holiday. Only those whose duty it was to milk the cows and feed the
cattle put a hand to work, and though it was impossible for L.D. to
go to church, the building not being constructed to admit him, he
sat just outside with his huge head on the earth, where he might
listen to the marriage service and the admirable address delivered
to the wedded couples by Father Lazarus. In this exordium the good
priest took occasion to traverse sharply and caustically many of the
Lavender Dragon’s own most cherished sentiments; but the monster felt
no unkindly emotion before such an attack. He loved Father Lazarus and
never quarrelled with the least person who declined to share his own
ideas. Any sort of persecution caused him violent uneasiness, for he
held that nothing excused loss of temper and cruelty, fanaticism and
intolerance.
L.D. fell into error at the banquet which followed the nuptials and,
despite his doctor’s entreaties, drank far too much cider and ate too
many sugared kidney beans.
After all was consumed, the dragon went into his treasure house and
produced wedding gifts and also presents for everybody, to the least
infant on his mother’s lap.
“I cannot give the little ones anything they value,” exclaimed L.D. to
Sir Jasper, “for the idea of property vanishes in a generation or two
when once human nature begins to share the ethical purity of the ant.
It is better to want than to have; it is better still not to want. They
do not want. But you see everybody takes my gifts for my sake; and you
must do the same. These jewels are of priceless value, according to the
world’s opinion, but of none whatever in Dragonsville. Even for beauty,
a necklace of bluebells beats them hollow.”
The happy couples departed for their honeymoons in a distant part of
the kingdom half a day’s ride from town. There, in a notable spot known
as the Valley of Ferns, stood two bungalows sacred to the newly wed,
and in this sequestered and attractive region the Lady Pomeroy and Mrs.
George Pipkin wandered very happily with their husbands.
Then they returned to hear sad news, which at L.D.’s orders had been
kept from their ears until they did so.
The Lavender Dragon had fallen dangerously ill with an attack of gout,
which involved not only his four gigantic paws, but threatened his
vitals also.
A gloom as of eclipse sat upon the faces of the people. All
merry-making had ceased; even the children only played the quietest
games and could put little heart into their pleasure.
XI
_THE PASSING_
By slow and gradual stages the Lavender Dragon approached his end.
Sometimes he rallied, and the gallons of colchicum which he consumed,
while rendering him very languid, sufficed to lessen his misery. Now
and then he was lifted on to a gigantic trolley and dragged for half
a mile through the gardens, that he might take the air and see the
people; but his activities were over, and though his mind continued
clear and his spirit cheerful, his body lost all strength and he knew
that he would never take wing again. To the prospect of a final flight
under the sunshine he clove for a long while; then he abandoned the
hope with rational resignation.
“It is good,” he said, “that we do not know when we perform a
well-loved action for the last time. Ignorance in such a matter is
mercy, for, looking back after many days, we can bear the knowledge
that must have wakened active grief at the moment....”
He was in a pensive mood on an occasion when Sir Jasper and Petronell
sat beside him and cheered him with their conversation.
“Fate,” he said, “has an art to take what we most value and deny the
summit of our ambition, while granting gifts small by comparison in
our eyes, though infinitely precious to others, who lack them. He who
desires fame is offered wealth, or love. The hungry for love may win to
high place by their art, or craft, yet would gladly barter it for the
female they dream about. The genius goes childless, though like enough
he would thankfully sacrifice his master endowment for little children
on his knee; while the man with a full quiver yearns for that peace and
lack of responsibility which he supposes would enable him to do great
deeds. It is in fact a sad but blessed human quality to covet what lies
beyond our reach. The content are ever negligible, for only frozen
sympathies and peddling minds can be so.”
He spoke of the Latin god, Pan, with great affection, and declared
himself to be in union and understanding with that divinity.
“But in Pan lurks a peril against which you must guard,” warned the
dragon. “There is a panic terror, a fear and dread of him, that may
awake at any moment to ruin life; and there is a panic trust, equally
destructive--that blind, cowardly repose in his shadow which tends
to rob us of self-command and self-expression. Both these extremes
stultify existence, and other gods than Pan are also responsible for
them.”
Sometimes the fading monster was in a cheerful humour and delighted
to tell stories. Indeed he never tired of doing so until the end, and
children were admitted to him, fifty at a time, to listen while he
related the fables and historic tales they loved.
On one such occasion the little sons of Sally Pipkin replied, when he
asked what he should tell the young people assembled, and begged for
the narrative of the Jeweller.
“I too, like that story,” answered the dragon, “and am well pleased
to rehearse it once again. A certain jeweller in the time of Galienus
displayed a soup-tureen of exquisite workmanship, which he declared
was wrought of a single ruby; and the Empress, doting on the treasure,
prevailed with the Emperor Galienus to purchase it for her. To please
his lass was the Cæsar’s first delight at all times; so he paid a
mighty price for the soup-tureen, and the jeweller, who had long
desired a snug villa on the Sabine Hills, now retired from business and
prepared to spend the remainder of his life among his vines and olives
in luxury and ease.
“But there came a man from the East, of great wisdom in all jewels and
precious things, and having heard concerning this wonder he went to
court and prayed that it might be permitted him to gladden his eyes
with the ruby soup-tureen--a jewel beyond even his experience. Aware of
the Oriental’s fame he was made welcome by Galienus and permitted to
see the magnificent collections of the royal palace; and then, after
he had beheld and admired a thousand works of art and nature, the
crowning glory was placed in his hands and he examined the soup-tureen
carved of a single ruby.
“But no word of praise rewarded this masterpiece. Instead, the wise man
frowned, sighed heavily, and making obeisance to the Empress, addressed
her with Eastern politeness and wrapped his harsh news in flowery words.
“He declared that, from the first, he had suspected fraud, because a
ruby of size to make a soup-tureen was clean contrary to Nature. And
now his fears had been too bitterly confirmed, for the soup-tureen
was only glass. It possessed small intrinsic value and no interest
whatever, excepting of a tragical and painful character.
“Thereupon the Empress ran to the Emperor with many tears, and
Galienus, a just prince, despatched swift soldiers to the jeweller’s
villa, arrested the rascal as he was about to eat his dinner, and
hastened him to a dungeon.
“At a later hour he stood before the outraged Emperor and heard his
doom. ‘What,’ enquired Galienus, ‘shall be done to him who robs his
monarch and fools the Queen? The least, I think, would be that he
should make a Roman holiday. In a word, guilty man, you will only
see the light of day again upon the sands of the stadium at our next
festivity.’
“With this dreadful promise the guilty jeweller was hustled from
his sovereign’s presence, nothing left to hope for but a terrible
and uncertain death; and he had no support in his trial and no
consciousness of right behind him to assist his spirit through the
evil hours that still remained. For very well indeed he knew that the
soup-tureen was glass, since he had himself designed and executed it in
secret.
“Not long was the jeweller called to wait execution of sentence, for
on the third day after arrest, he found himself blindfolded, led away
and presently permitted to see again. He now stood on the sand of the
amphitheatre amid an immense concourse of his fellow countrymen; while
above him, in the royal box, sat the deluded Empress and her spouse,
together with the notables of Rome about them.
“Only one other creature shared that bitter expanse of sand with the
jeweller. It was a huge, African lion with black mane and tawny pelt;
and the spectators, who had thronged the place to see this gaunt
monster already waiting for his prey, felt no little astonishment that
a lion, kept without food for a week, should hesitate before the plump
and succulent spectacle of the erring jeweller now within his reach.
“Yet, for a time the ferocious beast moved not, but sat with its green,
unblinking eyes upon the sinner. It opened its mouth, to reveal a
formidable circle of white fangs, and it slowly swept the dust with its
tufted tail. But, as a sybarite, who delays his delicious morsel for
the pleasure of anticipation, the lion still delayed. The jeweller also
delayed and made no effort to shorten the distance between himself and
the instrument of punishment, until a voice--the Emperor’s own--was
lifted in command. He ordered the victim to save the lion further
trouble and the company longer delay. Whereupon the doomed man, himself
weary of such horrid suspense, crept--a stout, solitary figure in a
blue toga--to the denizen of the desert.
“The crouching lion lashed his tail, and the man came nearer and
nearer, until he stood within half a yard of his destroyer’s gaping
jaws. Doubtless he then felt that the monster might be invited to do
the rest. But thereupon an astounding thing happened, for Galienus
himself, to the horror of his wife and the company, leapt alone and
unarmed into the arena and joined the shaking criminal and the lion
appointed to devour him. Then, in a loud and cheerful voice which
reached all corners of that mighty concourse, the Emperor spoke.
“‘May it please you, my august wife, my ministers and my dear people,
to learn what this mystery means. I have, as you well know, been ever
of opinion that the punishment should fit the crime; and upon hearing
this fat rascal was a cheat, it struck me that to cheat him again
would be a very just and proper reward for his villainy. He thought
that he was going to die and make a meal for a fine and hungry lion.
Well, he’s sold, for this lion is but a thing of putty, paint and
straw, with a cunning contrivance inside him to make him open his jaws
and wag his tail.’
“Galienus kicked the lion as he spoke and the effigy toppled over upon
its side; he then kicked the jeweller and told him to be off and mend
his abominable ways. Whereupon the thankful fellow fell on his knees,
kissed the purple shoon of his monarch and scuttled sweating from the
arena amid roars of laughter.
“But whether the Empress laughed we know not; for it may have been a
joke for which she lacked the necessary humour. Galienus, however, won
the applause of a vast majority on that occasion, since empires can
easiest bear the yoke of tyrants who enjoy a sense of fun.”
The children lifted their voices in familiar delight, for this was
a story that never wearied them, and they were not saddened by the
knowledge that L.D. would never tell it again.
On another occasion the seneschal, Sir Claude, Doctor Doncaster and
other of the elders invited the Lavender Dragon to indicate his wishes
for the future, concerning which there existed much difference of
opinion among them.
“First,” said Warrender, “we most desire to render your own great name
immortal.”
The Lavender Dragon smiled and considered the subject with closed eyes;
then, according to his wont, he traced parallel instances from history
when a like problem had arisen.
He drank a huge jorum of colchicum and spoke to them.
“You remind me of ingenious men who have desired that their fame should
shine after they had gone beyond reach of it. There was that Seventh
wonder of the world which Sostratus built for Ptolemy Philadelphus.
‘The Tower of Pharos’ it was called, and in secret the architect wrote
upon it: ‘Sostratus to the gods, and for the safety of sailors’; but
these words, carved in enduring stone, he hid behind a covering of
plaster inscribed with the name and title and glory of Ptolemy. And
this he did, well knowing that the waves of the sea would presently
wash the monarch’s claim away and reveal his own name engraved on
marble for subsequent generations. Yet where is that Pharos now? Again,
when Alexander the Great threw down the walls of Thebes, Phryne offered
to rebuild them at her own charges, provided that she might record
thereon how Alexander had destroyed and Phryne had restored. Remember,
too, Trajan, who set his name on every stone he erected, until the wits
gave him a new name, and called him ‘Pellitory of the Wall.’
“No, my dear Nicholas, and you, my good friends,” he continued. “I have
not the least desire for posthumous honour, or to be remembered save by
the kind hearts that have beaten with my own and aided my endeavour.
As to the future, they often have ill-fortune who seek to tie up the
time to come with dead hands. For the future will not be dictated
to, and no man can prophesy how human values may change, or say when
one kingdom shall desire a monarch, another a republic and a third
anarchy. True it is that we groan and labour under dead laws and the
decayed enactments of vanished generations and pestilential precedents;
but that is only because for the most part we richly reward the knaves
who enforce them, and the nation as a whole is too ignorant, or lazy,
to cast off its burden.
“You remind me of an Emperor of Constantinople, Anastasius by name,
who, being short of friends and well knowing that his time was at hand,
paused to reflect on his successor. Near issue he had none, and the
choice lay between three nephews--brothers, concerning whom he knew
little good, or ill. In his esteem they were equal; and since reason
could not decide between them, he trusted to chance, for he caused
three beds to be set in a sleeping chamber and hid the empire’s crown
in the tester of one. Then, sending for the boys, he entertained them
and, when night was come, bade them go sleep and choose which bed they
would. With morn the Emperor himself entered the apartment of the
brothers, to learn which had reposed beneath the crown. And what did
he discover? The eldest boy slumbered in a bed innocent of the diadem;
and to the second, whose sleep also was not frowned upon by the awful
symbol, had crept his smallest brother--for company. The regal couch
lay untenanted.”
“A good tale,” said the seneschal, “but no answer, L.D.”
“When I chanced upon my own nephew, not so long ago,” confessed the
dragon, “I own a passing inspiration flashed to my brain and led me to
wonder if, by good hap, he might be disposed to carry on our labours
and consent to take my place and uphold my tradition. But, as you
know, any hope in that direction swiftly vanished. Nor will I even
emulate Julian, the Emperor, and leave the helm to him your living
judgments may approve. It pleases me better to think that Dragonsville
shall be thrown open to the world, and that our modest enterprise may
be seen and considered for what it is worth by all men of good will.
Let the young go forth and carry with them our principles, and let
the middle-aged and old, if they so will, remain here and illustrate
them. Let it be shown how that happiness is only real which has been
procured by a man for his fellow man; let a community be discovered
that is actuated by this rule of conduct. Invite the people to survey
Dragonsville, since herein lies our proof; and ask the mighty and the
wise and those inspired with love for their kind to determine whether
or no our theories admit of application on a more generous scale.
Perhaps not; it may be that only such a primitive folk as ourselves,
satisfied with little and no longer stung by lust of possession, could
pursue this ingenuous manner of life; but much might be done, and I
die firmly persuaded that if we could but strike at the root of man’s
selfishness, his superstition and his egregious desire to prosper
at the expense of everybody else, then substantial progress would
be merely a question of time. I have lived to see the two bitterest
enemies of man, and their names are Greed and Creed; while the handmaid
of their happiness, the Cinderella that toils for them with little
thanks, and still waits patiently to become their queen, is Reason.
And, sooner or later, she will assuredly reign over a united earth,
since without reason unity is impossible.”
Within a few weeks of this speech, and after another winter’s frost was
melted out of the ground, the dragon directed that his grave should be
begun.
“It will take a long time,” he said, “and I should like to see it
finished.”
Therefore, with many tears (for this business impressed upon them what
was soon to happen), the people began to dig a mighty pit, one hundred
yards long, twenty-five yards broad and twenty yards deep. It yawned
beside the grove of budding hawthorns which covered the tumulus of his
wife; and L.D. lived to see the scented glory of the may before he
passed.
There was an incident at the early digging and, for the first and
only time, Dicky Gollop, the jester, made the Lavender Dragon laugh.
For while the monster inspected his grave, as yet but five feet deep,
Dicky failed to see where he was stepping and fell in backwards. Thus
at last he reached to his ambition, though in a left-handed sort of
manner, and genuinely entertained his master.
After the completion of this work the Lavender Dragon failed rapidly,
and there came a day in June when with the dawn he died. About him
were assembled the seneschal and other old men and women, Father
Lazarus, Sir Jasper and Petronell, Sir Claude and Doctor Doncaster, who
ministered to the expiring monster. The Lavender Dragon’s last words
were not forgotten by those who heard them.
“Fetch the trolley, while I have strength to crawl upon it,” he said.
“It will save you much trouble afterwards.”
They obeyed, and with an expiring effort, L.D. stretched his bulk upon
the vehicle and lost consciousness. His heart heaved behind the mighty
ribs a little longer; then the beat grew slow and stopped; the blinds
of his lids rolled down slowly over the fading opals of his eyes, and
he was quite dead.
XII
_BUTTERFLIES_
Upon the night after the funeral, as though to indicate that the old
order had changed for ever, the walls of Dragonsville fell to the earth
and the empire of the Lavender Dragon ceased to exist as a separate
kingdom, defended and preserved behind its own ramparts. An immense
restlessness already infected the people, and when it was known that
the walls had crumbled, many feared and many rejoiced. The young would
lead away their kinsfolk into the outer world, and not a few consented
to accompany them; but others remained and hoped that they might be
permitted to do so. Of these were Nicholas Warrender, who took now the
lead at the wish of all, with George Pipkin for his right-hand man. Sir
Claude of the Strong Shield also determined to spend the balance of
his time in tending the dragon’s grave.
As for Sir Jasper of Pomeroy and his fair wife, they set forth
on a cloudless morning in hope to find welcome and waken
far-spreading happiness at home in the West-country; while many from
Pongley-in-the-Marsh and elsewhere also returned to their places,
somewhat over-sanguine that the message of goodwill and good tidings
they brought might reconcile their heirs to their return.
Father Lazarus remained at Dragonsville, and it was in connection with
this honourable and faithful man that the first hard words were spoken
within that township after the decease of the founder.
Sir Jasper was just about to depart upon his long journey southward
when this unfortunate thing happened. He rode his piebald charger,
and Lady Petronell sat beside him on her riding-horse, a powerful and
mettlesome beast. One accompanied them, having his own steed, and a
second, whereon their trifling luggage was bestowed. He was a lad born
and bred at Dragonsville, who had entered the knight’s service. The
priest, with Nicholas Warrender, Sir Claude, George Pipkin and many
others, collected to bid the voyagers god-speed, and as he drank the
stirrup cup, Sir Jasper spoke of their departed friend.
“May his humane and gentle spirit enter into us, and help us to advance
the happiness of a weary world,” said he.
“It has done so,” declared his wife. “None who enjoyed knowledge of our
dear dragon can ever be quite the same afterwards.”
“Be sure that we shall yet welcome him in a place of perfect happiness
when it is our turn,” asserted Sir Claude with an unusual ray of hope;
but Father Lazarus sighed and refused to echo any such sentiment.
“A vain aspiration,” he answered. “We must be brave in this matter and
not palter with conscience. None can feel greater grief than myself to
recognise the truth; but the truth is ever unassailable. In a word,
L.D. has gone where the bad dragons go, since there is no appointed
place for good dragons, and it were vain to deceive ourselves and
pretend otherwise. To this fate is he fallen, not because he himself
was bad--far from it--I never met such a saintly character on two feet,
let alone four; but because, having brain and wit to choose the right
path, he preferred to remain upon the wrong one; and virtue is of
nothing worth that springs from foundations that will not bear the test
of Faith.”
The seneschal snorted, and Sir Jasper spoke.
“Haply he will be pitied and pardoned in credit of his good works,”
ventured the knight.
“Alas! We have the highest authority for refusing to believe any such
thing,” replied Father Lazarus sadly. “He would be the first to own it
himself.”
“Out on you!” cried Nicholas Warrender, his eye flashing and his white
beard a-bristle. “What manner of man are you to deny salvation to your
benefactor and first friend? Did not the Almighty make you both, and
make him worth a thousand of you?”
They wrangled so that they forgot to bid the parting pair “farewell,”
and Sir Jasper, who lacked not sympathy for either side, rode forward
with his wife and left them to it. But neither convinced the other,
since they had entered upon that age-long argument, wherein only a time
yet to come shall declare the victory.
* * * * *
For six generations after his disappearance the dragon’s grave
continued to be a scene of pilgrimage; and then his rede was forgotten
and the things he had attempted to do no longer remembered. He sank
into a myth, and his castle and his city crumbled away under the
sleights of time. The owl hooted in his dining hall; the bat hung
aloft in his sleeping chamber; and presently the ivy, with steadfast
might, dragged all down until not one stone remained upon another. Then
did the watchful Woods of Blore, finding no hindrance, creep forward
with sapling legions that swiftly bulked to trees and so engulfed and
swallowed that happy valley, until all evidence of man and his labour
alike disappeared.
Yet, even to this day at the season of high summer, the wanderer with
faith may chance upon a knoll still open to the sky, and find the
great mound bright in a robe of scented lavender, agleam with vanessa
butterflies--black and scarlet, crimson and purple. The living jewels
dance in sunshine and fragrance, and round about sing birds and patter
the furry creatures of the wild.
Beneath lie the bones of a vast saurian--that excellent mystery known
to the Dark Ages as the Lavender Dragon; and since all history is
but an echo and a reverberation, it may happen that his theory shall
yet revive, to challenge the mind of man, and his practice be again
attempted.
We have made a measure of progress since the days of Dragonsville,
and the fact that we are so widely, keenly alive to the need for yet
swifter advance is the most hopeful thing about us. There speaks
the evolution of our moral nature, wakening from long dalliance;
there moves the spirit of good will, struck into a cruel coma by the
torment of recent years. Mighty powers are they, to help humanity
correct its values, purify its ambitions and seek those ideals of
generosity, abnegation and selfless purpose, without which no pathway
of advancement through darkness into day can be discovered. Dawn is
upon the mountain tops and, as the sun arises, light will descend into
the homes and heart of mankind--because it can do no other.
THE END
Transcriber's Notes:
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.