*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79092 ***




                          THE LAVENDER DRAGON




                             THE LAVENDER
                                DRAGON

                                  BY
                            EDEN PHILLPOTTS

                               AUTHOR OF
         “EVANDER,” “PAN AND THE TWINS,” “PIXIES’ PLOT,” ETC.

                            [Illustration]

                                LONDON
                          GRANT RICHARDS LTD.
                          ST. MARTIN’S STREET
                                 1923




     Printed in Great Britain at _The Mayflower Press, Plymouth_.
                      William Brendon & Son, Ltd.




                                  TO
                           ADAM GOWANS WHYTE
                             IN FRIENDSHIP




CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                    PAGE

     I. PONGLEY-IN-THE-MARSH                    1

    II. THE APPOINTMENT FOR RAINBARROW         21

   III. VIGIL                                  39

    IV. THE DRAGON KEEPS HIS WORD              46

     V. THE DRAGON EXPLAINS                    54

    VI. THE DRAGON GOES ON EXPLAINING          81

   VII. GREAT NEWS FOR GEORGE PIPKIN          105

  VIII. THREE SONGS AND A STORY               124

    IX. ANOTHER DRAGON GIVES A LOUDER ROAR    150

     X. FROM JOY TO WOE                       162

    XI. THE PASSING                           178

   XII. BUTTERFLIES                           194




I

_PONGLEY-IN-THE-MARSH_


Nigh about the middle of the Dark Ages, when ignorance, greed and
superstition largely ruled the world, pretty much in fact as do
these forces at present, a knight and his squire proceeded to their
destination under the setting sun. Sir Jasper de Pomeroy, descendant
of that distinguished man who assisted William the Conqueror, and
received for his service fair hundreds in the County of Devon, was a
youth who favoured his English mother and betrayed little of the Norman
in his appearance or composition. He conformed to a style formerly
regarded as noble and now considered somewhat fatuous. His architecture
befitted the times and was Gothic, supple and exquisite. The knight’s
hair flashed golden in the evening sunshine; his eyes were large,
prominent and very blue; his complexion, though warmed to ruddiness by
outdoor life, had naturally been pink and white. He wore a heavy amber
moustache, which often caught in the mouthpiece of his helmet and gave
him a painful tweak. His nose had a lofty bridge and his brow was high
but wanted breadth. The purest ideals, combined with a profound lack of
humour, characterised Sir Jasper’s quality. He resembled an admirable
mother; and his father, a man of average ability and more than average
selfishness, had bluntly told the young fellow that he possessed a
heart of gold and a brain of clay. Weighing the criticism without
resentment, Sir Jasper, determined on his career, took all the proper
vows, and dedicated himself to the service of knight errantry.

He now approached the conclusion of his first circuit, and, up to the
present, nothing of any note had challenged his knightly courage, or
offered an obstacle to his uneventful progress. His squire, George
Pipkin, was a plain dealer of large experience. He had filled similar
appointments on former occasions, seen life and felt it, for he
chanced to be unhappily married. A grizzled, lean Yorkshireman of fifty
was George, and since Sir Jasper enjoyed great wealth and entertained
the highest opinion of his supporter, the squire felt well satisfied
of his present employ. The better was he pleased, because their
expedition, now drawing to its close, had encountered no hardships and
proceeded with reasonable comfort, smiled upon by good weather, devoid
of any adventure whatsoever.

Sir Jasper rode a magnificent stallion with large chestnut markings
on a white ground. In the Middle Ages a circus was not known, and
therefore your pie-bald horse awakened no anticipation of merriment.
Nor, in any case, had the knight been a man to find amusement in the
colour of his steed. As for George Pipkin, he bestrode an elderly roan,
as tough and wiry and experienced as himself.

The elder was talking as they traversed rough tracks of moorland, which
ceased suddenly at an edge of limestone crags. Beneath these boundaries
there subtended fertile plains, ran a river, and stood an attractive
hamlet with gabled roof-trees and white-washed walls.

“What makes life picturesque,” declared the squire, “are the people who
prefer their own experience to that of others--such men as yourself,
Sir Jasper. But those who trust tradition and the accumulated wisdom of
the race, go farther, are generally more satisfactory and invariably
more prosperous members of society. They are safe and therefore rather
dull to watch; while the adventurer, who casts loose for good or
ill, is nearly always entertaining. Not that his experiences will be
novel, or probably outside our own; but the freshness and charm of the
spectacle he presents lie in the fact that familiar, old things are
happening to a new spirit, unarmed against them with the trite weapons
of precaution. Such a young man’s retort to the primitive tests of
love, danger, temptation and so forth cannot be foretold. Hence every
one of his adventures has the charm of novelty.”

“Do not imagine, George, that I flout tradition,” answered the younger.
“My grandfather was a famous knight without fear or reproach. Indeed,
my father devotes such leisure as he allows himself from the business
of money-making and enjoyment of luxury, to writing a full and punctual
account of Sir Hugo de Pomeroy’s attractive career.”

“Yes, he does; and that is the difference between you and your parent,”
answered Pipkin. “He sees no charm in a suit of steel and the life that
you have adopted. He feels it far more convenient to write of another’s
devotion to high causes than seek high causes himself; while you, on
the contrary, would emulate your famous ancestor.”

Sir Jasper sighed.

“Would that I might,” he replied. “The world has changed since his
romantic day. The times are tame, George. The giants are dead and
the dragons have fled; not a robber baron to chastise; not a village
to rescue out of tyranny; not a maiden in need of succour from her
oppressors.”

“We never know our greatest blessings,” replied Pipkin. “Many a knight
has rued the day when he rescued a fair damsel. I need not repeat
the story of a former master, Hildebrand of the Iron Forehead. You
recollect particulars of his married life. When he passed to glory,
under the scimitars of a thousand Saracens, there was a smile of pure
happiness on his forbidding features. As for my own career, had I not
wedded his lady’s serving maid, I should be a home-staying man at this
moment.”

“Be sure that your wife will welcome you with awakened affection when
you see her again, next September,” said Sir Jasper kindly; but George
Pipkin shook his head.

“For the most part,” he answered,“marriage is like following the ocean.
What married man, or mariner, would not change his state if he could
do so? But they plunge into wedlock, or go down to the sea in ships,
as the case may be, and only regret it once, and that is for ever
afterwards.”

They had now reached the declivities, and Sir Jasper smiled at the
scene of rural peace and beauty extended in the valley beneath them.
George drew a roll of paper from his wallet and consulted a rough map,
made by the innkeeper with whom they had lodged on the previous night.

“This will be Pongley-in-the-Marsh,” he said. “A populous hamlet
apparently and good, no doubt, for comfortable quarters.”

“A place without a care as far as one may judge,” declared Sir Jasper,
surveying the smiling thorpe. “Still we will proceed, as ever, with
enthusiasm to inspire and hope to guide.”

The sun flamed upon his splendid figure and flashed along his armour
and crested helm, so that it seemed a shooting-star descended the
bridle-path into the valley. Indeed, an object so conspicuous
could not be missed even by peasant eyes, and when, half an hour
later, the knight and his companion approached the outskirts of
Pongley-in-the-Marsh, he perceived some concourse of the folk.

George Pipkin frowned, for his experienced eyes feared a deputation,
and a deputation usually meant labour at no distant date.

Some fifty people, of rustic and humble pattern, approached Sir Jasper,
and at the head of the company marched a majestic, old man who bore a
staff of office. He wore homespun garments, but was decorated with a
chain round his neck and a badge upon his breast. His long, white hair
curled about his stooping shoulders, and he appeared a little nervous,
for his mouth worked tremulously.

“Welcome to Pongley-in-the-Marsh, most noble knight,” he said. “We are
your servants, Sire, one and all, and beg that you will accept such
simple but ample hospitality as we can offer, and such comfort as we
know. The best we have is yours to command.”

Sir Jasper felt gratified, for the country folk were not wont to
receive him thus, and George Pipkin stepped forward to rehearse in a
loud voice his master’s style and title.

“Sir Jasper de Pomeroy,” he concluded, “rides the world to right all
wrong, redress all grievance and place his sword and his lance at the
service of the humblest sufferer, be he noble or simple. Therefore, if
there are any among you who smart undeservedly, or endure evil within
the power of a doughty knight to defeat, let him speak, that Sir Jasper
of the Silver Lance may judge whether his cause be such as to claim
right, as well as might, and unchain his unconquerable puissance upon
the side of God and man.”

The ancient Portreeve of Pongley bowed to the earth, and the company
behind him did the like. A rabblement of urchins were driven back, and
a mongrel dog, who dared to sniff at the heels of Sir Jasper’s pie-bald
steed, received a kick and howled unmelodiously. When silence had been
restored, the old man spoke.

“Never have we heard a more gracious message, or welcomed a rarer
knight,” he declared. “My name, Sir Jasper de Pomeroy, is Jacob Pratt,
and I am master here by accordant vote of my friends and neighbours.
You come to us at a moment when trouble and concern are heavy in
the land, and when, despite the promise of good harvest and other
propitious signs, we are cast into deep tribulation. For years we have
suffered from a melancholy scourge, and but a week ago, after periods
of peace, the evil broke forth again and our inveterate enemy has
struck in the tenderest quarter and robbed us of the fairest maiden
who ever brightened Pongley-in-the-Marsh with her radiant presence. In
a word, Sir Knight, there is a dragon of formidable proportions and
utmost malevolence, who abides in an impenetrable lair but a league and
a half from this unhappy hamlet. From time to time he breaks upon us in
our most secure hours and snatches from our midst now one citizen and
now another. Not only men, but women and orphan children he devours;
and such is his incredible cunning, that though our trained bands have
often marched against him, he evades their sallies and is never faced
save by unarmed and helpless persons. He flies through the air on
immense pinions, but at a height invariably beyond bow-shot; nor would
any cloth-yard shaft pierce the monster--of that be sure. Only once
within my memory has an errant knight ever before visited Pongley; but
nothing came of it; and we pray on our bended knees that you may have
a stouter courage and better appetite to rid us of this cruel tyrant
than had he.”

Sir Jasper’s eyes sparkled as he turned to Pipkin.

“My vade-mecum, George,” he said, and on receiving a little,
well-thumbed volume, he turned to the index and looked up “Dragons.”

“These misbegotten monsters are few,” he told them. “I find here not
above six or seven right, authentic dragons left in the land of the
living, and of these four flourish abroad--two in Italy, one in France,
and one in the Holy Land. We still appear to have ‘a great Worm’ in the
Peak and--yes, ‘The Lavender Dragon’ of Yorkshire!”

“The Lavender Dragon! The Lavender Dragon!” cried the inhabitants of
Pongley in melancholy chorus.

“He is our accursed foe, Sir Jasper,” explained Jacob Pratt. “He dwells
some ten miles distant, amidst the impenetrable Woods of Blore, and
from Caytor Fell good eyes may see a huge wall that circles his domain
and strange, barbaric buildings of enormous size erected therein. For
the monster is no cave-dweller, or laidly wretch, who lives beneath
the earth. To such a measure of understanding has he attained, that
he dares to assume human manners, lives in a castle and hides his
iniquities behind cyclopean masonry. In fact, he is a dragon with a
brain--the most perilous combination of mind and matter it is possible
to imagine. For his intelligence only lends power to his ferocity,
and though he may dwell in a castle and ape his betters, he does
not scruple to destroy the sons and daughters of mankind and behave
otherwise after the horrible custom of his own species.”

“My perambulation draws to a close,” replied Sir Jasper, “and it is a
source of the keenest satisfaction to me that Providence has seen fit
to guide my charger’s steps to this secluded spot. We will sup with
you, Jacob Pratt, and accept the best that your means afford; and at
the dawn of another day, having heard particulars, we will set forth
into the marches of the Lavender Dragon and draw not rein until either
he, or ourselves, have returned to the merciful Father of us all.”

Upon which welcome assurance, Sir Jasper and his squire proceeded among
a joyful gathering into the village. After supper and before he retired
for the night, the fearless lad sat by a fire of peat and listened to
his host’s discourse, while George, in an adjoining chamber, overhauled
the hero’s armour, his sword and his famous Silver Lance, all grown a
little rusty from long dis-use.

The Portreeve perceived that he had to do with a brave and stalwart
hero; but he threw no shadow on the immense difficulties of the
enterprise.

“A high soul and a trusty spear are only the first essentials,” he
ventured to say. “Craft must be met with craft, your honour, and
cunning with cunning. He is a dragon of great age and vast experience.
It is vain to suppose that no knight until now has tackled the ruffian;
and as he still flourishes like the green bay tree, we are to fear that
he has triumphed on previous occasions, when justice demanded another
issue to the conflict. Too well we know, in this hard world, that might
is often allowed to conquer right--doubtless for heavenly purposes by
us not understood.”

Sir Jasper nodded.

“It is idle to blink facts,” he confessed. “One hears of our knightly
triumphs, but the troubadours seldom sing those unhappy failures which
tact conceals, though knowledge cannot deny. The dragon you say lies
hidden upon the path of solitary individuals and spirits them away?”

“We have reason to believe that he devours them in situ,” answered
Jacob Pratt. “So far as we can judge, the monster consumes them as we
eat a radish, for not a fragment of mortality, not a garment, not a
cap, not a tag, or shoestring, ever remains to tell the tale. Dusk is
his happy hunting hour, and such as wander in the gloaming of dawn or
night take their lives into their hands. Sometimes a scream is heard
and the hurtle of his infernal wings and the scent of lavender, which
always accompanies his progress by land and air. Then that lonely
soul is gone for ever. He has a strange art to choose the widow, or
the widower, and such as lack for friends or substance. As I have
told you, an orphan possesses a horrible fascination for him, and
children he cannot resist even in the noon of day. For many years he
was but an evil legend; but of late his activities increase. Within my
experience, as Portreeve of Pongley, he has snapped Thomas Fagg, the
woodman; Nicol Prance, the thatcher; old John Cobbley, a swine-herd;
and Hugh Hobanob, the baker’s man. Of females we have lost Avisa Snell
and her child--devoured together; Mary Fern, a good girl, who lost her
man in the wars; Betsy Snow, a widow; Jenifer Mardle, another widow;
and, only last week, Lilian Lovenot, the belle of the village and the
noblest, worthiest, loveliest maiden that ever gladdened the eyes of
her fellow creatures. Her parents are both dead, or I should say her
foster parents, for there is a mystery attaching to her birth, and we
have never believed that such a homely pair as Peter and Nancy Lovenot
could have begotten so distinguished a child as Lilian. But now she,
too, has been snatched away, and as for the children, both boys and
girls that he has laid his claws upon, their numbers can hardly be
remembered. Thus our cup of grief is full, and you will guess with what
gratitude we learn that you will destroy this abomination, or perish in
the attempt.”

Sir Jasper pulled his great moustache, drank another stoup of metheglin
and looked thoughtfully at the fire.

“What manner of knight was he of whom you spoke when first we met?” he
inquired.

“One Sir Rollo Malherbe,” replied the Portreeve; “but----”

“Enough,” said George Pipkin, who had joined them for a drink; “if
that gallant gentleman indeed learned that a formidable dragon was
wasting your quarters, it is certain that he put no great tax upon the
hospitality of Pongley-in-the-Marsh.”

“He stayed but four and twenty hours,” admitted Jacob Pratt. “On the
morrow of his arrival he set forth, conducted by our valiant young
men, and beheld the Lavender Dragon roaming at will along the Valley of
Red Rocks, a favourite haunt nigh the Woods of Blore. One glance, at a
distance of half a mile, proved enough for Sir Rollo. He remembered him
of a fire-drake which he had undertaken to slay somewhere in the South
Riding, many leagues distant, and, saying that he must keep faith, but
would return at an early date, spurred his charger and was never seen
again.”

“Your fire-drake, or hippogriff, is found but six to ten feet long,”
mused Sir Jasper, “whereas your right dragon may number six hundred
feet--or more.”

“Our enemy is computed to be perhaps five and thirty rods from beak
to tail,” said the Portreeve’s right-hand man--a little, plump fellow
with a cane-coloured beard and fat, pock-marked cheeks. “He is of a
coerulean blue colour, having a rich rosy sheen in direct sunlight; and
when he spreads his pinions they are as a flower-garden for beauty,
being all shades of emerald and azure, purple and gold. In truth a
lovelier beast God never made; yet within this fair and glittering
carcase there hides the heart of a crocodile and the brain of a demon.”

“It would seem that I have my work cut out for me,” said Sir Jasper
grimly.

“Fear nothing, noble knight. All Pongley will be upon its knees at the
first moment of onset.”

From the adjacent chamber came the hum of a hone, where George was
putting an edge to his master’s battle-axe.

He rejoined them presently, and mentioned one or two occasions whereon
he had witnessed successful strife with dragons now defunct. But he was
not in a sanguine mood and presently suggested that Sir Jasper should
retire.

“What would you wish for breakfast?” inquired the Portreeve.

“Red meat, wheaten bread and honey,” replied Pipkin, “and plenty of
mead. If we can engage the pest before noon, so much the better; if
not, then we must eat again before doing so. Ere the sun goes west,
a dragon, being largely nocturnal, is somnolent; but, as the day
advances, he attains to his full energy, and he is at his worst and
deadliest about the hour of dusk.”

“Take this for your comfort,” said Pratt’s right-hand man. “He is
undoubtedly a very old reptile, and though far from infirm--be under no
false hope as to that--cannot fairly be called a dragon in his prime.
Youth will be served, as we all know.”

Thereupon both heroes retired and, despite the tremendous ordeal now
before him, Sir Jasper, having said his orisons and committed himself
and his fortunes to the Creator, prepared to sleep as soundly as usual.

“Though few knights but hold a lady in their hearts, to clear their
eyes and strengthen their sword-arms, yet for my part, I still believe
it better to do one’s work without such glorious and distracting
obligations,” he reflected. “Some day, no doubt, I shall love and seek
to prolong our line, now depending upon me for its continuation; but
plenty of time, plenty of time; and if, meanwhile, destiny wills that I
fall with my face to a foe who shall overtax my powers, then no heart
is broken save my own.”

He slept, and the moon sailed over slumbering Pongley, while from the
reed ronds round about arose the croak of a myriad frogs, and in the
black Forest of Blore owls shouted their hollow laughter.




II

_THE APPOINTMENT FOR RAINBARROW_


Having made a meal worthy of the occasion, Sir Jasper and his squire,
declining the assistance offered, set forth in a grey summer morning to
reconnoitre the haunts of the enemy and, if possible, encounter him.

Chance willed that they discovered signs within three miles of the
hamlet, for immense impressions of the Lavender Dragon’s feet suddenly
stared up from a marshy bottom, and while George dismounted and
measured these vast tridents stamped into the damp soil, out of willow
brakes not above a quarter of a mile distant, the mighty creature
himself sprang into the air. The sun had now broken through the mists
of morning and his roseal beam struck upon the outstretched pinions of
the dragon so that they appeared to be wrought of precious stones.
They flapped with slow and solemn strokes and propelled the radiant
body of the monster at speed not swifter than a heron’s flight. Slowly,
lazily he rose, until he shrank to the size of a little morning cloud,
then diminished until he appeared no greater than a golden pheasant
speeding to the comfort of the distant forest.

Sir Jasper’s blue eyes were rolling and his tanned cheek flushed with
excitement.

“Can such things be!” he cried.

“Evidently,” answered George Pipkin, but without enthusiasm.

“Did you observe that he was carrying a human being between his
gigantic jaws?”

“I did, Sir Jasper. A big man he bore away; yet the unhappy wretch
looked no larger than a hawthorn berry in the beak of a blackbird. But
it is true: he is an old--a very old dragon. His flight proclaimed him.”

“Old in sin--if indeed a dragon can sin,” answered Sir Jasper.

They proceeded to the spot whence the monster had risen and found
a clearing in a withy bed. The air was fragrant with the scent of
lavender and willow wrens made music. The evidences of a victim did
not lack, for beside a bundle of withy wands, freshly cut, they saw a
frail, wherein the vanished swain had brought his mid-day meal, and a
jerkin of leather, which he had evidently thrown off while at work. A
dog also, that had fled before the onset of the dragon, slunk out of
the willows and crept to them with his tail between his shaking legs.

Instantly knight and squire set their horses’ heads in the direction of
the monster’s flight, and George expressed a hope that the event of the
morning, while unfortunate enough for the day labourer, might yet prove
satisfactory from the view-point of their own hopes.

“He has now gone to devour his prey,” said Pipkin, “and following the
meal, after the manner of all such reptiles, he will seek to slumber.
His scent is strong and happily not unpleasant. We may presently get
upon it and then, tethering our horses, if fortune be with us, creep
to him and destroy him under well-directed blows at the junction of
the left wing and the shoulder. Only so will such an enormous creature
succumb to us. Open fighting would be impossible. His head is adamant
and his tail unapproachable, so long as he shall be wide awake. Indeed,
though many a knight has ignored the fact to his detriment, the danger
centre and point of highest peril is a dragon’s tail; and while engaged
with his beak and claws, not a few daring spirits have received their
quietus from the back blow, which sweeps a man off his horse, stuns
him, and renders him impotent and easy game.”

“Should you regard this as a large dragon?” asked the younger.

“Quite the largest I have ever seen, or wish to see,” replied his
squire.

“Let us talk of other things for a while,” responded Sir Jasper. “I
am disagreeably conscious of having eaten a little too much of the
excellent cold beef we enjoyed for breakfast.”

“A groaning table often makes a groaning stomach,” admitted George;
“but think nothing of it. We shall not be called upon to exert
ourselves for some hours at the earliest.” Indeed Pipkin was right, and
ere they reached the Woods of Blore, Sir Jasper was hungry again. They
had brought with them another ample meal, and having discussed it, made
cautious sallies round about the forest in search of scent. To the east
lay the Red Rocks, a favourite resting place of the dragon; but the sun
had long passed the meridian before they found themselves within sight
of this rugged and sequestered gorge. For many miles along the confines
of the great wood they had ridden and admired the grandeur of such
timber as neither remembered to have seen. Gigantic conifers towered
above them, with stems that seemed fashioned of bright, pure silver;
and overhead their boughs were dark as night, throwing down a dense
shadow upon the flower-lit turf beneath.

It was evening before they reached the Valley of the Red Rocks, and
the peaks and pinnacles of this impressive spot already glowed as
though red hot under a fine sunset. The place was arid, yet beautiful,
and the boulders and crags burned in wondrous and dazzling hues of
orange and scarlet, amethyst and rose. It seemed that gems studded
these precipices and ragged scarps, for they flashed with rainbow
colours and answered the signals of the sinking sun. No herb or shrub
appeared to adorn the region, yet, as they proceeded, suddenly beneath
them extended a wondrous patch of pale, purple inflorescence and the
fragrance of lavender rose to their nostrils.

George started with suspicion, and Sir Jasper inhaled the warning
odour. Their steeds also sniffed the scent and pawed the earth.

“It comes from an extensive patch of natural flowers yonder,” declared
the knight, but Pipkin better appreciated the situation.

“Murrain on your flowers,” he whispered. “It is the dragon himself!”

And, looking again, both recognised, in the mass of colour spread
beneath them, the outlines of the slumbering saurian.

“It is as I hoped,” said George. “He is sleeping the sleep of
repletion, and we have fortunately come up the wind to him.”

They made a detour and presently approached the monster. Taking cover
behind great boulders strewed upon the valley bottom, they brought
their horses nearer and still nearer, then drew up, dismounted and
took stock of the insensible giant. He slept profoundly, and his great
sides rose and fell three feet at every breath. From his open nostrils
rumbled a not unmusical snoring, somewhat suggestive of the French
horn, and round about him wild creatures gambolled without fear. Half a
dozen rabbits leapt and danced between his huge front paws, lizards ran
over him and birds hopped along the serrated summit of his vast back,
lofty as the ridge-tiles of a mansion. There were indications of great
age about him, for though of a sweet and wholesome appearance, he was
thin and the elaborate architecture of massy ribs that supported his
circumference appeared through his integument and coat of mail. His
wings were furled, and his enormous eyes covered by heavy and wrinkled
lids. Pipkin, in the greatest excitement, directed Sir Jasper how to
proceed.

“Lose not a moment,” he said, “but draw off to the left, mount your
charger, then couch your lance and let him have it, striking where the
pinion lies over the shoulder. With weight of man and horse behind the
blow, you shall reach his heart and destroy him instantly.”

Then, to his indignation and confusion, the knight made chilling answer.

“Not so, friend,” he replied. “It shall never be said that Sir Jasper
de Pomeroy slew a sleeping foe. No glory attaches to the act of an
assassin.”

“Odds bodikins!” hissed George. “This is a _dragon_, and when was
it ever heard that a dragon demanded to be treated with the rules
of chivalry? Would he have wakened you had the case been reversed?
Providence has given the tormentor into your hands, and to ask him to
fight fair is little better than self-destruction. He couldn’t even if
he wanted to.”

Sir Jasper was, however, obdurate.

“No created thing shall perish in his sleep by hand of mine,” he
answered. Then he struck his mailed glove upon his shield, lifted his
voice and raised such a volume of sound among the echoing cliffs that
the Lavender Dragon awoke. Like curtains his eye-lids ascended and
revealed two enormous eyes, glorious as fire opals and large as the
rose windows in some great cathedral.

“Bless my life!” cried the dragon in good, nervous English. “What have
we here?”

“Death, vile reptile!” shouted Sir Jasper, and laying his lance in rest
and drawing down his beevor, he spurred his pie-bald war-horse forward.
But the mighty lizard heaved himself on to his feet and so placed his
assailant at a great disadvantage. Now horse and man came only to the
monster’s knees.

“Wait! Wait! Wait!” he said, lifting one gigantic paw. “Let us
understand one another. I appreciate your courtesy in rousing me before
you laid on. It was done like a true knight and indicates a courage
probably only equalled by your mastery of arms. But I, too, am not
devoid of fine feeling in these matters. The sun has already set, and
as our encounter is likely to be of some duration, I must point out
that, in the gloaming, I shall enjoy unfair advantage that I am loath
to take. For I can see in the dark by the light of my own eye-balls--a
gift denied to you. We may or may not be evenly matched by daylight,
but, with the oncoming of darkness, there can be no question that you
would suffer a severe handicap, and this must not be.”

Struck dumb to hear a primeval dragon speak after so gentlemanly a
fashion, the knight and squire reined in their horses and stared upward
with open mouths upon the enemy.

“I am perfectly willing to encounter you, if in your judgment the
greatest good to the greatest number will be gained thereby,” continued
the huge creature quietly, “but you, who have proved yourself the
flower of chivalry, must not suffer greater disabilities than myself. I
am an old dragon now and I never fought for pleasure even in my palmy
days; but I still possess prodigious physical powers, and should
little like to exercise them, save under conditions as fair to my
opponent as myself.”

“This is a dark scheme to evade his doom,” whispered George Pipkin.
“Parley not a moment, but advance upon him. He doesn’t want to fight!
The man from the withy bed may have upset him.”

Sir Jasper, however, hesitated to take this course, and the enemy again
addressed them.

“If I may suggest,” he said, “let us meet on Rainbarrow an hour after
sunrise to-morrow. There you shall find a smooth, broad plateau whereon
you and your squire will be able to manœuvre your gallant steeds; and
the spot also affords an ample theatre for your friends to sustain and
support you.”

“You would seem to be a reasonable adversary,” replied Sir Jasper in
doubtful tones. “As for me, my purpose has ever been to play the game
with every foe, and I like to believe an enemy is inspired by similar
principles; but it is beyond belief that a foul, pestiferous and
man-eating dragon should thus seek, even in the jaws of death, to make
an honest bargain.”

“Why?” asked the monster. “Why suppose that I am acting contrary to my
steadfast ideals in this affair?”

“Your ‘ideals,’ foul cockatrice!” cried George. “Have we not this
morning seen you fly away with an innocent peasant from the withy beds?
Are you not engaged in digesting him at this moment?”

“What credentials and evidence of good faith can you possibly put
before me?” continued Sir Jasper. “Consider my position in this
matter as well as your own. If I return to the inhabitants of
Pongley-in-the-Marsh and inform them that you are engaged to meet me
at sunrise on Rainbarrow, what are they likely to say about it? Surely
they will flout me and drive me forth with scorn, judging me such
another as Sir Rollo Manherbe, who aforetime came among them, learned
particulars of your dimensions and recollected an engagement elsewhere.
The natives of this district are no fools--indeed, no Yorkshireman is
ever a fool. You see my predicament if I return with what must seem a
fable to the Portreeve of Pongley and his neighbours.”

The Lavender Dragon lifted an enormous paw to his low but broad
forehead.

“A genuine difficulty,” he admitted, “though I might summon
witnesses--but no. You must, I fear, trust me to keep my word. I
attach the utmost importance to truth-telling. Your squire will report
the same tale and, if need be, you may exaggerate a trifle without
overstepping strict veracity. Behold how night spreads her purple
mantle upon the gorge, robbing the rocks and crags of their ruddy
splendour; observe how my eyes now shine like glowing meteors and cast
a ray of brilliance down the glen. They were far brighter once. But
tell the Pongley people how you surprised me on the edge of twilight
and that the day was too far spent for our encounter. Do not hesitate
to assure them that you credit me; even indicate that I showed a
measure of reason, little to have been expected from such a being.
Inform Pongley that I shall be upon Rainbarrow at the appointed time,
and pray, pray believe me yourself when I tell you so.”

Sir Jasper looked up at the huge head from which these words proceeded,
in a sonorous but educated voice.

Then the dragon, tired of standing, sat down.

“Do you understand the nature of an oath?” inquired the knight.

“I do,” replied the monster. “I am not unfamiliar with humanity and
have had relations with them quite other than those recorded, to my
disfavour, by Pongley and more important places. I appreciate the
significance of an oath and am perfectly willing to take one, if that
will content you.”

“You are no ordinary dragon,” declared Sir Jasper. “Such as I have
already heard about, conducted themselves in very different fashion,
fought with abandon, spewed fire, hit below the belt and pursued
their defensive and offensive operations without self-control, civil
conversation, or any sense of honour. They have risen from the slime,
they have been horrible, formidable and utterly repulsive in every
way. Mankind is accustomed to believe that the only possible dragon
is a dead one; yet here you sit, within reach of my unconquerable
lance, and discourse as fluently and grammatically as myself. Even
an oath appears to be within your experience. You are courteous,
self-contained, intelligent. Your natural weapons are terrific, and no
doubt you know exceedingly well how to use them; but, as you confess,
you are no longer young, and, if I mistake not, your hinder claws show
evidences of gout.”

“Once it was acute,” explained the Lavender Dragon. “Now alas! it
threatens to become chronic. With acute gout, one throws it off and
has good times between the attacks; but once the ailment assumes a
chronic form, we are forced much to modify our activities. Do not
think, however, that I advance these facts as a reason for evading
your attack. Far from it. I am still in the possession of very great
activity and may give you at least a run for your money.”

Like lamps fed by a rainbow the Lavender Dragon’s eyes burned steadily
above them.

“It is as though we talked to a lighthouse,” murmured George Pipkin.

“In the name of your Maker, then--your Maker and my own--you swear to
be on Rainbarrow to-morrow morning, wet or fine,” said Sir Jasper; and
the dragon lowered his prodigious head with becoming reverence and shut
his eyes. The action plunged the party into darkness.

“I will--so help me,” declared the great creature. It was a strange
interview, even for the Dark Ages, and Sir Jasper began to believe that
all must be a dream from which he would presently awaken.

“Have you ever fought with a belted knight before?” inquired the
squire, and the dragon confessed that he had.

“Once, and once only,” he admitted.

“And seeing that you still live, I suppose--?”

The Lavender Dragon indicated a slight scar among the blue scales on
his off fore leg.

“He pricked me and no more. I was younger and far more agile of body
in those days than at present. The battle lasted exactly thirty-five
seconds.”

“You slew him?”

“No. I gave him a good thumping and told him not to do it again. He
never did.”

“His name?” inquired George briefly.

“Sir Claude Pontifex Fortescue,” replied the dragon.

“What befell him?” asked Sir Jasper. “He was before my time, and it
is many a long year since he was at court, or in company. There is,
however, still some speculation among his own generation as to what
became of Sir Claude.”

“Little need to inquire farther,” growled George Pipkin. “A knight
who has been thumped by a dragon, and told not to do it again, would
scarcely show his face in the society of his peers.”

“That’s another story--too long to tell you now,” declared the huge
creature. “Until to-morrow, then, on Rainbarrow?”

“I trust you--chiefly because I must,” replied Sir Jasper. “Do not
disgrace yourself, or you will disgrace me. Observe that I treat you
as an equal.”

“I do, and am flattered accordingly,” replied the other. “Fear nothing:
I shall be there. And now draw off your steeds, and give me room to
spread my wings. I thank you.”

He rose upon his four feet, towered above them, resembling, if
anything, a cyclopean sofa, and slowly opened his pinions. They creaked
a little and he sighed.

“Rheumatism,” he said, then sprang aloft with a roar, like a sixty-knot
gale of wind, soared away and vanished under the stars.

“And that’s the last you’ll see of him,” prophesied the squire, relief
and bitterness strangely mingled in his remark.

“Think better of the fellow,” urged Sir Jasper; but George refused to
be comforted.

“You have spurned the gifts of Fortune,” he answered, “and can hope for
no more of her favours.”




III

_VIGIL_


During the long ride back to Pongley, George Pipkin preserved a very
unfavourable attitude toward his master.

“When new ideas clash with old,” he said, “when age falls back upon
experience and youth advances, armed, as usual, with mistaken opinions,
then comes the tug-of-war. But there is no place in knight-errantry for
these ingenuous ideals, and to pit your mistaken standards of dragon
warfare against my proven knowledge was the height of folly, as you
will live to learn.”

Sir Jasper let him run on, but at length some word from George stung
the hero into retort.

“Has this silver-shafted lance been blessed by three bishops and an
archbishop, or has it not, Pipkin?” he asked, shaking his majestic
spear.

“What of it?” replied the other.

“It has; and that being so, is it a weapon to thrust into anybody while
he sleeps? I ask you?”

“The mistake you are making is to treat an atrocious reptile and enemy
of man as though he were on the same footing as yourself,” replied
Pipkin. “Your rules of conduct are all thrown upside down, just
because this particular dragon, by some gift of necromancy, can talk
and pretend to be a decent member of society. You know perfectly well
that he is not. You have his disgusting record. He has devoured men,
women and children. He has cast a cloud of horror and dismay upon this
neighbourhood for years, and no doubt, before he came here, he carried
on after the same fashion somewhere else. A dragon is a dragon. They
are all the misbegotten spawn of hell, and we are told to bruise their
heads and warned that they shall bruise our heels. By the will of God
you had him at your mercy; he was given to you that you might destroy
him; but you lost your senses and showed a lamentable confusion of
thought, a mistaken code, both of honour and duty, whereof he took full
advantage. Now one of two things must happen. Either he won’t come to
Rainbarrow, or else he will. The betting is all Lombard Street to a
crab apple that he doesn’t; but if he does, then you may be very sure
he knows a great deal more about Rainbarrow than we do, and will not
stand your onset unless he has secret advantages that the conflict must
too soon reveal.”

“‘A good thumping,’” mused Sir Jasper. “That is unknightly language,
George.”

“Bluff,” replied the squire. “He spoke only to pour scorn upon your
Order. And now you yourself may cheapen knighthood, which is already
at a low rate of discount for various reasons. Fight to-morrow, if you
get the chance, as you never fought before; and for the sake of mankind
and your own name, let no false ruth or other nonsense stay your steel.
A dragon is like a mad dog. We do not encounter such a beast with
punctilio, or the courtesies of the tourney. Get him down and out by
the swiftest and most sanguinary means within your power. And trust me
to help you if half a chance offers.”

“You lack imagination,” answered the younger and more enlightened
adventurer. “You do not apparently see, or feel, George, that we have
met a being by many degrees removed from the conventional dragon of
history and experience. This beast, had he been created on a more
economical plan and less material devoted to his prodigious carcase,
might have been amenable to human discipline and even culture. He has
a kind face. He is very old. I would even go so far as to say that, of
course under other conditions, he might have left the world better than
he found it.”

“He has left the world lonelier at any rate,” replied Pipkin
sourly, “but so long as he does leave the world, between six and
seven to-morrow morning, I care not. You may set his virtues on his
tombstone; but first look to it there shall be a funeral.”

George proceeded to expatiate on the technique of fray with dragons
and gave Sir Jasper many a valuable hint; yet there was none the less
a cloud between them when they drew rein and entered the village.
For the knight resented the squire’s attitude to their common enemy;
while George much feared that the morrow might bring, either disgrace
from a sceptical country-side, should the dragon play false, or some
exhibition of ill-timed clemency, resulting in Sir Jasper’s own
destruction if the monster did appear.

Nor could their supper serve to calm the agitated nerves of either; for
the men and even more the women of Pongley showed a disinclination to
believe the extraordinary story they brought back with them from the
Red Rocks. A base fellow or two went so far as to sneer and hint that
the Portreeve’s hospitality was being abused; but Jacob Pratt, with
admirable courtesy, silenced the whisperers.

“It will be time to display our feelings to-morrow,” he said, “if
Rainbarrow is drawn blank. To-night we are not justified in doubting
Sir Jasper’s word, or the Lavender Dragon’s promise. Many strange
things happen in the world, and I still hope to see the blood of
our foe leap in a ruddy cataract down the steep of the hills after
breakfast.”

When supper was ended, Sir Jasper got him to the little fane of St.
Cormoran, a Yorkshire martyr of old time; and there, with his silver
lance and helmet laid before the altar, he kept vigil before battle
until the barn cocks crew. Then, at the first shiver of light when a
glimmer as of old ivory widened about the morning star, the spectrum of
St. Cormoran himself appeared to Sir Jasper, and the knight beheld the
vision of a dignified ancient, clad in grey robe and cowl, and having a
snow white beard that descended beneath the rope of his girdle.

The watcher expected some word of cheer and hope; but received no more
than practical advice.

“Get off to bed,” said the saint. “Snatch a couple of good hours’
slumber while there is time, and make a light breakfast. Remarkable
experiences await you to-day, and to enter upon them short of sleep is
not piety but foolhardiness.”

With that the ghost vanished, and Sir Jasper, whose eyes indeed had
long threatened to close, returned to the dwelling of the Portreeve,
threw off his garments and was soon unconscious.

Anon George Pipkin aroused him, and whether he would or no, his
master partook of a meagre meal as St. Cormoran directed, for there
was not time to do otherwise. Already the entire population of
Pongley-in-the-Marsh was streaming towards Rainbarrow, where that flat
but elevated table of land rose dimly against the morning, and when Sir
Jasper and his squire galloped on to the plateau, they were the last to
arrive.

The Lavender Dragon, however, had not yet made his appearance, though
it now wanted but five minutes of six o’clock.




IV

_THE DRAGON KEEPS HIS WORD_


About an open space, flanked with a forest on one side and sloping by
abrupt declivities of thorn and furze upon the other, the inhabitants
of Pongley were assembled. The elders of the hamlet stood grouped
together, while the lesser folk surrounded the plateau and made an
audience for the approaching struggle. Above a thousand souls were
gathered there, and they greeted the knight and his squire somewhat
coldly as they trotted out upon the arena.

Of the Lavender Dragon as yet appeared no hint, though, from time to
time, this or that spectator, pointing to the air, cried that he was on
the wing. But while many a delicate cloud, feathered with morning gold,
swept westerly upon the wind, not one resolved itself into the foe.

At six o’clock, concealing a growing concern behind the bars of
his helmet, Sir Jasper took the field, and the great piebald steed
galloped, caracoled and curveted handsomely. He made a noble picture,
but the public was not there for horsemanship; the sense of the company
turned against him; hard words flew on Rainbarrow and the knight began
to experience a moral chill under his armour. What if indeed he stood
convicted of an awful error? Among all those present one only, George
Pipkin, knew that his mistake was venial and centred in a blind trust,
where trust had been folly; but the others would accuse him, and his
squire also, of something far worse than credulity. Indeed, the few who
had accepted his narrative, now scorned themselves for doing so, and
even the Portreeve’s patience began to break down.

Sir Jasper, with his back to the woods, drew rein and considered
how best to make his peace with a gathering body of opinion very
unfavourable. He was just about to doff his helm and address them,
when the Portreeve and others approached and Jacob Pratt spoke
uncomfortable words.

“Sir Knight,” he said, “if knight indeed you are, it is now apparent
that you have played upon the goodwill and trust of well-meaning and
kindly folk. You have lied to us and fooled us, and you are either a
coward or----”

Suddenly a chorus of loud cries stopped the speaker’s mouth and
frenzied excitement broke out upon every face.

“Look to yourself! He is there--he is upon you!” screamed the people,
while children shouted and ran to their parents, dogs barked and
bristled, a fragrant scent permeated the morning breeze. In another
moment the immense and roseal beak of the Lavender Dragon poked
suddenly from the coppice, and before Sir Jasper could defend himself,
or George Pipkin aid him, the monster had picked up both knight and
charger as cleanly, firmly and gently as a trained retriever grasps a
fallen bird.

Sir Jasper and his terrified steed struggled to escape, but the dragon
lifted his head and they were now thirty feet above the herbage. Then,
as the populace fled before him, the gorgeous but unsportsmanlike foe
waddled hugely out upon the turf and spread his wings. They flashed, as
though they had been gigantic Oriental umbrellas of state, and blinded
the beholders; while in another moment the ancient saurian began to
rise. Pipkin, with a wild oath, charged and swung Sir Jasper’s mace,
which he carried until the knight should have need of it; but he did
not get to close quarters for, with a swift but sure flick of the tail,
his opponent swept squire and steed to the ground in utmost confusion
and, before they could return to attack, the Lavender Dragon was on the
wing. A few stones and quarterstaves rattled harmlessly against his
purple stomach and fell back upon the heads of those who had thrown
them; and then the great beast soared upward among the lights of the
morning and soon dwindled to a little star amongst the streaming cirri
in the blue.

All was over, and the baffled Pipkin, flinging himself again upon the
earth, buried his brown face in the sward and wept like a child.

The Portreeve himself sought to comfort George.

“There is only one bright side to this unhappy incident,” declared
Jacob Pratt. “Your master has been proved a man of his word and a
knight without fear or reproach. Had his skill in arms been equal to
his nobility of character--however, let that pass. He is not the first
hero who has perished in a good cause. We will cherish his memory while
regretting his inefficiency. And so home to breakfast, remembering
always that God knows best.”

But George was not prepared to take this terrible misfortune lying
down. Indeed, he rose immediately, dashed the tears from his eyes and
declared that in his opinion all was not quite lost.

“I know better concerning the accursed thing than you do,” he replied,
“and there is more in this rape of a rare knight than meets the eye.
The dragon is a traitor, as might have been expected, for never was
dragon known who did not fight foul and aid his clumsy and brute
strength with cunning tactics and treacherous strategy. But Sir Jasper
is not dead. The brute picked up him and his horse with a great deal
of care. Neither one nor the other was injured, save morally, and I
doubt not they have been conveyed to some secret holt and haunt of the
creature, there to be kept alive for its own purposes. It may torture
him, starve him and torment him in a thousand ways to make a dragon’s
holiday; but one thing is certain: it will never fight him. The wretch
is no fool, and very well knows that, put to test of open battle
against a man of such incomparable powers as my master can display, it
would soon be swept to destruction.”

“And what do you propose to do?” inquired the Portreeve.

“I propose to make my way through the dark Woods of Blore, to reach the
entrance to the Lavender Dragon’s domain, to demand entrance, on pain
of a punitive expedition, and learn the fate of Sir Jasper though my
own life pay forfeit.”

All Pongley cheered the squire’s determination, and with one accord the
people crowded about George, clasped his hand and wished him well.

As the assembly proceeded from Rainbarrow homeward, Pipkin explained
that existence without Sir Jasper held scant attraction for him.

“I am not one of those fortunate men,” he said, “who is a hero to his
wife. My home, to be frank, promises no welcome worth mentioning. A
saddle suits me better than my chair in the ingle nook, and I prefer
the sound of the winter wind to the voice of my spouse at the best of
times. For that matter, they have much in common. In any case did I
return, my own man, with this appalling story, there would be few flags
flying for me, I assure you. Therefore, give me a day’s provender and I
will set forth to the woods and save Sir Jasper, or perish with him.”

An hour later the old campaigner galloped off upon his self-appointed
task; but he did not depart before uttering a promise to return and
relate the facts concerning his master, if it should presently be
within his power to do so.




V

_THE DRAGON EXPLAINS_


At an elevation of about a quarter of a mile, the Lavender Dragon
pursued his aerial way. Beneath him rustic sons of the morning went
forth to their labours and the pastoral life of the plains proceeded.
Ahead, in a gloomy band against the western sky, extended the vast
woodlands of Blore. Hither came the flying monster on leisurely wings,
which flapped with a sound not unmusical, and created that æolian
humming heard by those who have stood beneath telegraph wires in a high
wind. The stout horse and his rider in no way encumbered him. An owl
thinks less of a fat mouse than the Lavender Dragon thought of the two
tons he was now conveying through the air at the rate of forty miles an
hour.

But Sir Jasper remained not silent under these indignities.

“False wretch!” he cried. “Is it thus you keep your oath? Was it for
this you shut your untruthful eyes at the name of our Creator and swore
that you would meet me in a life and death combat upon the crest of
Rainbarrow? Accursed above all other dragons shall you be, and infamous
in history while man is left upon the earth to read it! Little should I
have imagined that dragon could do worse than dragon has already done;
but you--you are the vilest, basest progeny of an infamous breed. Your
poisonous blood is upon your own head. You are lost; and if I doubted
for a moment the outcome of our encounter, I doubt no more. Your fate
is sealed, and whether my lance or another’s drive you out of life, die
you shall at the hand of outraged man, and that probably sooner than
you imagine!”

But the Lavender Dragon answered never a word and Sir Jasper, when his
natural wrath was a little cooled, found reason assert itself.

It was clear that if his enemy replied, he must open his jaws to do
so, in which event the knight suddenly perceived what would happen
to him and his charger: they must fall to earth and be miserably and
unromantically destroyed. But both were destined for another fate,
and retreating into the tumultuous cavern of his own thoughts, Sir
Jasper began to consider what might be expected to happen next. He
felt tolerably sure that the dragon dared not now encounter him in
fair fight; but would it presently be possible to force a battle? He
hoped so, yet felt little certainty. The saurian had proved as artful
as he was old, and his victim doubted not that, when again they came
to earth, it must be under conditions where little opportunity offered
to his right arm and silver lance. He was wrong again, however, for
after flying above the black pines of Blore for a league or thereabout,
the dragon abated his speed and hovered over a clearing, where the
little blossoms of wood strawberry, cyclamen and lady’s slipper made
a jewelly carpet amid the silver pillars of the forest. Gently the
monster volplaned down into this sequestered glen and opened his jaws
to liberate the captives.

“Compose yourself,” said the Lavender Dragon as soon as his mouth was
free to speak. “Tidy your attire, doff your helm, suffer your charger
to crop a little of this excellent pasture and listen to me. You are
naturally annoyed; I have put you into a position destructive of
knightly dignity; I have struck confusion into those exalted ideals
by which you rule your conduct; but one story is only good until we
have heard the other. I know exactly how you are feeling and I am well
aware that my dragon’s blood is about the only thing that you suppose
can wash out the extraordinary affront this day has put upon you. Sir
Jasper, you shall have it--a pint, a quart, a flagon, a tierce, a
barrel--but not until you have listened to what I am about to relate.

“I heard your remarks while we were on the wing,” he continued, “and I
sympathise fully with your fury and indignation. You could hardly have
said less; but in one particular your memory failed you and you were
unjust to me. I never asserted that I would fight you on Rainbarrow.
I distinctly swore that I would ‘meet’ you there. I am a truthful
dragon and I chose my words and kept my oath. But let that pass. It is
enough that I promise you full and complete satisfaction at a future
date. Indeed, if you are still in a mind to it, to-day, before the sun
goes down, you shall seek to destroy me without any unfair conditions
whatsoever. A squire shall be furnished, and if your attractive war
horse is rendered less formidable and agile than usual by the events
of the morning, you may have your choice of a dozen other splendid
chargers as fine as he, all fresh and ready for the field.”

“I fall on at once without further parley,” declared Sir Jasper. “I am
a man of deeds, not words, and nothing you can possibly say will wipe
this stain off my scutcheon. Only your own base heart’s blood may do
it.”

“To fight before I have spoken would not suit me,” answered the other
in a calm but resolute voice. “Sit here, cool your fiery forehead with
a dock leaf and listen a little longer. Do not imagine that you are in
my hands. On the contrary, I am in yours. I, too, believe that deeds
speak louder than words, as I hope to show you by noonday. But, first
I insist upon it that you listen to me, and I give you my word, as a
lover of truth, that you shall not listen in vain.”

With ill grace the young man flung himself upon the turf, and for a
moment there was no sound but the steady cropping of his philosophic
horse, whose custom was to gather his few rose buds when and where
he might. Then the Lavender Dragon, assuming a recumbent attitude,
proceeded in this curious fashion.

“Even as the world itself was hatched from the Mundane Egg made by
our Creator, as the Phœnicians and Egyptians rightly maintain, so all
primitive orders of living things likewise emerged to life in that
manner. Dragons are among the most ancient of created beings, and they
have unfortunately, though not, I fear, undeservedly, personified
evil from the earliest times of man. Nowadays we dragons stand as the
symbol of Sin in general and paganism in particular. Satan has been
termed the Great Dragon; it is declared that the saints shall trample
the dragon under their feet. Mankind has also confused the dragon
with chieftainship; hence Pen-dragons--leaders, or kings, created in
times of peril. Since Apollo destroyed Python there has reigned enmity
between my species and all gods and men who stood for righteousness;
and therefore you will judge of my personal astonishment when I came
to years of understanding and found myself, not only on the side of
the angels from the first, but also entirely opposed to the principles
and practice of my own race. In fact a dragon with a conscience--a
freak of our common Mother, a caprice of Nature! My great-uncle was the
celebrated Dragon of Wantley, in this county; and when he found that I
entertained opinions subversive of our family interests and desired,
if possible, to heal the breach established in primal time between our
kindred and the children of men, he disowned me with fury, beat me
cruelly, for I was then a mere dracunculus, and cast me out. My parents
were already dead, and I wandered friendless for some three centuries.
Then my great-uncle perished under the sword and spear of More of More
Hall, a very notable knight, and elsewhere, at other times and seasons,
our dwindling race was decimated by yours as history records.

“Among famous dragon-slayers--of whom St. George, that beheaded the
far-famed Green Dragon of Syria, stands first--are numbered St. Philip,
the Apostle, who accounted for the terror of Phrygia; St. Martha, who
with unexampled courage, destroyed Terasque, the Scourge of Aix; St.
Florent, who slew an ancestor of my own upon the Loire; while St. Cado
and St. Maudel of Brittany, and St. Keyne of Cornwall also played havoc
with our clan. St. Michael and St. Margaret, Pope Sylvester and the
Archbishop of Dol, Denatus and St. Clement of Metz--all these eminent
persons succeeded against us; and La Gorgouille, a very formidable and
gigantic dragon, responsible for much evil on the banks of Seine, fell
at an advanced age to the gallant St. Romain of Rouen.

“Thus we have gone down fighting to the last, and now, as I think, not
above half a dozen of us shall be found in civilisation, though a few
still remain beyond its borders concealed amid the sandy antres of
Africa and the frozen forests of the North. For my part, all endeavours
to make the world of men perceive that I desired their friendship
failed. Nor do I blame anybody. Centuries of antagonism, suspicion and
hatred, cannot be destroyed by an individual no matter how great his
goodwill. I went my way, found the Woods of Blore, established my seat
therein and anon encountered a lady dragon, orphaned under the usual
circumstances, and alone and friendless as myself.

“We loved at first sight and contracted an alliance; but hardly had
I erected a noble home and built for my wife a fortified palace and
castle worthy of her, when she left me--I hope and believe for a
better world. She shared my opinions and was of a tender and gentle
disposition. She threw herself into my pursuits, learned the human
language of the country, which I had been at pains to master, and
strove unavailingly to create some golden bridge of understanding by
which we could approach man in friendship for our common advantage.
But, needless to say, she failed, and it was as a result of wounds, won
in a frantic but futile attempt to charm a body of Crossbow men upon
the march, that she lost her beautiful life.

“Anon you shall see her grave in the centre of our public park at
Dragonsville. For to my city I am about to convey you, Sir Jasper; and
if, after you have inspected it, consulted those who inhabit it, and
heard and seen such as bestow upon me their affection and regard--if I
say, after that experience, you still desire to fight with me and lay
me low, upon my honour you shall be granted every opportunity to do so.

“What remains to be said you must learn at a later time; but now, if
you are rested, we will proceed and be at home for luncheon. I am a
grass-eater like your noble charger, and doubtless some fine bales of
sweet clover hay await us both; but for you is already served such a
banquet as we are happy to prepare for a noble and welcome guest.”

“They are then expecting us?” inquired the knight, and the Lavender
Dragon admitted that it was so.

“I confess to my little plot,” he said. “I was quite determined
that you should enjoy wider knowledge of me and my ways before you
attempted, perhaps successfully, to destroy me. A thing once done
cannot be undone, Sir Jasper, and if by chance, in future time, you
had learned the truth, I am bold to believe that remorse might have
darkened your soul and unavailing regrets cast a shadow on your
unstained career.”

With that the dragon, tenderly picking up his new acquaintance and the
piebald horse, ascended once more into the empyrean. They proceeded for
a matter of twenty miles over the bosky gloom of the forest and then
the scene changed, a fair and sun-kissed vale opened beneath them and,
girdled by a mighty wall, Sir Jasper perceived what men of a later time
would have described as a remarkably large and distinguished garden
city, watered by a sparkling river.

Wide, open spaces, adorned with lakes and fountains, noble trees and
blazing passages of flower colour spread between human dwellings. These
stood in the shape of a star whose points extended to all quarters of
the compass. The houses were solidly built of stone, and their roofs,
of red and sunbaked tiles, seen from this elevation, presented a design
of considerable charm. In the midst rose a gigantic castle of barbaric
architecture--a place so hugely planned, with doors so vast and towers
so lofty, that the Lavender Dragon himself might move and dwell with
comfort and elegance therein. It was his home, and upon an immense
terrace before the southern front he now descended.

Nor was there none to welcome him. To the amazement of Sir Jasper, half
a hundred stalwart men, in the livery of the Lavender Dragon, greeted
the monster as he alighted. Their faces shone with well-being and they
crowded about him, cheered him, saluted the visitor with courtesy and
friendship and led away his agitated horse. Others took his spear and
sword; while an old and kindly retainer begged that he would follow
him, where he might rest, refresh, doff his armour and presently
partake of the banquet already prepared in his honour.

“I will see you anon,” said the Lavender Dragon. “This is Nicholas
Warrender, my seneschal. You will be happy with him and a company of
our comrades until the afternoon. For the moment I want my dinner
before all else.”

The dragon led the way into his castle and settled himself with a
mighty sigh before six huge trusses of sweet-smelling hay in his own
dining-room--a chamber about twice as large as the cathedral of St.
Paul. But Nicholas Warrender proceeding with Sir Jasper, conveyed him
to an apartment, huge enough, yet not uncomfortably spacious, and there
left him, to make his toilet and choose from half a hundred comely
garments what he would best like to put on.

Arrayed at length in a doublet of grey velvet with amber slashings,
comfortable grey hose and a collar of delicate lawn, the knight struck
a bell upon his table and Nicholas returned. He led the dragon’s
guest into an apartment where some two hundred men and women already
awaited him, and the seneschal introduced Sir Jasper to a dozen of
the party, who welcomed him with much friendship and good cheer. They
were for the most part elderly; but age sat lightly about them and
the guest could not fail to note that in their faces one saw no lines
of care, no haggard tell-tale stamp of sorrow hidden, or tribulation
concealed. Here was happiness--not simulation of the thing, proper
to all well-bred and tactful companies meeting together about some
common business of council or entertainment--but the genuine emotion;
and furthermore he felt almost embarrassed by the manner of their
greeting, for their one concern was his own comfort and pleasure.
They vied with each other in warmth of welcome; they revealed nothing
concerning themselves, but displayed only an altruistic regard for his
satisfaction in every particular.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “would you kill me with kindness?”

“Kindness never kills,” declared Nicholas Warrender. “Kindness, Sir
Knight, is the small change of a good heart, given to all who extend a
hand for it, and as gladly to be received as given. Kindness, in fact,
makes our wheels go round, and if it became a human habit----However,
we are not here to preach, but eat. These lampreys come from our own
river and are worthy of your attention.”

After the meal Sir Jasper was introduced to a great number of men and
women; and others of a younger generation also entered, that they might
see and speak with him. If the elders were cheerful with the light
of contentment upon their faces, how much more did the same radiance
illuminate the young! Maids and boys appeared equally joyous. They
greeted the guest with an ingenuous delight and respect, which Sir
Jasper was well qualified to appreciate, and in the shy friendship
of these young people he swiftly found an exquisite pleasure. They,
too, according to their ages and predilections, offered him what they
themselves most appreciated. The girls begged him to come and dance
with them, or hear them sing; the boys, heedless that he had just dined
after a trying journey, hoped that he would join their games and suffer
them to teach him new and ravishing pastimes.

Then happened a strange thing, for among those introduced to his
notice, Sir Jasper heard many names not unfamiliar.

“This,” said the seneschal, “is Thomas Fagg, the woodcutter, and our
friend with the dusty face is good Master Hobanob, who helps to bake
our bread. Here stands Nicol Prance, once on a time a master-thatcher,
but in Dragonsville the houses are all tiled, so he has learned
a new trade. This is our oldest inhabitant--of course after L.D.
himself--Johnny Cobley, aged ninety-five, once a swine-herd, now
enjoying his old age and the object of our special care. Here you see
Mistress Avisa Snell, and Ann, her daughter, promised in marriage to
Billy Greg, the keeper of the fountains. This pretty maid is Mary Fern,
who lost her man in the wars and was just going--silly soul--to take
her beautiful and useful life, when L.D. found her and brought her
amongst us. Betsy Snow and Jenifer Mardell are towers of strength when
good plain sewing is to be done; and here is our last arrival before
your honoured self. Come forward, Abram Archer, and salute Sir Jasper.”

The withy-cutter, last seen in the jaws of the dragon, stepped from the
throng. He looked still a little dazed, as a man who has just emerged
from a dream; but he was laughing and evidently well pleased to find
himself among so many old friends in this flourishing settlement.

“I bring these good people to your notice,” proceeded Nicholas
Warrender, “because they are all Pongley-in-the-Marsh folk, and you may
by chance have heard their names.”

“I heard that they had all been devoured by the Lavender Dragon,”
answered Sir Jasper, and his remark awakened hearty merriment.

“We come here to eat, not to be eaten,” said Hugh Hobanob; “for what is
Dragonsville but a glorified Pongley after all?”

“A Pongley where there is happiness rather than anxiety, health instead
of sickness, abundance in place of scarcity,” added the seneschal.
“Here we work, but never for ourselves. Note that. Perceive, for
instance, our gardens. I will show them to you.”

The company stepped into the air and many walked beside Sir Jasper as
he accompanied his guide.

“We are great gardeners,” continued the seneschal. “Yet nobody ever
does a day’s work in his own. Everybody applies his best energies and
skill to the garden of somebody else. To cultivate your garden is
very good, and we are well advised to do so, but how much better to
cultivate the garden of your neighbour! It is, in fact, one of our
greatest delights to create horticultural surprises for our friends.”

“Surely confusion might arise and disappointment, since tastes differ
on this subject as on every other,” suggested the knight.

“Confusion does arise,” admitted Nicholas. “Thus he who hoped for
radishes may find a superfluity of turnips in his garth; while the
lover of kale is snowed under with endive, or spring onions. But what
of it? Nothing results save cheerful laughter, and never was a better
joke than when Jane Blee, who is devoted to the carrot and parsnip,
discovered her garden patch obliterated under tansy and alkanet. Even
L.D., who sees a joke with utmost difficulty, laughed long at Jane.
But what did she do? Why, seek the gardens of her neighbours and help
herself to all that she desired. For our good things are in common
and our chief delight is to give of our best where it will be most
appreciated. This principle runs through all our rule of living. It
actuates old and young; it is the mainspring of Dragonsville: hence the
brightness of our faces and the heartiness of our laughter.”

“And what is the underlying impulse of this curious vagary?” inquired
the visitor. “How call you this spirit, which accounts for your well
doing and well being?”

“For particulars you must listen to L.D.,” replied the grey-beard.
“And when I say ‘L.D.,’ think it no term of undue familiarity, or
disrespect. Thus we all speak of the Lavender Dragon, both behind and
before his face. It was his own idea, for we were desirous of a more
respectable and sonorous title. Indeed we offered him a crown once, and
on that occasion he did indeed laugh--so riotously that he blew down
a score of houses and devastated several acres of his own favourite
food--I mean kidney beans. But he declined the diadem; he would not
even accept the office of President. ‘I am,’ said our dragon, ‘just
‘L.D.’ to all of you, no more, no less. Your friend, so long as you
will permit it, your well-wisher and your companion in this arduous
business of living out the years of our lives with dignity, energy and
common advantage.’”

“And tell me of Lilian Lovenot,” begged Sir Jasper. “She, too, was a
Pongley maiden, and I assure you that her disappearance caused much
bitter feeling, for she was loved and cherished and held the pride and
top flower of all the hamlet.”

The seneschal’s face fell.

“It may be so. L.D. rarely errs; but it is true that once, or, perhaps
twice, he has brought among us those who showed an inclination to
return whence they came. His rule, however, is to seek out only the
lonely, the sad, the failures, the care-worn and life-stained people,
or the young who are unwanted and unloved--all such as have only heard
of happiness.”

“Hence his predilection for orphans no doubt,” murmured Sir Jasper.

“Exactly. In the case of Lilian, L.D. judged that she would be happier
here, because, among us, are not a few of her own standing and rank.
For he was aware that the Lovenots were no parents of hers. He
thought, therefore, of her own happiness, and I fear rather overlooked
the pleasure she already gave to others--a singular lapse from his
own standards. Pongley’s loss, was, however, Lilian’s gain. She is
exceedingly joyous at present, lives in the Castle and ministers
no little to L.D.’s own content; for, while the bulk of us are only
concerned to make each other happy, and so indirectly please the master
of Dragonsville, a few of the more learned and cultured--such as can
speak wisely, or sing harmoniously--spend a measure of their time with
him. He delights in music and story-telling, and his chief material
pleasure is to sit in the great central fountain and let the jet beat
down upon him as it falls. This is not always good for him, however.
He is much afflicted with gout, and the distemper will carry him off
some day. These fields on our right are entirely devoted to growing
Colchicum Autumnale, a crocus of the fall, from whose roots and seeds
our doctor compounds the medicine to lessen L.D.’s sufferings.”

They sauntered through the little, cobbled streets presently, where
folk were busy about their affairs.

“We are, of course, a pastoral people,” explained the seneschal, “but
there is a certain amount of industrial activity among us also and
are self-supporting in every way. We grow our herds, weave and spin
our wool, delve into the earth for iron and make of it our needful
implements. Life is simple here, because the need for money does not
exist; and even if it did, to save were impossible by reason of the law
that directs and controls everything. ‘Giving,’ is the watchword here,
and ‘getting’ conveys no impression to the rising generation; while, to
us elders, this business of ‘getting’ merely signifies that reactionary
and unsocial process which keeps the outer world so short of the
content and happiness we enjoy. But hither comes the merry man of the
castle. L.D. is probably anxious to see you and sends his messenger.”

It was so, and Sir Jasper learned from a jester, who now approached,
that his presence in the great Hall of Reception would be welcome.

The buffoon was by no means as cheerful as many of his companions; but
only a facial accident explained his apparent depression. He was a dry
bird, by the name of Dicky Gollop, and he explained to Sir Jasper how,
on an occasion of hawking with his former master, he had made a jest
which the baron, who owned him, took in bad part.

“Before I could explain my point,” said Dicky, “the dull old dog
alighted from his horse, directed a dozen varlets to pinion me against
a tree, then beat me with the flat face of his sword until I lost
consciousness. There he left me, still crucified to the pine, and there
I must have perished but for L.D., who, passing that way, saved the
situation. I regained my understanding in Dragonsville and rejoiced to
abide here. I have but one daily regret, and honestly I believe that I
am the only member of the community who regrets anything at all.”

“What may that be?” enquired Sir Jasper.

“My inability to strike the right note of humour for L.D.,” replied
Dicky Gollop. “It is not my fault, for I really can be funny when in
good form. Others will tell you of my jokes and quips, my quirks and
quiddities. I am an excellent wag and make men, and even women, lose
themselves in hurricanes of laughter. My repartee is rapier-like, my
badinage bewilders with its lightning flashes. For a _jeu de mot_, a
quibble, a conundrum, or a double entendre, there is nobody to approach
me, and yet I lack the power to make my revered master enjoy the luxury
of a hearty roar.”

“Perhaps that is as well from all I hear,” replied the knight; but
Dicky would not allow it.

“No, my mission, so far as he is concerned, is a failure. And he knows
it. He is as sorry for me as I am for myself. He tries to make me happy
by laughing at my jocularity; but jesters are not deceived. Nobody
knows quicker than tomfool if his tomfoolery is touching the spot; and
in the ordinary, high-class establishments, where jesters form part of
the retinue, if we don’t give our employers sore sides, we soon receive
them. But L.D. never shows any impatience at my failure. He observes
that I entertain other people, and since the happiness of others is
the only thing he cares a brass button about, in this vicarious sense
I please him too. As a man, therefore, I am content; as an artist I
shall ever harbour a sense of disappointment.”

But Dicky’s trouble did not interest Sir Jasper. He was himself devoid
of humour, and he could not find it in his heart to blame the Lavender
Dragon’s indifference.

“Many,” he said, “derive no great entertainment from the glib tongues
and often questionable drolleries of your class. If you do not actually
irritate your master, you should be content.”

“You are not an artist then,” ventured Dicky.

“No,” replied Sir Jasper. “I am a serious man engaged in making the
world better than I find it.”

“To be merrier is also to be better,” declared the mirth-provoker. “Man
is the only laughing animal, and laughter is too little respected.
Every child should be taught to laugh--like a gentleman; since there
are horrid forms of laughter, which might be cured in youth, but not
afterwards. Those who help the world to laugh, Sir Knight, are worthy
of respect as great as the mighty ones, and the lovers of bloodshed
and battle, who help it to cry. At least that is L.D.’s opinion, and I
shall make him laugh yet if I break my heart a-trying.”

With that they entered the draconian presence together.




VI

_THE DRAGON GOES ON EXPLAINING_


Sir Jasper’s host reclined amid a chaos of woollen cushions each as
large as a haystack. They were coloured amber and blue, jade green and
orange. Thus they chimed pleasantly with the rose and delicate shades
of lilac which played in sparkling iridescence over the vast body of
the Lavender Dragon. He had eaten his hay and was now toying with a
little mountain of sugared kidney beans piled up upon a plate of gold,
while beside it stood an enormous silver goblet, containing fifty
gallons of cider.

A girl sat on an ivory chair beside L.D.; and when the knight appeared,
she put her little hand on the dragon’s paw as he extended his mighty
claws to the sweetmeats in the golden dish.

“No,” she said, “you must not eat any more. They are horribly bad for
you, and you know that Doctor Doncaster has told you these sugared
beans should be taken far more sparingly.”

The dragon drew back his paw.

“Let me present Sir Jasper de Pomeroy, my dear Lilian,” he said, and
then turned to the visitor.

“This is Mistress Lilian Lovenot--so to call her. But she and I have
reason to think that her real name is otherwise. However, time will
show.”

The knight bowed and the lady curtseyed, and while they became
acquainted, L.D. stealthily helped himself to some more beans. Indeed
he tossed a peck into his mighty mouth and munched them quickly, his
opal eyes on Lilian.

She was a fair maiden with rich, auburn locks, braided into two
heavy bands that descended below her knees. She wore cloth of gold,
that fitted close to her sturdy but beautifully modelled body; and
the bright fabric was ornamented with emeralds only. Her face was
strangely beautiful and winsome, and when her lips parted in a smile,
a dimple of the most distracting charm twinkled upon her left cheek.
Her eyes especially fascinated Sir Jasper, for they were in lustre and
colour like aquamarines.

She spoke in a soprano voice and gave him her hand, which he kissed
with courtly respect. They made a striking pair and the dragon gazed
upon them benevolently; but he presently interrupted their discourse
and bade Lilian leave him with his visitor.

“Depart, dear chuck,” he said. “You shall become better acquainted with
Sir Jasper anon; for the present he listens to me, and we have some
ground to traverse. All that I must say cannot be spoken at a sitting,
but if he is so disposed, we will make a beginning this afternoon.”

The maiden turned to the knight.

“Do not let him eat too many beans, or drink too much cider,” she said.
And then she departed, while Sir Jasper had leisure to note the grace
of her deportment and progression.

“A blessed girl,” said the dragon after Lilian had disappeared.
“Beautiful both without, as you perceive, and within, as you shall
find. Of her and her mystery more at another time. Now I will proceed
with my own story where I left off this morning. When my dear wife
died, a great darkness descended upon me and for the space of
five-and-twenty years life held no interest or consolation. Do you see
yonder mound beside the fountain--the tumulus bowered in hawthorns?”

He pointed out of a lofty window, where shone brilliant displays of
blossom, crimson and white, upon a little hill. Sir Jasper nodded.

“There she lies, and there, ere long, I shall lie beside her,” said
L.D. He heaved a sigh, like the breath of a sinking storm, and one or
two tears, each representing a quart of the purest lavender water,
splashed upon the cushions.

“Pardon me,” said the dragon. He then cleared his throat and proceeded.

“I even contemplated self-slaughter during the full brunt of my
bereavement, but a moderate intellect and a good conscience came to
my aid. I strove to create fresh interests and immerse myself in such
enterprises as should justify existence and be an excuse for my long
life. And then I made the astounding discovery that has taken shape
in this little republic. I found that the only happiness worthy of
being so called is that which we are able to bring to other creatures;
and since my own race was beyond the reach of my ambitions in this
direction, I turned attention to man--to Homo Sapiens, as he so
humorously calls himself--and studied him with immense application for
two whole centuries.

“Man, Sir Jasper, viewed as it were from the outside, is a difficult
customer, and I was more than once minded to abandon my studies
in despair; but I persisted and at length arrived at some general
conclusions concerning him. What did I find? I discovered, first, that
the thing your species chiefly lacked was humility. Man is far the
vainest of created things, and his gift of reason, instead of balancing
this defect, and helping him to see himself in a juster perspective
with regard to his place in the cosmos, tends as a rule to increase
his unfortunate arrogance and insensate pride. Rather than employ his
wonderful wits to fathom and accept Nature’s law of life, he abuses his
best gift: reason, and behaves in a way to put himself below lesser
creatures that lack it. Nothing in the world that goes on two feet, or
four, or six--that swims, walks, or flies--is ridiculous and immodest
save only mankind; and everything that is unseemly and unworthy on
earth arises from him alone. Yet he vaunts himself as a being supreme
and in a category apart, for ever denying the one touch of Nature that
should make our whole world kin. Man, in fact, is far too pleased
with himself and, bogged in his inordinate vanity, fails to make the
progress that Nature has a right to expect from him. He is falling
behind her time-table; he is loitering by the way to admire his own
features in every pool; his values and opinions, his hopes and fears,
his interests and activities are all far too elementary for his age.”

The Lavender Dragon gulped a gallon of cider and proceeded.

“And why has he not travelled further on his appointed road? The answer
is a melancholy one. He has doubled back upon his own high-water mark;
his tides actually ebb rather than flow. The world contains evidence
of a higher civilisation and worthier humanity than exist in it at
this moment; for man has fouled the lustral waters of his reason and
substituted for pure thinking and higher principles, a degraded and
reactionary rule of conduct founded on superstitions so gross that even
a simple dragon like myself, coming to their examination with unbiased
mind, stands aghast before such a retrograde era.

“It is summed up in an aphorism, my friend. Faith took the wrong
turning; Faith--that vital principle of progress--instead of founding
her vanes upon the rock of reason and building on those mighty
foundations laid by your ancient thinkers, sought otherwhere for her
inspiration, set back the clock and lost many centuries by so doing.
How much more time your race will be content to squander, I cannot
say; how many more generations of you will still grope in the night of
superstition and suffer it to discolour your thought and retard your
progress I know not. Only by persisting in your vanity and by blinding
yourselves and your children can it be done.

“Your rights and wrongs are all your concern never your obligations
and errors. You are the most ungrateful of created things, and
even that dim sense of gratitude, lying in hope of favours to come
and represented by early man’s first prayer to beings greater than
himself--even that was soon lost. Your religion, that might have been
a fair and reasonable addition to life, became foul and more foul,
because it sprang from fear instead of love, from suspicion instead of
trust; and the poison that polluted its beginnings is with it yet. But
given loyalty to the laws that made you, and reverence for the things
you might become, rather than foolish pride in the things that you are,
then the spectacle you present should lead to impatience instead of
self-satisfaction, and create a great will and purpose to give reason a
chance, that you may learn whereto she is willing to lead you.”

Sir Jasper concealed a yawn, for these affairs did not interest him at
all. He tried a sugared bean, but found it far too tough a matter for
his teeth.

“A few words more and we will proceed from theory to practice,” said
L.D. “I say, then, that if man but grasped how much he owed to Nature,
how little to his own ill-used gifts, he would be more disposed to
humility, more inclined to develop his immense static possibilities
in dynamic action. What you have done, and are still busily engaged
in doing, is merely to postpone what you might do and should do. You
shudder at the base instincts you discover--in your neighbours; you
blame your primitive ancestors for these savage survivals; but when
distinction, altruism and greatness appear, you give no praise to
Nature then. No, you praise your noble selves and take all the credit.
But I am boring you?”

“Far from it,” replied Sir Jasper. “I hate conceit. We are vain
popinjays no doubt.”

“Possibly you do not live long enough to be otherwise,” reflected the
dragon. “Your lives are too brief to attain the long view and the
balanced vision which I, for example, enjoy. You are still children for
a quarter of existence, and often for the whole of it. But you will be
more interested in the results of my discoveries. Briefly, our little
community and township is the result. I began, in quite a small way,
with half a dozen old and disconsolate people, who knew but too well
their room was more wanted than their company. One by one I snapped
them up and conveyed them hither. I explained my idea and put it into
practice by devoting myself to the pleasure and satisfaction of these
lonely individuals. They supplied me with the names of others, and were
in a position to assure me that I should wrong nobody by increasing my
collection. They also declared that amid the superfluity of children,
I might, without causing inconvenience, help myself as generously as I
pleased; and this fact gave me particular satisfaction, for it is the
children I was after. Comparatively little can be done for the aged,
and even middle-aged, but make them comfortable and fairly contented.
Their minds are set and they repose upon a body of fossil opinions,
rather than seek the adventure of new ideas. But how different with
youth! The present population of Dragonsville, save certain notable
exceptions, was generally caught young; and the result has been that my
theories, such as they are, win their opportunity. You must, of course,
prove for yourself whether the results satisfy you. It is possible that
you stand on other ground and mistrust reason; but be that as it may,
you will please understand that this little experiment is conducted on
lines of reason alone.”

“I saw a very nice church, however,” murmured Sir Jasper.

“It is a very nice church. I am coming to that,” replied the dragon.
“But first a few more general precepts. Success has nearly always
attended my transplantations. Men and women, removed from the
anxieties and perils of modern civilisation, soon find a new sense of
security growing within them and come to discover that the simplicity
of this self-supporting state is worth the loss of much that the
greater world can promise. For the greater world, as you may already
be aware, promises so much and performs so little. The promisers are
among the mighty of the earth, but the performers for the most go
unrecognised and unrewarded. Here we do not promise much, yet surprise
ourselves daily by the beauty of our modest achievement, and that
without stifling the unconquerable spirit of hope, which enables
humanity to keep going, in face of so many temptations to stop going.
These temptations arise from man’s own false values and acquired
defects of superstition and selfishness, and that most dreadful of
all disabilities known as patriotism. But without, I say, quenching
hope, I yet seek to modify that illusory quality of the human mind and
re-establish it upon surer ground. The result is patience and a growing
conviction that things won’t happen because we want them to do so, or
think that they should happen. The prayer to pray, Sir Jasper, is the
prayer you can answer yourself, and the way to pray it is upon your
feet, not your knees. This, however, shocks you. I see it in your face.”

“I am not sure that I understand,” pleaded the knight.

“You should do so, for it is your own rule and ordinance. You held
me better dead this morning; but I am sure you did not pray for my
destruction: you set out with sword and lance to compass it.”

“Let us not return to that,” begged the other.

“You may still think it best, when you have heard and seen all. I am
at your service as you know. But ‘hope’--I was speaking of this great
faculty. Hope may simply breed restlessness, and so destroy a man’s
present content and mar enjoyment of what he has for desire of what he
has not. Again hope, which after all is a sort of dreaming, may prevent
a man from what he can do, for thinking on what he would like to do.
Your Guilds illustrate this inconvenience, for I observe when wages
interest the workman so much more than his work, that both work and
wages suffer, to the disappointment of everybody concerned.”

“You cannot banish hope from the human heart,” declared Sir Jasper.

“I would as soon banish sunshine from the earth,” replied his
companion. “Hope is of the essence of progress. Hope is a precious
adjunct of all reason. But the really hopeful thing about your lives
is manifest in a great fact that you have yet to grasp. The very gold
mine and treasury of human hope, confounding your pessimists and people
with weak knees and little faith in your own destiny, lies in this:
that reason, like everything else, is subject to change, and that the
change, despite occasional and enormous relapses, none the less makes
steady progress in well-doing. Reason’s natural growth and motion
is upward, not downward; forward, not backward; and they who flout
reason terribly err, because they will not permit her to do that vital
work which lies within her power. At present you are on the crest
of a receding wave and far beneath the high-water mark that earlier
generations of men have attained; but despair not: the tide is coming
in, because it is a part of the great order of things that it should
do so. You must judge what man can do by the best that he has done,
not from the worst; you must admit that the best can be bettered, and
you must turn your faces to the dawn, rather than bury your noses in
night and cry that the darkness thickens. You cannot stand still, and
while men slip back, man goes onward under the impulsion of reason,
that makes for righteousness despite the cross currents of greed and
superstition, vice and folly that seem to hide the fact. Herein lies
the most valuable function of hope: to trust man and to trust his
future.”

“And, meanwhile, what must we do?” asked Sir Jasper.

“Be humble,” replied the Lavender Dragon, “and instead of seeking
supernatural guides, bend your glances to earth and learn that
creatures far beneath you in the scale of existence can teach you
exactly those things you most need to know. Instead of demanding
assistance from higher beings, whose purpose is obscure, whose
friendship is doubtful, whose very existence is merely a matter of
opinion, how far better to turn attention upon humble fellow creatures,
whose manners and customs are plain to be observed and whose lives
command our admiration. Note yonder swarm of bees collecting in the
foliage upon my wife’s tomb. The unconscious altruism of the honey-bee,
who does with her might what best becomes her during the short weeks
of her existence, is an example so lofty that if it were practised by
man the face of this world would be entirely changed. You, my friend,
have an ambition to leave the earth sweeter and richer than you find
it; and that is exactly what the bee achieves in her own sphere, and
what I strive to accomplish in mine. And where reason rules, such an
ambition reacts most favourably upon those who persist therein. For it
is the solvent of selfishness, the test and touchstone of character.
As time passes and the emotion becomes a part of yourself, humility
appears; you are emptied of any love for fame, power or pelf; room for
happiness is created, and you find, in a negation of personal good, the
truest happiness that man may enjoy; for only by individual self-denial
can the sum total of happiness be increased. Such a protagonist is on
the right road to justify his own existence and help the flowing tide
to new high levels, as yet beyond the reach, but not beyond the hope of
reason.”

“And how does it work?” inquired the knight, whereupon his host drained
his vast beaker and made answer.

“My own modest experience appears to work well; but, of course, it is
difficult to be sure if I am really in the right road. You might guess
that, where everybody strives to be gracious and useful to everybody
else, a condition so unusual in human intercourse would have cast the
whole enterprise into confusion; but it is not so. The people are
happy and we progress in amenities of life. We live and let live;
consequently we live and learn. Without a doubt we are going ahead and
getting cleverer in the art of a justified and dignified existence.
And the people are happy; because if they were not so, none would stop
in Dragonsville. But they remain, though under no compulsion to do so;
they assure me that such a life as this meets their requirements and is
well worth living.”

“They never desert you?”

“Never--hence doubtless the general suspicion at Pongley, and many
other places, that I devour them. Once only did a very good man--a holy
clerk--declare a desire to return to his grot in the hills. He was a
minister of the Christian faith, and having failed to succeed and win
his flock as a parish priest, became a hermit and communed in secret
with his Maker, living meantime in a natural cavern upon the fruits
of the earth. I snapped up Father Lazarus at his own matin prayers,
brought him here and talked to him as I have talked to you. He was much
annoyed at first, but soon calmed down and enjoyed our home comforts
for a season. Then he showed uneasiness and a desire to return to the
desert. Presently, however--thanks to his fellow men and women, not
to me--he changed his mind, on the condition that I would build him a
place wherein he might worship his God and advance the happiness of
those who shared his religious opinions.

“I willingly agreed, for you must understand that I am no propagandist,
but welcome any ideas which directly or indirectly advance happiness.
Upon one point only was I definite. But that’s another story and shall
be told you at another time. Father Lazarus is a most excellent and
high-minded priest, and we are close friends. The people respect him,
and it is his custom to seek me on the first day of every month and
devote a morning to my personal welfare. He much desires to convert
me to his own predilections in the matter of religion; and since the
effort is a part of his duty and gives him satisfaction, I always make
leisure to attend his discourses.”

“You marry and are given in marriage?”

“Certainly. Father Lazarus has celebrated many alliances, and the
occasion of a marriage is always a day of rejoicing. I hope you may see
such ceremonies. Our children will be a delight to you--if you are fond
of children.”

“And now a delicate question,” ventured Sir Jasper. “All you have told
me, Sir Dragon, is of deep interest and instruction; but it is my habit
of mind ever to look forward. What of the future of your colony? You, I
take it, are but mortal, and cannot live for ever.”

“The future,” replied L.D., “must look after itself--as it always has
done and always will do. I have never been one to bother my brains
about anything but the present. I trust the future handsomely, as you
already know, but my own concerns have been with my own few centuries.
When I die--probably in a year, or it may be two--I shall be laid
beside my wife; and having planted hawthorns over me, the duty of the
community, so far as I am concerned, will be at an end. The greater
duty to themselves I do not seek to influence. Some will probably
desire to remain; others, to return to the larger world and the
complexities of a higher civilisation than ours. Probably Dragonsville
will disappear, when the walls return to the earth from which they were
raised; and if a measure of what I have endeavoured to do and advance
is carried into the greater world and proves, in its small way, of any
service, I shall not have lived in vain.”

Sir Jasper nodded.

“I am deeply impressed and much edified,” he declared; “but I do not
think you must ask me to stop with you. To break a precedent is a pity,
and the life frankly invites me by reason of its simplicity, dignity
and general charm; but my aim and purpose have ever been to redress
wrong and fight evil. Here things are so happily ordered that an armed
knight--a man of war such as myself--whose business is to destroy the
enemies of mankind and strike bitter and bloody blows that the world
may be cleaner, safer and happier--such a man, honourable Dragon, would
find nothing to do in this place.”

“Why not beat your sword into a ploughshare, your lance into a pruning
hook, your armour into kitchen utensils?” asked the other. “I can
imagine your silver helmet making an exquisite holder for a pot plant
in the boudoir of my dear Lilian.”

A slight warmth of colour mantled the cheek of the hero.

“You are not quite as ingenuous as you pretend, I fear,” he answered.

“Consult her,” urged the Lavender Dragon. “You might do worse, for to
her outward charm is united a very beautiful mind, and I have little
doubt that, in reality, she comes of descent as long and noble as
your own. Take occasion to have discourse with her before you decide.
Speaking generally, your argument is capable of refutation, for
the gift of skill in the field is not, I think, your sole claim to
distinction. Given good will, the prime motive power of all progress,
and a desire to help our body politic, a man of your high principles
and exalted sentiments should not be at a loss even here. I, for
example, shall beg you to throw light upon much that puzzles my
dragon mind. To-day I have done all the talking, but think not that I
cannot listen too. Many of my friends and neighbours have helped me
vastly with their practical knowledge of your species, and the rising
generation is not backward of still more valuable ideas. However, you
are free to go when you please; but I should think it courteous and
considerate if you would undertake to stay a month with us.”

“That I will gladly do,” replied his guest. “There is, however, one
privilege I would beg. My squire, George Pipkin, must be suffering the
extremity of grief on my account, and he will, not unnaturally, fear
for me a very different fate than this I now enjoy. Is it within your
power, think you, to unite us? I may tell you that he will certainly
seek me and push his way, sooner or later, to your outer walls. If,
on reaching them, he might be admitted into this happy land, I should
thank you heartily.”

“I will bring him myself,” promised the Lavender Dragon. “A man so
faithful and of such devotion to his master is worthy of all respect.”

Sir Jasper sighed and reviewed his tremendous experience.

“What the world would think of me, I cannot guess,” he said.

“What the world thinks of us is of prodigious unimportance, my
friend,” replied the saurian. “The only thing that really matters is
what we think of ourselves. In nothing is reason so flouted as in our
ridiculous self-estimates; but when we suffer her to help us read our
own hearts and judge the real worth of our own abilities and ambitions,
then we shall begin to know what moral progress may mean.”




VII

_GREAT NEWS FOR GEORGE PIPKIN_


Early on the morrow the Lavender Dragon set forth to seek George Pipkin
and, after sleeping soundly in a most comfortable and cheerful chamber,
the latest arrival at Dragonsville went among the people and saw and
heard much that gave him pleasure.

His host had not returned at the hour of midday dinner, but certain
elderly and dignified persons of both sexes joined Sir Jasper at the
meal. He found Father Lazarus, the priest, to be of the party, together
with Nicholas Warrender, the seneschal, a grey-haired dame or two, and
an old but venerable man whom the others addressed as “Sir Claude.”
There were also present Amory Doncaster, the Lavender Dragon’s doctor,
and Lilian Lovenot, who, radiant in a gown of azure blue, decorated
with pearls as large as filberts, sat beside the newcomer.

Conversation proved by no means parochial and his new friends
manifested great interest in Sir Jasper’s professional experiences and
the doings of the outer world. The old people expressed a hope that
life ran in more gracious channels than of yore, and that he found an
increase of prosperity and happiness upon his travels; while, when
he confessed that new wars were in the making and new discontents
battering and bruising humanity on every side, the younger men and
women present declared their impatience and indignation at the slow
progress of the race.

“I cannot but think,” said Lilian Lovenot, “that a time is near when
the rising generation of Dragonsville will be called to abandon this
life of ease and happiness, and go forth to carry the principles and
theories of L.D. into the outer darkness.”

“A tremendous opinion,” replied a youth by the name of Howard Harris.
“But it may come to that. We have all made one another as happy as it
is possible to be at Dragonsville, and, for my own part, I sometimes
sigh for other fields wherein to conquer.”

“Or be conquered,” said Sir Claude, and looking upon him, the younger
knight observed the first face in this city which betokened a mind not
wholly at rest.

After the meal was ended, Sir Jasper, his fellow knight and Lilian
walked to the grave of the Lavender Dragon’s wife and sat upon it under
the shadow of the flowering shrubs. Then Sir Claude, having found that
his own adventures in chivalry belonged to a period far anterior to
the visitor’s, explained the reason of that settled melancholy which
appeared upon his grey and wrinkled countenance.

“I am Sir Claude Pontifex Fortescue, of the Strong Shield,” he said,
“and it was I, Sir Jasper, who, sixty years ago, laid lance in rest
against L.D. That awful error of judgment has haunted me and cast
the sour shadow of remorse upon my long, and, I hope, subsequently
blameless career.”

“I did no less in thought,” confessed Sir Jasper. “My one desire was
to slaughter this prodigious person and cut his head off. Surely he
is the last to blame you, or harbour any suspicion of resentment. It
is summed in a word, Sir Knight; you and I knew no better. I will go
further and declare that there was no reason why we should.”

“Exactly; and he has told you so a dozen times, Sir Claude,” added
Lilian. “It is irrational of you to harbour this sorrow for more than
half a century. You merely scratched his side and did not shorten his
precious life by an hour.”

The ancient knight only shook his head.

“I deserved death, for he strove to address me before I charged, and I
would not listen.”

“But he spared you to be useful; and no doubt you have been useful,”
suggested Sir Jasper.

“He has,” vowed Lilian. “L.D. himself declares that Sir Claude has been
his right paw for sixty years.”

But Sir Claude dwelt morbidly on the details of that far-away disaster.

“He merely thumped me; then he brought me here, healed my bruises and
exalted me into a position of trust and honour. Would that I had been
worthy of such forgiveness, my friends.”

He refused to be comforted, and presently Sir Jasper and Lilian left
him still sighing to himself, and went their way through the gardens of
the castle.

“Come and look at our carpet bedding,” suggested the beautiful maiden,
and her companion soon stood where five-and-twenty gardeners were
busy arranging a little horticultural surprise for the dragon on
his return. Sir Jasper, however, was no authority on these subjects
and he turned the conversation into more personal channels. Lilian,
at his entreaty, related the brief particulars of her own career
as far as she remembered it; but she shared the dragon’s opinion
concerning her advent into the world and agreed with the inhabitants of
Pongley-in-the-Marsh that the excellent Lovenots were not her parents.

“I loved them dearly,” she said, “but I never felt towards them as a
daughter, and when L.D. discovered me weeping at the well, he knew, by
a marvellous intuition peculiar to him and doubtless the result of his
vast experience, that I was no true child of the hamlet.”

“Here you are happier?” inquired the knight.

“It may sound ungrateful, but I am. I do love comfort and cleanliness
and, I am afraid, luxury,” confessed Lilian. “Silk next the skin,
swansdown to sleep upon, crystal to drink out of, instead of cloam, and
so on--weak--very weak, Sir Jasper.”

“Doubtless the blood in your veins demands these modest additions to
life,” he declared. “There can be no sort of doubt that the fairies,
after their somewhat malicious custom, played a trick upon your
foster-mother and your real one; and now the daughter of the Lovenots
probably occupies a position of high estate and has usurped your
connections and your lawful style and title.”

“It may be so, but I am perfectly happy here,” said Lilian. “In the
fragrant atmosphere of the Lavender Dragon, we live a life of such
fine quality that no distinction could better it. I naturally mourn my
own dear parents sometimes, and wonder what they make of the girl who
bears my name, whatever that may be; but I daresay they have found a
better daughter than I should have been to them.”

“That is quite impossible,” he asserted, and was lost in thought for
the space of twenty minutes.

Sir Jasper then spoke again and put a question.

“Is it beyond reason that I should be permitted to gaze at your left
elbow?” he inquired, and the lady started at a request so unusual.

“Who told you about that, Sir Jasper?” she asked in her turn.

“Nobody told me anything, fair mistress; but, as they say, the world
is small, and I have in my mind a noble West-country family, who
lost a daughter and found a changeling under somewhat distressing
circumstances about sixteen years ago. The changeling ran away with a
wine-drawer when she was fifteen, and no great search was made to find
either of them. The noble family of the Traceys, who are always said to
have the wind in their faces, happen to be neighbours of my own kin,
and we are therefore familiar with a tradition among them. The eldest
son always exhibits a birthmark on his left shoulder-blade in the shape
of a poignard; while the eldest daughter’s left elbow never fails to
reveal an auburn mole in shape of a cuddy wren.”

Lilian’s aquamarine eyes shone like ocean pools when the tide is out,
and she exhibited the wildest astonishment.

“But I have a little wren upon my left elbow,” she cried.

“Then you are the vanished daughter of the far-famed Lord Meavybrook,
of the family of Tracey in the West country, whose manor adjoins
our lands of Pomeroy. I salute Mistress Lovenot no longer, but the
Honourable Camilla Petronell Thomasin Tracey and kiss her hand!”

At this dramatic moment a shadow fell upon the carpet bedding, and
the aerial music of the Lavender Dragon’s wings announced his return.
In a few moments he had descended, whereupon George Pipkin and his
roan charger reached the ground together. Instantly George perceived
his master and, rushing to him, praised God and flung himself at Sir
Jasper’s feet. The knight raised his squire, cheered him heartily, bade
him rejoice, assured him that all was well, and presently surrendered
him to the good offices of half a dozen friendly spirits, who hastened
to pleasure the new arrival.

The translated maiden meantime attended upon the dragon, and, after
L.D. had enjoyed a mighty meal of hay and fine oats, informed him of
the amazing discovery concerning herself. He was gratified but by no
means surprised, and when Sir Jasper returned from a talk with George,
all particulars were demanded.

The knight, however, could add no more to the story than he had already
told. He was permitted to study the white elbow of the lady and there,
exquisitely fashioned by Nature’s self, appeared a wee cuddy wren,
that, upon the milky purity of the skin, suggested an agate cameo
carved by a master’s hand.

“One takes these happenings in a large spirit,” said the dragon. “I am
well-pleased to have my intuition proved correct, and for the moment
only a single thought occurs to me. We have now a choice of three names
for Mistress Tracey, and what I want to know is this: does she desire
that we call her henceforth Camilla, Petronell, or Thomasin?”

The girl looked at Sir Jasper and smiled so radiantly that a mavis on
a bough burst into music and added certain notes to his repertory that
have been in every grey bird’s song since then.

“It is Sir Jasper, after my gossips, who has given me these pleasant
names,” she said, “he shall, therefore, determine by which I must
henceforth be addressed.”

“Let L.D. choose,” begged the knight, but the dragon declined.

“Then let it be Camilla on Sundays and Petronell through the week,
save upon Fridays, when she shall be called Thomasin.”

It was decided so, and in high good humour the Lavender Dragon retired
to sleep, and the knight and the lady were again left in each other’s
company.

Strange emotions already agitated Sir Jasper and he found in his
mind a new sensation, which left him a little bemused. Bitter-sweet
under-currents of thought possessed him and led to some slight loss of
manners; for so occupied was he with his own reflections, that more
than once he forgot to reply when Petronell questioned him, and thrice
he permitted himself to gaze upon her with a direct glare of his blue
eyes that cast her into maidenly confusion.

For these lapses he apologised in stumbling words, and he had no sooner
done so when he committed the like errors again. Anon she left him and
walked pensively to the castle, while he returned to George. Pipkin was
now well fed and had changed his travel-stained jerkin of leather and
oft mended boots for a murry-coloured velvet tunic and small clothes
of orange-tawny laced with black. He had entirely recovered from the
shock of the morning, and having related how the dragon had snapped
him, as he was about to plunge into the Woods of Blore, he dismissed
the subject and declared his great satisfaction at the turn of events.

“I have never had such a fuss made about me since I was short-coated,”
declared the squire, “and I am well content to enjoy a long respite and
rest from our tedious life among these delightful people. May I venture
to hope, Sir Jasper, that you design to remain here at least until the
autumn?”

But his master thought differently.

“This is no place for us, George,” he replied. “A month I have
undertaken to remain, that I may study a society from which we can
both learn much to our profit; but that done, we take the road. We are
men of war, and there is nothing that we can accomplish to add to the
perfection of this peaceful community. We will, therefore, glean what
wisdom we may and, fortified thereby, return to our own good work.”

Pipkin, however, secretly hoped their visit might be prolonged; and
then a curious accident brought the squire face to face with one whom
he had known in the outer world.

They were strolling down a little street together, wherein every house
seemed to smile an invitation upon them from its open door and cheerful
countenance, when, out of a cot, in whose garden towered purple
columbines above a bed of rosemary, there tripped a young woman and two
children. She was dark and comely, with black hair, brown eyes and a
skin as ruddy as a burn in spate. The youngsters were like her--a pair
of bright-eyed boys with laughing eyes.

“Odds bodikins!” cried George. “Here is Sally Slater, the widow of West
Fell. What chance has brought her to this happy valley?”

The woman’s eyes now fell on George and she recognised him.

“’Tis Master Pipkin!” she cried.

“By our Lady I command you tell me how you came hither,” demanded
George, and Sally Slater related her strange story.

“You must know that after my husband died, I took care of his old
mother, and on a day when I made for her a brew of lentils, herbs and
milk, an awful fate befell me. I was engaged in my cooking and thinking
with tears of my departed spouse, when into my cabin burst half a dozen
strange men. There was a witch hunt through West Fell, and seeing me
about my pot, the cruel wretches leapt upon me and haled me before a
judge. As ill fortune would have it, a black cat with green eyes purred
upon my hearth at the time, while in a corner, for I was ever a cleanly
woman, there stood a great birch broom. Here was sufficient evidence
to endanger my existence, and after I had sworn, by the blood of our
Saviour, that I was no witch and had never in all my life held commune
with the Fiend, they put me to the torture to make me confess.

“They thrust me into a chair of sharp steel spikes; they dropped
boiling oil upon my legs and bosom and held a lighted taper under my
armpits. And then, after striving with my poor might to hold to the
truth, my body’s grief was too great and even for the brief respite,
which I knew was all that remained, I lied and screamed out that I was
indeed a witch.”

Sir Jasper regarded poor Sally with sorrow.

“It is even so with thousands,” he said. “For the brief surcease of
their agony, tormented flesh cries out a falsehood, and so men and
women without number are forced to say what is false and condemn
themselves to death; while those who think they do God service, rejoice
and cast the unfortunate innocents into the fire. The Popes of Rome
swept away that legal justice enjoyed by all accused persons under
pagan law, and our most earnest Christians have sent innumerable
harmless men and women to the flames on this account. Fear was
responsible for these cruelties, and fear makes all men unjust. Fear
surely must it have been that caused Elisha to consign the children to
the bears, though why he was alarmed at two score noisy youngsters,
we shall never know. And the men who have accomplished these dismal
feats were the salt of the earth! The good Bishop of Treves burned six
thousand, five hundred parishioners and desolated his diocese; Nicholas
Remy, a pious and, I believe, a pleasing person in his home, roasted
over eight hundred of his poor and powerless fellow creatures. One
remembers also that admirable Protestant jurist, Benedict Carpzor, who
not only read the Holy Bible from cover to cover fifty-three times,
but also passed twenty thousand sentences of death on witches and
sorcerers.”

“Did no ghosts ever haunt or distract these accursed wretches?” cried
George Pipkin.

“Certainly not,” replied the knight. “They passed to their eternal
reward with the blessing and applause of all men, and in consciousness
of lives nobly spent on their Maker’s business. In the case of Remy
aforesaid, however, it is reported that he was unhappy on his deathbed
because, in a moment of human weakness, he had only scourged certain
young children naked round the pyres whereon their parents were
burning, instead of casting them into the flames also. His conscience
pricked him sharply in that matter at the end, for it is well known,
and Mother Church is clear upon the subject, that the children of
witches have the Devil for their sire and should never be spared the
stake.”

“Then how come you and your brave boys to be alive, Sally?” inquired
George.

“Thanks entirely to L.D.,” replied the young widow. “By the will of
God, he was passing West Fell when I went to the faggots, and scarcely
had they been ignited, before he came to earth, sent the people flying
in every direction and bore me away. Nor did his mercy end with my
rescue. As soon as we had landed here and I learned the truth of him,
my mother’s heart cried for my children. I explained that they would
certainly be burned alive after our departure, and were probably
already beyond salvation. Whereon he instantly set out again, and West
Fell, being cast into a great terror by his visit, the children were
still in the land of the living. Certain persons had pitied them in
secret and bidden them fly before it was too late. Our dragon came
upon the little things lying asleep together without the village, and
when they wakened from their journey, it was in my arms.”

“All’s well that ends well,” said George, “and now tell me a little
about our native place. I often think of West Fell and my family.”

Sally showed some uneasiness.

“I’m very much afraid there will be bad news for you, Master Pipkin,
when you gang home again,” she said.

“Let me have it,” he answered, “for as to ganging home, I do not feel
in any violent haste to be there,”

“Poor Mistress Pipkin is gathered in,” said Sally sadly. “A year or so
before my troubles, she went to pick water-cresses in the owl-light,
and ’tis feared she mistook the way. Be that as it will, they found her
drowned with a very peaceful expression upon her face.”

“My stars, Jemima gone!” cried George, staring before him with more
astonishment than grief. “Are you sure of what you are telling me,
Sally?”

“She lies beside the little one took after he was born; and your
daughter has married the cordwainer, John Bindle, and your son has gone
for a sailor in one of the king’s ships.”

“This would seem to be the day of my life!” murmured Pipkin.

“Accept hearty sympathy in your affliction,” said Sir Jasper. “You will
suffer this blow with your usual philosophic fortitude, George.”

“Heaven helping, I shall make shift to face it,” answered the widower,
“for what saith the Book? ‘He hath done all things well.’”




VIII

_THREE SONGS AND A STORY_


This being no tale of love, we are not so much concerned with the
swift and ingenuous romance of Sir Jasper and his honourable lady, as
challenged by the result of their common passion. Nor can we dwell
overmuch upon the less emotional love-making of George Pipkin, who,
before he had resided a week at Dragonsville, was resolutely courting
Sally Slater and winning the affection of her sons.

Sir Jasper now found himself at odds between love and duty, yet opposed
the one against the other with diminishing zest, for as time passed,
he could not fail to observe that the maiden of his adoration was
by no means impatient of his company. The knight’s cheek grew lean,
and his blue eyes became anxious. He had little intelligence, but a
conscience of almost morbid activity, and at first he suspected the
whole business to be enchantment--a possible wile of the Lavender
Dragon to detain him indefinitely, fog his senses and deaden his soul
to the clarion of duty. But though enchanting, there was nothing in the
attitude of Petronell to suggest that she played a part, endeavoured to
enchain Sir Jasper, or come between him and his appointed task. Indeed
she delighted to hear of his modest achievements and gave it as her
opinion that his career had only just begun. His aspirations were her
own, for now she openly longed to be of use in the world and carry the
lessons learned at Dragonsville to Devonshire at some future time.

“To do good is an art,” she declared, “and needs as much practising as
any other. It is, indeed, because the beginner often makes such a mess
of it that many are choked off well-doing altogether and turn to other
and easier pursuits.

“It is understood,” she continued, “that so long as L.D. shall live, I
do not leave him; and much I wish, dear knight, you found it possible
to make the same promise. To think of the world without him, is to
think of a very sad thing; but he is rarely mistaken, and in his
opinion he will pass during the spring of next year. Then such as
desire to stay and proceed with their lives after his fashion, will
do so; but not a few of the rising generation propose to explore the
world. Whether their discoveries will turn their feet hither again, who
can say? For my part I was in a mind to stop among those I love and
cherish here; but after your astounding information, it is clearly my
duty to go home, reveal my birth-mark and claim my parentage.”

“I agree with you, Camilla,” declared Sir Jasper, for it was a Sunday
on which these words were spoken, and the knight and the lady returned,
side by side, to the Castle from Morning Prayer.

“It is our Lavender Dragon’s own wish that I should do so,” she
continued. “Indeed, since he has learned the truth about me, he has
even raised the question whether I do well to tarry at all. But my
father and mother have waited so many years that it cannot harm them to
bide still longer in ignorance; and I will never leave L.D. while he
lives. I owe him the little wisdom I possess, and I shall strive to
plan my future life by his precepts wherever I may spend it.”

A vision of amazing beauty stole into the thoughts of Sir Jasper. He
pictured himself returning to the West country with a bride; he saw the
great houses of Tracey and Pomeroy gloriously united; he pictured the
joy of all concerned, the rejoicings, the largesse flying in silver
showers, even the red Devon ox, roasted whole, and the morris dances,
cudgel play, bull baiting and other delights of Merrie England proper
to such an occasion. Incidentally he saw a ring fence round the two
manors.

But he kept these dreams to himself. He had reached a stage at which
the next step must be a declaration of marriage, or speedy departure,
and he suspected that the lady was of the same opinion. But still he
hesitated, until it wanted but three days before the month was ended
and his undertaking to remain at Dragonsville absolved. He felt in dire
need of another opinion at this juncture, for spiritual uneasiness
overtook him in the night watches and he doubted whether these earthly
ambitions much became him. To consult George Pipkin was idle. The
squire had already become affianced to Sally Slater, and the folk
congratulated both man and woman, for George, a resourceful person and
quick to respond to friendship, became a favourite from the first. He
knew Sir Jasper’s plight very well indeed, for his master could not
conceal it. In truth everybody was alive to the situation and when,
finally, the lovesick fellow determined to lay the matter before L.D.
himself, his host showed no surprise. They spoke together after knight
and dragon had bathed side by side in the great central fountain,
before breakfast on a cloudless morning of July; and while the rising
sun glittered over the rose and azure scales of the larger animal and
quickly dried them, Sir Jasper, having resumed his garments, explained
the problem and humbly invited comments and a solution.

“I, of course, am an ‘intellectual’ and apologise for it,” answered
L.D. “It is comparatively easy to write, or lecture, eat hay, drink
water and tell everybody else what they ought to do. This rule of life
gives those who practise it enormous satisfaction and induces them to
suppose that they are the only people who really much matter to the
cosmic scheme. But as I find that to devour red meat, drink red wine
and do things, instead of telling other people to do them, is much
more difficult, my admiration has always been reserved for such as
themselves attempt to advance the work of the world. To pull down is
easier than to build up, and I am entirely on the side of those who
would build, even if their building be faulty; while they who snap and
snarl and spew opposition on everybody who is honestly seeking to help
distracted humanity, leave me cold--even for the cold-blooded reptile,
which I happen to be. In a word it may be said that the heart of man
seeks to build, while the brain of him is chiefly concerned to destroy
the existing order. Both are right and both are vital; and when they
work together in the light of reason, good things must happen. But when
will they?

“Now, you are of the thick-headed, but warm-hearted, order of men who
want to get on with it. And you have fallen in love with a maiden
suited to you in every possible way. She belongs to your own order,
though that matters nothing; but what does matter is that she also
belongs to your own sort of intelligence. She prays to the same God, as
far as it can be said that any two people have the same idea of what
their Maker means; she enjoys the same humanist outlook; she resents
the same wrongs and evils; she is quite as determined as yourself to
leave the world better than she finds it. What more seemly and fitting,
then, than that you twain should wed and presently go forth, nerved and
heartened each by the other, in the glory of a shared love, a shared
trust, and a shared duty to the world? She has already made you happier
than she found you, though at present you do not look it; and you have
brought into her delightful life a deep and mysterious quickening and
wakened her noblest emotions. Thus you have both made the world happier
than you found it already, and what is worrying you is a chimera, a
vague and futile echo of that melancholy hoot, a vanished order of
Christians raised from their burrows, caves and catacombs. The idea
of these estimable, but mistaken, cenobites you will recollect. They
held no happiness seemly in this life, and accounted human love the
invention of the Devil. They did their best to depopulate the earth;
but their claim and clamour were alike unavailing in the face of
Nature, and to-day we all, I think, admit that it is a very seemly and
blessed thing for a healthy man to marry the right woman and to take
a hand in the next generation. But that is a subject not likely to
interest you for the moment. Therefore place your heart at Petronell’s
feet, and if she prove willing to pick it up, wed her, stay with me, as
she intends to do, until I go underground--somewhere about the breaking
of the leaf next year--and then seek your relations together, and go on
doing your duty to the best of your united powers.”

“You have greatly heartened me, my noble friend,” answered Sir Jasper.
“It is almost beyond the dreams of ambition that such a maiden can
stoop to such a man; but I will at least summon courage to approach
her; and if the answer doom me to everlasting sorrow, you will not take
it amiss that I mount my steed, don my armour and go hence.”

“Certainly not,” replied the devious dragon, who already knew that
Petronell loved the lad with devotion. “If she say you nay, I shall be
the first to speed the parting guest.”

Within a week, however, the young people were betrothed, much to their
own delight and the satisfaction of the entire community. The Lavender
Dragon, who never lost an occasion to bring his friends together,
proclaimed a banquet and entertainment of unexampled splendour to
celebrate this engagement, and it was swiftly planned that both Sir
Jasper and his squire should be wedded in the same hour, upon a day
after the harvest had been reaped.

Nicholas Warrender, the dragon’s old seneschal, was master of
the ceremonies on the occasion of this public entertainment; all
Dragonsville came to L.D.’s revel, and features of the joyful event
were certain performances which followed a great midday meal. There
was dancing; there was singing; there were athletic sports and trials
of strength and dexterity. But the special attraction, and that most
vividly remembered, remained to the credit of Sir Jasper and his bride,
George Pipkin and the Lavender Dragon himself.

The knight, his lady and his squire each obliged with a song; while
L.D. told the people a new story.

Sir Jasper’s betrothed sang first, and accompanied herself upon a
lute. The lyric had been composed for that instrument, and Petronell
sang with great charm and natural feeling, though, as she confessed,
there was nothing to admire in either the words, or the music. Yet it
happened that this was the only song she knew: her foster-mother had
taught it to her in childhood.


_SONG FOR A LUTE_

  “Margery, Merle and Aveline--
  And rarest, fairest Aveline,
  Loveliest maids that ever were seen--
  Loveliest ever seen,
  Wandered beneath the hunter’s moon--
  The red, uprising hunter’s moon,
  For to find the fairies and beg a boon--
      Ting-a-ling! Ting-a-ling!
      Ting! Ting! Ting-a-ling!
  Beg for a pixy boon.

  “There came a boy along the way--
  A pretty boy along the way,
  And Margery stopped with him to play--
  Margery stopped to play.
  Her sisters went through dimpsy light,
  By dingles dim through dimpsy light,
  And tears of one were falling bright--
      Ting-a-ling! Ting-a-ling!
      Ting! Ting! Ting-a-ling!
  Tears, they were falling bright.

  “A convent by the way they trod--
  The dark and dusky path they trod,
  Drew weeping Merle at the will of God--
  Merle by the will of God.
  She entered, and she bides there yet--
  A sainted nun she bides there yet,
  For love of the boy that Margery met--
      Ting-a-ling! Ting-a-ling!
      Ting! Ting! Ting-a-ling!
  Boy that Margery met.

  “But Aveline by beck and glen--
  By starry beck and moony glen
  Won to the holt of the pixy men--
  Haunt of the pixy men.
  And thus spake they to Aveline--
  To rarest, fairest Aveline,
  ‘When the King sees you, he’ll forget the Queen!’
  Ting-a-ling! Ting-a-ling!
      Ting! Ting! Ting-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling!
  ‘King shall forget the Queen!’”

Everybody applauded Petronell’s singing and refrained from criticising
the song; but Sir Jasper held the accompaniment to be very beautiful,
and the dragon, who used an ear-trumpet on special occasions, declared
the melody tuneful, and hoped that the lady would sing it many times
to him, so that he might better appreciate it; for of music he knew
nothing.

Then Sir Jasper, having indicated to Petronell the tune which she must
play upon her lute to accompany his song, made ready.

“I will give you ‘The Charm,’” he said, “and, though it is long since I
had occasion to sing and I am much out of practice, I will do my best.”

He proceeded in a not unmusical baritone.


_THE CHARM_

  “When chafers drone their litany
  And pray, ‘Oh, Father, grant that we
  From airy-mouse delivered be,’
  Go seek--go seek the Charm.

  “Under the sky, when a star shoots,
  Beneath an oak, when owlet hoots,
  Gather ye simples, dig ye roots
  To build--to build the Charm.

  “That glassy ghost upon a thorn--
  The raiment of a snake outworn--
  Must backward through the dark be borne
  To feed--to feed the Charm.

  “A glow-worm--she whose gentle light
  Glimmers green-gold upon the night,
  Beside yon churchyard aconite--
  Shall help--shall help the Charm.

  “One willow from the cradle take,
  Where a boy baby lies awake,
  And splinters off a coffin break
  To fortify the Charm.

  “A tarnished silver chalice bring
  Dead gossips gave at christening,
  And dip the moonlight from a spring
  To crown--to crown the Charm.

  “This much, God wot, a child might do,
  Yet all must fail if haply you
  Lack a child’s faith, so trusting, true
  To bless--to bless the Charm.

  “Many the spells of high degree
  And fruitful happiness, we see
  All lost for faith to set them free
  And work--and work the Charm.”

“An excellent song with an excellent moral,” declared Nicholas
Warrender. “But rather monotonous.”

“That is my fault,” confessed Sir Jasper. “If I had sung it better, I
think that you would have liked it better.”

“Or if I had played it better,” added the musician.

Then spoke Sally Slater, who was going to marry Master Pipkin.

“If you please, dear L.D., I don’t think you will like George’s song,
and it may be better if he is silent.”

“Why, Sally?” asked the dragon kindly. “I do not think that George
would sing anything unfit for our ears.”

“That’s just what he’s going to do,” declared Sally, whose face was red
and whose eyes were anxious.

“Explain before you proceed, George,” suggested Sir Jasper.

“It’s like this,” said the squire. “I’m not wishful to sing if none is
wishful to hear. To be honest, the song is about a louse--and why not?”

“There’s not a louse in Dragonsville,” declared the seneschal with
conviction.

“Nevertheless, there are many elsewhere,” replied George, “and God made
them for His own dark purposes.”

The dragon spoke.

“Numerous creatures are quite familiar to us,” he said, “and not a few
seek the hospitality of our homes and persons, whether we cold-shoulder
them or no. They have their own methods of circumventing our hostility,
and the black-beetle persists from generation to generation; the rat
survives, with a determined resistance, despite all that we do against
him; the wolf still makes shift to rear his family and trouble our
shepherds; while many lesser things cling closer than a brother and
will not be denied. Let us by all means pursue our warfare against
them; but let us be just to our enemies, and if some human poet has
struck his lyre to the body-louse, that is his affair. I see no
objection to hearing what he has to say upon the subject with an open
mind.”

Thus encouraged, George stood forth; but Petronell did not offer to
accompany him.

“The song is in two parts, if you please,” explained Pipkin. “The first
part is the louse talking to his Maker.”

He then sang these words in a deep and sonorous bass, which the dragon
had no difficulty in hearing.


_A CHAT_

  _Pediculus_

  “Almighty One, I grieve to find
  That in your everlasting nous,
  For reasons hidden from my mind,
  Your servant you have made a louse.

  “It was your parasitic whim
  All creatures that on earth do dwell,
  Whether they walk, or fly, or swim,
  Should each one give some brother hell.

  “From royal lion to agile flea,
  Your all-embracing scheme was laid;
  From genus homo down to me
  The case is thus I am afraid.

  “But man’s the super-louse of earth;
  He crawls its face, deflowers, defames,
  Devours, destroys, brings rapine, dearth,
  Deliriums and deaths and shames.

  “So what were meaner, viler, worse
  Than my hard fate--a louse of lice!
  Oh, Father of the Universe,
  It isn’t nice; it isn’t nice!”

The singer here broke off and addressed the Lavender Dragon. He felt
conscious that the audience was against him.

“That’s what the creature said to the Creator, your honour; and now,
whether they like it or no, I’m going to sing what he got for his
answer.”

“Certainly, George; one side is only good till we hear the other,”
answered L.D. courteously, and Pipkin finished thus:

  _Omnipotence_

  “My humble friend, take heart of grace;
  There’s many a miracle of Mine
  Compared with which your homely race
  May honestly be said to shine.

  “You are a polished gem beside
  The micrococcus I have made;
  Your shapely stature, easy stride
  Put bacillus quite in the shade.

  “But they, and you, and such small fry
  Of matter fashioned to assail
  Humanity, stand fairly high
  In your Creator’s social scale.

  “My master-piece and prime device--
  My highest flight and true top-hole
  Of loathsome horror--are the lice
  I send to bite the human soul.

  “Could them you see, your heart would freeze
  Such loathly spectacles to view.
  Be of good cheer: compared with these,
  A little gentleman are you!”

There was an ominous silence and nobody applauded.

“I told you they’d hate it,” said Sally.

“A painful theme, George,” declared the dragon. “Nevertheless I am glad
to have heard the song. There is truth in it; but like so many other
true things---- You might write the words from George’s dictation,
Petronell, then I will consider them in private. Do not, however, sing
it again. Sally will teach you some sunnier ditties. Your voice is
admirable.”

After further conversation upon this subject, during which George found
the sense of the company against him and learned, to his confusion,
from Father Lazarus, that his performance approached, if it did not
actually attain blasphemy, the seneschal called for silence and the
dragon made a few remarks before telling his story.

“As you know,” he said, “all my stories have a moral, and the story
that dares to convey a moral must be extra good, or young people
naturally scorn it and grown-up people decline to hear it. A time
is fast coming when no story will be permitted any moral whatever,
and those who attempt stories with morals will be derided for their
pains; but I belong to the old guard in this matter, and the adventure
of a mighty monarch I am now about to relate, cannot be denied its
conclusions. Understand, however, that I do not draw them. I leave them
entirely to the listener, who shall apply or ignore them as he may
prefer.”

The dragon then told his tale, slowly and solemnly. He was himself so
impressed by its moral implications, that he quite failed to see the
funny side, or if he did see it, he pretended not to do so.


SESOSTRIS

This was the name given by the Greeks to that very distinguished
King of Egypt, more generally known as Rameses II, and I shall tell
you a pleasing incident in his career, which reveals this great man
to have possessed an element of common sense rarely met with among
early potentates, who possessed supreme power and held life and death
in their hands. Sesostris enjoyed a plenitude of might and glory
sufficient to turn the head of any lesser king, nor did he deny himself
a certain amount of barbaric licence, or decline to accept what passed
for pleasure in those remote times.

For example, consider the chariot that he used upon great occasions
of State, and, what is still more wonderful to tell, the animals that
drew it. The vehicle itself was constructed of gold and ivory and
composed entirely of the fruits won from victorious invasions. It had
been encrusted with magnificent gems--ruby, sapphire, and diamond--and
cunningly wrought to flash its splendour even on a dull day. Sesostris
himself drove his coach and four and he never failed to attract a
multitude of shouting admirers, for not horse or ass, zebu or zebra,
ostrich or cameleopard drew him. Four captive kings strained at the
harness; and though Sesostris swung and cracked a formidable whip
behind these fallen rulers, in justice to a great man we record that he
never touched his team with it. Such an equipage was not contrived for
speed, but arrogant pomp alone.

Never the stars in all their courses had witnessed any such tremendous
sight as these royal slaves dragging Sesostris about the streets of
Thebes, or Luxor. Tyrants were they, made prisoners in war, and even
their own old subjects would sometimes travel to see this astounding
turn-out, and tremble to witness their monarchs transformed into beasts
of burden.

Of these four rulers condemned to this appalling penalty for unsuccess,
one was a Syrian of ripe age. He occupied the near off position, and
upon an occasion when Sesostris proceeded to offer sacrifice for a good
Nile at the temple of Apis, the royal driver observed this chieftain
cast repeated back glances of extraordinary interest and awe at the
golden wheel of the chariot immediately behind him.

“O King,” enquired Sesostris, pulling up, “do you find anything amiss?”

“Not so, Glory of the Earth, and Life of your People,” answered the
Syrian humbly.

“Then what are you staring at?” asked the ruler of Egypt.

“Sire,” replied the elder. “It happens that we may live a great part of
our lives with some familiar, necessary object and then, suddenly, at
chance prompting of the intellect, or flash of intuition, perceive in
the everyday thing a fresh meaning, an added significance, that lifts
our homely invention to new and notable seriousness, if not solemnity.”

“There is nothing in the least solemn about a chariot wheel, though,
seeing that the spokes were fashioned out of the tusks of your late
herd of white elephants, they doubtless turn your thoughts to gravity,”
replied Sesostris.

“They do indeed,” confessed his royal slave. “But it is the operation
rather than construction of these ivory spokes that gives me my great
thought. Herein I find a parable of enormous significance, and only
wonder how the mightiest brain on the earth at this moment has failed
to note it.”

“You refer to me, no doubt,” replied Sesostris, “and you may rest
assured that I have not missed the meaning of the wheel in our affairs.
Surely the wheel of the potter and the wheel of the vehicle are
landmarks in all human history.”

“There is even more than that I have discerned,” answered the Syrian,
“for behold, as the wheel turns round, how the spoke now nighest earth
slowly ascends until it is above all the other spokes and pointing
heavenwards; but even in the moment of its highest ascension, steadily
and certainly, as the wheel comes full circle, it sinks and sinks,
until it is upon the earth again, while another has taken its pride of
place aloft. O, Glory of the Universe and Topmost Spoke in the Wheel
of the Children of Men, does not this formidable spectacle appal your
heart and chill the purple blood in your most honourable veins?”

Doubtless a lesser man might have resented such a sermon at such a time
and commanded the preacher to lay hold and get on with his task; but
Sesostris, if his mind was not of that majestic dimension his oriental
flatterer pretended, had none the less a very keen wit, and the parable
was well calculated to challenge his practical wisdom and sense of
reality. For a moment he remained silent, weighing the measure of the
thing spoken; and then, with a certain impulsive and honest habit of
mind peculiar to him, he spoke.

“Hear us, my people, and you, our steeds, also give ear. The thing
that this learned tyrant of the East has imparted to us, we find to
be rich with great meaning; and since the grass is never allowed to
grow beneath our royal feet, we determine from this moment to change
our mode of traction, and travel henceforth in a manner more fitted
to human reason and kingly decorum. Greater is that monarch who walks
afoot than he who subjects any fellow man to the indignity of the
shafts.”

Amazed all listened, and then Sesostris turned to his captives and
spoke with a swift and regal generosity.

“Kings,” said he, “we had permitted ourselves to overlook the way of
fate and the immutable vicissitude of every human lot. This grey-haired
Syrian is exceedingly right, even though he has proved us to be
exceedingly wrong. Depart in peace, free men--all four of you! Return
to your nations, that you may govern them with justice and mercy; and
take along with you from our treasure houses, wondrous gifts for each
wife and child, together with rations for your journeys and an escort
worthy of the occasion and its demands. And never more, in this, or
little and uncertain life, let warfare and hatred arise between us to
mar our future friendship.”

He descended from his chariot, embraced each bewildered monarch and
kissed the aged Syrian on both cheeks. Then, raising his hand to stay
the shout of applause lifted around him by the younger generation of
his people, for his counsellors were rather quiet, he spoke again.

“Henceforward, Egypt, when our chariot passes in affairs demanding
circumstance and glory, it shall be drawn by two grey donkeys, in token
of that common sense which is at the root of all progress honestly to
be described as royal. And may they never find any need to talk to us!”

This ended the story of the Lavender Dragon, and the company streamed
out over the Castle grounds, to enjoy dancing, archery, quarterstaff
and other diversions. L.D. himself presented the prizes--a bunch of
flowers for each maiden, a wreath of oak leaves for the men.




IX

_ANOTHER DRAGON GIVES A LOUDER ROAR_


The event of the autumn at Dragonsville was the erection of two
dwellings, one for Sir Jasper and his bride, the other for George
Pipkin, Sally Slater and her sons. According to the custom of the
country, Sir Jasper was allowed no hand in his own habitation; but he
worked as diligently as the rest to make his squire’s future home both
dignified and comfortable. Petronell, too, lent her aid, and when the
walls were raised she painted beautiful pictures inside them; while
upon a knoll hard by, overlooking the river, George Pipkin and half a
hundred willing workers erected a considerable villa for the knight and
his lady.

The weddings were arranged for an early date in October; but while yet
the sun held strength to make the autumn foliage gay and gild the
ripening berries on briar and thorn, there came a remarkable visitor to
Dragonsville.

At dawn on a cloudy autumn morning, a strange dragon was seen bathing
his mighty limbs in the great central fountain, and while the creature
appeared to be smaller than L.D., none could fail to observe a certain
family resemblance. The veteran of Dragonsville was now faded by many
tones from his adult splendour; though like a weathered cliff face, or
ancient building, he had taken on the livery of age, and his rose and
lavender were only dimmed to a gracious tenderness; yet one observed
in the active newcomer a similar scheme of decoration, albeit in his
somewhat stark magnificence he compared with the Lavender Dragon only
as a new masterpiece resembles an old.

L.D. was still asleep when the discovery stirred his people; but
Nicholas Warrender and Sir Claude Fortescue hastened to his couch with
the extraordinary news, and though gouty and suffering some acute
rheumatism in his left pinion, the dragon rose, looked out of the
window, stared with increasing amazement and then left the Castle and
strode out to accost the traveller.

It is to be noticed that the inherent suspicion planted in man against
these creatures persisted, for, at sight of an unknown dragon, the
people had fled to their homes and were now peeping from upper
casements and dormer-windows to see what would come of this invasion.
Those of faint heart already turned pale and feared the worst, “for,”
they whispered, “if this young and many-toothed dragon falls upon
L.D., the issue is determined.” But other parties took a different
view. Some, the seneschal and the elders amongst them, believed that
L.D. would prevail with fair speech and possibly make a swift convert
of the stranger, even if his natural instincts inclined him to the
immemorial rule of his kind; Sir Claude, ever a pessimist, thought
not; others expected a grave disturbance, but believed that given the
forces of Dragonsville behind him, L.D. would deal faithfully with his
young relation, if indeed a relation he proved to be. Of this company
were Sir Jasper and George Pipkin. Indeed the knight hastily donned
his armour and rescued his helmet, which had lately been employed as a
workbox for Petronell’s embroideries; while the squire ran to bring in
his own steed and the piebald charger of his master. Both animals were
far too fat, and George felt ashamed of their circular outlines as he
led them under the Castle walls.

But there was no pitched battle, or any sort of disturbance. While
the populace awaited with profound anxiety the coming event, L.D.
approached his visitor, and though their gigantic preliminary embrace
woke screams of terror from the fearful, it was clearly a matter of
courtesy alone, for after the huge creatures became again disentangled,
they walked up and down side by side in deep and not unfriendly
converse. Clearly they argued a difficult problem, and presently they
stopped and sat down together; but after two hours of close conference
and when, in anticipation of a good understanding, great feasts of
hay, cider and sugared kidney beans had been prepared, the lesser
dragon with a gesture of impatience and anger leapt to his feet, spat
fire, spread his gorgeous wings and soared into the sky. A sensation of
relief swept the beholders, but before they had time to surround their
friend and learn particulars, he, too, opened glimmering vanes, and,
despite his rheumatism, flew heavily away after the other. Like twin
clouds of rosy gold they swept eastward towards the risen sun and were
soon lost to view.

Nor did L.D. return at nightfall, and many uneasy spirits slept not
for thinking about this doubtful event. The seneschal and those who
knew the master best, judged that he had not prevailed with his kinsman
and followed him in order to do so; but some dreaded a more sinister
sequel to the incident and even suspected that the dragons were gone
to fight beyond the reach of any interference. In the morning L.D. had
not returned and, as day followed day, anxiety increased and despair
awakened. A week passed and every face was dark, every heart heavy.
The life of Dragonsville appeared to be suspended and the people,
slighting good advice to go on with their work and trust Providence,
wandered together in melancholy knots about the streets and public
places, while every neck ached with straining backwards and every eye
sickened at the sight of the empty sky. Father Lazarus did what he
might and other leaders of opinion strove to say the word in season
and keep hope alive; but all suffered severely and all were gratified
when Sir Jasper and George Pipkin prepared to start eastward upon an
expedition of search and succour. Everybody applauded this resolve save
Sir Claude Fortescue, who declared they should have started far sooner
to be of service.

The morning for their departure had actually dawned and they were
preparing to leave Dragonsville by its orient gate, when the Lavender
Dragon came home alone. A sharp-eyed son of Sally Slater was the first
to see him, and when the lad pointed to a tiny speck in the sky and
yelled his glad discovery, others cuffed his ears for daring to waken
hope; but he had seen truly; the speck darkened, then brightened and,
in half an hour, the Lavender Dragon, flying very slowly, sank amidst
his people worn out and much dejected. They hastened round him, Doctor
Doncaster leading the way. His patient was very lame and so feverish
that the physician shook his head.

The dragon returned to his castle, ate a meal of clover hay, drank a
hogshead of spring water and then addressed his friends.

“I have endured a bitter disappointment,” he began. “In this younger
being of my own race with whom I have fruitlessly spent the last week,
I recognised a relation. He is, in fact, my nephew; and after seeing
him upon my own territory, great hopes arose in me. I hastened to him,
as you will remember, greeted him with large friendship and made him as
welcome as I knew how. He had flown all night and was very hungry. He
imagined that you dear people were my slaves--a sort of living larder
from which I helped myself as appetite demanded. He declared himself to
be starving and his first request was that I might send to him a dozen
of the fat, prosperous children he had seen scampering from him on his
arrival.

“I invited him to join me at breakfast and spoke of the glories of
vegetarian diet. Whereupon he became abusive and said that he supposed
his uncle to be a dragon, not a cow. I warned him that as he had come
to Rome, he must do as Rome does, and fall in with my customs until he
had opportunity to study them and perceive their dignity and worth;
but he was ravenous and revealed all the overbearing habits of our
race. Hunger, indeed, strips both men and dragons bare. He saw no charm
whatsoever in my attitude of mind; he heard my principles with growing
indignation. Then, calling me ‘Impostor,’ ‘Renegade,’ and so forth, he
blew fire from his gullet, opened his wings and leapt from the ground
in fury.

“But it is not my habit to yield at the first rebuff. He was a dragon
of but one hundred years, and swiftly through my mind there flashed
many an instance, gleaned from the annals of humanity, wherein we have
seen the young sinner turn from evil and become a radiant convert. I
thought upon Themistocles, who was cast out and disowned by his own
father for his debaucheries and vile manner of life, yet became the
most noble of all Greeks and a portent in Europe and Asia. I reflected
on Valerius Flaccus, who from luxury and evil rose to be created Flamen
and became as saintly a man as beforetime he was a rascal. I also
remembered Polemo of Athens, saved from a life of scandal and a death
of ignominy by the wisdom of Xenocrates, the philosopher, who charmed
him to virtue and made of him a great and wise person. Did not Titus
Vespasianus, from a cruel scoundrel become the darling and exemplar of
mankind? And, to seek in the chronicles of Christianity, need we look
farther than Saint Augustine, the Manichee, who, after an incontinent
and lamentable youth, ascended by the ministry of Ambrose to salvation
and saintship? These and other examples fortified hope, and so, taking
thought for this son of a brother long departed, I spread wing and
followed him.

“But it was all to no purpose whatsoever. He is an inveterate dragon
of the prime, with bloody ideas and convictions that I could neither
change nor shake. I persisted, however, until, losing his little
store of patience, he turned upon me, cried that he held me as a
craven abomination, doubtless in the pay of some accursed human
monarch, and warned me that if I dogged his footsteps another day, he
would forget what youth owed to age and turn and rend me. Indeed, he
appeared doubtful whether it were not his duty to rid the world of ‘a
pestiferous and pusillanimous worm’--his own expression as nearly as
I can translate it; and he declared that but for our relationship he
should have done so at the first, and not suffered my bleating for five
minutes.

“Worn out in body and mind, I left the callous reactionary, and were it
not that he is my nephew, I should instantly direct you, Sir Jasper,
to set out in quest of him and see whether your lance and spear cannot
bring him in reach of reason. But I have decided to leave him with his
reflections for the present. I may have done better than appeared. I
live in faint hope that some of the good seed has taken root and will
presently induce the fellow to return among us with an altered mind.”

“I will go willingly,” declared the knight. “It is to destroy just such
a typical dragon as this that I set out upon my mission. Let us depart
instantly, for my squire and I are equipped and were now about to seek
you yourself.”

But the weary monster would not sanction any immediate punitive
expedition.

“Suffer a little time to pass,” he said. “And now pull down the blinds
and leave me. My foot must be fomented with a decoction of scalding
poppies, and I will drink some physic: then, if the pain abates,
I shall sleep for a couple of days and nights and probably awake
restored.”

As he foretold, the Lavender Dragon, once eased of his acute suffering,
slumbered for eight-and-forty hours, and the reverberations from his
nostrils rumbled like genial thunder in the ears of his thankful people
during that period. At the end of this time he awoke refreshed, hungry
and better of his ailment. Whereupon he took a bath in the morning
sunshine, ate prodigiously and dismissed this unfortunate failure from
his mind and conversation.

He was now in excellent humour and full of the approaching nuptials and
the dwellings destined for the wedded pairs.




X

_FROM JOY TO WOE_


On the day before the double wedding, the Lavender Dragon was in a
didactic mood, and said many interesting things which won the applause
of some among his listeners but, as usual, made Sir Jasper, Sir Claude,
Father Lazarus and other good men sad.

The monster spoke with his usual directness on the limitation of
families.

“A great source of human unhappiness is over-crowding,” he declared
to them, “and here, as we know, it is agreed, with general accord,
to expand in a ratio which bears directly upon the well-being and
prosperity of all.”

“You interfere with the liberty of the subject, Sir Dragon,” ventured
George Pipkin.

“That the liberty of the community shall not be interfered with,
George,” replied L.D. “The need to rear and fatten armies and navies
for slaughter does not, you see, arise with us. We are a feeble, but
not a fearful, folk, and we know that there are too many people in the
world. Authority cannot cope with the increase and Nature does so--in
a manner very painful to all of good will. Reason bewails the starved
souls and bodies of many little ones, while superstition, patriotism
and other faulty inspirations, still too much in evidence, clamour for
more of these failures. It will presently, however, be driven into
man’s thick skull that quality is of greater force in affairs than
quantity, and that war, famine and pestilence are cruel and abominable
engines to keep the race in bounds. And when he makes this discovery,
what will he do? He will first reach limitation of swords and spears,
then, being a logical beast in his saner moments, attain to limitation
of his own species. For when men compose their differences without
shedding of blood, masses to murder and be murdered are an anachronism,
and over-production becomes folly. It is argued that restriction may
rob us of occasional great men. But can great men only be bred at cost
of misery to thousands of small ones? If so, then let us struggle on
without great men and rest content with the healthy and the sane.
Our danger lies in the Orient world, whose fecundity is awful to
contemplate and renders it a great obstacle to the security of the
earth. East will not listen to the West on so delicate a subject, for
Asia has family ideals and superstitions in this matter which must take
centuries of time to dissipate.”

“You want better bread than is made of wheat,” said Sir Claude, and his
voice was drearier than usual.

“Of course I do,” replied the Lavender Dragon. “Most certainly I do;
and you also, I should hope, and every man and woman who has a spirit
worth calling one, and intelligence to measure things as they are. I
deprecate discontent and covetousness as you will admit; but there is a
discontent of the soul, Sir Claude, without which man is no better than
the tadpole. Plenty of hearty, healthy children let us have by all
means; and let us learn more from them and about them before we begin
pouring in the varied and doubtful nonsense always on tap for their
little, empty heads; let us wait in patience until they are ready to
pronounce some opinion on the nostrums we hold to their infant lips.”

“Do we not know far better than they, what is good for them, dear
friend!” asked Father Lazarus.

“No, best of men, we do not,” replied the dragon firmly. “I have
studied the child for many hundreds of years, and I tell you this:
the young are often far more reasonably minded than their parents.
Nature leads them to take an honest view of life, and if that view is
unvitiated by grown-up lumber, it will not seldom develop and display
a very rational estimate of conduct. But the work of our schoolmen in
this virgin soil is often disastrous, and woe betide those who sow
tares at that critical season when the rich material is best fitted to
nourish and sustain them. To warp youthful intelligence and poison
growing reason is a great fallacy and evil. There are precious,
humanistic instincts of inquiry in well-nurtured and intelligent
children, and that we should graft upon this spirit our questionable
conclusions, rules of conduct, conventions, hatred of reality, chronic
untruthfulness of outlook and imbecile pride, is utterly to spoil them
in a very large proportion of cases. The potential power and value of
many future men and women has thus been diminished; they are by so much
rendered inferior, both as doers and thinkers. The stream of progress
is dammed, the evolution of morals retarded. For, as I have often told
you, the evolution of morals is a glorious fact; and that it should
tend upwards is still more glorious; because upon this assurance hangs
the destiny of mankind--all pessimists and doubters to the contrary
notwithstanding. Let us, therefore, suffer the children to follow
their bent, guarded and guided by pure reason; let us not catch them
too young and foul the well-springs of their souls with a thousand
uncertain and preposterous theories. Why, for example, does good Father
Lazarus always agitate to get the children? Because he firmly believes
that their future happiness and usefulness depend upon his doing so. He
is much mistaken. Teach them to be clean, honest and faithful, just and
merciful to the weak, humble, tolerant of others, scornful of self. Let
them understand that certain instincts and temptations belong to their
ancestry and original endowment; explain wherein good and evil consist
according to our present worthiest values; but for the creeds and
dogmas, the myths and magics, the mysteries and metaphysics, concerning
which there is such an infinite diversity of opinion, let us spare them
these until they reach years of discretion and are qualified to judge
of their value to life and their correspondence with truth. This is not
to weaken faith, but set it upon a basis of reason; for think not that
faith and reason are opposed. Reason is founded upon our faith in all
things reasonable.”

Nicholas Warrender agreed with his master.

“Man is credulous enough through his aboriginal forefathers, without
making him more so and teaching him to believe in goblins--good and
bad--from his youth up,” said the seneschal. “Thus you stain his
dawning intellect, and soak it to such a colour that only one in a
thousand ever gets the fabric of thought clean again. Remember that
youth is the time of leisure, and when the young grow up, life and
its immediate cares and occupations intervene, so that few have
opportunity, let alone inclination, to go back and intelligently
examine the opinions that have been implanted in them. They take
these for granted henceforth, and bolt the doors of the mind upon
inquiry. But what do you call them who decline to live behind bolted
doors and seek for freedom instead? What name do you give to such as
exercise liberty of thought and reject the learning thrust upon their
infancy? ‘Infidel’ is the title reserved for such persons. Yet unto
what are they unfaithful? Not to honour, justice, mercy, self-denial
or charity. Only to the goblins. Thus the mass of men, who care not
two pins for this subject, and whose sole concern is to prosper and
preserve the approval of their neighbours, succeed in doing so, while
such as honour their own gift of understanding and perceive these great
and vital questions of religious faith and a world beyond the grave
demand the very quintessence of their reverent examination, are cast
out, persecuted, horribly destroyed for their pains, when and where the
hierophants possess power to destroy them.”

“And what is the melancholy result, my friends?” asked L.D. “In the
Golden Age, the idea that religion should come between man and wisdom
entered no head. The philosophers instructed and the sages questioned
and argued without let and hindrance; for then it was understood that
progress depended upon the spirit of inquiry. But now alas! official
and state-supported superstitions block this spirit at every turn;
prosperous error bars the way to afflicted truth, and he who approaches
these profound subjects through any other road than that pointed out
for him by his rulers, will soon find himself a trespasser on forbidden
ground.”

“All religions are a scaffolding, and our children’s children will yet
see the scaffolding pulled down,” declared Nicholas Warrender. “These
opinions are yet in the tide of their career, but must presently remain
with us only as the useless hair upon our bodies and the tell-tale
fragments of our anatomy which point to purposes now out-worn.”

“Consider,” added the dragon, “how many shapes man has given to his
divinities. It was long before he exalted God to his own image. He
ransacked the categories of Nature before he conceived those august
forms of the later and human pantheons beyond which he cannot go. The
Egyptians worshipped Apis, the ox; at Arsinoe, the crocodile was deity;
in the city of Hercules, the ichneumon. Others adored a cat, an ibis,
a falcon. The people of Hispanola kneel to invisible fairies and pray
to them under the name of Zemini. In the Isle of Java the thing first
met of a morning is the god for the day, no matter whether a reptile,
beast or fowl. Those of Manta have made an emerald the Everlasting, and
offer prayer and pilgrimage to it, bringing the inevitable gifts which
the priesthood of that precious stone know how to charm from them. The
Romans created a goddess of a city, and the people of Negapatam built
their Pagod, a massy monster drawn upon a chariot of many wheels and
over-laid with gold. The warlike Alani worship a naked sword, which
is the only god they know who can answer their petitions; and in
Ceylon, upon the peak of Adam, is kept the tooth of an ape--held by the
Cingalese to be the holiest thing and the most potent in all Asia. With
a more noble faith do the Assyrians confront us, for they worshipped
the Sun and the Earth, from which they received life. The dove was
sacred among them; it is a symbol still held in holiest esteem among
the Christians, as you know. At Ekron the Lord of Flies enjoyed first
place, and Baalzebub, the Larder-god, doubtless received many prayers
to keep his myriads under control. Those of Peru adored the corpses of
their Emperors, and ancestor worship persists among certain Oriental
people unto this day.

“A thousand other manifestations of divinity are in the knowledge of
the learned before we come to the solitary god of the Jew--a Being
nobly exalted and purified, but, even as the Allah of Mahomet, One
still all too human in his essence and behaviour. These deities
occupied my profound attention and I made this discovery, concerning
the different interpretations put upon them, that not Absolutism or
Idealism, not Immanentism or Pragmatism, or any other ‘ism,’ or scism
whatsoever, will lead mankind’s few and uncertain footsteps through
his short life to happiness, or security. To suppose, as these people
do, that their gods possess the potency, impatience and selfishness
of Oriental panjandrums is vain; and whether such Eternal Beings are
transcendent or immanent, universal or particular, matters nothing
at all. What does matter is that they are not gentlemen; and to how
parlous a state must that divinity be reduced who can learn manners,
discipline and conduct from the like of us! The gods who behave worse
than their creatures and make it needful that their chosen ministers
should for ever apologise and explain their unsocial conduct, are
not gods; for right must be right and wrong must be wrong, whether
committed by a deity or a dragon; and if it be admitted that these
Supreme Beings know how to choose, direct and control with utmost
wisdom and purest virtue, what shall be thought while they themselves,
in their almighty power, daily perpetrate or sanction abominations for
which the world would execrate any child of man?

“Then you, my own dear Christians, have discovered a triune God--Three
in One and One in Three. And who shall presume to question your
convictions if you abide in them peacefully, without hating and
murdering other people who cannot see eye to eye with you? Truth
asks for nothing but open and honourable warfare against Falsehood.
Given a fair field, she cannot be defeated. The story will reach its
conclusion, however, because, when there is a means of return to
independence, freedom with security, and consequent renewed progress,
mankind must be swift to take that way. We shall presently see
philosophers, each with his personal God. They will write books about
their deities and every one will seek to show how his own concept of
the Eternal transcends all others. Some of these home-made divinities
may not be all powerful; some will even depend upon their creatures
to strengthen their knees and help their difficult task. They are
much to the good--these personal gods conceived by clever and earnest
people, even though no two of them will ever have more than a family
resemblance. Time does not stand still, and evolution continues to do
her perfect work.”

But the Christians had all stolen away, led by Sir Claude and Father
Lazarus. The dragon found only his seneschal still left to listen; and
he was not listening: the old man had gone to sleep.

A glorious autumn day dawned for the weddings, and Dragonsville made
holiday. Only those whose duty it was to milk the cows and feed the
cattle put a hand to work, and though it was impossible for L.D. to
go to church, the building not being constructed to admit him, he
sat just outside with his huge head on the earth, where he might
listen to the marriage service and the admirable address delivered
to the wedded couples by Father Lazarus. In this exordium the good
priest took occasion to traverse sharply and caustically many of the
Lavender Dragon’s own most cherished sentiments; but the monster felt
no unkindly emotion before such an attack. He loved Father Lazarus and
never quarrelled with the least person who declined to share his own
ideas. Any sort of persecution caused him violent uneasiness, for he
held that nothing excused loss of temper and cruelty, fanaticism and
intolerance.

L.D. fell into error at the banquet which followed the nuptials and,
despite his doctor’s entreaties, drank far too much cider and ate too
many sugared kidney beans.

After all was consumed, the dragon went into his treasure house and
produced wedding gifts and also presents for everybody, to the least
infant on his mother’s lap.

“I cannot give the little ones anything they value,” exclaimed L.D. to
Sir Jasper, “for the idea of property vanishes in a generation or two
when once human nature begins to share the ethical purity of the ant.
It is better to want than to have; it is better still not to want. They
do not want. But you see everybody takes my gifts for my sake; and you
must do the same. These jewels are of priceless value, according to the
world’s opinion, but of none whatever in Dragonsville. Even for beauty,
a necklace of bluebells beats them hollow.”

The happy couples departed for their honeymoons in a distant part of
the kingdom half a day’s ride from town. There, in a notable spot known
as the Valley of Ferns, stood two bungalows sacred to the newly wed,
and in this sequestered and attractive region the Lady Pomeroy and Mrs.
George Pipkin wandered very happily with their husbands.

Then they returned to hear sad news, which at L.D.’s orders had been
kept from their ears until they did so.

The Lavender Dragon had fallen dangerously ill with an attack of gout,
which involved not only his four gigantic paws, but threatened his
vitals also.

A gloom as of eclipse sat upon the faces of the people. All
merry-making had ceased; even the children only played the quietest
games and could put little heart into their pleasure.




XI

_THE PASSING_


By slow and gradual stages the Lavender Dragon approached his end.
Sometimes he rallied, and the gallons of colchicum which he consumed,
while rendering him very languid, sufficed to lessen his misery. Now
and then he was lifted on to a gigantic trolley and dragged for half
a mile through the gardens, that he might take the air and see the
people; but his activities were over, and though his mind continued
clear and his spirit cheerful, his body lost all strength and he knew
that he would never take wing again. To the prospect of a final flight
under the sunshine he clove for a long while; then he abandoned the
hope with rational resignation.

“It is good,” he said, “that we do not know when we perform a
well-loved action for the last time. Ignorance in such a matter is
mercy, for, looking back after many days, we can bear the knowledge
that must have wakened active grief at the moment....”

He was in a pensive mood on an occasion when Sir Jasper and Petronell
sat beside him and cheered him with their conversation.

“Fate,” he said, “has an art to take what we most value and deny the
summit of our ambition, while granting gifts small by comparison in
our eyes, though infinitely precious to others, who lack them. He who
desires fame is offered wealth, or love. The hungry for love may win to
high place by their art, or craft, yet would gladly barter it for the
female they dream about. The genius goes childless, though like enough
he would thankfully sacrifice his master endowment for little children
on his knee; while the man with a full quiver yearns for that peace and
lack of responsibility which he supposes would enable him to do great
deeds. It is in fact a sad but blessed human quality to covet what lies
beyond our reach. The content are ever negligible, for only frozen
sympathies and peddling minds can be so.”

He spoke of the Latin god, Pan, with great affection, and declared
himself to be in union and understanding with that divinity.

“But in Pan lurks a peril against which you must guard,” warned the
dragon. “There is a panic terror, a fear and dread of him, that may
awake at any moment to ruin life; and there is a panic trust, equally
destructive--that blind, cowardly repose in his shadow which tends
to rob us of self-command and self-expression. Both these extremes
stultify existence, and other gods than Pan are also responsible for
them.”

Sometimes the fading monster was in a cheerful humour and delighted
to tell stories. Indeed he never tired of doing so until the end, and
children were admitted to him, fifty at a time, to listen while he
related the fables and historic tales they loved.

On one such occasion the little sons of Sally Pipkin replied, when he
asked what he should tell the young people assembled, and begged for
the narrative of the Jeweller.

“I too, like that story,” answered the dragon, “and am well pleased
to rehearse it once again. A certain jeweller in the time of Galienus
displayed a soup-tureen of exquisite workmanship, which he declared
was wrought of a single ruby; and the Empress, doting on the treasure,
prevailed with the Emperor Galienus to purchase it for her. To please
his lass was the Cæsar’s first delight at all times; so he paid a
mighty price for the soup-tureen, and the jeweller, who had long
desired a snug villa on the Sabine Hills, now retired from business and
prepared to spend the remainder of his life among his vines and olives
in luxury and ease.

“But there came a man from the East, of great wisdom in all jewels and
precious things, and having heard concerning this wonder he went to
court and prayed that it might be permitted him to gladden his eyes
with the ruby soup-tureen--a jewel beyond even his experience. Aware of
the Oriental’s fame he was made welcome by Galienus and permitted to
see the magnificent collections of the royal palace; and then, after
he had beheld and admired a thousand works of art and nature, the
crowning glory was placed in his hands and he examined the soup-tureen
carved of a single ruby.

“But no word of praise rewarded this masterpiece. Instead, the wise man
frowned, sighed heavily, and making obeisance to the Empress, addressed
her with Eastern politeness and wrapped his harsh news in flowery words.

“He declared that, from the first, he had suspected fraud, because a
ruby of size to make a soup-tureen was clean contrary to Nature. And
now his fears had been too bitterly confirmed, for the soup-tureen
was only glass. It possessed small intrinsic value and no interest
whatever, excepting of a tragical and painful character.

“Thereupon the Empress ran to the Emperor with many tears, and
Galienus, a just prince, despatched swift soldiers to the jeweller’s
villa, arrested the rascal as he was about to eat his dinner, and
hastened him to a dungeon.

“At a later hour he stood before the outraged Emperor and heard his
doom. ‘What,’ enquired Galienus, ‘shall be done to him who robs his
monarch and fools the Queen? The least, I think, would be that he
should make a Roman holiday. In a word, guilty man, you will only
see the light of day again upon the sands of the stadium at our next
festivity.’

“With this dreadful promise the guilty jeweller was hustled from
his sovereign’s presence, nothing left to hope for but a terrible
and uncertain death; and he had no support in his trial and no
consciousness of right behind him to assist his spirit through the
evil hours that still remained. For very well indeed he knew that the
soup-tureen was glass, since he had himself designed and executed it in
secret.

“Not long was the jeweller called to wait execution of sentence, for
on the third day after arrest, he found himself blindfolded, led away
and presently permitted to see again. He now stood on the sand of the
amphitheatre amid an immense concourse of his fellow countrymen; while
above him, in the royal box, sat the deluded Empress and her spouse,
together with the notables of Rome about them.

“Only one other creature shared that bitter expanse of sand with the
jeweller. It was a huge, African lion with black mane and tawny pelt;
and the spectators, who had thronged the place to see this gaunt
monster already waiting for his prey, felt no little astonishment that
a lion, kept without food for a week, should hesitate before the plump
and succulent spectacle of the erring jeweller now within his reach.

“Yet, for a time the ferocious beast moved not, but sat with its green,
unblinking eyes upon the sinner. It opened its mouth, to reveal a
formidable circle of white fangs, and it slowly swept the dust with its
tufted tail. But, as a sybarite, who delays his delicious morsel for
the pleasure of anticipation, the lion still delayed. The jeweller also
delayed and made no effort to shorten the distance between himself and
the instrument of punishment, until a voice--the Emperor’s own--was
lifted in command. He ordered the victim to save the lion further
trouble and the company longer delay. Whereupon the doomed man, himself
weary of such horrid suspense, crept--a stout, solitary figure in a
blue toga--to the denizen of the desert.

“The crouching lion lashed his tail, and the man came nearer and
nearer, until he stood within half a yard of his destroyer’s gaping
jaws. Doubtless he then felt that the monster might be invited to do
the rest. But thereupon an astounding thing happened, for Galienus
himself, to the horror of his wife and the company, leapt alone and
unarmed into the arena and joined the shaking criminal and the lion
appointed to devour him. Then, in a loud and cheerful voice which
reached all corners of that mighty concourse, the Emperor spoke.

“‘May it please you, my august wife, my ministers and my dear people,
to learn what this mystery means. I have, as you well know, been ever
of opinion that the punishment should fit the crime; and upon hearing
this fat rascal was a cheat, it struck me that to cheat him again
would be a very just and proper reward for his villainy. He thought
that he was going to die and make a meal for a fine and hungry lion.
Well, he’s sold, for this lion is but a thing of putty, paint and
straw, with a cunning contrivance inside him to make him open his jaws
and wag his tail.’

“Galienus kicked the lion as he spoke and the effigy toppled over upon
its side; he then kicked the jeweller and told him to be off and mend
his abominable ways. Whereupon the thankful fellow fell on his knees,
kissed the purple shoon of his monarch and scuttled sweating from the
arena amid roars of laughter.

“But whether the Empress laughed we know not; for it may have been a
joke for which she lacked the necessary humour. Galienus, however, won
the applause of a vast majority on that occasion, since empires can
easiest bear the yoke of tyrants who enjoy a sense of fun.”

The children lifted their voices in familiar delight, for this was
a story that never wearied them, and they were not saddened by the
knowledge that L.D. would never tell it again.

On another occasion the seneschal, Sir Claude, Doctor Doncaster and
other of the elders invited the Lavender Dragon to indicate his wishes
for the future, concerning which there existed much difference of
opinion among them.

“First,” said Warrender, “we most desire to render your own great name
immortal.”

The Lavender Dragon smiled and considered the subject with closed eyes;
then, according to his wont, he traced parallel instances from history
when a like problem had arisen.

He drank a huge jorum of colchicum and spoke to them.

“You remind me of ingenious men who have desired that their fame should
shine after they had gone beyond reach of it. There was that Seventh
wonder of the world which Sostratus built for Ptolemy Philadelphus.
‘The Tower of Pharos’ it was called, and in secret the architect wrote
upon it: ‘Sostratus to the gods, and for the safety of sailors’; but
these words, carved in enduring stone, he hid behind a covering of
plaster inscribed with the name and title and glory of Ptolemy. And
this he did, well knowing that the waves of the sea would presently
wash the monarch’s claim away and reveal his own name engraved on
marble for subsequent generations. Yet where is that Pharos now? Again,
when Alexander the Great threw down the walls of Thebes, Phryne offered
to rebuild them at her own charges, provided that she might record
thereon how Alexander had destroyed and Phryne had restored. Remember,
too, Trajan, who set his name on every stone he erected, until the wits
gave him a new name, and called him ‘Pellitory of the Wall.’

“No, my dear Nicholas, and you, my good friends,” he continued. “I have
not the least desire for posthumous honour, or to be remembered save by
the kind hearts that have beaten with my own and aided my endeavour.
As to the future, they often have ill-fortune who seek to tie up the
time to come with dead hands. For the future will not be dictated
to, and no man can prophesy how human values may change, or say when
one kingdom shall desire a monarch, another a republic and a third
anarchy. True it is that we groan and labour under dead laws and the
decayed enactments of vanished generations and pestilential precedents;
but that is only because for the most part we richly reward the knaves
who enforce them, and the nation as a whole is too ignorant, or lazy,
to cast off its burden.

“You remind me of an Emperor of Constantinople, Anastasius by name,
who, being short of friends and well knowing that his time was at hand,
paused to reflect on his successor. Near issue he had none, and the
choice lay between three nephews--brothers, concerning whom he knew
little good, or ill. In his esteem they were equal; and since reason
could not decide between them, he trusted to chance, for he caused
three beds to be set in a sleeping chamber and hid the empire’s crown
in the tester of one. Then, sending for the boys, he entertained them
and, when night was come, bade them go sleep and choose which bed they
would. With morn the Emperor himself entered the apartment of the
brothers, to learn which had reposed beneath the crown. And what did
he discover? The eldest boy slumbered in a bed innocent of the diadem;
and to the second, whose sleep also was not frowned upon by the awful
symbol, had crept his smallest brother--for company. The regal couch
lay untenanted.”

“A good tale,” said the seneschal, “but no answer, L.D.”

“When I chanced upon my own nephew, not so long ago,” confessed the
dragon, “I own a passing inspiration flashed to my brain and led me to
wonder if, by good hap, he might be disposed to carry on our labours
and consent to take my place and uphold my tradition. But, as you
know, any hope in that direction swiftly vanished. Nor will I even
emulate Julian, the Emperor, and leave the helm to him your living
judgments may approve. It pleases me better to think that Dragonsville
shall be thrown open to the world, and that our modest enterprise may
be seen and considered for what it is worth by all men of good will.
Let the young go forth and carry with them our principles, and let
the middle-aged and old, if they so will, remain here and illustrate
them. Let it be shown how that happiness is only real which has been
procured by a man for his fellow man; let a community be discovered
that is actuated by this rule of conduct. Invite the people to survey
Dragonsville, since herein lies our proof; and ask the mighty and the
wise and those inspired with love for their kind to determine whether
or no our theories admit of application on a more generous scale.
Perhaps not; it may be that only such a primitive folk as ourselves,
satisfied with little and no longer stung by lust of possession, could
pursue this ingenuous manner of life; but much might be done, and I
die firmly persuaded that if we could but strike at the root of man’s
selfishness, his superstition and his egregious desire to prosper
at the expense of everybody else, then substantial progress would
be merely a question of time. I have lived to see the two bitterest
enemies of man, and their names are Greed and Creed; while the handmaid
of their happiness, the Cinderella that toils for them with little
thanks, and still waits patiently to become their queen, is Reason.
And, sooner or later, she will assuredly reign over a united earth,
since without reason unity is impossible.”

Within a few weeks of this speech, and after another winter’s frost was
melted out of the ground, the dragon directed that his grave should be
begun.

“It will take a long time,” he said, “and I should like to see it
finished.”

Therefore, with many tears (for this business impressed upon them what
was soon to happen), the people began to dig a mighty pit, one hundred
yards long, twenty-five yards broad and twenty yards deep. It yawned
beside the grove of budding hawthorns which covered the tumulus of his
wife; and L.D. lived to see the scented glory of the may before he
passed.

There was an incident at the early digging and, for the first and
only time, Dicky Gollop, the jester, made the Lavender Dragon laugh.
For while the monster inspected his grave, as yet but five feet deep,
Dicky failed to see where he was stepping and fell in backwards. Thus
at last he reached to his ambition, though in a left-handed sort of
manner, and genuinely entertained his master.

After the completion of this work the Lavender Dragon failed rapidly,
and there came a day in June when with the dawn he died. About him
were assembled the seneschal and other old men and women, Father
Lazarus, Sir Jasper and Petronell, Sir Claude and Doctor Doncaster, who
ministered to the expiring monster. The Lavender Dragon’s last words
were not forgotten by those who heard them.

“Fetch the trolley, while I have strength to crawl upon it,” he said.
“It will save you much trouble afterwards.”

They obeyed, and with an expiring effort, L.D. stretched his bulk upon
the vehicle and lost consciousness. His heart heaved behind the mighty
ribs a little longer; then the beat grew slow and stopped; the blinds
of his lids rolled down slowly over the fading opals of his eyes, and
he was quite dead.




XII

_BUTTERFLIES_


Upon the night after the funeral, as though to indicate that the old
order had changed for ever, the walls of Dragonsville fell to the earth
and the empire of the Lavender Dragon ceased to exist as a separate
kingdom, defended and preserved behind its own ramparts. An immense
restlessness already infected the people, and when it was known that
the walls had crumbled, many feared and many rejoiced. The young would
lead away their kinsfolk into the outer world, and not a few consented
to accompany them; but others remained and hoped that they might be
permitted to do so. Of these were Nicholas Warrender, who took now the
lead at the wish of all, with George Pipkin for his right-hand man. Sir
Claude of the Strong Shield also determined to spend the balance of
his time in tending the dragon’s grave.

As for Sir Jasper of Pomeroy and his fair wife, they set forth
on a cloudless morning in hope to find welcome and waken
far-spreading happiness at home in the West-country; while many from
Pongley-in-the-Marsh and elsewhere also returned to their places,
somewhat over-sanguine that the message of goodwill and good tidings
they brought might reconcile their heirs to their return.

Father Lazarus remained at Dragonsville, and it was in connection with
this honourable and faithful man that the first hard words were spoken
within that township after the decease of the founder.

Sir Jasper was just about to depart upon his long journey southward
when this unfortunate thing happened. He rode his piebald charger,
and Lady Petronell sat beside him on her riding-horse, a powerful and
mettlesome beast. One accompanied them, having his own steed, and a
second, whereon their trifling luggage was bestowed. He was a lad born
and bred at Dragonsville, who had entered the knight’s service. The
priest, with Nicholas Warrender, Sir Claude, George Pipkin and many
others, collected to bid the voyagers god-speed, and as he drank the
stirrup cup, Sir Jasper spoke of their departed friend.

“May his humane and gentle spirit enter into us, and help us to advance
the happiness of a weary world,” said he.

“It has done so,” declared his wife. “None who enjoyed knowledge of our
dear dragon can ever be quite the same afterwards.”

“Be sure that we shall yet welcome him in a place of perfect happiness
when it is our turn,” asserted Sir Claude with an unusual ray of hope;
but Father Lazarus sighed and refused to echo any such sentiment.

“A vain aspiration,” he answered. “We must be brave in this matter and
not palter with conscience. None can feel greater grief than myself to
recognise the truth; but the truth is ever unassailable. In a word,
L.D. has gone where the bad dragons go, since there is no appointed
place for good dragons, and it were vain to deceive ourselves and
pretend otherwise. To this fate is he fallen, not because he himself
was bad--far from it--I never met such a saintly character on two feet,
let alone four; but because, having brain and wit to choose the right
path, he preferred to remain upon the wrong one; and virtue is of
nothing worth that springs from foundations that will not bear the test
of Faith.”

The seneschal snorted, and Sir Jasper spoke.

“Haply he will be pitied and pardoned in credit of his good works,”
ventured the knight.

“Alas! We have the highest authority for refusing to believe any such
thing,” replied Father Lazarus sadly. “He would be the first to own it
himself.”

“Out on you!” cried Nicholas Warrender, his eye flashing and his white
beard a-bristle. “What manner of man are you to deny salvation to your
benefactor and first friend? Did not the Almighty make you both, and
make him worth a thousand of you?”

They wrangled so that they forgot to bid the parting pair “farewell,”
and Sir Jasper, who lacked not sympathy for either side, rode forward
with his wife and left them to it. But neither convinced the other,
since they had entered upon that age-long argument, wherein only a time
yet to come shall declare the victory.

       *       *       *       *       *

For six generations after his disappearance the dragon’s grave
continued to be a scene of pilgrimage; and then his rede was forgotten
and the things he had attempted to do no longer remembered. He sank
into a myth, and his castle and his city crumbled away under the
sleights of time. The owl hooted in his dining hall; the bat hung
aloft in his sleeping chamber; and presently the ivy, with steadfast
might, dragged all down until not one stone remained upon another. Then
did the watchful Woods of Blore, finding no hindrance, creep forward
with sapling legions that swiftly bulked to trees and so engulfed and
swallowed that happy valley, until all evidence of man and his labour
alike disappeared.

Yet, even to this day at the season of high summer, the wanderer with
faith may chance upon a knoll still open to the sky, and find the
great mound bright in a robe of scented lavender, agleam with vanessa
butterflies--black and scarlet, crimson and purple. The living jewels
dance in sunshine and fragrance, and round about sing birds and patter
the furry creatures of the wild.

Beneath lie the bones of a vast saurian--that excellent mystery known
to the Dark Ages as the Lavender Dragon; and since all history is
but an echo and a reverberation, it may happen that his theory shall
yet revive, to challenge the mind of man, and his practice be again
attempted.

We have made a measure of progress since the days of Dragonsville,
and the fact that we are so widely, keenly alive to the need for yet
swifter advance is the most hopeful thing about us. There speaks
the evolution of our moral nature, wakening from long dalliance;
there moves the spirit of good will, struck into a cruel coma by the
torment of recent years. Mighty powers are they, to help humanity
correct its values, purify its ambitions and seek those ideals of
generosity, abnegation and selfless purpose, without which no pathway
of advancement through darkness into day can be discovered. Dawn is
upon the mountain tops and, as the sun arises, light will descend into
the homes and heart of mankind--because it can do no other.


THE END




  Transcriber's Notes:

  Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.

  Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.

  Perceived typographical errors have been changed.

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 79092 ***