The Victorian Fairy Tale Book (Pantheon Fairy Tale & Folklore Library) (57 page)

The Boy, who had apparently been absorbed in his book during his father’s recital, now closed the volume, yawned, clasped his hands behind his head, and said sleepily:

“It’s all right, father. Don’t you worry. It’s only a dragon.”

“Only a dragon?” cried his father. “What do you mean, sitting there, you and your dragons?
Only
a dragon indeed! And what do
you
know about it?”

“ ’Cos it
is
, and ’cos I
do
know,” replied the Boy, quietly. “Look here, father, you know we’ve each of us got our line.
You
know about sheep, and weather, and things; I know about dragons. I always said, you know, that that cave up there was a dragon-cave. I always said it must have belonged to a dragon some time, and ought to belong to a dragon now, if rules count
for anything. Well, now you tell me it
has
got a dragon, and so
that’s
all right. I’m not half as much surprised as when you told me it
hadn’t
got a dragon. Rules always come right if you wait quietly. Now, please, just leave this all to me. And I’ll stroll up to-morrow morning—no, in the morning I can’t, I’ve got a whole heap of things to do—well, perhaps in the evening, if I’m quite free, I’ll go up and have a talk to him, and you’ll find it’ll be all right. Only, please, don’t you go worrying round there without me. You don’t understand ’em a bit, and they’re very sensitive, you know!”

“He’s quite right, father,” said the sensible mother. “As he says, dragons is his line and not ours. He’s wonderful knowing about book-beasts, as every one allows. And to tell the truth, I’m not half happy in my own mind, thinking of that poor animal lying alone up there, without a bit o’ hot supper or anyone to change the news with; and maybe we’ll be able to do something for him; and if he ain’t quite respectable our Boy’ll find it out quick enough. He’s got a pleasant sort o’ way with him that makes everybody tell him everything.”

Next day, after he’d had his tea, the Boy strolled up the chalky track that led to the summit of the Downs; and there, sure enough, he found the dragon, stretched lazily on the sward in front of his cave. The view from that point was a magnificent one. To the right and left, the bare and willowy leagues of Downs; in front, the vale, with its clustered homesteads, its threads of white roads running through orchards and well-tilled acreage, and, far away, a hint of grey old cities on the horizon. A cool breeze played over the surface of the grass and the silver shoulder of a large moon was showing above distant junipers. No wonder the dragon seemed in a peaceful and contented mood; indeed, as the Boy approached he could hear the beast purring with a happy regularity. “Well, we live and learn!” he said to himself. “None of my books ever told me that dragons purred!”

“Hullo, dragon!” said the Boy, quietly, when he had got up to him.

The dragon, on hearing the approaching footsteps, made the beginning of a courteous effort to rise. But when he saw it was a Boy, he set his eyebrows severely.

“Now don’t you hit me,” he said; “or bung stones, or squirt water, or anything. I won’t have it, I tell you!”

“Not goin’ to hit you,” said the Boy, wearily, dropping on the grass beside the beast: “and don’t, for goodness’ sake, keep on saying ‘Don’t’; I hear so much of it, and it’s monotonous, and makes me tired. I’ve simply looked in to ask you how you were and all that sort of thing; but if I’m in the way I can easily clear out. I’ve lots of friends, and no one can say I’m in the habit of shoving myself in where I’m not wanted!”

“No, no, don’t go off in a huff,” said the dragon, hastily; “fact is, I’m
as happy up here as the day’s long; never without an occupation, dear fellow, never without an occupation! And yet, between ourselves, it
is
a trifle dull at times.”

The Boy bit off a stalk of grass and chewed it. “Going to make a long stay here?” he asked, politely.

“Can’t hardly say at present,” replied the dragon. “It seems a nice place enough—but I’ve only been here a short time, and one must look about and reflect and consider before settling down. It’s rather a serious thing, settling down. Besides—now I’m going to tell you something! You’d never guess it if you tried ever so!— fact is, I’m such a confoundedly lazy beggar!”

“You surprise me,” said the Boy, civilly.

“It’s the sad truth,” the dragon went on, settling down between his paws and evidently delighted to have found a listener at last: “and I fancy that’s really how I came to be here. You see, all the other fellows were so active and
earnest
and all that sort of thing—always rampaging, and skirmishing, and scouring the desert sands, and pacing the margin of the sea, and chasing knights all over the place, and devouring damsels, and going on generally—whereas I liked to get my meals regular and then to prop my back against a bit of rock and snooze a bit, and wake up and think of things going on and how they kept going on just the same, you know! So when it happened I got fairly caught.”

“When
what
happened, please?” asked the Boy.

“That’s just what I don’t precisely know,” said the dragon. “I suppose the earth sneezed, or shook itself, or the bottom dropped out of something. Anyhow there was a shake and a roar and a general stramash, and I found myself miles away underground and wedged in as tight as tight. Well, thank goodness, my wants are few, and at any rate I had peace and quietness and wasn’t always being asked to come along and
do
something. And I’ve got such an active mind—always occupied, I assure you! But time went on, and there was a certain sameness about the life, and at last I began to think it would be fun to work my way upstairs and see what you other fellows were doing. So I scratched and burrowed, and worked this way and that way and at last I came out through this cave here. And I like the country, and the view, and the people—what I’ve seen of ’em—and on the whole I feel inclined to settle down here.”

“What’s your mind always occupied about?” asked the Boy. “That’s what I want to know.”

The dragon coloured slightly and looked away. Presently he said bashfully:

“Did you ever—just for fun—try to make up poetry—verses, you know?”

“ ’Course I have,” said the Boy. “Heaps of it. And some of it’s quite
good, I feel sure, only there’s no one here cares about it. Mother’s very kind and all that, when I read it to her, and so’s father for that matter. But somehow they don’t seem to—”

“Exactly,” cried the dragon; “my own case exactly. They don’t seem to, and you can’t argue with ’em about it. Now you’ve got culture, you have, I could tell it on you at once, and I should just like your candid opinion about some little things I threw off lightly, when I was down there. I’m awfully pleased to have met you, and I’m hoping the other neighbours will be equally agreeable. There was a very nice old gentleman up here only last night, but he didn’t seem to want to intrude.”

“That was my father,” said the Boy, “and he
is
a nice old gentleman, and I’ll introduce you some day if you like.”

“Can’t you two come up here and dine or something to-morrow?” asked the dragon, eagerly. “Only, of course, if you’ve got nothing better to do,” he added politely.

“Thanks awfully,” said the Boy, “but we don’t go out anywhere without my mother, and, to tell you the truth, I’m afraid she mightn’t quite approve of you. You see there’s no getting over the hard fact that you’re a dragon, is there? And when you talk of settling down, and the neighbours, and so on, I can’t help feeling that you don’t quite realize your position. You’re an enemy of the human race, you see!”

“Haven’t got an enemy in the world,” said the dragon, cheerfully. “Too lazy to make ’em, to begin with. And if I
do
read other fellows my poetry, I’m always ready to listen to theirs!”

“Oh, dear!” cried the Boy, “I wish you’d try and grasp the situation properly. When the other people find you out, they’ll come after you with spears and swords and all sorts of things. You’ll have to be exterminated, according to their way of looking at it! You’re a scourge, and a pest, and a baneful monster!”

“Not a word of truth in it,” said the dragon, wagging his head solemnly. “Character’ll bear the strictest investigation. And now, there’s a little sonnet-thing I was working on when you appeared on the scene—”

“Oh, if you
won’t
be sensible, cried the Boy, getting up, “I’m going off home. No, I can’t stop for sonnets; my mother’s sitting up. I’ll look you up to-morrow, sometime or other, and do for goodness’ sake try and realize that you’re a pestilential scourge, or you’ll find yourself in a most awful fix. Good-night!”

The Boy found it an easy matter to set the mind of his parents at ease about his new friend. They had always left that branch to him, and they took his word without a murmur. The shepherd was formally introduced
and many compliments and kind inquiries were exchanged. His wife, however, though expressing her willingness to do anything she could—to mend things, or set the cave to rights, or cook a little something when the dragon had been poring over sonnets and forgotten his meals, as male things
will
do—could not be brought to recognize him formally. The fact that he was a dragon and “they didn’t know who he was” seemed to count for everything with her. She made no objection, however, to her little son spending his evenings with the dragon quietly, so long as he was home by nine o’clock: and many a pleasant night they had, sitting on the sward, while the dragon told stories of old, old times, when dragons were quite plentiful and the world was a livelier place than it is now, and life was full of thrills and jumps and surprises.

What the Boy had feared, however, soon came to pass. The most modest and retiring dragon in the world, if he’s as big as four cart-horses and covered with blue scales, cannot keep altogether out of the public view. And so in the village tavern of nights the fact that a real live dragon sat brooding in the cave on the Downs was naturally a subject for talk. Though the villagers were extremely frightened, they were rather proud as well. It was a distinction to have a dragon of your own, and it was felt to be a feather in the cap of the village. Still, all were agreed that this sort of thing couldn’t be allowed to go on. The dreadful beast must be exterminated, the country-side must be freed from this pest, this terror, this destroying scourge. The fact that not even a hen-roost was the worse for the dragon’s arrival wasn’t allowed to have anything to do with it. He was a dragon, and he couldn’t deny it, and if he didn’t choose to behave as such that was his own look-out. But in spite of much valiant talk no hero was found willing to take sword and spear and free the suffering village and win deathless fame; and each night’s heated discussion always ended in nothing. Meanwhile the dragon, a happy Bohemian, lolled on the turf, enjoyed the sunsets, told antediluvian anecdotes to the Boy, and polished his old verses while meditating on fresh ones.

One day the Boy, on walking in to the village, found everything wearing a festal appearance which was not to be accounted for in the calendar. Carpets and gay-coloured stuffs were hung out of the windows, the church-bells clamoured noisily, the little street was flower-strewn, and the whole population jostled each other along either side of it, chattering, shoving, and ordering each other to stand back. The Boy saw a friend of his own age in the crowd and hailed him.

“What’s up?” he cried. “Is it the players, or bears, or a circus, or what?”

“It’s all right,” his friend hailed back. “He’s a-coming.”

“
Who’s
a-coming?” demanded the Boy, thrusting into the throng.

“Why, St. George, of course,” replied his friend. “He’s heard tell of our
dragon, and he’s comin’ on purpose to slay the deadly beast, and free us from his horrid yoke. O my! won’t there be a jolly fight!”

Here was news indeed! The Boy felt that he ought to make quite sure for himself, and he wriggled himself in between the legs of his good-natured elders, abusing them all the time for their unmannerly habit of shoving. Once in the front rank, he breathlessly awaited the arrival.

Presently from the far-away end of the line came the sound of cheering. Next, the measured tramp of a great war-horse made his heart beat quicker, and then he found himself cheering with the rest, as, amidst welcoming shouts, shrill cries of women, uplifting of babies and waving of handkerchiefs, St. George paced slowly up the street. The Boy’s heart stood still and he breathed with sobs, the beauty and the grace of the hero were so far beyond anything he had yet seen. His fluted armour was inlaid with gold, his plumed helmet hung at his saddle-bow, and his thick fair hair framed a face gracious and gentle beyond expression till you caught the sternness in his eyes. He drew rein in front of the little inn, and the villagers crowded round with greetings and thanks and voluble statements of their wrongs and grievances and oppressions. The Boy heard the grave gentle voice of the Saint, assuring them that all would be well now, and that he would stand by them and see them righted and free them from their foe; then he dismounted and passed through the doorway and the crowd poured in after him. But the Boy made off up the hill as fast as he could lay his legs to the ground.

“It’s all up, dragon!” he shouted as soon as he was within sight of the beast. “He’s coming! He’s here now! You’ll have to pull yourself together and
do
something at last!”

The dragon was licking his scales and rubbing them with a bit of house-flannel the Boy’s mother had lent him, till he shone like a great turquoise.

“Don’t be
violent
, Boy,” he said without looking round. “Sit down and get your breath, and try and remember that the noun governs the verb, and then perhaps you’ll be good enough to tell me
who’s
coming?”

“That’s right, take it coolly,” said the Boy. “Hope you’ll be half as cool when I’ve got through with my news. It’s only St. George who’s coming, that’s all; he rode into the village half-an-hour ago. Of course you can lick him—a great big fellow like you! But I thought I’d warn you, ’cos he’s sure to be round early, and he’s got the longest, wickedest-looking spear you ever did see!” And the Boy got up and began to jump round in sheer delight at the prospect of the battle.