scenery slide backwards past him; and in a cinema
it could all be shortened up by increasing the pace or leaving out part
of the film. Here it was not like that; we seemed to be keeping pace and
going along with the knight. Presently he began to sing. He had a loud
voice and uttered his words crisply, so that I had no difficulty in
making out the song. It was about a lady who was very proud and haughty
to him and would have nothing to say to his suit, and it declared that
the only thing left for him was to lay himself down under a tree. But he
seemed quite cheerful about it, and indeed neither his complexion nor
the glance of his eye gave any sign that he was suffering the pangs of
hopeless love.

Suddenly his horse stopped short and snorted uneasily. The knight left
off singing in the middle of a verse, looked earnestly into the wood at
the back of the picture, and then out towards us, and then behind him.
He patted his horse's neck, and then, humming to himself, put on his
gauntlets, which were hanging at his saddle bow, managed somehow to
latch or bolt the fastenings of them, slipped down his visor, and took
the hilt of his sword in one hand and the sheath in the other and
loosened the blade in the sheath. He had hardly done this when the horse
shied violently and reared; and out of the thicket on the near side of
the road (I suppose) something shot up in front of him on the saddle. We
all drew in our breath.

"Don't be frightened, dear," said Mrs. Wag to the youngest girl, who had
given a sort of jump. "He's quite safe this time."

I must say it did not look like it. The beast that had leapt on to the
saddle was tearing with its claws, drawing back its head and driving it
forward again with horrid force against the visor, and was at such
close quarters that the knight could not possibly either draw or use his
sword. It was a horrible beast, too; evidently a young dragon. As it sat
on the saddle-bow, its head was just about on a level with the knight's.
It had four short legs with long toes and claws. It clung to the saddle
with the hind feet and tore with the fore feet, as I said. Its head was
rather long, and had two pointed ears and two small sharp horns.
Besides, it had bat wings, with which it buffeted the knight, but its
tail was short. I don't know whether it had been bitten or cut off in
some previous fight. It was all of a mustard-yellow colour. The knight
was for the moment having a bad time of it, for th