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—
Bust backward though 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 splendor 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, our 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 t
o 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.
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