The dragon, indeed, did at length take upon him to be spokesman, and
growled from the depth of his painted maw, that they did but sweep
Popery out of the church with the besom of destruction.
"What! my friends," replied Sir Halbert Glendinning, "think you this
mumming and masking has not more of Popery in it than have these stone
walls? Take the leprosy out of your flesh, before you speak of
purifying stone walls--abate your insolent license, which leads but to
idle vanity and sinful excess; and know, that what you now practise,
is one of the profane and unseemly sports introduced by the priests of
Rome themselves, to mislead and to brutify the souls which fell into
their net."
"Marry come up--are you there with your bears?" muttered the dragon,
with a draconic sullenness, which was in good keeping with his
character, "we had as good have been Romans still, if we are to have
no freedom in our pastimes!"
"Dost thou reply to me so?" said Halbert Glendinning; "or is there any
pastime in grovelling on the ground there like a gigantic
kail-worm?--Get out of thy painted case, or, by my knighthood, I will
treat you like the beast and reptile you have made yourself."
"Beast and reptile?" retorted the offended dragon, "setting aside your
knighthood, I hold myself as well a born man as thyself."
The Knight made no answer in words, but bestowed two such blows with
the butt of his lance on the petulant dragon, that had not the hoops
which constituted the ribs of the machine been pretty strong, they
would hardly have saved those of the actor from being broken.
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