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 work-box for Petronell’s embroideries, while the squire ran to bring in his 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.