flying across woods and fields with great flaps of his wings that
carried him a quarter of a mile at each flap.
[Illustration: "He rose into the air, rattling like a third-class
carriage." _See page 50._]
Harry and Effie could see the country below, hedges and rivers and
churches and farmhouses flowing away from under them, much faster than
you see them running away from the sides of the fastest express train.
And still the dragon flew on. The children saw other dragons in the air
as they went, but the dragon who was as big as the dining room never
stopped to speak to any of them, but just flew on quite steadily.
"He knows where he wants to go," said Harry. "Oh, if he would only drop
us before he gets there!"
But the dragon held on tight, and he flew and flew and flew until at
last, when the children were quite giddy, he settled down, with a
rattling of all his scales, on the top of a mountain. And he lay there
on his great green scaly side, panting, and very much out of breath,
because he had come such a long way. But his claws were fast in Effie's
sash and the little point at the back of Harry's Eton jacket.
Then Effie took out the knife Harry had given her on her birthday. It
had cost only sixpence to begin with, and she had had it a month, and it
never could sharpen anything but slate-pencils; but somehow she managed
to make that knife cut her sash in front, and crept out of it, leaving
the dragon with only a green silk bow in one of his claws. That knife
would never have cut Harry's jacket-tail off, though, and when Effie had
tried for some time she saw that this was so and gave it up. But with
her help Harry managed to wriggle quietly out of his sleeves, so that
the dragon had only an Eton jacket in his other claw. Then the children
crept on tiptoe to a crack in the rocks and got in. It was much too
narrow for the dragon to get in also, so they stayed in there and waited
to make faces at the dragon when he felt rested enough to sit up and
begin to think about eating them. He was very angry, indeed, when they
made faces at him, and blew out fire and smoke at them, but they ran
farther into the cave so that he could not reach them, and when he was
tired of blowing he went away.
But they were afraid to come out of the cave, so they went farther in,
and presently the cave opened out and grew bigger, and the floor was
soft sand, and when they had come to the very end of the cave there was
a door, and on it was written: UNIVERSAL TAPROOM. PRIVATE. NO ONE
ALLOWED INSIDE.
So they opened the door at once just to peep in, and then they
remembered what St. George had said.
"We can't be worse off than we are," said Harry, "with a dragon waiting
for us outside. Let's go in."
They went boldly into the taproom, and shut the door behind them.
And now they were in a sort of room cut out of the solid rock, and all
along one side of the room were taps, and all the taps were labeled with
china labels like you see in baths. And as they could both read words of
two syllables or even three sometimes, they understood at once that they
had gotten to the place where the weather is turned on from. There were
six big taps labeled "Sunshine," "Wind," "Rain," "Snow," "Hail," "Ice,"
and a lot of little ones, labeled "Fair to moderate," "Showery," "South
breeze," "Nice growing weather for the crops," "Skating," "Good open
weather," "South wind," "East wind," and so on. And the big tap labeled
"Sunshine" was turned full on. They could not see any sunshine--the cave
was lighted by a skylight of blue glass--so they supposed the sunlight
was pouring out by some other way, as it does with the tap that washes
out the underneath parts of patent sinks in kitchens.
Then they saw that one side of the room was just a big looking glass,
and when you looked in it you could see everything that was going on in
the world--and all at once, too, which is not like most looking glasses.
They saw the carts delivering the dead dragons at the County Council
offices, and they saw St. George asleep under the dragonproof veil. And
they saw their mother at home crying because her children had gone out
in the dreadful, dangerous daylight, and she was afraid a dragon had
eaten them. And they saw the whole of England, like a great puzzle
map--green in the field parts and brown in the towns, and black in the
places where they make coal and crockery and cutlery and chemicals. All
over it, on the black parts, and on the brown, and on the green, there
was a network of green dragons. And they could see that it was still
broad daylight, and no dragons had gone to bed yet.
Effie said, "Dragons do not like cold." And she tried to turn off the
sunshine, but the tap was out of order, and that was why there had been
so much hot weather, and why the dragons had been able to be hatched. So
they left the sunshine tap alone, and they turned on the snow and left
the tap full on while they went to look in the glass. There they saw the
dragons running all sorts of ways like ants if you are cruel enough to
pour water into an ant-heap, which, of course, you never are. And the
snow fell more and more.
Then Effie turned the rain tap quite full on, and presently the dragons
began to wriggle less, and by-and-by some of them lay quite still, so
the children knew the water had put out the fires inside them, and they
were dead. So then they turned on the hail--only half on, for fear of
breaking people's windows--and after a while there were no more dragons
to be seen moving.
Then the children knew that they were indeed the deliverers of their
country.
"They will put up a monument to us," said Harry, "as high as Nelson's!
All the dragons are dead."
"I hope the one that was waiting outside for us is dead!" said Effie.
"And about the monument, Harry, I'm not so sure. What can they do with
such a lot of dead dragons? It would take years and years to bury them,
and they could never be burnt now they are so soaking wet. I wish the
rain would wash them off into the sea."
But this did not happen, and the children began to feel that they had
not been so frightfully clever after all.
"I wonder what this old thing's for," said Harry. He had found a rusty
old tap, which seemed as though it had not been used for ages. Its china
label was quite coated over with dirt and cobwebs. When Effie had
cleaned it with a bit of her skirt--for curiously enough both the
children had come out without pocket handkerchiefs--she found that the
label said "Waste."
"Let's turn it on," she said. "It might carry off the dragons."
The tap was very stiff from not having been used for such a long time,
but together they managed to turn it on, and then ran to the mirror to
see what happened.
Already a great, round black hole had opened in the very middle of the
map of England, and the sides of the map were tilting themselves up, so
that the rain ran down toward the hole.
"Oh, hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!" cried Effie, and she hurried back to the
taps and turned on everything that seemed wet. "Showery," "Good open
weather," "Nice growing weather for the crops," and even "South" and
"South-West," because she had heard her father say that those winds
brought rain.
And now the floods of rain were pouring down on the country, and great
sheets of water flowed toward the center of the map, and cataracts of
water poured into the great round hole in the middle of the map, and the
dragons were being washed away and disappearing down the waste pipe in
great green masses and scattered green shoals--single dragons and
dragons by the dozen; of all sizes, from the ones that carry off
elephants down to the ones that get in your tea.
Presently there was not a dragon left. So then they turned off the tap
named "Waste," and they half-turned off the one labeled "Sunshine"--it
was broken, so that they could not turn it off altogether--and they
turned on "Fair to moderate" and "Showery" and both taps stuck, so that
they could not be turned off, which accounts for our climate.
* * * * *
How did they get home again? By the Snowdon railway of course.
And was the nation grateful? Well--the nation was very wet. And by the
time the nation had gotten dry again it was interested in the new
invention for toasting muffins by electricity, and all the dragons were
almost forgotten. Dragons do not seem so important when they are dead
and gone, and, you know, there never was a reward offered.
And what did Father and Mother say when Effie and Harry got home?
My dear, that is the sort of silly question you children always will
ask. However, just for this once I don't mind telling you.
Mother said: "Oh, my darlings, my darlings, you're safe--you're safe!
You naughty children--how could you be so disobedient? Go to bed at
once!"
And their father the doctor said: "I wish I had known what you were
going to do! I should have liked to preserve a specimen. I threw away
the one I got out of Effie's eye. I intended to get a more perfect
specimen. I did not anticipate this immediate extinction of the
species."
The professor said nothing, but he rubbed his hands. He had kept his
specimen--the one the size of an earwig that he gave Harry half a crown
for--and he has it to this day.
You must get him to show it to you!
[Illustration: THE ICE DRAGON]
IV. The Ice Dragon, or Do as You Are Told
This is the tale of the wonders that befell on the evening of the
eleventh of December, when they did what they were told not to do. You
may think that you know all the unpleasant things that could possibly
happen to you if you are disobedient, but there are some things which
even you do not know, and they did not know them either.
Their names were George and Jane.
There were no fireworks that year on Guy Fawkes' Day, because the heir
to the throne was not well. He was cutting his first tooth, and that is
a very anxious time for any person--even for a Royal one. He was really
very poorly, so that fireworks would have been in the worst possible
taste, even at Land's End or in the Isle of Man, whilst in Forest Hill,
which was the home of Jane and George, anything of the kind was quite
out of the question. Even the Crystal Palace, empty-headed as it is,
felt that this was no time for Catherine-wheels.
But when the Prince had cut his tooth, rejoicings were not only
admissible but correct, and the eleventh of December was proclaimed
firework day. All the people were most anxious to show their loyalty,
and to enjoy themselves at the same time. So there were fireworks and
torchlight processions, and set pieces at the Crystal Palace, with
"Blessings on our Prince" and "Long Live our Royal Darling" in
different-colored fires; and the most private of boarding schools had a
half holiday; and even the children of plumbers and authors had tuppence
each given them to spend as they liked.
George and Jane had sixpence each--and they spent the whole amount on a
golden rain, which would not light for ever so long, and when it did
light went out almost at once, so they had to look at the fireworks in
the gardens next door, and at the ones at the Crystal Palace, which were
very glorious indeed.
All their relations had colds in their heads, so Jane and George were
allowed to go out into the garden alone to let off their firework. Jane
had put on her fur cape and her thick gloves, and her hood with the
silver fox fur on it that was made out of Mother's old muff; and George
had his overcoat with the three capes, and his comforter, and Father's
sealskin traveling cap with the pieces that come down over your ears.
It was dark in the garden, but the fireworks all about made it seem very
gay, and though the children were cold they were quite sure that they
were enjoying themselves.
They got up on the fence at the end of the garden to see better; and
then they saw, very far away, where the edge of the dark world is, a
shining line of straight, beautiful lights arranged in a row, as if they
were the spears carried by a fairy army.
"Oh, how pretty," said Jane. "I wonder what they are. It looks as if the
fairies were planting little shining baby poplar trees and watering them
with liquid light."
"Liquid fiddlestick!" said George. He had been to school, so he knew
that these were only the Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights. And he
said so.
"But what is the Rory Bory what's-its-name?" asked Jane. "Who lights it,
and what's it there for?"
George had to own that he had not learned that.
"But I know," said he, "that it has something to do with the Great Bear,
and the Dipper, and the Plough, and Charles's Wain."
"And what are they?" asked Jane.
"Oh, they're the surnames of some of the star families. There goes a
jolly rocket," answered George, and Jane felt as if she almost
understood about the star families.
The fairy spears of light twinkled and gleamed: They were much prettier
than the big, blaring, blazing bonfire that was smoking and flaming and
spluttering in the next-door-but-one garden--prettier even than the
colored fires at the Crystal Palace.
"I wish we could see them nearer," Jane said. "I wonder if the star
families are nice families--the kind that Mother would like us to go to
tea with, if we were little stars?"
"They aren't that sort of families at all, Silly," said her brother,
kindly trying to explain. "I only said 'families' because a kid like you
wouldn't have understood if I'd said constel ... and, besides, I've
forgotten the end of the word. Anyway, the stars are all up in the sky,
so you can't go to tea with them."
"No," said Jane. "I said if we were little stars."
"But we aren't," said George.
"No," said Jane, with a sigh. "I know that. I'm not so stupid as you
think, George. But the Tory Bories are somewhere at the edge. Couldn't
we go and see them?"
"Considering you're eight, you haven't much sense." George kicked his
boots against the fencing to warm his toes. "It's half the world away."
"It looks very near," said Jane, hunching up her shoulders to keep her
neck warm.
"They're close to the North Pole," said George. "Look here--I don't care
a straw about the Aurora Borealis, but I shouldn't mind discovering the
North Pole: It's awfully difficult and dangerous, and then you come home
and write a book about it with a lot of pictures, and everybody says how
brave you are."
Jane got off the fence.
"Oh, George, _let's_," she said. "We shall never have such a chance
again--all alone by ourselves--and quite late, too."
"I'd go right enough if it wasn't for you," George answered gloomily,
"but you know they always say I lead you into mischief--and if we went
to the North Pole we should get our boots wet, as likely as not, and
you remember what they said about not going on the grass."
"They said the _lawn_," said Jane. "We're not going on the _lawn_. Oh,
George, do, do let's. It doesn't look so _very_ far--we could be back
before they had time to get dreadfully angry."
"All right," said George, "but mind, I don't want to go."
So off they went. They got over the fence, which was very cold and white
and shiny because it was beginning to freeze, and on the other side of
the fence was somebody else's garden, so they got out of that as quickly
as they could, and beyond that was a field where there was another big
bonfire, with people standing around it who looked quite dark-skinned.
"It's like Indians," said George, and wanted to stop and look, but Jane
pulled him on, and they passed by the bonfire and got through a gap in
the hedge into another field--a dark one; and far away, beyond quite a
number of other dark fields, the Northern Lights shone and sparkled and
twinkled.
Now, during the winter the Arctic regions come much farther south than
they are marked on the map. Very few people know this, though you would
think they could tell it by the ice in the jugs of a morning. And just
when George and Jane were starting for the North Pole, the Arctic
regions had come down very nearly as far as Forest Hill, so that, as the
children walked on, it grew colder and colder, and presently they saw
that the fields were covered with snow, and there were great icicles
hanging from all the hedges and gates. And the Northern Lights still
seemed some way off.
They were crossing a very rough, snowy field when Jane first noticed the
animals. There were white rabbits and white hares and all sorts and
sizes of white birds, and some larger creatures in the shadows of the
hedges that Jane was sure were wolves and bears.
"Polar bears and Arctic wolves, of course I mean," she said, for she did
not want George to think her stupid again.
There was a great hedge at the end of this field, all covered with snow
and icicles; but the children found a place where there was a hole, and
as no bears or wolves seemed to be just in that part of the hedge, they
crept through and scrambled out of the frozen ditch on the other side.
And then they stood still and held their breath with wonder.
For in front of them, running straight and smooth right away to the
Northern Lights, lay a great wide road of pure dark ice, and on each
side were tall trees all sparkling with white frost, and from the boughs
of the trees hung strings of stars threaded on fine moonbeams, and
shining so brightly that it was like a beautiful fairy daylight. Jane
said so; but George said it was like the electric lights at the Earl's
Court Exhibition.
The rows of trees went as straight as ruled lines away--away and
away--and at the other end of them shone the Aurora Borealis.
There was a signpost of silvery snow, and on it in letters of pure ice
the children read: THIS WAY TO THE NORTH POLE.
Then George said: "Way or no way, I know a slide when I see one--so here
goes." And he took a run on the frozen snow, and Jane took a run when
she saw him do it, and the next moment they were sliding away, each with
feet half a yard apart, along the great slide that leads to the North
Pole.
This great slide is made for the convenience of the Polar bears, who,
during the winter months, get their food from the Army and Navy
Stores--and it is the most perfect slide in the world. If you have never
come across it, it is because you have never let off fireworks on the
eleventh of December, and have never been thoroughly naughty and
disobedient. But do not be these things in the hope of finding the great
slide--because you might find something quite different, and then you
will be sorry.
The great slide is like common slides in that when once you have started
you have to go on to the end--unless you fall down--and then it hurts
just as much as the smaller kind on ponds. The great slide runs
downhill all the way, so that you keep on going faster and faster and
faster. George and Jane went so fast that they had not time to notice
the scenery. They only saw the long lines of frosted trees and the
starry lamps, and on each side, rushing back as they slid on, a very
broad, white world and a very large, black night; and overhead as well
as in the trees the stars were bright like silver lamps, and far ahead
shone and trembled and sparkled the line of fairy spears. Jane said
that, and George said: "I can see the Northern Lights quite plain."
It is very pleasant to slide and slide and slide on clear, dark
ice--especially if you feel you are really going somewhere, and more
especially if that somewhere is the North Pole. The children's feet made
no noise on the ice, and they went on and on in a beautiful white
silence. But suddenly the silence was shattered and a cry rang out over
the snow.
"Hey! You there! Stop!"
"Tumble for your life!" cried George, and he fell down at once, because
it is the only way to stop. Jane fell on top of him--and then they
crawled on hands and knees to the snow at the edge of the slide--and
there was a sportsman, dressed in a peaked cap and a frozen moustache,
like the one you see in the pictures about Ice-Peter, and he had a gun
in his hand.
"You don't happen to have any bullets about you?" said he.
"No," George said, truthfully. "I had five of father's revolver
cartridges, but they were taken away the day Nurse turned out my pockets
to see if I had taken the knob of the bathroom door by mistake."
"Quite so," said the sportsman, "these accidents will occur. You don't
carry firearms, then, I presume?"
"I haven't any fire_arms_," said George, "but I have a fire_work_. It's
only a squib one of the boys gave me, if that's any good." And he began
to feel among the string and peppermints, and buttons and tops and nibs
and chalk and foreign postage stamps in his knickerbocker pockets.
"One could but try," the sportsman replied, and he held out his hand.
But Jane pulled at her brother's jacket-tail and whispered, "Ask him
what he wants it for."
So then the sportsman had to confess that he wanted the firework to kill
the white grouse with; and, when they came to look, there was the white
grouse himself, sitting in the snow, looking quite pale and careworn,
and waiting anxiously for the matter to be decided one way or the other.
George put all the things back in his pockets, and said, "No, I shan't.
The reason for shooting him stopped yesterday--I heard Father say so--so
it wouldn't be fair, anyhow. I'm very sorry; but I can't--so there!"
The sportsman said nothing, only he shook his fist at Jane, and then he
got on the slide and tried to go toward the Crystal Palace--which was
not easy, because that way is uphill. So they left him trying, and went
on.
Before they started, the white grouse thanked them in a few pleasant,
well-chosen words, and then they took a sideways slanting run and
started off again on the great slide, and so away toward the North Pole
and the twinkling, beautiful lights.
The great slide went on and on, and the lights did not seem to come much
nearer, and the white silence wrapped around them as they slid along the
wide, icy path. Then once again the silence was broken to bits by
someone calling: "Hey! You there! Stop!"
"Tumble for your life!" cried George, and tumbled as before, stopping in
the only possible way, and Jane stopped on top of him, and they crawled
to the edge and came suddenly on a butterfly collector, who was looking
for specimens with a pair of blue glasses and a blue net and a blue book
with colored plates.
"Excuse me," said the collector, "but have you such a thing as a needle
about you--a very long needle?"
"I have a needle _book_," replied Jane, politely, "but there aren't any
needles in it now. George took them all to do the things with pieces of
cork--in the 'Boy's Own Scientific Experimenter' and 'The Young
Mechanic.' He did not do the things, but he did for the needles."
"Curiously enough," said the collector, "I too wish to use the needle in
connection with cork."
"I have a hatpin in my hood," said Jane. "I fastened the fur with it
when it caught in the nail on the greenhouse door. It is very long and
sharp--would that do?"
"One could but try," said the collector, and Jane began to feel for the
pin. But George pinched her arm and whispered, "Ask what he wants it
for." Then the collector had to own that he wanted the pin to stick
through the great Arctic moth, "a magnificent specimen," he added,
"which I am most anxious to preserve."
And there, sure enough, in the collector's butterfly net sat the great
Arctic moth, listening attentively to the conversation.
"Oh, I couldn't!" cried Jane. And while George was explaining to the
collector that they would really rather not, Jane opened the blue folds
of the butterfly net, and asked the moth quietly if it would please step
outside for a moment. And it did.
When the collector saw that the moth was free, he seemed less angry than
grieved.
"Well, well," said he, "here's a whole Arctic expedition thrown away! I
shall have to go home and fit out another. And that means a lot of
writing to the papers and things. You seem to be a singularly
thoughtless little girl."
So they went on, leaving him too, trying to go uphill towards the
Crystal Palace.
When the great white Arctic moth had returned thanks in a suitable
speech, George and Jane took a sideways slanting run and started sliding
again, between the star-lamps along the great slide toward the North
Pole. They went faster and faster, and the lights ahead grew brighter
and brighter--so that they could not keep their eyes open, but had to
blink and wink as they went--and then suddenly the great slide ended in
an immense heap of snow, and George and Jane shot right into it because
they could not stop themselves, and the snow was soft, so that they went
in up to their very ears.