



Produced by Mary Glenn Krause, amsibert, David E. Brown,
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
generously made available by The Internet Archive/American
Libraries.)









TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:


  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Superscripted characters are within brackets and are preceded by a
    carat character: W^{m.}.




  _LITTLE NOVELS BY
  FAVOURITE AUTHORS_

  [Illustration]

  The Saint of the
  Dragon’s Dale

  [Illustration]

  WILLIAM STEARNS DAVIS




[Illustration]




[Illustration: W^{m.} Stearns Davis]




  The Saint of the
  Dragon’s Dale

  _A Fantastic Tale_

  BY

  WILLIAM STEARNS DAVIS

  AUTHOR OF “A FRIEND OF CÆSAR,”
  “GOD WILLS IT,” ETC.

  “_And he wist not that his face shone._”

  EXODUS xxxiv. 29.

  New York
  THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
  LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD.
  1903

  _All rights reserved_




  COPYRIGHT, 1903,

  BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

  Set up, electrotyped, and published July, 1903.


  Norwood Press
  J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
  Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.




  TO

  LE BARON RUSSELL BRIGGS

  AN EVER KINDLY
  FRIEND AND COUNSELLOR
  TO ME
  AS TO SO MANY OTHER
  SONS OF HARVARD




CONTENTS


CHAPTER                                   PAGE

     I. JEROME OF THE DRAGON’S DALE          1

    II. WITCH MARTHA                        14

   III. MAID AGNES                          26

    IV. THE DOVE AT THE DRAGON’S DALE       38

     V. JEROME IS TEMPTED OF THE DEVIL      49

    VI. THE HERALD OF THE KAISER            61

   VII. FRITZ THE MASTERLESS                74

  VIII. GRAF LUDWIG                         87

    IX. HARUN KNOWS THE WAY                101

     X. THE EVENING LIGHT                  115




ILLUSTRATIONS


  Portrait of William Stearns Davis          _Frontispiece_

                                                FACING PAGE

  “‘Give him the maid, Franz, and all the
      fiends go with her’”                               33

  “‘Back to Witch Martha; back! Fly fast,
      as you love me’”                                   84




[Illustration]

THE SAINT OF THE DRAGON’S DALE




CHAPTER I

JEROME OF THE DRAGON’S DALE


Patter, patter,--the rain had beaten all day on the brown roofs of
Eisenach. The wind swept in raw gusts across the rippling ocean of
pines and beeches which crowded upon the little town from many a
swelling hill. Under the grey battlements the Hörsel brawled angrily.
At the Marien Gate, Andreas the warder dozed in his box, wrapping his
great cloak tighter. He had searched few incoming wagons for toll that
day. It was very cold, as often chances even in summer in tree-carpeted
Thuringia. Andreas was sinking into another day-dream, when Joram, his
shaggy dog, having opened one eye, opened the other, then started his
master with a bark.

“Hoch! hold!” cried Andreas, rubbing his eyes. “Who passes?”

“Johann of the ‘Crown and Bells.’” And the warder saw the tow-thatched
stripling of the innkeeper tugging a great basket, whilst his buff coat
dripped with rain.

“And whither away?” quoth Andreas, settling back, as Joram ceased
growling.

“The ‘Saint’ in the Dragon’s Dale needs his basket, rain or no
rain--curse him!” And Johann’s broad mouth drew into no merry smile.

Andreas crossed himself as became a pious Christian. “Do not blaspheme
the Saint. Ask his prayers rather. This is a noble time for the gnomes
and pixies to go hunting in the Marienthal for just such blithe rascals
as you. So pray hard and run harder.”

Small need of this. Gnomes and pixies had been much in Johann’s
mind since goodwife Kathe, his mother, had thrust the basket on his
reluctant arm, and haled him by an ear to the inn door. It was nigh
as bad as wandering by night, to thread the forest on a day like this.
As he quitted the gate, from east, west, south, was pressing the green
Thuringerwald,--avenue on avenue of stately beeches, lofty as church
spires, graceful as the piers of some tall cathedral. He could see
their serried, black trunks running away into distance, till his eye
wearied of wandering amid their mazes. A clearing next, fresh chips,
young weeds, a carpet of dank leaves--but the wood-cutters were gone.
Then the path opened enough to give