"I am a dead boy now," he said to himself. He
had not the faintest conception what his mother was driving at, and
thought she suspected about the watch; but he held his ground.
I do not believe he was much more of a coward than his neighbours, only
he did not know that all sensible people are cowards when they are off
their beat, or when they think they are going to be roughly handled. I
believe, that if the truth were known, it would be found that even the
valiant St Michael himself tried hard to shirk his famous combat with the
dragon; he pretended not to see all sorts of misconduct on the dragon's
part; shut his eyes to the eating up of I do not know how many hundreds
of men, women and children whom he had promised to protect; allowed
himself to be publicly insulted a dozen times over without resenting it;
and in the end when even an angel could stand it no longer he
shilly-shallied and temporised an unconscionable time before he would fix
the day and hour for the encounter. As for the actual combat it was much
such another _wurra-wurra_ as Mrs Allaby had had with the young man who
had in the end married her eldest daughter, till after a time behold,
there was the dragon lying dead, while he was himself alive and not very
seriously hurt after all.
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