But if he were not to guard treasure, what should be his Mission in Life? Dragons, like the rest of us, are at very loose ends if they do not have an Important Mission, and a dragon at loose ends is not something I wish to contemplate. (It is not perhaps an accident that significant numbers of adolescent dragons have been assigned to guarding hidden treasure, for it does serve to keep them occupied and off the streets.) Without a Mission, how would he organize his days? How would he spend his time? Dragons live a very long time, as you know, and the centuries ahead might look rather bleak if Thorvaald could not think of something important to do.
That was the long of it. The short of it was also vexing, especially with regard to the treasure. Mr. Wickstead and Pickles had returned the sacks to Briar Bank. Ought he to go back and sit with it, at least until the next time Yllva popped in? Unfortunately, there was no telling when that might be. She hadn’t come along in the last three centuries. It was entirely possible that something had happened to her. Perhaps she was sick. Perhaps she had died!
It was that last thought that finally decided Thorvaald. He would not devote another minute of his life to guarding that treasure. He would fly back to Briar Bank (without making his presence known to Bailey, who was no doubt very angry with him, and quite right, too), pick up the treasure, and take it . . .
But where would he take it? Perhaps his cousin Thorwinn, at Money Hill, would agree to look after it. But he hated to offload his duty onto another dragon, and it had been a long time since he had seen Thorwinn, who might have given up his post centuries ago and gone off to be an explorer, which was what he had wanted to be when he was younger.
And then he thought of the British Museum, for that was what Thorvaald had heard Mr. Wickstead say to Pickles when he was putting the treasure back: “When the man from the Home Office gets here, we’ll dig it up again and hand it over. It’ll be better off at the British Museum.” Yes, of course! If he took it there, the museum would go to the trouble of looking after it, and he could get on with his life. In fact, he thought, he might even zip over to Money Hill and suggest to old Thorwinn that—if he still had his treasure—he might drop it off at the museum, as well.
But of course things weren’t all that simple. They never are, are they? Thorvaald went to Briar Bank early in the morning, which turned out to be very good timing. For he had no sooner slipped out of Briar Bank with the bags in his claws than he saw Yllva, cruising toward him in the early morning light.
Now, you may have grown comfortable with Thorvaald. He is, after all, a fairly amiable dragon who turns his fire to folks’ advantage, using it to boil the kettle and make Briar Bank a cozier place for Bailey. It would not be wise, however, to feel too relaxed and easy with Yllva, for there was nothing at all amiable about her. Temperamental, possessive, obsessive, neurotic, irrational, and maniacally cunning, she had an inflammatory temper, and the slightest thing could make her fly off the handle. (As Thorvaald has said, temper is rather a liability when one has a fire in one’s belly, for one has a tendency to scorch.) Her only vulnerability was her eyesight. She was nearsighted, which made it difficult for her to identify and acquire her target, let alone estimate its range. Her eyesight also gave her trouble when she was trying to judge her altitude, which made her landings a little uncertain. This vulnerability made this dragon even more dangerous, since a hungry Yllva might barbecue a whole flock of sheep when she was aiming for a single roast lamb!
Luckily, whilst Thorvaald spotted Yllva, she did not see him, or appear to suspect anything out of the ordinary, in spite of the downed yew tree that lay in front of the opening. Why should she? She would naturally expect that things would be just as she had left them some three hundred years before: she would catch her junior dragon napping on the job and chastise him severely, then make sure that the treasure was safe. Business as usual at Briar Bank.
Warily, Thorvaald hovered amongst the trees as Yllva folded her wings and crept into the opening that led to the Briar Bank dragon’s lair. He was a safe distance away, but he still heard her angry shriek when she discovered that both he and the treasure were missing, and saw the smoke and lava-like fire that snaked out of the entrance. And when she burst out, she was angrier than he had ever seen her. Flame shot from her nostrils, steam belched from her mouth, her belly glowed an awful red, and she stamped on the ground so hard that the bushes and trees quaked with fear and the terrified rocks rolled away as fast as they could.
With three powerful strokes of her leathery wings, she climbed high into the sky and flew this way and then that, as though so blinded with rage she didn’t know which way to go. And then, quite suddenly, she wheeled and began flying with purpose, as if she had spotted something.
“Uh-oh,” Thorvaald thought apprehensively. In this state, Yllva was dangerously unpredictable. There was no telling what she would do. He dropped the treasure sacks at the foot of a tall beech, rose into the air, and followed her, flying as fast as he could. Dragons have no rearview mirrors and are not likely to look over their shoulders (who in their right minds would be following them?), but he kept to the trees, anyway, and at a safe distance behind. In a moment, he saw what Yllva saw, and his heart leapt into his mouth.
What Yllva saw was Bailey. Wearing a heavy woolen coat and hat, the badger was trudging across the frozen surface of Moss Eccles Lake, a burlap sack slung over his shoulder. Thorvaald was close enough to be horrified by what he saw but too far away to do anything about it. Without a sound except for the flap-flap-flap of her wings, Yllva flew at the badger. Bailey flung up his arm to try to protect himself, but she snatched the sack from his shoulder, like an eagle seizing an unwary rabbit. Thorvaald knew exactly what she was thinking. Irrational as it may seem, she imagined that the badger had stolen the treasure—her treasure!—and was making off with it in that burlap sack.
Thorvaald tried to cry out, but his throat was so parched with fear that even his steam had dried up, and he could only squeak. Yllva, completely beside herself now, wheeled, and stroked her powerful wings to get up speed. She had saved the treasure, or so she thought, and now she was going to put a quick end to this meddlesome creature. She made straight for the defenseless Bailey, her dragon’s mouth yawning as wide as the gaping crater of an erupting volcano, snorting fire and brimstone. But just at the last second, Bailey miraculously evaded her, leaping sideways and making a frantic headfirst dive into an open patch of water.
Now, Thorvaald had never been acquainted with badgers until he met this one, and had no idea that they could swim. In fact, water was a horrid, fearsome thing to him, for even a bucketful in the right place could quite easily put out his fire, and without a fire, he wouldn’t be much of a dragon. So when Bailey sank like a stone into the black depths of Moss Eccles Lake, Thorvaald closed his eyes, convinced that his friend had drowned and feeling as if his dragon’s heart would break in two. And it was all his fault, just as Mr. Wickstead and the tree had been his fault! If he had simply left the treasure where it was, Yllva would have merely taken it away and the badger, his dearest friend in all the world, would still be alive.
But there was no time for regrets or self-recrimination, for Yllva was angry beyond reason, beyond any thought, and she might do anything in her malicious spite. She might heat the water in the lake to boiling, hot enough for tea but far too hot for the poor fish. She might fly over the forests, setting the trees afire with her lava-like breath and baking all the birds on their branches. She might even shoot like a flaming arrow straight to the village and set the houses ablaze, killing all the men, women, and children. Somehow, she had to be stopped! How, Thorvaald didn’t know, but he knew that he was the only one who could do it.
He beat his wings, rose up into the air, and looked around. There she was, off to the east, turning for another sweep of the area. What would she strike? Who would be her next victim? Bailey had eluded her, and she was mad with rage. That there would be another victim, he had no doubt.
Thorvaald flew toward her. W
hen he was close enough to be heard, he reached deep inside himself and found a voice he had not known was his. It was the deep, cruel taunting voice in which dragons call to one another when they are provoked or provoking, the voice whose cadences are immortalized in Beowulf.
“Yllva!” he cried. “Is that Yllva the She-Wolf? It is I, Thorvaald the Hoard-Guarder. Are you by chance looking for me?”
Yllva turned and saw him. “Thorvaald!” she shrieked, and her cry licked the treetops with flame. “Dim-witted dragon! Dunderhead! Dunce! No Hoard-Guarder, you! You allowed that wretched worm of a badger to off-snatch the treasure while you slept on unwitting. Fine keeper of rings and gold you are, Thorvaald! You shall answer for the trouble and toil I had getting it back.”
“Got it back, did you?” Thorvaald chortled ironically and clapped his wings together over his head in the insulting gesture that drives dragons mad with rage. “Is that what you think, O Yllva the Short-Sighted? Look in that sack you clutch in your claws. You will find there no treasure, but twigs and trash!” On that last taunt, he rose high above her, hovering while she peered into the sack.
Yllva looked. Then, with a scream of rage, she dropped the sack and turned on one wing. “Where is it?” she cried. “What have you done with the treasure, Thorvaald the Unthrifty? Return it forthwith, or I shall hunt you to hell-gates, to the ends of the earth and beyond!”
“Come then and get it,” Thorvaald said. “Follow me, old Astigmatic One, if you dare!”
And with that, he wheeled, dipped, and flew as hard as he could, swinging and swerving and swooping just over the tops of the trees, right across Moss Eccles Lake, across Stony Lane, across the meadow and the silver thread of the frozen Wilfen Beck, toward the dark line of trees that marked the edge of Cuckoo Brow Wood. And there, just at the foot of Holly How, stood what he was looking for.
He glanced over his shoulder to see that Yllva, who was much stronger and faster than he, was gaining on him. This was going to require some challenging flying, and he wished he had put in a few more hours of practice. But he took a deep breath, climbed another hundred feet, and called out, “Here I am, my myopic friend! Up here with the eagles!” He burped a belch of flame and waggled his wings.
“I’ll eagle you, saucy whippersnapper,” Yllva snarled, and climbed to catch him. “You’re nothing but a mouthful of sparks. When I’m through with you, you’ll be cinders!” She opened her mouth and blasted a flaming roar.
And then, just as Yllva was within scorching reach, Thorvaald did a very brave and, yes, a very foolish thing. He folded his wings, rolled, and dove down, down, down, straight down, faster than a plummeting falcon—the fastest-flying bird on earth—hurtles toward her prey, plunging straight for the ground. At the bottom of his dive, at the very last second before he crashed into the earth, he unfolded his wings and pulled up steeply, barely skimming the roof of a building that lay straight ahead.
And Yllva? Of course, she followed, rolling and diving and hurtling toward the earth. But she was the heavier dragon, and blinded by rage and blood-lust and her own poor eyesight. She could not at the last second pull up quite as fast as the more agile Thorvaald. She crashed into the building with all the explosive power of a fireball.
Yllva the Short-Sighted had blown up Lady Longford’s haybarn.
“And then what happened?” cried Thackeray breathlessly, feeling that he had never heard such a thrilling story in his life. Not in the writings of Charles Dickens or Thomas Hardy, nor even Wilkie Collins or Lewis Carroll, although perhaps Robert Louis Stevenson—
“The barn was burning smartly,” Thorvaald said, “and it was clear that Yllva was being consumed by her own fiery rage. So I flew straight back to the lake to see if I could catch a glimpse of Bailey. But there was nothing, just that hole in the ice, and the black water.” He looked at the badger and great dragon-tears began to run down his cheeks. “I felt sure you were drowned, old friend.”
“You must have flown over during one of those times I was going under,” Bailey said. “There were too many of them to count. I tell you, I wouldn’t have made it if young Thorn hadn’t come along and pulled me out.” Which necessitated the relating of that fortunate rescue, and of the day and a half Bailey had spent drying out and recuperating at The Brockery, and how he had met Thackeray there, over a sandwich and a bowl of potato soup, and discovered their mutual interests.
“And you?” Thorvaald asked Thackeray. “Where did you come from? And how in the world did you manage to make your way to The Brockery?”
Which required Thackeray to tell about Mr. Travers the book collector, and being sent off to the pet shop in South Kensington, where he and the incessantly chattering Nutmeg were bought by Miss Beatrix Potter, who intended to give him to a girl who lived at Tidmarsh Manor, where also lived an intrepid guinea pig named Tuppenny, who (when implored) led him over a vast glacier-like expanse of snow to The Brockery, where by the greatest good luck he was seated next to Bailey. And of course, all of this required another full pot of tea and second helps of sardines and salmon on crackers, whilst Bailey looked on, beaming and muttering, “Dear chaps, dear, dear chaps.”
By the time all the stories were told, it was getting past time for bed. All three friends retired and Thackeray was shown to his new quarters. With a gratefulness that shivered from the tip of his nose down to his very toes, he saw that the room was furnished with a full bookcase and even a shelf to put his candle on so that he could read in bed. Indeed, all three friends went to bed with very happy hearts that night, the dragon happiest of all, perhaps, because he had thought the badger was dead, and lo! he was alive and well and sleeping in the chamber right next door. But the badger was happy, too, for not only had he been reunited with his dear dragon, but he had discovered a new friend, one who would help him catalogue his library and with whom he could share the joy of reading every evening for the rest of their lives. And so they went on in this happy way for years and years, although it must be said that there will be some intense days ahead, when the dragon begins to seek his Mission in Life, and the badgers of the Land Between the Lakes learn about a terrible threat, not only to the health and well-being of the wild animals and the farm creatures, but to the welfare of all the Big Folk who share this beautiful land with them. But that is another story which I have not yet told, and I’m afraid that you shall have to wait for it.
What’s that? I’ve left something out of this one? I have? Oh my goodness, I think you are right! You are wondering what has happened to the treasure, aren’t you? Confess now, it’s been on your mind ever since Thorvaald told us he dropped it at the foot of a large beech tree so that he could fly off in pursuit of Yllva.
Where is the treasure now? Who has it? What has become of it?
Well, then, here is the rest of the dragon’s tale. After Thorvaald had given his friend up for lost, he returned sorrowfully to the beech tree, picked up the treasure, and flew off with it straight to London, through all sorts of bad weather. (Please don’t ask me what map he used or how he navigated through the fog that blanketed the south of England that whole week, for I cannot tell you. Dragons take some things for granted, and don’t bother telling the rest of us.)
But I do know that when Thorvaald arrived, it was nearly midnight, for the flight from Lakeland to London is quite a long one. He encountered a pea-soup fog as he flew into the city, a thick, odiferous brew of coal smoke, soot, and mist that reduced visibility to a few yards. Descending in the vicinity of Hampstead Heath and plotting his course by some remarkable built-in navigational capability that might baffle today’s Royal Air Force, he made his way through the fog, flying low over Bloomsbury until he spotted the huge squarish bulk of the British Museum dead ahead. Hovering lightly over the steps that ascend from Great Russell Street, he saw a uniformed bobby dozing, propped against a lamppost. A moment later, the bobby came awake with a start as two leather sacks dropped at his feet, spilling their valuable contents across the pavement. He looked up to see where
they had come from, but the fog was so thick that nothing at all was visible, except for a dim red glow that dwindled to darkness just as he caught sight of it.
And that is how the Viking hoard that Mr. Wickstead found at Briar Bank came to be delivered to the British Museum, where you can see it today.
21
Miss Potter Departs
It took several days, but things gradually got back to normal in the village of Sawrey. The snow lingered, as lovely as before, but the temperature moderated, the lanes became passable, and people began to get around with greater ease. The ferry boiler was repaired, and Henry Stubbs began his regular runs across Lake Windermere. The road was restored north and south of Hawkshead, and Jerry the charabanc driver could complete his circuit. The post was resumed, and Beatrix wrote her overdue letter to her mother, explaining that she had not been murdered in her bed. She did not relate all that had happened, but included a note to her father to let him know that Mr. Wickstead had been killed by a falling tree. “I expect to be home in time for the dinner party,” she added, to reassure her mother. “I trust that all is well at Bolton Gardens.”
All was certainly well at Hill Top, although her time there was flying by, happily but all too quickly, since there was so much to do. The children put on a perfectly lovely Christmas pageant at Sawrey School, the Sawrey Ladies Club gave a highly satisfactory Christmas Tea at the Sawrey Hotel, and the choir from St. Peter’s came caroling through the village one magical night. Christmas trees appeared in cottage windows, topped with angels and alight with candles, holiday garlands were festooned over the entry to the Tower Bank Arms, and Lydia Dowling replenished the stock of Ginger and Pickles in her shop, much to Beatrix’s pleasure.
There was work, too, but it was all enjoyable. She finished the drawings for The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse and readied the little book to be given as a New Year’s gift to Harold Warne’s little girl, Nellie. She painted several beautiful watercolors of snow scenes in the village as presents for friends. With Mr. Jennings, she drew up a plan to add several more cows and pigs to the Hill Top barnyard in the spring, and a dozen more ewes to the small flock at Castle Farm.
The Tale of Briar Bank Page 26
