done and always will do. I have never been one to bother my brains
about anything but the present. I trust the future handsomely, as you
already know, but my own concerns have been with my own few centuries.
When I die--probably in a year, or it may be two--I shall be laid
beside my wife; and having planted hawthorns over me, the duty of the
community, so far as I am concerned, will be at an end. The greater
duty to themselves I do not seek to influence. Some will probably
desire to remain; others, to return to the larger world and the
complexities of a higher civilisation than ours. Probably Dragonsville
will disappear, when the walls return to the earth from which they were
raised; and if a measure of what I have endeavoured to do and advance
is carried into the greater world and proves, in its small way, of any
service, I shall not have lived in vain.”
Sir Jasper nodded.
“I am deeply impressed and much edified,” he declared; “but I do not
think you must ask me to stop with you. To break a precedent is a pity,
and the life frankly invites me by reason of its simplicity, dignity
and general charm; but my aim and purpose have ever been to redress
wrong and fight evil. Here things are so happily ordered that an armed
knight--a man of war such as myself--whose business is to destroy the
enemies of mankind and strike bitter and bloody blows that the world
may be cleaner, safer and happier--such a man, honourable Dragon, would
find nothing to do in this place.”
“Why not beat your sword into a ploughshare, your lance into a pruning
hook, your armour into kitchen utensils?” asked the other. “I can
imagine your silver helmet making an exquisite holder for a pot plant
in the boudoir of my dear Lilian.”
A slight warmth of colour mantled the cheek of the hero.
“You are not quite as ingenuous as you pretend, I fear,” he answered.
“Consult her,” urged the Lavender Dragon. “You might do worse, for to
her outward charm is united a very beautiful mind, and I have little
doubt that, in reality, she comes of descent as long and noble as
your own. Take occasion to have discourse with her before you decide.
Speaking generally, your argument is capable of refutation, for
the gift of skill in the field is not, I think, your sole claim to
distinction. Given good will, the prime motive power of all progress,
and a desire to help our body politic, a man of your high principles
and exalted sentiments should not be at a loss even here. I, for
example, shall beg you to throw light upon much that puzzles my
dragon mind. To-day I have done all the talking, but think not that I
cannot listen too. Many of my friends and neighbours have helped me
vastly with their practical knowledge of your species, and the rising
generation is not backward of still more valuable ideas. However, you
are free to go when you please; but I should think it courteous and
considerate if you would undertake to stay a month with us.”
“That I will gladly do,” replied his guest. “There is, however, one
privilege I would beg. My squire, George Pipkin, must be suffering the
extremity of grief on my account, and he will, not unnaturally, fear
for me a very different fate than this I now enjoy. Is it within your
power, think you, to unite us? I may tell you that he will certainly
seek me and push his way, sooner or later, to your outer walls. If,
on reaching them, he might be admitted into this happy land, I should
thank you heartily.”
“I will bring him myself,” promised the Lavender Dragon. “A man so
faithful and of such devotion to his master is worthy of all respect.”
Sir Jasper sighed and reviewed his tremendous experience.
“What the world would think of me, I cannot guess,” he said.
“What the world thinks of us is of prodigious unimportance, my
friend,” replied the saurian. “The only thing that really matters is
what we think of ourselves. In nothing is reason so flouted as in our
ridiculous self-estimates; but when we suffer her to help us read our
own hearts and judge the real worth of our own abilities and ambitions,
then we shall begin to know what moral progress may mean.”
VII
_GREAT NEWS FOR GEORGE PIPKIN_
Early on the morrow the Lavender Dragon set forth to seek George Pipkin
and, after sleeping soundly in a most comfortable and cheerful chamber,
the latest arrival at Dragonsville went among the people and saw and
heard much that gave him pleasure.
His host had not returned at the hour of midday dinner, but certain
elderly and dignified persons of both sexes joined Sir Jasper at the
meal. He found Father Lazarus, the priest, to be of the party, together
with Nicholas Warrender, the seneschal, a grey-haired dame or two, and
an old but venerable man whom the others addressed as “Sir Claude.”
There were also present Amory Doncaster, the Lavender Dragon’s doctor,
and Lilian Lovenot, who, radiant in a gown of azure blue, decorated
with pearls as large as filberts, sat beside the newcomer.
Conversation proved by no means parochial and his new friends
manifested great interest in Sir Jasper’s professional experiences and
the doings of the outer world. The old people expressed a hope that
life ran in more gracious channels than of yore, and that he found an
increase of prosperity and happiness upon his travels; while, when
he confessed that new wars were in the making and new discontents
battering and bruising humanity on every side, the younger men and
women present declared their impatience and indignation at the slow
progress of the race.
“I cannot but think,” said Lilian Lovenot, “that a time is near when
the rising generation of Dragonsville will be called to abandon this
life of ease and happiness, and go forth to carry the principles and
theories of L.D. into the outer darkness.”
“A tremendous opinion,” replied a youth by the name of Howard Harris.
“But it may come to that. We have all made one another as happy as it
is possible to be at Dragonsville, and, for my own part, I sometimes
sigh for other fields wherein to conquer.”
“Or be conquered,” said Sir Claude, and looking upon him, the younger
knight observed the first face in this city which betokened a mind not
wholly at rest.
After the meal was ended, Sir Jasper, his fellow knight and Lilian
walked to the grave of the Lavender Dragon’s wife and sat upon it under
the shadow of the flowering shrubs. Then Sir Claude, having found that
his own adventures in chivalry belonged to a period far anterior to
the visitor’s, explained the reason of that settled melancholy which
appeared upon his grey and wrinkled countenance.
“I am Sir Claude Pontifex Fortescue, of the Strong Shield,” he said,
“and it was I, Sir Jasper, who, sixty years ago, laid lance in rest
against L.D. That awful error of judgment has haunted me and cast
the sour shadow of remorse upon my long, and, I hope, subsequently
blameless career.”
“I did no less in thought,” confessed Sir Jasper. “My one desire was
to slaughter this prodigious person and cut his head off. Surely he
is the last to blame you, or harbour any suspicion of resentment. It
is summed in a word, Sir Knight; you and I knew no better. I will go
further and declare that there was no reason why we should.”
“Exactly; and he has told you so a dozen times, Sir Claude,” added
Lilian. “It is irrational of you to harbour this sorrow for more than
half a century. You merely scratched his side and did not shorten his
precious life by an hour.”
The ancient knight only shook his head.
“I deserved death, for he strove to address me before I charged, and I
would not listen.”
“But he spared you to be useful; and no doubt you have been useful,”
suggested Sir Jasper.
“He has,” vowed Lilian. “L.D. himself declares that Sir Claude has been
his right paw for sixty years.”
But Sir Claude dwelt morbidly on the details of that far-away disaster.
“He merely thumped me; then he brought me here, healed my bruises and
exalted me into a position of trust and honour. Would that I had been
worthy of such forgiveness, my friends.”
He refused to be comforted, and presently Sir Jasper and Lilian left
him still sighing to himself, and went their way through the gardens of
the castle.
“Come and look at our carpet bedding,” suggested the beautiful maiden,
and her companion soon stood where five-and-twenty gardeners were
busy arranging a little horticultural surprise for the dragon on
his return. Sir Jasper, however, was no authority on these subjects
and he turned the conversation into more personal channels. Lilian,
at his entreaty, related the brief particulars of her own career
as far as she remembered it; but she shared the dragon’s opinion
concerning her advent into the world and agreed with the inhabitants of
Pongley-in-the-Marsh that the excellent Lovenots were not her parents.
“I loved them dearly,” she said, “but I never felt towards them as a
daughter, and when L.D. discovered me weeping at the well, he knew, by
a marvellous intuition peculiar to him and doubtless the result of his
vast experience, that I was no true child of the hamlet.”
“Here you are happier?” inquired the knight.
“It may sound ungrateful, but I am. I do love comfort and cleanliness
and, I am afraid, luxury,” confessed Lilian. “Silk next the skin,
swansdown to sleep upon, crystal to drink out of, instead of cloam, and
so on--weak--very weak, Sir Jasper.”
“Doubtless the blood in your veins demands these modest additions to
life,” he declared. “There can be no sort of doubt that the fairies,
after their somewhat malicious custom, played a trick upon your
foster-mother and your real one; and now the daughter of the Lovenots
probably occupies a position of high estate and has usurped your
connections and your lawful style and title.”
“It may be so, but I am perfectly happy here,” said Lilian. “In the
fragrant atmosphere of the Lavender Dragon, we live a life of such
fine quality that no distinction could better it. I naturally mourn my
own dear parents sometimes, and wonder what they make of the girl who
bears my name, whatever that may be; but I daresay they have found a
better daughter than I should have been to them.”
“That is quite impossible,” he asserted, and was lost in thought for
the space of twenty minutes.
Sir Jasper then spoke again and put a question.
“Is it beyond reason that I should be permitted to gaze at your left
elbow?” he inquired, and the lady started at a request so unusual.
“Who told you about that, Sir Jasper?” she asked in her turn.
“Nobody told me anything, fair mistress; but, as they say, the world
is small, and I have in my mind a noble West-country family, who
lost a daughter and found a changeling under somewhat distressing
circumstances about sixteen years ago. The changeling ran away with a
wine-drawer when she was fifteen, and no great search was made to find
either of them. The noble family of the Traceys, who are always said to
have the wind in their faces, happen to be neighbours of my own kin,
and we are therefore familiar with a tradition among them. The eldest
son always exhibits a birthmark on his left shoulder-blade in the shape
of a poignard; while the eldest daughter’s left elbow never fails to
reveal an auburn mole in shape of a cuddy wren.”
Lilian’s aquamarine eyes shone like ocean pools when the tide is out,
and she exhibited the wildest astonishment.
“But I have a little wren upon my left elbow,” she cried.
“Then you are the vanished daughter of the far-famed Lord Meavybrook,
of the family of Tracey in the West country, whose manor adjoins
our lands of Pomeroy. I salute Mistress Lovenot no longer, but the
Honourable Camilla Petronell Thomasin Tracey and kiss her hand!”
At this dramatic moment a shadow fell upon the carpet bedding, and
the aerial music of the Lavender Dragon’s wings announced his return.
In a few moments he had descended, whereupon George Pipkin and his
roan charger reached the ground together. Instantly George perceived
his master and, rushing to him, praised God and flung himself at Sir
Jasper’s feet. The knight raised his squire, cheered him heartily, bade
him rejoice, assured him that all was well, and presently surrendered
him to the good offices of half a dozen friendly spirits, who hastened
to pleasure the new arrival.
The translated maiden meantime attended upon the dragon, and, after
L.D. had enjoyed a mighty meal of hay and fine oats, informed him of
the amazing discovery concerning herself. He was gratified but by no
means surprised, and when Sir Jasper returned from a talk with George,
all particulars were demanded.
The knight, however, could add no more to the story than he had already
told. He was permitted to study the white elbow of the lady and there,
exquisitely fashioned by Nature’s self, appeared a wee cuddy wren,
that, upon the milky purity of the skin, suggested an agate cameo
carved by a master’s hand.
“One takes these happenings in a large spirit,” said the dragon. “I am
well-pleased to have my intuition proved correct, and for the moment
only a single thought occurs to me. We have now a choice of three names
for Mistress Tracey, and what I want to know is this: does she desire
that we call her henceforth Camilla, Petronell, or Thomasin?”
The girl looked at Sir Jasper and smiled so radiantly that a mavis on
a bough burst into music and added certain notes to his repertory that
have been in every grey bird’s song since then.
“It is Sir Jasper, after my gossips, who has given me these pleasant
names,” she said, “he shall, therefore, determine by which I must
henceforth be addressed.”
“Let L.D. choose,” begged the knight, but the dragon declined.
“Then let it be Camilla on Sundays and Petronell through the week,
save upon Fridays, when she shall be called Thomasin.”
It was decided so, and in high good humour the Lavender Dragon retired
to sleep, and the knight and the lady were again left in each other’s
company.
Strange emotions already agitated Sir Jasper and he found in his
mind a new sensation, which left him a little bemused. Bitter-sweet
under-currents of thought possessed him and led to some slight loss of
manners; for so occupied was he with his own reflections, that more
than once he forgot to reply when Petronell questioned him, and thrice
he permitted himself to gaze upon her with a direct glare of his blue
eyes that cast her into maidenly confusion.
For these lapses he apologised in stumbling words, and he had no sooner
done so when he committed the like errors again. Anon she left him and
walked pensively to the castle, while he returned to George. Pipkin was
now well fed and had changed his travel-stained jerkin of leather and
oft mended boots for a murry-coloured velvet tunic and small clothes
of orange-tawny laced with black. He had entirely recovered from the
shock of the morning, and having related how the dragon had snapped
him, as he was about to plunge into the Woods of Blore, he dismissed
the subject and declared his great satisfaction at the turn of events.
“I have never had such a fuss made about me since I was short-coated,”
declared the squire, “and I am well content to enjoy a long respite and
rest from our tedious life among these delightful people. May I venture
to hope, Sir Jasper, that you design to remain here at least until the
autumn?”
But his master thought differently.
“This is no place for us, George,” he replied. “A month I have
undertaken to remain, that I may study a society from which we can
both learn much to our profit; but that done, we take the road. We are
men of war, and there is nothing that we can accomplish to add to the
perfection of this peaceful community. We will, therefore, glean what
wisdom we may and, fortified thereby, return to our own good work.”
Pipkin, however, secretly hoped their visit might be prolonged; and
then a curious accident brought the squire face to face with one whom
he had known in the outer world.
They were strolling down a little street together, wherein every house
seemed to smile an invitation upon them from its open door and cheerful
countenance, when, out of a cot, in whose garden towered purple
columbines above a bed of rosemary, there tripped a young woman and two
children. She was dark and comely, with black hair, brown eyes and a
skin as ruddy as a burn in spate. The youngsters were like her--a pair
of bright-eyed boys with laughing eyes.
“Odds bodikins!” cried George. “Here is Sally Slater, the widow of West
Fell. What chance has brought her to this happy valley?”
The woman’s eyes now fell on George and she recognised him.
“’Tis Master Pipkin!” she cried.
“By our Lady I command you tell me how you came hither,” demanded
George, and Sally Slater related her strange story.
“You must know that after my husband died, I took care of his old
mother, and on a day when I made for her a brew of lentils, herbs and
milk, an awful fate befell me. I was engaged in my cooking and thinking
with tears of my departed spouse, when into my cabin burst half a dozen
strange men. There was a witch hunt through West Fell, and seeing me
about my pot, the cruel wretches leapt upon me and haled me before a
judge. As ill fortune would have it, a black cat with green eyes purred
upon my hearth at the time, while in a corner, for I was ever a cleanly
woman, there stood a great birch broom. Here was sufficient evidence
to endanger my existence, and after I had sworn, by the blood of our
Saviour, that I was no witch and had never in all my life held commune
with the Fiend, they put me to the torture to make me confess.
“They thrust me into a chair of sharp steel spikes; they dropped
boiling oil upon my legs and bosom and held a lighted taper under my
armpits. And then, after striving with my poor might to hold to the
truth, my body’s grief was too great and even for the brief respite,
which I knew was all that remained, I lied and screamed out that I was
indeed a witch.”
Sir Jasper regarded poor Sally with sorrow.
“It is even so with thousands,” he said. “For the brief surcease of
their agony, tormented flesh cries out a falsehood, and so men and
women without number are forced to say what is false and condemn
themselves to death; while those who think they do God service, rejoice
and cast the unfortunate innocents into the fire. The Popes of Rome
swept away that legal justice enjoyed by all accused persons under
pagan law, and our most earnest Christians have sent innumerable
harmless men and women to the flames on this account. Fear was
responsible for these cruelties, and fear makes all men unjust. Fear
surely must it have been that caused Elisha to consign the children to
the bears, though why he was alarmed at two score noisy youngsters,
we shall never know. And the men who have accomplished these dismal
feats were the salt of the earth! The good Bishop of Treves burned six
thousand, five hundred parishioners and desolated his diocese; Nicholas
Remy, a pious and, I believe, a pleasing person in his home, roasted
over eight hundred of his poor and powerless fellow creatures. One
remembers also that admirable Protestant jurist, Benedict Carpzor, who
not only read the Holy Bible from cover to cover fifty-three times,
but also passed twenty thousand sentences of death on witches and
sorcerers.”
“Did no ghosts ever haunt or distract these accursed wretches?” cried
George Pipkin.
“Certainly not,” replied the knight. “They passed to their eternal
reward with the blessing and applause of all men, and in consciousness
of lives nobly spent on their Maker’s business. In the case of Remy
aforesaid, however, it is reported that he was unhappy on his deathbed
because, in a moment of human weakness, he had only scourged certain
young children naked round the pyres whereon their parents were
burning, instead of casting them into the flames also. His conscience
pricked him sharply in that matter at the end, for it is well known,
and Mother Church is clear upon the subject, that the children of
witches have the Devil for their sire and should never be spared the
stake.”
“Then how come you and your brave boys to be alive, Sally?” inquired
George.
“Thanks entirely to L.D.,” replied the young widow. “By the will of
God, he was passing West Fell when I went to the faggots, and scarcely
had they been ignited, before he came to earth, sent the people flying
in every direction and bore me away. Nor did his mercy end with my
rescue. As soon as we had landed here and I learned the truth of him,
my mother’s heart cried for my children. I explained that they would
certainly be burned alive after our departure, and were probably
already beyond salvation. Whereon he instantly set out again, and West
Fell, being cast into a great terror by his visit, the children were
still in the land of the living. Certain persons had pitied them in
secret and bidden them fly before it was too late. Our dragon came
upon the little things lying asleep together without the village, and
when they wakened from their journey, it was in my arms.”
“All’s well that ends well,” said George, “and now tell me a little
about our native place. I often think of West Fell and my family.”
Sally showed some uneasiness.
“I’m very much afraid there will be bad news for you, Master Pipkin,
when you gang home again,” she said.
“Let me have it,” he answered, “for as to ganging home, I do not feel
in any violent haste to be there,”
“Poor Mistress Pipkin is gathered in,” said Sally sadly. “A year or so
before my troubles, she went to pick water-cresses in the owl-light,
and ’tis feared she mistook the way. Be that as it will, they found her
drowned with a very peaceful expression upon her face.”
“My stars, Jemima gone!” cried George, staring before him with more
astonishment than grief. “Are you sure of what you are telling me,
Sally?”
“She lies beside the little one took after he was born; and your
daughter has married the cordwainer, John Bindle, and your son has gone
for a sailor in one of the king’s ships.”
“This would seem to be the day of my life!” murmured Pipkin.
“Accept hearty sympathy in your affliction,” said Sir Jasper. “You will
suffer this blow with your usual philosophic fortitude, George.”
“Heaven helping, I shall make shift to face it,” answered the widower,
“for what saith the Book? ‘He hath done all things well.’”
VIII
_THREE SONGS AND A STORY_
This being no tale of love, we are not so much concerned with the
swift and ingenuous romance of Sir Jasper and his honourable lady, as
challenged by the result of their common passion. Nor can we dwell
overmuch upon the less emotional love-making of George Pipkin, who,
before he had resided a week at Dragonsville, was resolutely courting
Sally Slater and winning the affection of her sons.
Sir Jasper now found himself at odds between love and duty, yet opposed
the one against the other with diminishing zest, for as time passed,
he could not fail to observe that the maiden of his adoration was
by no means impatient of his company. The knight’s cheek grew lean,
and his blue eyes became anxious. He had little intelligence, but a
conscience of almost morbid activity, and at first he suspected the
whole business to be enchantment--a possible wile of the Lavender
Dragon to detain him indefinitely, fog his senses and deaden his soul
to the clarion of duty. But though enchanting, there was nothing in the
attitude of Petronell to suggest that she played a part, endeavoured to
enchain Sir Jasper, or come between him and his appointed task. Indeed
she delighted to hear of his modest achievements and gave it as her
opinion that his career had only just begun. His aspirations were her
own, for now she openly longed to be of use in the world and carry the
lessons learned at Dragonsville to Devonshire at some future time.
“To do good is an art,” she declared, “and needs as much practising as
any other. It is, indeed, because the beginner often makes such a mess
of it that many are choked off well-doing altogether and turn to other
and easier pursuits.