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
workbox for Petronell’s embroideries; while the squire ran to bring in
his own 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.
Nor did L.D. return at nightfall, and many uneasy spirits slept not
for thinking about this doubtful event. The seneschal and those who
knew the master best, judged that he had not prevailed with his kinsman
and followed him in order to do so; but some dreaded a more sinister
sequel to the incident and even suspected that the dragons were gone
to fight beyond the reach of any interference. In the morning L.D. had
not returned and, as day followed day, anxiety increased and despair
awakened. A week passed and every face was dark, every heart heavy.
The life of Dragonsville appeared to be suspended and the people,
slighting good advice to go on with their work and trust Providence,
wandered together in melancholy knots about the streets and public
places, while every neck ached with straining backwards and every eye
sickened at the sight of the empty sky. Father Lazarus did what he
might and other leaders of opinion strove to say the word in season
and keep hope alive; but all suffered severely and all were gratified
when Sir Jasper and George Pipkin prepared to start eastward upon an
expedition of search and succour. Everybody applauded this resolve save
Sir Claude Fortescue, who declared they should have started far sooner
to be of service.
The morning for their departure had actually dawned and they were
preparing to leave Dragonsville by its orient gate, when the Lavender
Dragon came home alone. A sharp-eyed son of Sally Slater was the first
to see him, and when the lad pointed to a tiny speck in the sky and
yelled his glad discovery, others cuffed his ears for daring to waken
hope; but he had seen truly; the speck darkened, then brightened and,
in half an hour, the Lavender Dragon, flying very slowly, sank amidst
his people worn out and much dejected. They hastened round him, Doctor
Doncaster leading the way. His patient was very lame and so feverish
that the physician shook his head.
The dragon returned to his castle, ate a meal of clover hay, drank a
hogshead of spring water and then addressed his friends.
“I have endured a bitter disappointment,” he began. “In this younger
being of my own race with whom I have fruitlessly spent the last week,
I recognised a relation. He is, in fact, my nephew; and after seeing
him upon my own territory, great hopes arose in me. I hastened to him,
as you will remember, greeted him with large friendship and made him as
welcome as I knew how. He had flown all night and was very hungry. He
imagined that you dear people were my slaves--a sort of living larder
from which I helped myself as appetite demanded. He declared himself to
be starving and his first request was that I might send to him a dozen
of the fat, prosperous children he had seen scampering from him on his
arrival.
“I invited him to join me at breakfast and spoke of the glories of
vegetarian diet. Whereupon he became abusive and said that he supposed
his uncle to be a dragon, not a cow. I warned him that as he had come
to Rome, he must do as Rome does, and fall in with my customs until he
had opportunity to study them and perceive their dignity and worth;
but he was ravenous and revealed all the overbearing habits of our
race. Hunger, indeed, strips both men and dragons bare. He saw no charm
whatsoever in my attitude of mind; he heard my principles with growing
indignation. Then, calling me ‘Impostor,’ ‘Renegade,’ and so forth, he
blew fire from his gullet, opened his wings and leapt from the ground
in fury.
“But it is not my habit to yield at the first rebuff. He was a dragon
of but one hundred years, and swiftly through my mind there flashed
many an instance, gleaned from the annals of humanity, wherein we have
seen the young sinner turn from evil and become a radiant convert. I
thought upon Themistocles, who was cast out and disowned by his own
father for his debaucheries and vile manner of life, yet became the
most noble of all Greeks and a portent in Europe and Asia. I reflected
on Valerius Flaccus, who from luxury and evil rose to be created Flamen
and became as saintly a man as beforetime he was a rascal. I also
remembered Polemo of Athens, saved from a life of scandal and a death
of ignominy by the wisdom of Xenocrates, the philosopher, who charmed
him to virtue and made of him a great and wise person. Did not Titus
Vespasianus, from a cruel scoundrel become the darling and exemplar of
mankind? And, to seek in the chronicles of Christianity, need we look
farther than Saint Augustine, the Manichee, who, after an incontinent
and lamentable youth, ascended by the ministry of Ambrose to salvation
and saintship? These and other examples fortified hope, and so, taking
thought for this son of a brother long departed, I spread wing and
followed him.
“But it was all to no purpose whatsoever. He is an inveterate dragon
of the prime, with bloody ideas and convictions that I could neither
change nor shake. I persisted, however, until, losing his little
store of patience, he turned upon me, cried that he held me as a
craven abomination, doubtless in the pay of some accursed human
monarch, and warned me that if I dogged his footsteps another day, he
would forget what youth owed to age and turn and rend me. Indeed, he
appeared doubtful whether it were not his duty to rid the world of ‘a
pestiferous and pusillanimous worm’--his own expression as nearly as
I can translate it; and he declared that but for our relationship he
should have done so at the first, and not suffered my bleating for five
minutes.
“Worn out in body and mind, I left the callous reactionary, and were it
not that he is my nephew, I should instantly direct you, Sir Jasper,
to set out in quest of him and see whether your lance and spear cannot
bring him in reach of reason. But I have decided to leave him with his
reflections for the present. I may have done better than appeared. I
live in faint hope that some of the good seed has taken root and will
presently induce the fellow to return among us with an altered mind.”
“I will go willingly,” declared the knight. “It is to destroy just such
a typical dragon as this that I set out upon my mission. Let us depart
instantly, for my squire and I are equipped and were now about to seek
you yourself.”
But the weary monster would not sanction any immediate punitive
expedition.
“Suffer a little time to pass,” he said. “And now pull down the blinds
and leave me. My foot must be fomented with a decoction of scalding
poppies, and I will drink some physic: then, if the pain abates,
I shall sleep for a couple of days and nights and probably awake
restored.”
As he foretold, the Lavender Dragon, once eased of his acute suffering,
slumbered for eight-and-forty hours, and the reverberations from his
nostrils rumbled like genial thunder in the ears of his thankful people
during that period. At the end of this time he awoke refreshed, hungry
and better of his ailment. Whereupon he took a bath in the morning
sunshine, ate prodigiously and dismissed this unfortunate failure from
his mind and conversation.
He was now in excellent humour and full of the approaching nuptials and
the dwellings destined for the wedded pairs.
X
_FROM JOY TO WOE_
On the day before the double wedding, the Lavender Dragon was in a
didactic mood, and said many interesting things which won the applause
of some among his listeners but, as usual, made Sir Jasper, Sir Claude,
Father Lazarus and other good men sad.
The monster spoke with his usual directness on the limitation of
families.
“A great source of human unhappiness is over-crowding,” he declared
to them, “and here, as we know, it is agreed, with general accord,
to expand in a ratio which bears directly upon the well-being and
prosperity of all.”
“You interfere with the liberty of the subject, Sir Dragon,” ventured
George Pipkin.
“That the liberty of the community shall not be interfered with,
George,” replied L.D. “The need to rear and fatten armies and navies
for slaughter does not, you see, arise with us. We are a feeble, but
not a fearful, folk, and we know that there are too many people in the
world. Authority cannot cope with the increase and Nature does so--in
a manner very painful to all of good will. Reason bewails the starved
souls and bodies of many little ones, while superstition, patriotism
and other faulty inspirations, still too much in evidence, clamour for
more of these failures. It will presently, however, be driven into
man’s thick skull that quality is of greater force in affairs than
quantity, and that war, famine and pestilence are cruel and abominable
engines to keep the race in bounds. And when he makes this discovery,
what will he do? He will first reach limitation of swords and spears,
then, being a logical beast in his saner moments, attain to limitation
of his own species. For when men compose their differences without
shedding of blood, masses to murder and be murdered are an anachronism,
and over-production becomes folly. It is argued that restriction may
rob us of occasional great men. But can great men only be bred at cost
of misery to thousands of small ones? If so, then let us struggle on
without great men and rest content with the healthy and the sane.
Our danger lies in the Orient world, whose fecundity is awful to
contemplate and renders it a great obstacle to the security of the
earth. East will not listen to the West on so delicate a subject, for
Asia has family ideals and superstitions in this matter which must take
centuries of time to dissipate.”
“You want better bread than is made of wheat,” said Sir Claude, and his
voice was drearier than usual.
“Of course I do,” replied the Lavender Dragon. “Most certainly I do;
and you also, I should hope, and every man and woman who has a spirit
worth calling one, and intelligence to measure things as they are. I
deprecate discontent and covetousness as you will admit; but there is a
discontent of the soul, Sir Claude, without which man is no better than
the tadpole. Plenty of hearty, healthy children let us have by all
means; and let us learn more from them and about them before we begin
pouring in the varied and doubtful nonsense always on tap for their
little, empty heads; let us wait in patience until they are ready to
pronounce some opinion on the nostrums we hold to their infant lips.”
“Do we not know far better than they, what is good for them, dear
friend!” asked Father Lazarus.
“No, best of men, we do not,” replied the dragon firmly. “I have
studied the child for many hundreds of years, and I tell you this:
the young are often far more reasonably minded than their parents.
Nature leads them to take an honest view of life, and if that view is
unvitiated by grown-up lumber, it will not seldom develop and display
a very rational estimate of conduct. But the work of our schoolmen in
this virgin soil is often disastrous, and woe betide those who sow
tares at that critical season when the rich material is best fitted to
nourish and sustain them. To warp youthful intelligence and poison
growing reason is a great fallacy and evil. There are precious,
humanistic instincts of inquiry in well-nurtured and intelligent
children, and that we should graft upon this spirit our questionable
conclusions, rules of conduct, conventions, hatred of reality, chronic
untruthfulness of outlook and imbecile pride, is utterly to spoil them
in a very large proportion of cases. The potential power and value of
many future men and women has thus been diminished; they are by so much
rendered inferior, both as doers and thinkers. The stream of progress
is dammed, the evolution of morals retarded. For, as I have often told
you, the evolution of morals is a glorious fact; and that it should
tend upwards is still more glorious; because upon this assurance hangs
the destiny of mankind--all pessimists and doubters to the contrary
notwithstanding. Let us, therefore, suffer the children to follow
their bent, guarded and guided by pure reason; let us not catch them
too young and foul the well-springs of their souls with a thousand
uncertain and preposterous theories. Why, for example, does good Father
Lazarus always agitate to get the children? Because he firmly believes
that their future happiness and usefulness depend upon his doing so. He
is much mistaken. Teach them to be clean, honest and faithful, just and
merciful to the weak, humble, tolerant of others, scornful of self. Let
them understand that certain instincts and temptations belong to their
ancestry and original endowment; explain wherein good and evil consist
according to our present worthiest values; but for the creeds and
dogmas, the myths and magics, the mysteries and metaphysics, concerning
which there is such an infinite diversity of opinion, let us spare them
these until they reach years of discretion and are qualified to judge
of their value to life and their correspondence with truth. This is not
to weaken faith, but set it upon a basis of reason; for think not that
faith and reason are opposed. Reason is founded upon our faith in all
things reasonable.”
Nicholas Warrender agreed with his master.
“Man is credulous enough through his aboriginal forefathers, without
making him more so and teaching him to believe in goblins--good and
bad--from his youth up,” said the seneschal. “Thus you stain his
dawning intellect, and soak it to such a colour that only one in a
thousand ever gets the fabric of thought clean again. Remember that
youth is the time of leisure, and when the young grow up, life and
its immediate cares and occupations intervene, so that few have
opportunity, let alone inclination, to go back and intelligently
examine the opinions that have been implanted in them. They take
these for granted henceforth, and bolt the doors of the mind upon
inquiry. But what do you call them who decline to live behind bolted
doors and seek for freedom instead? What name do you give to such as
exercise liberty of thought and reject the learning thrust upon their
infancy? ‘Infidel’ is the title reserved for such persons. Yet unto
what are they unfaithful? Not to honour, justice, mercy, self-denial
or charity. Only to the goblins. Thus the mass of men, who care not
two pins for this subject, and whose sole concern is to prosper and
preserve the approval of their neighbours, succeed in doing so, while
such as honour their own gift of understanding and perceive these great
and vital questions of religious faith and a world beyond the grave
demand the very quintessence of their reverent examination, are cast
out, persecuted, horribly destroyed for their pains, when and where the
hierophants possess power to destroy them.”
“And what is the melancholy result, my friends?” asked L.D. “In the
Golden Age, the idea that religion should come between man and wisdom
entered no head. The philosophers instructed and the sages questioned
and argued without let and hindrance; for then it was understood that
progress depended upon the spirit of inquiry. But now alas! official
and state-supported superstitions block this spirit at every turn;
prosperous error bars the way to afflicted truth, and he who approaches
these profound subjects through any other road than that pointed out
for him by his rulers, will soon find himself a trespasser on forbidden
ground.”
“All religions are a scaffolding, and our children’s children will yet
see the scaffolding pulled down,” declared Nicholas Warrender. “These
opinions are yet in the tide of their career, but must presently remain
with us only as the useless hair upon our bodies and the tell-tale
fragments of our anatomy which point to purposes now out-worn.”
“Consider,” added the dragon, “how many shapes man has given to his
divinities. It was long before he exalted God to his own image. He
ransacked the categories of Nature before he conceived those august
forms of the later and human pantheons beyond which he cannot go. The
Egyptians worshipped Apis, the ox; at Arsinoe, the crocodile was deity;
in the city of Hercules, the ichneumon. Others adored a cat, an ibis,
a falcon. The people of Hispanola kneel to invisible fairies and pray
to them under the name of Zemini. In the Isle of Java the thing first
met of a morning is the god for the day, no matter whether a reptile,
beast or fowl. Those of Manta have made an emerald the Everlasting, and
offer prayer and pilgrimage to it, bringing the inevitable gifts which
the priesthood of that precious stone know how to charm from them. The
Romans created a goddess of a city, and the people of Negapatam built
their Pagod, a massy monster drawn upon a chariot of many wheels and
over-laid with gold. The warlike Alani worship a naked sword, which
is the only god they know who can answer their petitions; and in
Ceylon, upon the peak of Adam, is kept the tooth of an ape--held by the
Cingalese to be the holiest thing and the most potent in all Asia. With
a more noble faith do the Assyrians confront us, for they worshipped
the Sun and the Earth, from which they received life. The dove was
sacred among them; it is a symbol still held in holiest esteem among
the Christians, as you know. At Ekron the Lord of Flies enjoyed first
place, and Baalzebub, the Larder-god, doubtless received many prayers
to keep his myriads under control. Those of Peru adored the corpses of
their Emperors, and ancestor worship persists among certain Oriental
people unto this day.
“A thousand other manifestations of divinity are in the knowledge of
the learned before we come to the solitary god of the Jew--a Being
nobly exalted and purified, but, even as the Allah of Mahomet, One
still all too human in his essence and behaviour. These deities
occupied my profound attention and I made this discovery, concerning
the different interpretations put upon them, that not Absolutism or
Idealism, not Immanentism or Pragmatism, or any other ‘ism,’ or scism
whatsoever, will lead mankind’s few and uncertain footsteps through
his short life to happiness, or security. To suppose, as these people
do, that their gods possess the potency, impatience and selfishness
of Oriental panjandrums is vain; and whether such Eternal Beings are
transcendent or immanent, universal or particular, matters nothing
at all. What does matter is that they are not gentlemen; and to how
parlous a state must that divinity be reduced who can learn manners,
discipline and conduct from the like of us! The gods who behave worse
than their creatures and make it needful that their chosen ministers
should for ever apologise and explain their unsocial conduct, are
not gods; for right must be right and wrong must be wrong, whether
committed by a deity or a dragon; and if it be admitted that these
Supreme Beings know how to choose, direct and control with utmost
wisdom and purest virtue, what shall be thought while they themselves,
in their almighty power, daily perpetrate or sanction abominations for
which the world would execrate any child of man?
“Then you, my own dear Christians, have discovered a triune God--Three
in One and One in Three. And who shall presume to question your
convictions if you abide in them peacefully, without hating and
murdering other people who cannot see eye to eye with you? Truth
asks for nothing but open and honourable warfare against Falsehood.
Given a fair field, she cannot be defeated. The story will reach its
conclusion, however, because, when there is a means of return to
independence, freedom with security, and consequent renewed progress,
mankind must be swift to take that way. We shall presently see
philosophers, each with his personal God. They will write books about
their deities and every one will seek to show how his own concept of
the Eternal transcends all others. Some of these home-made divinities
may not be all powerful; some will even depend upon their creatures
to strengthen their knees and help their difficult task. They are
much to the good--these personal gods conceived by clever and earnest
people, even though no two of them will ever have more than a family
resemblance. Time does not stand still, and evolution continues to do
her perfect work.”
But the Christians had all stolen away, led by Sir Claude and Father
Lazarus. The dragon found only his seneschal still left to listen; and
he was not listening: the old man had gone to sleep.