “Then we can have fun as a married couple before having the responsibilities, and with luck, we won’t have to rule long before we can retire and hand over to our first child, and go exploring instead.  It’s one think I will miss about being a dragon, being able to fly long distances and explore.”

“Oh, well, perhaps we can buy a flying carpet,” said Amarantha.

 

Florian had amassed a considerable amount of treasure as well as what was already in the cave from the dragon who had used it before; and they were able to modernise the kingdom no end with good drains and breeding programs for the farm animals. They had great fun exploring, and had three children, a prince and two princesses, who all had red hair and a propensity for breathing fire.

It was, however, considered bad manners for anyone to mention this.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paying the Piper, one of Simon's

 szczęśliwego Nowego Roku, Happy New Year, Felice Anno Nuovo,
boldog új évet

let's hope it will be a better one than last ... but that the winged hussars keep arriving which to us was the bright spot of last year.

Here's one of Simon's to kick off: a humorous one to start the year

Paying the Piper

Eric Clatterthwaite was a Druid, he had declared himself as such on his census form so it must be true. From the time he was a teenager he knew that there was something greater than the world he could see around him and that he was destined to discover it.

 

Eric was not good at science or mathematics at school so it was not a scientific discovery he was looking for. If his future discovery wasn't temporal it must therefore be spiritual. Eric went looking for the correct spiritual doctrine that would fulfil his destiny. After some investigation Eric decided that the Abrahamic religions were too stuffy, Buddhist philosophy made his head ache and he could never remember the multiplicity of Hindu gods. By a process of elimination Eric's destiny would be among one sect or other of Pagans.

 

Further investigation brought Eric to the conclusion that Wicca was too weird, as well as the disappointment that 'skyclad' rituals didn't actually mean naked, and that Satanists frankly frightened him. Despairing, Eric returned once more to his search, mostly using Wikipedia. Stumbling upon pictures of summer solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, Eric discovered Druidism. Missing the fact that the so-called 'Druids' were Victorian revivals based on little more than wishful thinking, Eric decided that as the Romans had suppressed them in the first century AD meant there was more to them than met the eye. Eric was destined to be a Druid!

 

With the aid of the internet Eric found the Druidic circle nearest to him and promptly joined. The leader of the circle could see that Eric was enthusiastic, and his willingness to pay the, somewhat expensive membership fee clinched the issue.

 

Eric was tall, fairly good looking, and whatever qualities he lacked, he was brimming over with self-belief. This gave him a fair amount of charisma, and before long some members of the circle were looking to Eric, rather than the current leader of the group for spiritual inspiration. Eric had always had vivid dreams, and using these he was able to create rather impressive rituals. This led to a profound disagreement, read screaming confrontation, with the leader of the circle. Subsequently Eric left the circle, which didn’t bother the leader, accompanied by several others, which did; particularly as they were mostly the more attractive female members of the group. This schism was not particularly noteworthy and rated no more than a couple of lines in the local pagan newsletter.

 

Eric, with the self-bestowed title of Master Oakwood, was now leader of his own circle. The new circle needed a place to conduct their rituals, as the woodland grove they had used earlier was the private property of the leader of their former group. The rather cramped garden belonging to one of Eric's devotees was not really suitable, having giggling children belonging to the neighbour on one side, and the barbeque belonging to the neighbours on the other.

 

Eric spent much of his free time on rambles through the local countryside searching for a new place of worship. Eric rather liked the countryside which was something of an advantage for a druid. One morning when confronted by a thick patch of brambles at the end of a rather overgrown path the rising sun glinted off something shiny that intrigued Eric. Wielding the secateurs that he had taken to carrying on his rambles, Eric battled his way to a small depression in some rather neglected woodland. Unknown to Eric the woodland was neglected as its ownership was the subject of a legal wrangle between a wealthy farmer, a dot-com millionaire who had bought a nearby mansion and the local district council.

 

What had caught Eric's attention was a standing stone, about three feet high and greyish-blue in colour and with a fairly smooth surface which had reflected the sunlight. Eric knew that he had found his sacred grove and was one step closer to his destiny. Eric imagined that the stone had been here since before the druids had been suppressed by the Romans and thereafter neglected. In fact the stone had originally been placed here as part of an ornamental folly long since demolished, built at the same time as the Palladian house currently owned by the dot-com millionaire. The grove had only been abandoned since the 1940s when the house was taken over by a government department and the last surviving member of the owning family had died without issue over the skies of Berlin. What neither Eric nor the original builders had realised, was that the stone was a Welsh sarson stone from the same quarry that provided the sarson stones for Stonehenge.

 

Eric and his followers surreptitiously cleared a path to the grove to make it possible to enter only with some difficulty to discourage the curious. Eric started conducting rituals here guided by his increasingly vivid dreams. Any locals who saw the group clearing vegetation assumed that the ownership of the land had been determined and the newly confirmed owner was having the undergrowth removed. The three parties involved in the litigation all had other, more pressing concerns, and left the matter in the hands of the lawyers. And as is well known, the wheels of justice grind exceeding small as well as exceeding slow.

 

The matter came to a head on the summer solstice when Eric had devised a particularly intricate ritual. When the ritual came to a climax Eric suddenly found himself somewhere … else. He could see the grove and his followers but as though through a filmy veil. The only thing that was the same in both places was the sarson stone, which now appeared to be faintly glowing. Eric saw that someone was, not approaching but becoming more solid. This person was dressed in green robes, with green tinged skin and blond-green hair and was beautiful but androgynous in aspect. Eric was overjoyed, his destiny was here, and he was about to meet it. To Eric's consternation, the figure of his destiny seemed angry.

 

The figure spoke to Eric in a language he didn't understand. If Eric had done more extensive research on the true history of the Druids, using sources other than Wikipedia, he might have recognised the words as early Celtic. The figure touched his, her or it's, Eric still wasn't sure, hand to Eric's forehead.

Simultaneously, Eric had a blinding headache and heard the newcomer speak in English.

 

"You're late!"

 

"Wh … what?", Was all the reply  Eric could muster.

 

"Where is the sacrifice? I have been waiting for two thousand of your years for the sacrifice, where is it?" Said the green clad figure. "I've watched inept fools tantalise me by offering sacrifices that I couldn't take as they didn't use the proper ritual. The others have laughed in my face! Now one of you primitives finally gets the ritual right and I turn up in anticipation only to find that they DON'T HAVE THE SACRIFICE!"

 

"Two thousand years? That … that would be ancient Romans. They suppressed the Druids and knowledge of the ritual was lost. I've rediscovered it, me Master Oakwood." Announced Eric, with all the dignity he could muster. "But I … I don't know anything about a sacrifice." He concluded, somewhat pathetically, rather ruining the effect of his previous speech.

 

"I suppose you'll have to do then." Said the newcomer, grabbing Eric's robe and pulling.

 

Eric's followers meanwhile, were mightily impressed, and not a little frightened, to see a filmy veil appear between them and Eric, or Master Oakwood as they called him.. They never saw the other figure, or heard any of the conversation between the pair. So when Eric and the veil vanished they fled with one accord.

 

The local police were rather confused by the account of Eric's disappearance, and when the most lucid of Eric's followers explained this with the phrase: " He went away, but he didn't seem to go anywhere.", the entire group were arrested on the grounds of being under the influence of … something. On investigating, the police found; no dead Eric, no live Eric, no blood, no signs of a struggle, although many signs of panicked departure and nothing suspicious of any kind. The blood test results having found no traces of prohibited substances the group were released. A missing person report was filed, but Eric being over 21, not suffering from any physical illness, nor any at least officially diagnosed mental illness and no sign of foul play, the report was marked; no further action.

 

Eric Clatterthwaite reappeared, seven years later to the day. He was not a day older and still wore the same robes. Eric caused a great deal of consternation by his appearance right in the middle of a solstice party hosted by the dot-com millionaire who had won his case and thought the stone looked good as picturesque backdrop. As Eric stumbled into a catering table bringing a large quantity of very expensive food and drink crashing to the ground, the millionaire had him arrested for criminal damage and being poor at a rich persons party.

 

When the police arrived to collect him, Eric, clearly in shock, could at the time only repeat, over and over, "They didn't even want me as a sacrifice."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

the ghost of Marty Cubitt

 what better for New Year's eve than a good ghost story; I set this one in my own neck of the woods on the Blythe Estuary which you may drive past on the A12 and visit the notorious smugglers' pub and see the great church on the hill. Cubitt is a south Suffolk name rather than north, but Marty insisted he was Marty Cubitt, and I wasn't going to argue. Noyes is found between Blytheborough and Beccles and Michael Lamming is an incomer from Ipswich.

The Ghost of Marty Cubitt

 

Everyone knew the cottage was haunted. The cottage had been haunted for a long time ... well, ever since it had been used by smugglers, anyway.  It was spoken of in a matter-of-fact way since Michael Lamming had arrived, a year ago, in 1812.

Old Gaffer Noyes had tales by the dozen.

“And o’ course, there’s the ghost o’ Marty Cubitt,” he said, lowering his voice as the preventative officer came into the White Hart at Blytheborough.  “An informant he was, traitor to his own brother, they say, laying information. O’ course I don’t tell you what to think, thass beyond me, bor, t’maerke judgement, but they do say that onct Marty had laid information agin pore ow’ Matty Cubitt, wass his own twin, then them ow ghosteses hounded him to death, and Marty Cubitt walks, wringin’ his pore dead hands account o’ wass he’s done, doin’ his own brother to death like that.”

“Matthew Cubitt was never caught,” said Michael Lamming, the preventative. “Saying he was done to death is a lie, and it wasn’t ghosts who tied an anchor onto Martin Cubitt and left him at low tide mark in the estuary.”

“Ar, bor, yew du be a furriner from Ibsidge way,” said Gaffer Noyes, comfortably. “Caarn’t expect yew tu appreciate our stories. But yew’d do well to heed the warnin’s.”

“It’s notable that Matty Cubitt walks on the nights when it’s rumoured a consignment has been ‘run’,” said Michael.

“Ar! O’course he du, tryin’ for ter reach his brother, and beg his forgiveness,” said Noyes. “But then, pore Matty, he come to a bad end for his smugglin’, as a good preventative might expect, and wuz drug to Hell by Black Shuck. But pore Marty, he’s still a-tryin’ tu find Matty.”

“If only,” said Michael.

Much of the ‘trade’ was landed at high tide, directly into the cellars of the White Hart, whence it promptly disappeared up the hidden passageway to be stored, if rumour was correct, in the crypt of the great church on the hill. And let one good hint of a passage be found, and the church might be searched, but for now, the church was inviolate.

When goods came in on a half-tide, they went to the Cubitt cottage, a mile downstream, and had to then be brought overland.

“Yew wouldn’t wish the devil-dog to taerke no-one, would ye, squire?” asked Samuel Balls, suspected of being Matty Cubitt’s right hand man.

“I’ve as much faith in a devil-dog as I do in ghosts,” said Michael.  There were, to be sure, three burned scores on the church door, like the scratches of great, incandescent nails; and local myth said that the devil-hound of East Anglia had once invaded the service. But Michael was an educated young man, who had no belief in the supernatural. What he did have belief in was the love of Frances, or Fancy, Plumstead, daughter of a former rector of Holy Trinity.  The unfortunate rector had  died at the young age of fifty-four, supposedly of a heart-attack, after refusing to let the smugglers use the church. Michael had been the one to find him in the church, had sought for any signs of life, and had needed to be the one to take the disagreeable news to Fancy, a dark-haired maiden with blue eyes who looked fragile but who was stronger than she looked.

Fancy lived in a cottage at the back of the church, well above the marsh, which she had bought with what her father had left her. She taught basic literacy as a living, and read and wrote letters for the illiterate. Michael hated seeing her careworn, and did such chores around the house as would not give anyone cause to gossip.  There would soon be ill-natured gossip about an incomer who was unwelcome; and Fancy was unfortunate enough to have attracted the attention of Matty Cubitt before his disappearance.

Fancy did not believe in ghosts either, and was a more stalwart companion than the dozen preventatives Michael had at his disposal.

“If anyone is clever enough to catch them at it, it is you, Lieutenant Lamming,” said Fancy.

“I may hope so, Miss Plumstead,” said Michael. She had permitted him to hold her hand, seeing her home from church, for some weeks. “And if I do ... would you do me the honour of being my wife? I scarce like to ask it of you, on the pay of a humble preventative officer ...”

“I’m a good manager,” said Fancy. “Thank you; I would be honoured to accept.”

Daringly, Michael kissed her, and was kissed back. It had to be quick before one of the locals set sheep or goose on them for a laugh. Preventatives were not popular; the poverty of the locals was such that they saw ‘bottle fishing’ merely as sport, and some profit on the side, failing to recognise how dangerous the spies who often came in with the ‘run’ cargo.

However, much as he enjoyed dalliance with Fancy, Michael had his job to do, and a thankless task it was, hoping to catch smugglers at it. Fancy did her bit, overhearing such gossip as she might get to pass along.

 

“Word is they are at the  Cubitt cottage,” said Fancy, to Michael one evening, when he climbed the hill to see her.  “And if you ask me, it’s an exercise in trying to scare you, but perhaps you can arrest Matty.”

“I would ask you to come, for you’re a better man than any of my cowards, but of course it would be indefensible of me ...”

“I’ll come.  I will feel safer with you than worrying if it is a diversion of Matty’s to get you out of the way so he can sneak into my cottage,” said Fancy, tucking her hand into his. They went back down the hill, and Michael called out his men, a dozen villainous looking men who had taken service as preventatives more to avoid being press-ganged into the Navy than for any love of law and order. Michael had given up getting them to march or parade, so long as they took care of their muskets and practised their musketry.

 

They walked across the bleak salt marsh, Michael familiar with every bad place and inlet. The Cubitt cottage sat out on a partly constructed island, with a causeway of alderwood running out to it. There were some ghastly moans.

“Silver-paper folded over a bone comb,” said Michael. “I’ve done it myself, at school. Silver-paper being such fine paper as it is.”

A white, spectral figure rose in front of them. It did bear a resemblance to Marty Cubitt.  Which meant that it also bore a resemblance to Matty Cubitt.

“Halt; you’re under arrest!” cried Michael.

Half the men with him had fled.

The rest joined them as a hound, wreathed in blue flames, burst out of the bushes.

Michael stripped off his boat-cloak as the ghastly apparition streaked, baying, towards him; Fancy gave a little cry, but Michael threw the cloak over the dog, and tackled it to the ground.

“Poor old fellow ... there, old boy ... soon have you safe,” he was murmuring.

“Michael?” said Fancy.

“Never poured brandy on a Christmas pudding and seen it burn without burning?” said Michael.  “Poor old boy might be burned but we can treat his burns, and it shouldn’t be too bad. Those bastards, torturing a dog!”

The dog whimpered and licked his hand when he unwrapped his cloak. It had smothered the flames, but the dog still stank of best brandy.  

“It’s Marty’s dog,” said Fancy.

The spectral Marty appeared again,  and a mist crept in from the estuary.  The dog started barking again, and wagging its tail; and in the mist, a second spectral Marty appeared, with a burning black dog beside him. He looked at the dog which Michael still petted, and pointed a finger at the first spectre.

“Marty! No! No!” shrieked the first ghost, pulling off the fine muslin which had blurred the outlines of Matty Cubitt. “For the love of God ...”

“I fancy, more for the love of dog on Marty’s part,” muttered Michael, shocked.

The mist-figure seemed to pass through the screaming Matty, who fell down, and was still. The burning dog ran into the bushes, and a host of men with weapons ran out, screaming. The dog hounded them until suddenly the marsh edge gave way where most of them had run. The water surged up like white horses, plunging  down on them, and the dog ... vanished.

Michael made his way over to Matty.

On that chill, but not cold night, Matty had frozen to death and icicles hung on his tear-streaked face.

 

The other smugglers were not to be seen. There was no creek where Michael had seen the others engulfed.

“Sometimes, Black Shuck is said to aid lovers,” said Fancy. “And you have been kind to Captain here.”

 

Michael nursed Captain back to health. Then he married Fancy. The dog carried roses for the ceremony, in a basket; and he stopped and bowed his head at the three score-marks on the church door before trotting up the aisle with the happy couple.

 

The smugglers never were seen again in that district, or any other of a temperate clime.