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.”