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Title: The dreadful dragon of Hay Hill
Author: Sir Max Beerbohm
Release date: February 11, 2025 [eBook #75341]
Language: English
Original publication: London: William Heinemann Ltd, 1929
Credits: David E. Brown and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DREADFUL DRAGON OF HAY HILL ***
[Illustration: Thia and Thol--B.C. 39,000.]
THE
DREADFUL DRAGON
OF
HAY HILL
MAX BEERBOHM
[Illustration]
LONDON: WILLIAM HEINEMANN LTD.
_First published in “A Variety of Things”_ (_Volume ten
of the Limited Edition of Max Beerbohm’s Works_).
_First published separately in book form, November, 1928._
_New impression, January, 1929._
_Printed in Great Britain_
THE DREADFUL DRAGON OF HAY HILL
In the faint early dawn of a day in the midst of a golden summer, a
column of smoke was seen rising from Hay Hill, rising thickly, not
without sparks in it. Danger to the lives of the dressmakers in Dover
Street was not apprehended. The fire-brigade was not called out. The
fire-brigade had not been called into existence. Dover Street had not
yet been built. I tell of a time that was thirty-nine thousand years
before the birth of Christ.
To imagine Hay Hill as it then was, you must forget much of what,
as you approach it from Berkeley Square or from Piccadilly, it is
now. You knew it in better days, as I did?--days when its seemly old
Georgian charm had not vanished under the superimposition of two vast
high barracks for the wealthier sort of bachelors to live in? You
remember how, in frosty weather, the horse of your hansom used to skate
hopelessly down the slope of it and collapse, pitching you out, at the
foot of it? Such memories will not serve. They are far too recent. You
must imagine just a green hill with some trees and bushes on it. You
must imagine it far higher than it is nowadays, tapering to a summit
not yet planed off for the purpose of Dover Street; and steeper; and
with two caves aloft in it; and bright, bright green.
And conceive that its smiling wildness made no contrast with aught that
was around. Berkeley Square smiled wildly too. Berkeley Square had no
squareness. It was but a green valley that went, uninterrupted by any
Piccadilly, into the Green Park. And through the midst of it a clear
stream went babbling and meandering, making all manner of queer twists
and turns on its off-hand way to the marshlands of Pimlico down yonder.
Modern engineers have driven this stream ignominiously underground; but
at that time there it still was, visible, playful, fringed with reeds,
darted about in by small fishes, licensed to reflect sky. And it had
tributaries! The landscape that I speak of, the great rolling landscape
that comprised all Mayfair, was everywhere intersected by tiny brooks,
whose waters, for what they were worth, sooner or later trickled
brightly into that main stream. Here and there, quite fortuitously,
in groups or singly, stood willows and silver birches, full of that
wistful grace which we regard as peculiarly modern. But not till the
landscape reached Hyde Park did trees exert a strong influence over
it. Then they exerted a very strong influence indeed. They hemmed the
whole thing in. Hyde Park, which was a dense and immemorial forest,
did not pause where the Marble Arch is, but swept on to envelop all
Paddington and Marylebone and most of Bloomsbury, and then, skirting
Soho, over-ran everything from Covent Garden to Fetter Lane, and in
a rush southward was brought up sharp only by the edge of the sheer
cliffs that banked this part of the Thames.
The Thames, wherever it was not thus sharply opposed, was as tyrannous
as the very forest. It knew no mercy for the lowly. Westminster, like
Pimlico, was a mere swamp, miasmal, malarial, frequented by frogs
only, whose croaks, no other sound intervening, made hideous to the
ear a district now nobly and forever resonant with the silver voices
of choristers and the golden voices of senators. Westminster is firm
underfoot nowadays; yet, even so, as you come away from it up the Duke
of York’s steps, you feel that you are mounting into a drier, brisker
air; and this sensation is powerfully repeated when anon you climb St.
James’s Street. Not lower, you feel, not lower than Piccadilly would
you have your home. And this, it would seem, was just what the average
man felt forty-one thousand years ago. Nature had placed in the steep
chalky slopes from the marshes a fair number of commodious caves; but
these were almost always vacant. Only on the higher levels did human
creatures abound.
And scant enough, by our present standards, that abundance was. In
all the space which the forest had left free--not merely all Mayfair,
remember: all Soho, too, and all that lies between them--the
population was hardly more than three hundred souls. So low a figure
is hard to grasp. So few people, in a place so teeming now, are almost
beneath our notice. Almost, but not quite. What there was of them was
not bad.
Nature, as a Roman truly said, does not work by leaps. What we call
Evolution is a quite exasperatingly slow process. We should like to
compare favourably with even the latest of our predecessors. We wince
whenever we read a declaration by some eminent biologist that the skull
of the prehistoric man whose bones have just been unearthed in this or
that district differs but slightly from the skull of the average man in
the twentieth century. I hate having to tell you that the persons in
this narrative had well-shaped heads, and that if their jaws were more
prominent, their teeth sharper, their backs less upright, their arms
longer and hairier, and their feet suppler than our own, the difference
in each case was so faint as to be almost negligible.
Of course they were a simpler folk than we are. They knew far less than
we know. They did not, for example, know they were living thirty-nine
thousand years before Christ; and ‘protopalaeolithic’ was a term they
_never_ used. They regarded themselves as very modern and very greatly
enlightened. They marvelled at their ingenuities in the use of flint
and stone. They held that their ancestors had been crude in thought and
in mode of life, but not unblest with a certain vigour and nobility
of character which they themselves lacked. They thought that their
descendants would be a rather feeble, peevish race, yet that somehow in
the far future, a state of general goodness and felicity would set in,
to abide forever. But I seem to be failing in my effort to stress the
difference between these people and ourselves. Let us hold fast to the
pleasing fact that they really were less well-educated.
They could neither read nor write, and were so weak in their arithmetic
that not a shepherd among them could count his sheep correctly, nor a
goat-herd his goats. And their pitiful geography! Glancing northward
above their forest, they saw the mountainous gaunt region that is
Hampstead, that is Highgate; southward, across the river and its wide
fens, the ridges of a nameless Surrey; but as to how the land lay
beyond those barriers they had only the haziest notion. That there was
land they knew. For, though they themselves never ventured further
than the edge of the marshes, or than the fringe of the tangled forest
that bounded the rest of their domain, certain other people were more
venturesome: often enough it would happen that some stranger, some
dark-haired and dark-eyed nomad, passed this way, blinking from the
forest or soaked from the river; and glad always was such an one to
rest awhile here, and tell to his good hosts tales of the outlying
world. Tales very marvellous to the dwellers in this sleek safe
homeland!--tales of rugged places where no men are, or few, and these
in peril by night and by day; tales of the lion, a creature with yellow
eyes and a great mop of yellow hair to his head, a swift and strong
creature, without pity; and of the tusked mastodon, taller than the
oldest oak, and shaking the ground he walks on; and of the winged
dragon, that huge beast, poising so high in the air that he looks no
bigger than a hawk, yet reaching his prey on earth as instantly as a
hawk his; and of the huge crawling dragon, that breathes fire through
his nostrils and scorches black the grass as he goes hunting, hunting;
of the elephant, who fears nothing but mastodons and dragons; of the
hyena and the tiger, and of beasts beside whom these seem not dreadful.
Wide-eyed, open-mouthed, the homelanders would sit listening. ‘O
wanderer,’ would say one, ‘tell us more of the mastodon, that is taller
than the oldest oak.’ And another would say, ‘Make again for us, O
wanderer, the noise that a lion makes.’ And another, ‘Tell us more of
the dragon that scorches black the grass as he goes hunting, hunting.’
And another, ‘O you that have so much wandered, surely you will abide
here always? Here is not hardship nor danger. We go not in fear of
the beasts whose roast flesh you have tasted and have praised. Rather
go they in great fear of us. The savoury deer flees from us, and has
swifter feet than we have, yet escapes not the point of the thrown
spear, and falls, and is ours. The hare is not often luckier, such is
our skill. Our goats and our sheep would flee from us, but dare not,
fearing the teeth of certain dogs who love us. We slay what we will for
food. For us all there is plenty in all seasons. You have drunk of the
water of our stream. Is it not fresh and cold? Have you cracked in your
wanderings better nuts than ours? or bitten juicier apples? Surely you
will abide here always.’
And to the wanderer it would seem no bad thing that he should do so.
Yet he did not so. When the sun had sunk and risen a few times he would
stretch his arms, maybe gazing round at the landscape with a rather
sardonic smile, and be gone through the forest or across the water. And
the homelanders, nettled, would shrug their shoulders, and thank their
gods for having rid them of a fool.
Their gods were many, including the sun and moon, their clear stream,
apple-trees and cherry-trees and fig-trees and trees that gave nuts,
rose-bushes in summer, rain, and also fire--fire, the god that
themselves had learnt to make from flint, fire that made meat itself
godlike. But they prayed to no god, not being aware that they needed
anything. And they had no priesthood. When a youth lost his heart to a
maid he approached her, and laid his hands gently upon her shoulders,
and then, if she did not turn away from him, he put his hands about her
waist and lifted her three times from the ground. This sufficed: they
were now man and wife, and lived happily, or not so, ever after. Nor
was it needful that the rite should be only thus. If a maid lost her
heart to a youth, the laid hands could be hers, and the shoulders his,
and if he turned not away from her, if thrice he lifted her from the
ground, this too was wedlock.
If there were no good cave for them to take as their own, bride and
bridegroom built them a hut of clay and wattles. Such huts were already
numerous, dotted about in all directions. Elder folk thought them very
ugly, and said that they spoilt the landscape. Yet what was to be done?
It is well that a people should multiply. Though these homelanders now
deemed themselves very many indeed (their number, you see, being so
much higher than they ever could count up to, even incorrectly), yet
not even the eldest of them denied that there was plenty of room and
plenty of food for more. And plenty of employment, you ask? They did
not worry about that. The more babies there were, the more children
and grown folk would there be anon to take turns in minding the ample
flocks and herds, and the more leisure for all to walk or sit around,
talking about the weather or about one another. They made no fetish of
employment.
I have said that they were not bad. Had you heard them talked about by
one another, you might rather doubt this estimate. You would have heard
little good of any one. No family seemed to approve of its neighbours.
Even between brothers and sisters mutual trust was rare. Even husbands
and wives bickered. To strangers, as you have seen, these people could
be charming. I do not say they were ever violent among themselves. That
was not their way. But they lacked kindness.
Happiness is said to beget kindness. Were these people not happy? They
deemed themselves so. Nay, there was to come a time when, looking
back, they felt that they had been marvellously happy. This time began
on the day in whose dawn smoke was seen rising from Hay Hill.
* * * * *
The title of my tale has enabled you to guess the source of that smoke:
the nostrils of some dreadful dragon. But had you been the little girl
named Thia, by whom first that smoke was seen, you would not have come
upon the truth so quickly.
Thia had slept out under the stars, and, waking as they faded, had
risen, brushed the dew from her arms and legs, shaken it off her little
goatskin tunic, and gone with no glance around or upward to look for
mushrooms. Presently, as there seemed to be no mushrooms this morning
anywhere, she let her eyes rove from the ground (ground that is now
Lord Lansdowne’s courtyard) and, looking up, saw the thick smoke above
the hill. She saw that it came from the cave where dwelt the widow Gra
with her four children. How could Gra, how could any one, want a fire
just now? Thia’s dark eyes filled with wonder. On wintry nights it was
proper that there should be a fire at the mouth of every cave, proper
that in wintry dawns these should still be smouldering. But--such smoke
as this on such a morning! Heavier, thicker smoke than Thia had ever
seen in all the ten years of her existence! Of course fire was a god.
But surely he would not have us worship him to-day? Why then had Gra
lit him? Thia gave it up, and moved away with eyes downcast in renewed
hope of mushrooms.
She had not gone far before she stared back again, hearing a piteous
shrill scream from the hill. She saw a little boy flying headlong down
the slope--Thol, the little red-haired boy who lived in the other cave
up there. Thol slipped, tumbled head over heels, rolled, picked himself
up, saw Thia, and rushed weeping towards her.
‘What ails you, O child?’ asked Thia, than whom Thol was indeed a year
younger and much smaller.
‘O!’ was all that the child vouchsafed between his sobs, ‘O!’
Thia thought ill of tears. Scorn for Thol fought the maternal instinct
in her. But scorn had the worst of it. She put her arms about Thol.
Quaveringly he told her what he had just seen, and what he believed it
to be, and how it lay there asleep, with just its head and tail outside
Gra’s cave, snoring. Then he broke down utterly. Thia looked at the
hill. Maternal instinct was now worsted by wonder and curiosity and the
desire to be very brave--to show how much braver than boys girls are.
Thia went to the hill, shaking off Thol’s wild clutches and leaving him
behind. Thia went up the hill quickly but warily, on tiptoe, wide-eyed,
with her tongue out upon her underlip. She took a sidelong course, and
she noticed a sort of black path through the grass, winding from the
mouth of Gra’s cave, down one side of the hill, and away, away till it
was lost in the white mists over the marshes. She climbed nearly level
with the cave’s mouth, and then, peering through a bush which hid her,
saw what lay behind the veil of smoke.
Much worse the sleeping thing was than she had feared it would be, much
huger and more hideous. Its face was as long as a man’s body, and lay
flat out along the ground. Had Thia ever seen a crocodile’s face, that
is of what she would have been reminded--a crocodile, but with great
pricked-up ears, and snuffling forth fiery murk in deep, rhythmic,
luxurious exhalations. The tip of the creature’s tail, sticking out
from the further side of the cave’s mouth, looked to her very like an
arrow-head of flint--green flint! She could awfully imagine the rest of
the beast, curled around in the wide deep cave. And she shuddered with
a great hatred, and tears started to her eyes, as she thought of Gra
and of those others.
When she reached the valley, it was clear to Thol that she had been
crying. And she, resenting his scrutiny, made haste to say, ‘I wept for
Gra and for her children; but you, O child, because you are a coward.’
At these words the boy made within him a great resolve. This was, that
he would slay the dragon.
* * * * *
How? He had not thought of that. When? Not to-day, he felt, nor
to-morrow. But some day, somehow. He knew himself to be small, even for
his age, and the dragon big for whatever its age might be. He knew he
was not very clever; he was sure the dragon was very clever indeed. So
he said nothing to Thia of his great resolve that she should be sorry.
Meanwhile, the sun had risen over the hills beyond the water, and the
birds been interrupted in their songs by the bleating of penned sheep.
This sound recalled Thol from his dreams of future glory.
For he was a shepherd’s lad. It was the custom that children, as they
ceased to toddle, should begin to join in whatever work their parents
were by way of doing for the common good. Indeed it was felt that work
was especially a thing for the young. Thol had no parents to help;
for his mother had died in giving him birth; and one day, when he was
but seven years old, his father, who was a shepherd, had been attacked
and killed by an angry ram. In the sleek safe homeland this death
by violence had made a very painful impression. There was a general
desire to hush it up, to forget it. Thol was a reminder of it. Thol was
ignored, as much as possible. He was allowed to have the cave that had
been his father’s, but even the widow Gra, in the cave so near to his,
disregarded him, and forbade her children to play with him. However,
there dwelt hard by in the valley a certain shepherd, named Brud, and
he, being childless, saw use for Thol as helping-boy, and to that use
put him. Every morning, it was Thol’s first duty to wake his master. It
was easy for Thol himself to wake early, for his cave faced eastwards.
To-day in his great excitement about the dragon he had forgotten his
duty to Brud. He went running now to perform it.
Brud and his dog, awakened, came out and listened to Thol’s tale.
Truthfulness was regarded by all the homelanders as a very important
thing, especially for the young. Brud took his staff, and ‘Now, O
Thol,’ he said, ‘will I beat you for saying the thing that is not.’ But
the boy protested that there was indeed a dragon in Gra’s cave; so Brud
said sagely, ‘Choose then one of two things: either to run hence into
Gra’s cave, or to be beaten.’ Thol so unhesitatingly chose to be beaten
that it was clear he did believe his own story. Thia, moreover, came
running up to say that there truly was a dragon. So Brud did not beat
Thol very much, and went away with his dog towards the hill, curious to
know what really was amiss up there.
Perhaps Thia was already sorry she had called Thol a coward, for,
though he was now crying again loudly, she did but try to comfort
him. His response to her effort was not worthy of a future hero: he
complained through his tears that she had not been beaten, too, for
saying there was a dragon. Thia’s eyes flashed fiercely. She told Thol
he was ugly and puny and freckle-faced, and that nobody loved him. All
this was true, and it came with the more crushing force from pretty
Thia, whom every one petted.
No one ever made Thia work, though she was strong and agile, and did
wondrously well whatever task she might do for the fun of it. She
could milk a goat, or light a fire, or drive a flock of geese, or find
mushrooms if there were any, as quickly and surely as though she had
practised hard for years. But the homelanders preferred to see her go
flitting freely all the day long, dancing and carolling, with flowers
in her hair.
Thia’s hair was as dark as her eyes. Thia was no daughter of the
homeland. She was the daughter of two wanderers who, seven years ago,
had sojourned here for a few days. Their child had then attained just
that age which was always a crisis in the lives of wanderers’ children:
she had grown enough to be heavy in her parents’ arms, and not enough
to foot it beside them. So they had left her here, promising the
homelanders that in time they would come back for her; and she, who had
had no home, had one now. Although (a relic, this, of primitive days)
no homelander ever on any account went near to the mouth of another’s
dwelling, Thia would go near and go in, and be always welcome. The
homelanders seldom praised one another’s children; but about Thia there
was no cause for jealousy: they all praised her strange beauty, her
fearless and bright ways. And withal she was very good. You must not
blame her for lack of filial sense. How should she love parents whom
she did not remember? She was full of love for the homelanders; and
naturally she hated the thought they hated: that some day two wanderers
might come and whisk her away.[A] She loved this people and this place
the more deeply perhaps because she was not of them. Forget the harsh
things she has just said to Thol. He surely was to blame. And belike
she would even have begged his pardon had she not been preoccupied with
thoughts for the whole homeland, with great fears of what the dreadful
dragon might be going to do when he woke up.
* * * * *
And a wonder it was that he did not wake forthwith, so loud a bellow
of terror did Brud and his dog utter at the glimpse they had of him.
The glimpse sufficed them: both bounded to the foot of the hill with
incredible speed, still howling. From the mouths of caves and huts
people darted and stood agape. Responsive sheep, goats, geese, what
not, made great noises of their own. Brud stood waving his arms wildly
towards the hill. People stared from him to the column of smoke, and
from it to him. They were still heavy with sleep. Unusual behaviour at
any time annoyed them; they deeply resented behaviour so unusual as
this so early in the morning. Little by little, disapproval merged into
anxiety. Brud became the centre of a circle. But he did not radiate
conviction. A dragon? A dragon in the homeland? Brud must be mad!
Brud called Thol to witness. Thol, afraid that if he told the truth he
would be beaten by everybody but Brud, said nothing. Favourite Thia was
not so reticent. She described clearly the dragon’s head and tail and
the black path through the grass. Something like panic passed around
the circle; not actual panic, for--surely Thia’s bright dark eyes had
deceived her. A dragon was one thing, the homeland another: there
couldn’t possibly be a dragon in the homeland. Mainly that they might
set Thia’s mind at rest, a few people went to reconnoitre. Presently,
with palsied lips, they were admitting that there could be, and was, a
dragon in the homeland.
They ran stuttering the news in all directions, ran knowing it to be
true, yet themselves hardly believing it, ran hoping others would
investigate it and prove it a baseless rumour, ran gibbering it to
the very confines of the homeland. Slowly, incredulously, people from
all quarters made their way to the place where so many were already
gathered. The whole population was at length concentrated in what is
Berkeley Square. Up the sky the sun climbed steadily. Surely, thought
the homelanders, a good sign? This god of theirs could not look so calm
and bright if there were really a dragon among his chosen people? Bold
adventurers went scouting hopefully up the hill, only to return with
horror in their eyes, and with the same old awful report upon their
lips. Before noon the whole throng was convinced. Eld is notoriously
irreceptive of new ideas; but even the oldest inhabitant stood
convinced now.
Silence reigned, broken only by the bleatings, cacklings, quackings, of
animals unreleased from their pens or coops, far and near. Up, straight
up through the windless air went the column of smoke steadfastly,
horribly, up higher than the eyes of the homelanders could follow it.
What was to be done? Could nothing be done? Could not some one, at any
rate, say something? People who did not know each other, or had for
years not been on speaking terms, found themselves eagerly conversing,
in face of the common peril. Solemn parties were formed to go and view
the dragon’s track, its odious scorched track from the marshes. People
remembered having been told by wanderers that when a dragon swam a
river he held high his head, lest his flames should be quenched. The
river that had been crossed last night by this monster was a great god.
Why had he not drowned the monster? Well, fire was a great god also,
and he deigned to dwell in dragons. One god would not destroy another.
But again, would even a small god deign to dwell in a dragon? The
homelanders revised their theology. Fire was not a god at all.
Then, why, asked some, had the river not done his duty? The more rigid
logicians answered that neither was the river a god. But this doctrine
was not well received. People felt they had gone quite far enough as it
was. Besides, now was a time rather for action than for thought. Some
of those who were skilled in hunting went to fetch their arrows and
spears, formed a sort of army, and marched round and round the lower
slopes of the hill in readiness to withstand and slay the dragon so
soon as he should come down into the open. At first this had a cheering
and heartening effect (on all but Thol, whose personal aspiration
you remember). But soon there recurred to the minds of many, and were
repeated broadcast, other words that had been spoken by wanderers. ‘So
hard,’ had said one, ‘are the scales of a crawling dragon that no spear
can prick him, howsoever sharp and heavy and strongly hurled.’ And
another had grimly said, ‘Young is that dragon who is not older than
the oldest man.’ And another, ‘A crawling dragon is not baulked but by
the swiftness of men’s heels.’
All this was most depressing. Confidence in the spearmen was badly
shaken. The applause for them whenever they passed by was quieter,
betokening rather pity than hope. Nay, there were people who now
deprecated any attempt to kill the dragon. The dragon, they argued,
must not be angered. If he were not mistreated he might do no harm. He
had a right to exist. He had visited Gra’s cave in a friendly spirit,
but Gra had tried to mistreat him, and the result should be a lesson to
them all.
Others said, more acceptably, ‘Let us think not of the dragon. What the
spearmen can do, that will they do. Let this day be as other days, and
each man to the task that is his.’ Brud was one of those who hurried
away gladly. Nor was Thol loth to follow. The chance that the dragon
might come out in his absence did not worry a boy so unprepared to-day
for single combat; and if other hands than his were to succeed in
slaying the dragon, he would liefer not have the bitterness of looking
on.
Thia also detached herself from the throng. Many voices of men and
women and children called after her, bidding her stay. ‘I would find me
some task,’ she answered.
‘O Thia,’ said one, ‘find only flowers for your hair. And sing to us,
dance for us. Let this day be as other days.’ And so pleaded many
voices.
But Thia answered them, ‘My heart is too sad. We are all in peril.
For myself I am not afraid. But how should I dance, who love you? Not
again, O dear ones, shall I dance, until the dragon be slain or gone
back across the water. Neither shall I put flowers in my hair nor
sing.’
She went her way, and was presently guiding a flock of geese to a pond
that does not exist now.
* * * * *
She sat watching the geese gravely, fondly, as they swam and dived and
cackled. She was filled with a sense of duty to them. They too were
homelanders and dear ones. She wished that all the others could be so
unknowing and so happy.
A breeze sprang up, swaying the column of smoke and driving it across
the valley, on which it cast a long, wide, dark shadow.
Thia felt very old. She remembered a happy and careless child who
woke--how long ago!--and went looking for mushrooms. And this memory
gave her another feeling. You see, she had eaten nothing all day.
Near the pond was a cherry-tree. She looked at it. She tried not to.
This was no day for eating. The sight of the red cherries jarred on
her. They were so very red. She went to the tree unwillingly. She
hoped no one would see her. In your impatience at the general slowness
of man’s evolution, you will be glad to learn that Thia, climbing that
tree and swinging among the branches, had notably more of assurance and
nimble ease than any modern child would have in like case. It was only
her mind that misgave her.
Ashamed of herself, ashamed of feeling so much younger and stronger
now, she dropped to the ground and wondered how she was to atone. She
chose the obvious course. She ran around the homeland urging every one
to eat something. All were grateful for the suggestion. The length of
their fast is the measure of the shock they had received that day,
and of the strain imposed on them. Eating had ever been a thing they
excelled in. Most of them were far too fat. Thia’s suggestion was acted
on with all speed. Great quantities of cold meat were consumed. And
this was well. The night in store was to make special demands on the
nerves of the homelanders.
As the sun drew near down to the west, the breeze dropped with it,
and the smoke was again an upright column, reddened now by the sun.
Later, while afterglow faded into twilight, to some of the homelanders
it seemed that the base of the column was less steady, was moving.
They were right. The time of their testing was at hand. The dragon was
coming down the hill.
* * * * *
The spearmen opened out their ranks quickly and hovered in skirmishing
order. The dragon’s pace was no quicker than that of a man strolling.
His gait was at once ponderous and sinuous. The great body rocked on
the four thick leglets that moved in a somehow light and stealthy
fashion. They ended, these leglets, in webbed feet with talons. The
long neck was craned straight forward, flush with the ground, but the
tail, which was longer still, swung its barbed tip slowly from side to
side, and sometimes rose, threshing the air. Neck, body and tail were
surmounted by a ridge of upstanding spurs. In fact, the dragon was
just what I have called him: dreadful.
Spears flew in the twilight. Ringing noises testified that many of them
hit the mark. They rang as they glanced off the scales that completely
sheathed the brute, who, now and again, coiled his neck round to have
a look at them, as though they rather interested and amused him. One
of them struck him full on the brow (if brow it can be called) without
giving him an instant’s pause.
Anon, however, he halted, rearing his neck straight up, turning his
head slowly this way and that, and seemed to take, between his great
puffs of fiery smoke, a general survey of the valley. Twilight was not
fading into darkness, for a young moon rode the sky, preserving a good
view for, and of, the dragon. Most of the homelanders had with one
accord retired to the further side of the valley, across the dividing
stream. Only the spearmen remained on the dragon’s side, and some sheep
that were in a fold there. One of the spearmen, taking aim, ventured
rather near to the dragon--so near that the dragon’s neck, shooting
down, all but covered the distance. The clash of the dragon’s jaws
resounded. The spearman had escaped only by a hair’s breadth. The
homelanders made a faint noise, something between a sigh and a groan.
The dragon looked at them for a long time. He seemed to be in no hurry.
He glanced at the moon, as though saying, ‘The night is young.’ He
glanced at the sheepfold and slowly went to it. Wanderers had often
said of dragons that they devoured no kind of beast in any land that
had human creatures in it. What would this dragon do? The huddled
sheep bleated piteously at him. He reared his neck high and examined
them from that altitude. Suddenly a swoop and a clash. The neck was
instantly erect again, with a ripple down it. The head turned slowly
towards the homelanders, then slowly away again. The mind was seemingly
divided. There was a pause. This ended in another swoop, clash, recoil
and ripple. Another dubious pause; and now, neck to ground, the dragon
headed amain for the homelanders.
They drew back, they scattered. Some rushed they knew not whither for
refuge, wailing wildly; others swarmed up the trunks of high trees
(swiftlier, yes, than we could). Across the stream stepped the dragon
with a sort of cumbrous daintiness, and straightway, at his full speed,
which was that of a man walking quickly, gave chase. If you care for
the topographical side of history, you should walk out of Berkeley
Square by way of Charles Street, into Curzon Street, past Chesterfield
House, up Park Lane, along Oxford Street, down South Molton Street and
back into Berkeley Square by way of Bruton Street. This, roughly, was
the dragon’s line of route. He did not go exactly straight along it.
He often swerved and zigzagged; and he made in the course of the night
many long pauses. He would thrust his head into the mouth of some cave
or hut, on the chance that some one had been so foolish as to hide
there; or he would crane his neck up among the lower branches of a tall
tree, scorching these with his breath, and peering up into the higher
branches, where refugees might or might not be; or he would just
stay prone somewhere, doing nothing. For the rest, he pursued whom he
saw. High speed he never achieved; but he had cunning, and had power
to bewilder with fear. Before the night was out he was back again in
his cave upon the hill. And the sleepless homelanders, forgathering
in the dawn to hear and tell what things had befallen, gradually knew
themselves to be the fewer by five souls.
* * * * *
It is often said that no ills are so hard to suffer as to anticipate.
I do not know that this is true. But it does seem to be a fact that
people comport themselves better under the incidence of an ill
than under the menace of it; better also in their fear of an ill’s
recurrence than when the ill is first feared. Some of the homelanders,
you will have felt, had been rather ridiculous on the first day of
the dragon’s presence among them. They had not been so in the watches
of the night. Even Brud and his dog had shown signs of courage and
endurance. Even Thol had not cried much. Thia had behaved perfectly.
But this is no more than you would expect of Thia. The point is that
after their panic at the dragon’s first quick onset, the generality of
the homelanders had behaved well. And now, haggard though they were in
the dawn, wan, dishevelled, they were not without a certain collective
dignity.
When everything had been told and heard, they stood for a while in
silent mourning. The sun rose from the hills over the water, and with
a common impulse they knelt to this great god, beseeching him that
he would straightway call the dragon back beyond those hills, never
to return. Then they looked up at the cave. To-day the dragon was
wholly inside, his smoke rolling up from within the cave’s mouth. Long
looked the homelanders for that glimmer of nether fire which would
show that he was indeed moving forth. There was nothing for them to
see but the black smoke. ‘Peradventure,’ said one, ‘the sun is not a
god.’ ‘Nay,’ said another, ‘rather may it be that he is so great a god
that we cannot know his purposes, nor he be turned aside from them
by our small woes.’ This was accounted a strange but a wise saying.
‘Nevertheless,’ said the sayer, ‘it is well that we should ask help of
him in woes that to us are not small.’ So again the homelanders prayed,
and though their prayer was still unanswered they felt themselves
somehow strengthened.
It was agreed that they should disperse to their dwellings, eat, and
presently reassemble in formal council.
And here I should mention Shib; for he was destined to be important in
this council, though he was but a youth, and on his cheeks and chin the
down had but begun to lengthen. I may as well also mention Veo, his
brother, elder than him by one year. They were the sons of Oc and Loga,
with whom they lived in a cave near the valley. Veo had large eyes
which seemed to see nothing, but saw much. Shib had small eyes which
seemed to see much, and saw it. Shib’s parents thought him very clever,
as indeed he was. They thought Veo a fool; but Mr. Roger Fry, had he
seen the mural drawings in their cave, would have assured them that he
was a master.
Said Veo to Shib, as they followed their parents to the cave, ‘Though I
prayed that he might not, I am glad that the dragon abides with us. His
smoke is as the trunk of a great tree whose branches are the sky. When
he comes crawling down the hill he is more beautiful than Thia dancing.’
Shib’s ideas about beauty were academic. Thia dancing, with a rose-bush
on one side of her and a sunset on the other, was beautiful. The dragon
was ugly. But Shib was not going to waste breath in argument with his
absurd brother. What mattered was not that the dragon was ugly, but
that the dragon was a public nuisance, to be abated if it could not be
suppressed. The spearmen had failed to suppress it, and would continue
to fail. But Shib thought he saw a way to abatement. He had carefully
watched throughout the night the dragon’s demeanour. He had noted how,
despite so many wanderers’ clear testimony as to the taste of all
dragons, this creature had seemed to palter in choice between the
penned sheep near to him and the mobile people across the stream; noted
that despite the great talons on his feet he did not attempt to climb
any of the trees; noted the long rests he took here and there. On these
observations Shib had formed a theory, and on this theory a scheme. And
during the family meal in the cave he recited the speech he was going
to make at the council. His parents were filled with admiration. Veo,
however, did not listen to a word. Nor did he even attend the council.
He stayed in the cave, making with a charred stick, on all vacant
spaces, stark but spirited pictures of the dragon.
* * * * *
I will not report in even an abridged form the early proceedings of the
council. For they were tedious. The speakers were many, halting, and
not to the point. Shib, when his chance at length came, shone. He had
a dry, unattractive manner; but he had something to say, he said it
clearly and tersely, and so he held his audience.
Having stated the facts he had noted, he claimed no certainty for the
deduction he had made from them. He did not say, ‘Know then surely, O
homelanders, that this is a slothful dragon.’ Nor, for the matter of
that, did he say he had furnished a working hypothesis, or a hypothesis
that squared with the known facts, or a hypothesis that held the field.
Such phrases, alas, were impossible in the simple and barbarous tongue
of the homelanders. But ‘May it not be,’ Shib did say, ‘that this is
a slothful dragon?’ There was a murmur of meditative assent. ‘Hearken
then,’ said Shib, ‘to my counsel. Let the spearmen go slay two deer.
Let the shepherds go slay two sheep, and the goat-herds two goats. Also
let there be slain three geese and as many ducks. Or ever the sun leave
us, and the dragon wake from his sleep, let us take all these up and
lay them at the mouth of the cave that was Gra’s cave. Thus it may be
that this night shall not be as the last was, but we all asleep and
safe. And if so it betide us, let us make to the dragon other such
offerings to-morrow, and on all days that are to come.’
There was prompt and unanimous agreement that this plan should be
tried. The spearmen went hunting. Presently they returned with a buck
and a roe. By this time the other animals prescribed had been slain
in due number. It remained that the feast should be borne noiselessly
up the hill and spread before the slumbering dragon. The homelanders
surprised one another, surprised even themselves, by their zeal for a
share of this task. Why should any one of them be wanting to do work
that others could do? and willing to take a risk that others would
take? Really they did not know. It was a strange foible. But there
it was. A child can carry the largest of ducks; but as many as four
men were lending a hand in porterage of a duck to-day. Not one of the
porters enjoyed this work. But somehow they all wanted to do it, and
did it with energy and good humour.
Very soon, up yonder on the flat shelf of ground in front of the cave’s
mouth, lay temptingly ranged in a semicircular pattern two goats,
three ducks, two deer, three geese and two sheep. All had been done
that was to be done. The homelanders suddenly began to feel the effects
of their sleepless night. They would have denied that they were sleepy,
but they felt a desire to lie down and think. The valley soon had a
coverlet of sleeping figures, prone and supine. But, as you know, the
mind has a way of waking us when it should; and the homelanders were
all wide awake when the shadows began to lengthen.
Very still the air was; and very still stood those men and women and
children, on the other side of the dividing stream. The sun, setting
red behind them, sent their shadows across the stream, on and on
slowly, to the very foot of the hill up to which they were so intently
looking. The column of smoke, little by little, lost its flush. But
anon it showed fitful glimpses of a brighter red at the base of it,
making known that the dragon’s head was not inside the cave. And
now it seemed to the homelanders, in these long moments, that their
hearts ceased beating, and all hope died in them. Suddenly--clash! the
dragon’s jaws echoed all over the valley; and then what silence!
Through the veil of smoke, dimly, it was seen that the red glow rose,
paused, fell--clash! again.
Twelve was a number that the homelanders could count up to quite
correctly. Yet even after the twelfth clash they stood silent and
still. Not till the red glow faded away into the cave did they feel
sure that to-night all was well with them.
Then indeed a great deep sigh went up from the throng. There were
people who laughed for joy; others who wept for the same reason.
None was happier than Thia. She was on the very point of singing and
dancing, but remembered her promise, and the exact wording of it, just
in time. In all the valley there was but one person whose heart did not
rejoice. This was Veo. He had come out late in the afternoon, to await,
impatiently, the dragon’s reappearance. He had particularly wanted to
study the action of the hind-legs, which he felt he had not caught
rightly. Besides, he had wanted to see the whole magnificent creature
again, just for the sight of it. Veo was very angry. Nobody, however,
heeded him. Everybody heeded the more practical brother. It was a great
evening for Oc and Loga. They were sorry there was a dragon in the
homeland, but even more (for parents will be parents) were they proud
of their boy’s success. The feelings of Thol, too, were not unmixed.
Though none of the homelanders, except Thia, had ever shown him any
kindness, he regretted the dragon, and was very glad that the dragon
was not coming out to-night; but he was even gladder that the dragon
had not been slain by the spearmen nor called back across the water by
the sun. It was true that if either of these things had happened he
could have gone to sleep comfortably in his own cave, and that he dared
not sleep there now, and saw no prospect of sleeping there at all until
he had slain the dragon. But he bethought him of the many empty caves
on the way down to the marshes. And he moved into that less fashionable
quarter--sulkily indeed, but without tears, and sustained by a great
faith in the future.
* * * * *
On the morning of next day the homelanders prayed again to the sun that
he would call the dragon away from them. He did not so. Therefore they
besought him that he would forbid the dragon to come further than the
cave’s mouth, and would cause him to be well-pleased with a feast like
yesterday’s.
Such a feast, in the afternoon, was duly laid at the cave’s mouth; and
again, when the sun was setting, the dragon did not come down the hill,
but ate aloft there, and at the twelfth clash drew back his glowing
jaws into the cave.
Day followed day, each with the same ritual and result.
Shib did not join in the prayers. He regarded them as inefficacious,
and also as rather a slight to himself. The homelanders, be it said,
intended no slight. They thought Shib wonderfully clever, and were
most grateful to him; but it never occurred to them to rank him among
gods.
Veo always prayed heartily that the dragon should be called away
forthwith. He wanted to see the dragon by daylight. But he did not pray
that the dragon should not come forth in the evening. Better a twilit
dragon than none at all.
Little Thol, though he prayed earnestly enough that the dragon should
stay at home by night, never prayed for him to leave the homeland. He
prayed that he himself might grow up very quickly, and be very big and
very strong and very clever and very brave.
For the rest, the homelanders were all orthodox in their devotions.
* * * * *
The young moon had grown old, had dwindled, and disappeared. The sound
of the clashed jaws ceased to be a novelty. The vesperal gatherings in
the valley became smaller. The great column of smoke, by day and by
night, was for the homelanders a grim reminder of what had happened,
and of what would happen again if once they failed to fulfil the needs
of their uninvited guest. They were resolved that they would not fail.
In this resolution they had a sombre sense of security. But there came,
before the leaves of the trees were yellow, an evening when the dragon
left untasted the feast spread for him, and crawled down the hill. He
was half-way down before any one noticed his coming. And on that night,
a longer night than the other, he made a wider journey around the
homeland, and took a heavier toll of lives.
Thenceforth always, at sunset, guards were posted to watch the hill and
to give, if need were, the alarm. Nor did even this measure suffice. In
the dawn of a day in winter, when snow was lying thick on the homeland,
a goat-herd observed with wonder a wide pathway through the snow from
the dragon’s cave; and presently he saw afar on the level ground the
dragon himself, with his head inside the mouth of a lonely hut that
was the home of a young man recently wedded. From the hut’s mouth
crept forth clouds of smoke, and, as the dragon withdrew his head, the
goat-herd, finding voice, raised such a cry as instantly woke many
sleepers. That day lived long in the memory of the homelanders. The
dragon was very active. He did not plod through the snow. He walked
at his full speed upon the ground, the snow melting before him at the
approach of his fiery breath. It was the homelanders that plodded. Some
of them stumbled head foremost into snowdrifts and did not escape their
pursuer. There was nothing slothful in the dragon’s conduct that day.
Hour after hour in the keen frosty air he went his way, and not before
nightfall did he go home.
Thus was inaugurated what we may call the Time of Greater Stress. No
one could know at what hour of night or day the dragon might again raid
the homeland. Relays of guards had to watch the hill always. No one,
lying down to sleep, knew that the dragon might not forthcome before
sunrise; no one, throughout the day, knew that the brute might not
be forthcoming at any moment. True, he forthcame seldom. The daily
offerings of slain beasts and birds sufficed him, mostly. But he was
never to be depended on--never.
Shib’s name somewhat fell in the general esteem. Nor was it raised
again by the execution of a scheme that he conceived. The roe and buck
stuffed with poisonous herbs were swallowed by the dragon duly, but
the column of smoke from the cave’s mouth did not cease that evening,
as had been hoped. And on the following afternoon--a sign that the
stratagem had not been unnoticed--one of the men who were placing the
food in front of the cave perished miserably in the dragon’s jaws.
Other devices of Shib’s failed likewise. The homelanders had to accept
the dragon as a permanent factor in their lives. Year by year, night
and day, rose the sinister column of smoke, dense, incessant. Happy
those tiny children who knew not what a homeland without a dragon was
like! So, at least, thought the elders.
And yet, were these elders so much less happy than they had erst been?
Were they not--could they but have known it--happier? Did not the
danger in which they lived make them more appreciative of life? Surely
they had a zest that in the halcyon days was not theirs? Certainly they
were quicker-witted. They spoke less slowly, their eyes were brighter,
all their limbs nimbler. Perhaps this was partly because they ate less
meat. The dragon’s diet made it necessary that they should somewhat
restrict their own, all the year round. The dragon, without knowing it,
was a good physician to them.
Without being a moralist or a preacher, he had also improved their
characters. Quarrels had become rare. Ill-natured gossip was frowned
on. Suspicions throve not. Manners had unstiffened. The homelanders
now liked one another. They had been drawn charmingly together in
brotherhood and sisterhood. You would have been surprised at the change
in them.
* * * * *
But for his bright red hair, perhaps you would not have recognised Thol
at all. He was a great gawky youth now. Spiritually, however, he had
changed little. He was still intent on slaying the dragon.
In the preceding years he had thought of little else than this, and as
he never had said a word about it he was not accounted good company.
Nor had he any desire to shine--in any light but that of a hero. The
homelanders would have been cordial enough to him, throughout those
years, if he had wished them to be so. But he never was able to forget
how cold and unkind they had been to him in his early childhood. It was
not for their sake that he had so constantly nursed and brooded over
his great wish. It was for his own sake only.
An unsympathetic character? Stay!--let me tell you that since the dawn
of his adolescence another sake had come in to join his own: Thia’s
sake.
From the moment when she, in childhood, had called him a coward, it
always had been Thia especially that he wished to impress. But in
recent times his feeling had changed. How should such a lout as he ever
hope to impress Thia, who was a goddess? Thol hoped only to make Thia
happy, to see her go dancing and singing once more, with flowers in her
hair. Thol did not even dare hope that Thia would thank him. Thol was
not an unsympathetic character at all.
As for Thia, she was more fascinating than ever. Do not be misled by
her seeming to Thol a goddess. Remember that the homelanders worshipped
cherry-trees and rain and fire and running water and all such things.
There was nothing of the statuesque Hellenic ideal about Thia. She had
not grown tall, she was as lissom and almost as slight as ever; and
her alien dark hair had not lost its wildness: on windy days it flew
out far behind her, like a thunder cloud, and on calm days hid her as
in a bush. She had never changed the task that she chose on the day of
the dragon’s advent. She was still a goose-girl. But perhaps she was
conscious now that the waddling gait of her geese made the grace of her
own gait the lovelier by its contrast. Certainly she was familiar with
her face. She had often leaned over clear pools to study it--to see
what the homelanders saw in it. She was very glad of her own charms
because they were so dear to all those beloved people. But sometimes
her charms also saddened her. She had had many suitors--youths of her
own age, and elder men too. Even Veo, thinking her almost as beautiful
as the dragon, had laid his hands upon her shoulders, in the ritual
mode. Even the intellectual Shib had done so. And even from such elders
as these it was dreadful to turn away. Nor was Thia a girl of merely
benevolent nature: she had warm desires, and among the younger suitors
more than one had much pleased her fancy. But stronger than any other
sentiment in her was her love for the homeland. Not until the dragon
were slain or were gone away across the waters would Thia be wife of
any man.
So far as she knew, she had sentenced herself to perpetual maidenhood.
Even had she been aware of Thol’s inflexible determination, she would
hardly have become hopeful. Determination is one thing, doing is
another.
The truth of that old adage sometimes forced itself on poor Thol
himself, as he sat watching the sheep that he herded near his cave on
the way to the marshes; and at such time his sadness was so great that
it affected even his sheep, causing them to look askance at him and
bleat piteously, and making drearier a neighbourhood that was in itself
dreary.
But, one day in the eighteenth summer of his years, Thol ceased to
despond. There came, wet from the river and mossy from the marshes, an
aged wanderer. He turned his dark eyes on Thol and said with a smile,
pointing towards the thick smoke on the hill, ‘A dragon is here now?’
‘Yea, O wanderer,’ Thol answered.
‘There was none aforetime,’ said the old man. ‘A dragon was what your
folk needed.’
‘They need him not. But tell me, O you that have so much wandered, and
have seen many dragons, tell me how a dragon may be slain!’
‘Mind your sheep, young shepherd. Let the dragon be. Let not your sheep
mourn you.’
‘They shall not. I shall slay the dragon. Only tell me how! Surely
there is a way?’
‘It is a way that would lead you into his jaws, O fool, and not hurt
him. Only through the roof of his mouth can a dragon be pierced and
wounded. He opens not his jaws save when they are falling upon his
prey. Do they not fall swiftly, O fool?’
‘O wanderer, yea. But’----
‘Could you deftly spear the roof of that great mouth, O prey, in that
little time?’
‘Yea, surely, if so the dragon would perish.’
The old man laughed. ‘So would the dragon perish, truly; but so only.
So would be heard what few ears have heard--the cry that a dragon
utters as he is slain. But so only.’ And he went his way northward.
From that day on, Thol did not watch his sheep very much. They, on
the other hand, spent most of their time in watching him. They rather
thought he was mad, standing in that odd attitude and ever lunging his
crook up at one of the nodding boughs of that ash tree.
Twice in the course of the autumn the dragon came down the hill; but
when the watchman sounded the alarm Thol did not go forth to meet him.
He was not what his flock thought him.
He had now exchanged his crook for a spear--a straight well-seasoned
sapling of oak, with a long sharp head of flint. With this, day by
day, hour after hour, he lunged up at the boughs of fruit-trees. His
flock, deploring what seemed to them mania, could not but admire his
progressive skill. Rarely did he fail now in piercing whatever plum or
apple he aimed at.
When winter made bare the branches, it was at the branches that Thol
aimed his thrusts. His accuracy was unerring now. But he had yet to
acquire the trick of combining the act of transfixion with the act of
leaping aside. Else would he perish even in victory.
Spring came. As usual, her first care was to put blossoms along the
branches of such almond trees as were nearest to the marshes.
The ever side-leaping Thol pricked off any little single blossom that
he chose.
* * * * *
Spring was still active in the homeland when, one day, a little while
before sunset, the watchers of the hill blew their horns. There came
from all quarters the usual concourse of young and old, to watch the
direction of the dragon and to keep out of it. Down came the familiar
great beast, the never-ageing dragon, picking his way into the green
valley. And he saw an unwonted sight there. He saw somebody standing
quite still on the nearer bank of the stream; a red-haired young
person, holding a spear. About this young person he formed a theory
which had long been held by certain sheep.
Little wonder that the homelanders also formed that theory! Little
wonder that they needed no further proof of it when, deaf to the cries
of entreaty that they uttered through the evening air, Thol stood his
ground!
Slowly, as though to give the wretched young lunatic a chance, the
dragon advanced.
But quickly, very terribly and quickly, when he was within striking
distance, he reared his neck up. An instant later there rang through
the valley--there seemed to rend the valley--a single screech, unlike
anything that its hearers had ever heard.
Those who dared to look saw the vast length of the dragon, neck on
grass, coiling slowly round. The tip of the tail met the head and
parted from it. Presently the vast length was straight, motionless.
Yet even of those who had dared look none dared believe that the dragon
was indeed dead.
But for its death-cry, Thol himself would hardly have believed.
The second firm believer was Thia. Thia, with swift conviction, plucked
some flowers and put them loosely into her hair. Thia, singing as well
as though she had never ceased to sing, and dancing as prettily as
though she had for years been practising her steps, went singing and
dancing towards the stream. Lightly she lept the stream, and then very
seriously and quietly walked to the spot where Thol stood. She looked
up at him, and then, without a word, raised her arms and put her hands
upon his shoulders. He, who had slain the dragon, trembled.
‘O Thol,’ she said gently, ‘you turn not away from me, but neither do
you raise me from the ground.’
Then Thol raised Thia thrice from the ground.
And he said, ‘Let our home be the cave that was my father’s.’
Hand in hand, man and wife, they went up the hill, and round to the
eastern side of its summit. But when they came to the mouth of the old
cave there, he paused and let go her hand.
‘O Thia,’ he said wonderingly, ‘is it indeed true that you love me?’
‘O Thol,’ she answered, ‘it is most true.’
‘O Thia,’ he said, ‘love me always!’
‘I have long ceased to love you, O Thol,’ she said, five years later,
in a low voice. But I see that I have outstripped my narrative. I must
hark back.
* * * * *
The sun had already risen far when Thol and Thia were wakened by a
continuous great hum as of many voices. When they looked forth and
down from the mouth of their high home, it seemed to them that all the
homelanders were there beneath them, gazing up.
And this was indeed so. Earlier in the morning, by force of habit, all
the homelanders had gone to what we call Berkeley Square, the place
where for so many years they had daily besought the sun to call the
dragon away across the waters. There, where lay the great smokeless and
harmless carcass, was no need for prayers now; and with one accord the
throng had moved from the western to the eastern foot of the hill, and
stayed there gazing in reverence up to the home of a god greater than
the sun.
When at length the god showed himself, there arose from the throng a
great roar of adoration. The throng went down on its knees to him,
flung up its arms to him, half-closed its eyes so as not to be blinded
by the sight of him. His little mortal mate, knowing not that he was a
god, thinking only that he was a brave man and her own, was astonished
at the doings of her dear ones. The god himself, sharing her ignorance,
was deeply embarrassed, and he blushed to the roots of his hair.
‘Laugh, O Thol,’ she whispered to him. ‘It were well for them that you
should laugh.’ But he never had laughed in all his life, and was much
too uncomfortable to begin doing so just now. He backed into the cave.
The religious throng heaved a deep moan of disappointment as he did so.
Thia urged him to come forth and laugh as she herself was doing. ‘Nay,’
he said, ‘but do you, whom they love, dance a little for them and sing.
Then will they go away happy.’
It seemed to Thia that really this was the next best plan, and so,
still laughing, she turned round and danced and sang with great
animation and good-will. The audience, however, was cold. It gave her
its attention, but even this, she began to feel, was not its kind
attention. Indeed, the audience was jarred. After a while--for Thia’s
pride forbade her to stop her performance--the audience began to drift
away.
There were tears in her eyes when she danced back into the cave. But
these she brushed away, these she forgot instantly in her lover’s
presence.
* * * * *
Love is not all. ‘I must go drive my geese,’ said the bride.
‘And I my sheep,’ said the bridegroom.
‘There is good grass, O Thol, round my geese’s pond. Let your sheep
graze there always. Thus shall not our work sever us.’
As they went forth, some children were coming up the hill, carrying
burdens. The burdens were cold roast flesh, dried figs, and a gourd
of water, sent by some elders as a votive offering to the god. The
children knelt at sight of the god and then ran shyly away, leaving
their gifts on the ground. The god and his mate feasted gladly. Then
they embraced and parted, making tryst at the pond.
When Thia approached the pond, she did not wonder that Thol was already
there, for sheep go quicker than geese. But--where were his sheep?
‘Have they all strayed?’ she cried out to him.
He came to meet her, looking rather foolish.
‘O Thia,’ he explained, ‘as I went to the fold, many men and women
were around it. I asked them what they did there. They knelt and made
answer, “We were gazing at the sheep that had been the god’s.” When I
made to unpen the flock, there was a great moaning. There was gnashing
of teeth, O Thia, and tearing of hair. It was said by all that the god
must herd sheep nevermore.’
‘And you, beloved, what said you?’
‘I said nothing, O Thia, amid all that wailing. I knew not what to say.’
Thia laughed long but tenderly. ‘And your sheep, beloved, what said
they?’
‘How should I know?’ asked Thol.
‘And you left them there? Do you not love them?’
‘I have never loved them.’
‘But they were your task?’
‘O Thia, the dragon was my task.’
She stroked his arm. ‘The dragon is dead, O Thol. You have slain the
dragon, O my brave dear one. That task is done. You must find some
other. All men must work. Since you loved not your sheep, you shall
love my geese, and I will teach you to drive them with me.’
‘That,’ said Thol, ‘would not be a man’s work, O Thia.’
‘But they say you are a god! And I think a god may do as he will.’
Her flock had swum out into the pond. She called it back to her, and
headed it away towards some willows. From one of these she plucked for
Thol a long twig such as she herself carried, and, having stripped it
of its leaves, gave it to him and began to teach him her art.
* * * * *
There was, as Thia had known there must be, a great concourse of people
around and about the dragon.
There was a long line of children riding on its back; there were
infants in arms being urged by their mothers never to forget that they
had seen it; there were many young men and women trying to rip off
some of its scales, as reminders; and there were elders exchanging
reminiscences of its earliest raids and correcting one another on
various points. And the whole crowd of holiday-makers was so intent
that the gradual approach of that earnest worker, Thol, was not noticed
until he came quite near.
Very gradual, very tortuous and irregular, his approach was. Thia,
just now, was letting him shift for himself, offering no hints at
all. For the homelanders’ sake, she wished him to be seen at his
worst. It was ill that they should worship a false god. To her, he was
something better than a real god. But this was another matter. To the
homelanders, he ought to seem no more than a man who had done a great
deed and set a high example. And for his own sake, and so for hers--for
how could his not be hers?--she wished him to have no more honour than
was his due. Splendid man though he was, and only a year younger than
herself, he was yet a child; and children, thought Thia--though she was
conscious that she herself, for all the petting she had received, was
rather perfect--are easily spoilt. Altogether, the goose-girl’s motives
were as pure as her perception was keen. Admirable, too, were her
tactics; and they should have succeeded. Yet they failed. In the eyes
of the homelanders the goose-god lost not a jot of his divinity.
No hint of disillusion was in the moans evoked by the sight of him.
Grief, shame, horror at his condescension, and a deep wrath against the
whilom darling Thia, were all that was felt by the kneeling and swaying
crowd.
Thia knew it. She was greatly disappointed. Indeed, she was near to
shedding tears again. Pride saved her from that. Besides, she was
angry, and not only angry but amused. And in a clear voice that was
audible above the collective moaning, ‘Have patience, O homelanders,’
she cried. ‘He is new to his work. He will grow in skill. These geese
will find that he is no fool. And it may be that hereafter, if you are
all very good, I will teach him to sing and dance for you, with flowers
in his bright red hair.’
Having thus spoken, she ran to overtake her husband, and soon, guiding
the flock in good order, went her way with him back to the pond.
* * * * *
There was a general desire that the dragon should not be buried
anywhere within the confines of the homeland. Shib conceived that if
the trunks of felled trees were used as rollers the carcass might be
transported to the swamps and be sunk there. By its vast weight the
carcass frustrated this scheme. A long deep trench must be dug beside
it. All the able-bodied men of the homeland offered their services, and
of course Shib was a most efficient director of the work.
You will be glad to hear that Shib was a more sympathetic character
than he once was. The public spirit that had always been his was
unmarred now by vanity and personal ambition. He was a quiet,
disinterested, indefatigable worker for the common weal, burning always
with that hard, gem-like flame which Mr. Pater discerned in the breasts
of our own Civil Servants. He had forgotten, or he remembered without
bitterness, the time when he was a popular hero. Thol’s great deed was
a source of genuine pleasure to him. Nay (for he had long ago outgrown
his callow atheism), he accepted Thol as a god, though he was too
cautious to rate him higher than the sun.
Thus he was much shocked when Thol came wishing to help in the labour.
Rising, at Thol’s earnest entreaty, from his knees, he ventured to
speak firmly to the god--reverently but very firmly pointing out to
him that the labourers, if their religious feelings were flouted,
would probably cease work; and he hinted that he himself would have
to consider whether he could retain his post. So Thol went back to
the goose-pond and was so much chidden by Thia for his weakness that
he almost wished she believed him to be a god. Of course he was not a
god. Of course Thia was right. Still, Shib was known to be a very wise
man. It was strange that Shib should be mistaken. Inwardly, he could
not agree with Thia that Shib was a fool. And I think she must have
suspected him of this reservation, for she looked at him with much
trouble in her eyes and was for a while silent, and then, fondlingly,
made him promise that he never would trust any one’s thoughts but hers.
Three days later the great trench was finished; and down into it, by
leverage of many stakes heftily wielded in unison, was heaved the
dragon (and there, to this day, deep down under the eastern side of the
garden and road-way of Berkeley Square, is the dragon’s skeleton--an
occult memorial of Thol’s deed). Down into the trench, with a great
thud that for a moment shook the ground, fell Thol’s victim. Presently
the trench brimmed with earth, and this earth was stamped firm by
exultant feet, and more earth was added to it and stamped on till only
a long brown path, that would soon be green and unnoticeable, marked
the place of sepulture.
The great occasion lacked only the god’s presence. Of course the god
had been invited. Shib, heading a deputation on the banks of the
goose-pond, had besought him that he would deign to throw the first
clod of earth upon the dragon; and he had diplomatically added that
all the homelanders were hoping that Thia might be induced to sing and
dance on the grave as soon as it had been filled. But Thia had answered
that she could not give her husband leave, inasmuch as he had been idle
at his work that day; he would like very much to come; but it was for
that very reason that she would not let him: he must be punished. As
for herself, she too would very much like to come, but she must stay
and keep him to his work. Thol saying nothing, the deputation had
then withdrawn, not without many obeisances, which Thia, with as many
curtseys, roguishly took to herself.
However, even without the light of the god’s countenance on it, the
festival was a great and glorious one. Perhaps indeed the revellers
enjoyed themselves more than would have been possible in the glare
of that awful luminary. The revels lasted throughout the night, and
throughout the next day, and did not cease even then. Dazed with
sleepiness and heavy with surfeits of meat, the homelanders continued
to caper around bonfires and to clap one another on the back; and only
because they had not the secret of fermented liquor were there no
regrettable scenes of intoxication. The revels had become a habit. It
seemed as though they would never cease. But human strength is finite.
Thia would have liked to be in the midst of the great to-do. It was
well that the homelanders should rejoice. And the homelanders were as
dear to her as ever, though she had so much offended them for Thol’s
sake and theirs. Thol’s nature was not social, as hers was; but she
knew that even he would have liked to have glimpses of the fun. It
grieved her to keep him aloof with her among the geese. She sang and
danced round him and petted him and made much of him, all day long.
* * * * *
The autumn was rainy; and the winter was rainy too; and thus the
brown path over the dragon’s grave vanished even before spring came.
Green also was the grass that had for so many years been black above
and around the mouth of the dragon’s cave. Valley and hill smiled as
blandly at each other as though they had never seen a dragon.
Little by little, likewise, the souls of the homelanders had reverted,
as we should say, to type. There were no signs now of that mutual
good-will which had been implanted in them by the common peril and had
overflowed so wildly at the time when the peril ended. Mistrustfulness
had revived, and surliness with it, and quickness to take offence,
and a dull eagerness to retaliate on the offender. The shortcomings of
others were once more the main preoccupation of the average homelander.
Next to these, the weather was once more the favourite topic of
conversation, especially if the weather were bad; but even if it
were good, the prospect of bad weather was dwelt on with a more than
sufficient emphasis. Work, of course, had to be done; but as little
of it was done as might be, and that glumly, and not well. Meals were
habitually larger than appetites. Eyes were duller, complexions less
clear, chests narrower, stomachs more obtrusive, arms and legs less
well-developed, than they had been under the dragon’s auspices. And
prayers, of course, were not said now.
Thia in her childhood had thought the homelanders perfect; and thus
after the coming of the dragon she had observed no improvement in
them. But now, with maturer vision, she did see that they were growing
less worthy of high esteem. This grieved her. She believed that she
loved the homelanders as much as ever, she told herself truly enough
that it was much her own fault that they had ceased to love her. In
point of fact, their coldness to her, in course of time, cooled her
feeling for them: she was human. What she did love as much as ever was
the homeland. What grieved her was that the homeland should have an
imperfect population.
She talked constantly to Thol about her sorrow. He was not a very apt
auditor. Being a native of the homeland, he could not see it, as she
could, from without. It was not to him an idea, as it was to Thia’s
deep alien eyes. It was just the homeland. As for the homelanders
themselves, he had never, as you may remember, loved them; but he liked
them quite well now. He supposed he really was not a god; but it no
longer embarrassed him to be thought so; indeed it pleased him to be
thought so. The homelanders no longer knelt when he passed by. He had
asked them not to, and they reverently obeyed his wish. He supposed
Thia was right in saying that they were less good than in the days of
the dragon; but in those days he had hardly known them. He was glad to
know them better now. His nature had, in fact, become more expansive.
He wished Thia were not so troubled about the homeland. He wished she
would think more gently of the homelanders, and think less about them,
and talk less to him about them.
Sometimes she even tried to enlist his help. ‘To me,’ she would say,
‘they would not hearken. But you, O Thol, whom in their folly they
still believe to be a god, could give light to them and shame them back
to goodness and strength, and so to happiness. I would teach you what
words to say.’ But Thol, even though he was to be spared the throes of
composition, would look so blankly wretched that Thia’s evangelical
ardour was quenched in laughter. He did not know why she was laughing,
and he hoped it was not at him that she was laughing: after all, he had
slain the dragon. Nevertheless, her gaiety was a relief to him.
But her ardour was always flaming up again.
* * * * *
She had very soon exempted him from that task which failed to cure the
homelanders of their delusion about him. She agreed that goose-driving
was not a man’s work. As he did not wish to be a shepherd again, and as
it was needful for his own good that he should be set to some sort of
work, she urged him to be a goat-herd. Goats, she said, were less dull
than sheep; fiercer; more like dragons. So, beside the goose-pond, he
herded goats; but without the enthusiasm that she had hoped for.
One day, about a year after their marriage, he even suggested that
he should have a lad to help him. She said, with a curl of the lip,
that she had not known he was old and feeble. He replied, seriously,
that he was younger than she; and as for feebleness, he asked her to
remember that he, not she, had slain the dragon. He then walked away,
leaving his goats to their own devices, and his wife to hers, and spent
the rest of the day in company that was more appreciative of him. He
returned of course before sundown, fearful of a lecture. Thia, who had
already driven his goats into their pen, did but smile demurely, saying
that she would always be glad to do his work for him, and that she was
trustier than any lad.
But, as time went on, her temper was not always so sweet. Indeed, it
ceased to be sweet. In his steady, rather bovine way, he loved her as
much as ever; but his love of being with her was less great, and his
pleasure in the society of others was greater, than of yore. Perhaps
if Thia had borne a child, she might have been less troubled about
the welfare of the homelanders. But this diversion and solace was not
granted. Thia’s maternal instinct had to spend itself on a community
which she could not help and did not now genuinely love, and on a
husband who did not understand her simplest thoughts and was moreover
growing fat. Her disposition suffered under the strain. One day, when
she was talking to him about the homeland, she paused with sudden
suspicion and asked him what she had said last; and he could make no
answer; and she asked him to tell her what he had been thinking about;
and he said that he had been thinking about his having slain the
dragon; and she, instead of chiding him tenderly, as she would have
done in the old days, screamed. She screamed that she would go mad
if ever again he spoke to her of that old dragon. She flung her arms
out towards the hills across the waters and said, with no lowering of
her voice, that every day, out yonder, men were slaying dragons and
thinking nothing of it, and doing their work, and not growing fat. He
asked her whether she meant that he himself was growing fat. ‘Yea,’ she
answered. He said that then indeed she was mad. Away he strode, nor
did he return at sundown; and it was late in the night before the god
retired from a cheery party of worshippers and went up to the cave,
where Thia, faintly visible in the moonlight, lay sleeping, with a look
of deep disdain on her face.
* * * * *
Sometimes Thia wondered whether in her childhood the characters and
ways of the homelanders had been as they were now. She hated to think
that they had not been perfect in those days; but she reasoned that
they could not have been: before the coming of the dragon they must
have been as they were now, and the only difference was that they had
then loved her. Thus even the memory of her bright careless early years
was embittered to her.
In point of fact, the homelanders had not been exactly as they now
were. The sudden cessation of the strain imposed on them by the
dragon’s presence, and of the comparative hardships also imposed by
it, had caused a reaction so strong as to restore to them in a rather
accentuated form what faults had originally been theirs. Human nature
had grown rather more human than ever. Labour was a less than ever
alluring thing. Responsibilities had a greater irksomeness. Freedom was
all. And, as having special measure of vital force, especially were
youths and maidens intent on making the most of their freedom. Their
freedom was their religion; and, as every religion needs rites, they
ritualistically danced. They danced much during the day, and then much
by moonlight or starlight or firelight, in a grim and purposeful, an
angular and indeflexible manner, making it very clear that they were
not to be trifled with.
Thia, when first she saw them engaged thus, had been very glad; she
imagined that they must be doing something useful. When she realised
that they were dancing, she drew a deep breath. She remembered how she
herself had danced--danced thoughtlessly and anyhow, from her heart,
with every scrap of her body. She blushed at the recollection. She did
not wonder that the homelanders had resented her dance on the morning
after her marriage. She wondered that they had encouraged her to dance
when she was a child. And she felt that there must, after all, be in
these young people a deep fund of earnestness, auguring well for their
future.
Time had not confirmed this notion. The young people danced through the
passing seasons and the passing years with ever greater assiduity and
solemnity; but other forms of seriousness were not manifested by them.
Few of them seemed to find time even for falling in love and marrying.
They all, however, called one another ‘beloved,’ and had a kind of
mutual good-will which their elders, among themselves, would have done
well to emulate. And for those elders they had a tolerant feeling which
ought to have been, yet was not, fully reciprocated.
Thol within five years of the dragon’s death, Thol with his immense
red beard and his stately deportment, was of course very definitely an
elder; and still more so was that wife of his, that rather beautiful
dark woman, Thia, whose face was so set and stern that she looked
almost as though she--she!--were dancing. Thol was liked by the young
people. They made much of him. They did not at all object to his being
rather pompous: after all, he had slain that dragon, and they thought
it quite natural that their parents should imagine he was a god. They
liked him to be pompous. They humoured him. They enjoyed drawing him
out. Among the youths there were several who, in the hours not devoted
to earnest dancing and cursory guardianship of flocks, made pictures
upon white stones or upon slabs of chalk. They liked especially to
make pictures of Thol, because he was so ready to pose for them, and
because he stood so still for them. They drew in a manner of their
own, a manner, which made the veins of poor old Veo stand out upon his
forehead, and moved him to declare that they would die young and would
die in shame and in agony. Thol, however, was no critic. He was glad to
be portrayed in any manner. And it much pleased him to have the colour
of his mane and beard praised constantly by the young artists. He had
supposed the colour was wrong. Thia had been wont to laugh at it, in
her laughing days. Thia had never called him beautiful, in her praising
days. It gladdened him that there were now many young women--Afa, for
instance, and Ola, and Ispa, and Moa--who called him, to his face,
‘terribly’ beautiful.
Thol’s face, which Thia had admired for its steadfast look, and later
had begun to like less for its heavy look, had now a look that was
rather fatuous. Afa and the others did not at all object to this. They
liked it; they encouraged it by asking him to dance with them. He did
not, as they supposed, think that he was too old to dance: he only
thought that he might not dance well and might lose his power over
them. He believed that they loved him. How should they not? Thia,
though she never told him so now, loved him with her whole heart, of
course, and, for all the harsh words she spoke at times, thought that
no man was his equal. How should not these much gentler young women not
have given their hearts to him? He felt that he himself could love one
of them, if he were not Thia’s husband. They were not beautiful, as
Thia was; and they were not wise, as she was; but he felt that if he
had never seen Thia he might love one of them, or even all of them.
* * * * *
For lack of a calendar, the homelanders had not the habit of keeping
anniversaries. They never knew on what day of the year a thing had
happened--did not even know that there was a year. But they knew the
four seasons. They remembered that the apple-trees had been in blossom
when Thol slew the dragon, and that since then the apple-trees had
blossomed four times. And it seemed good to them that at the close of
a day when those blossoms were again on those branches, a feast should
be held in that part of the valley where the great deed had been done.
Shib, who organised the feast, was anxious that it should be preceded
by a hymn in praise of the slayer god. He thought this would have a
good effect on the rising generation. But Thol opposed the idea, and
it was dropped. Shib had also been anxious that Thia should attend the
feast, sitting at Thol’s right hand and signifying to the young the
blessedness of the married state. Thol promised that he would beg her
to come; and he did so, as a matter of form, frequently. But Thia of
course did not grace the convivial scene.
It was at a late hour of the moonlit night that Thol, flushed with
adulation, withdrew from the revels, amidst entreaties that he should
remain. He was still wearing the chaplet of flowers that Afa had
woven for him. Afa herself was clinging to one of his arms, Moa to
the other, as he went round to the eastern spur of the hill; and Ola
and Ispa and many others were footing around lightly and lingeringly,
appealingly. It was rather the thought of Thia’s love for him than of
his for her that withheld him from kissing these attendants before he
bade them good-night. For his own sake he wished, as he climbed the
hill, that they would not stand cooing so many farewells up to him so
loudly. Thia might not understand how true he was to her. He hoped she
was sleeping. But she was awake. Nor was he reassured by the laughter
with which, after a moment, she greeted him. She was looking at his
head. He became suddenly aware that he had not shed that chaplet. He
snatched it off. She laughed the more, but with no kindness in the
sound of her laughter.
‘O Thia,’ he said, after a search for words, ‘be not wroth against
those maidens! I love none of them.’
‘Is that not cruel of you, O Thol? Do they not love you?’
‘Though they love me, O Thia, I swear to you that I love not them.’
‘Why should you not?’ she laughed. ‘Are you so foolish that you think I
should be sorry?’
‘O Thia,’ he rebuked her, ‘you speak empty words. You speak as though
you did not love me.’
‘I have long ceased to love you, O Thol,’ she said in a low voice.
He stared at her blankly in the moonlight. His slow mind strove hard.
‘But you are my wife,’ he said at last. ‘I am your husband. O Thia, is
it indeed true that you have ceased to love me?’
‘O Thol, it is most true.’
Then, by stress of the great anger that rose in him, his mind worked
more quickly--or rather his tongue was loosened. He told Thia that
she had never loved him. She denied this coldly. He said that she had
never understood him. She denied this warmly. He reminded her that even
when she was a little girl she had once called him a coward; and this
too she denied; but he maintained that it was so; and she reminded him
that after he had been beaten by his master for seeing the dragon he
said that she too ought to have been beaten for seeing the dragon;
and he denied this; but she persisted that it was so; and he then said
that she ought to have been beaten; and she replied that she could be
now, and she challenged him to beat her; but he did not accept her
challenge; and this, she said, proved that he was a coward; and he
asked her to repeat this, and she repeated it, and he then reminded her
that he had slain the dragon; and she, stamping her foot, said she only
wished the dragon had slain him; and she made a face at him, and rushed
out of the cave, and if there had been a door she would have slammed
it; and really he was quite glad that she had gone; and after she had
run far she lay down upon the grass and slept till dawn, and then,
rising and brushing the dew off her arms and legs, went in search of
some lonely spot where she should build her a hut of clay and wattles.
And perhaps it was a sign of her alien blood that the spot chosen by
her was in what we call Soho. It was the spot on which, many years
later, many of my coævals were to dine in the little Restaurant du
Bon-Accueil, half-way along Gerrard Street. Gone, as utterly as Thia’s
hut, is the dear little Restaurant du Bon-Accueil. But again I must
hark back.
* * * * *
‘Very surely,’ thought Thol, some moments after the sun had waked him
and shown him the empty cave and brought back last night to his memory,
‘I shall find her by the pond.’
Thither, with much dignity of gait, but with the promise of forgiveness
on his brow, he presently went. She was not there. There only her geese
were.
These he unpenned and let go into the pond, and then, having freed his
goats also, sat down and waited. He waited all day long. She did not
come. Nor was she there for him in the cave when he went back to it at
sunset. Neither was she at the pond next morning. Not even her geese
were there now.
That she had wanted them, and not him, was a bitter thought to Thol.
He had not, till now, known how much he loved her. That she had been
here this morning, or in the night, made the ground somehow wonderful
to him. But he frowned away from his brow the promise of forgiveness.
He would not forgive Thia now. Still less would he go in quest of her.
He freed his goats, guided them to some long grass and, sitting down,
tried to take an intelligent interest in their doings and a lively
interest in their welfare, and not wonder where Thia was.
For three whole days he tried hard--tried with all that fixity of
purpose which had enabled him at last to slay the dragon. It was Afa’s
visit that unmanned him.
Not she nor any other of those maidens had ever come to him at the pond
in Thia’s time. If they happened to pass that way, they would gaze
straight before them, or up at the sky, greeting neither the husband
nor the wife, and simpering elaborately, as much as to say, ‘We are
unworthy.’ But now it was straight at Thol that the approaching Afa
simpered. And she said, ‘I am come to be the goat-herd’s help!’
He marvelled that there was a time when he had thought he might have
loved one of these maidens. He was not even sure that he knew which of
them this one was. He was sure only that he despised them all. And this
sentiment so contorted his mild face that there was nothing for Afa to
do but toss her head and laugh and leave him.
Presently the look of great scorn in his face was succeeded by a look
of even greater love. He arose and went in search of Thia. But he did
not in his quest of her throw dignity to the winds. He did not ask
anybody where he should find her. He walked slowly, as though bent on
no errand. It was near sunset when at length he espied his lost one
near to a lonely pool at the edge of the forest.
She did not see him. She sat busily plaiting wattles. There was a great
pile of these beside her. And in and around the pool were her geese.
It was they that saw him first, and at sight of him they began to
quack, as though in warning. Thia looked up quickly and saw Thol. He
held out his arms to her, he strode towards her, calling her name; but
she was up, she was gone into the darkness of the forest.
Long he peered into that darkness, and called into it, and even groped
through it, but vainly.
* * * * *
For people who are not accustomed to think, thought is a fatiguing
affair. Thol, despite his robust body, was tired when he awoke next
morning, for he had spent a great part of the night in wondering how to
win back his wife. In the days before he slew the dragon he had been a
constant thinker. Little by little he was now to regain the habit.
Step by step he reached the premiss that in order to find a means of
winning Thia back he must first make clear to himself why she had
ceased to love him. He put together what he could recall of the many
things that in the course of time she had said in anger against him.
And he came to the conclusion that he had displeased her most by
dwelling so much upon his great deed. He would dwell less upon it,
try even to forget it. But this would not suffice. How was she to know
that he was no longer dwelling as of yore? Perhaps he could do a second
great deed? There seemed to be none to do. He must nevertheless try to
think of one--some second great deed that would much please her. It was
for the homelanders’ sake that the first one had found favour in her
sight. And then somehow the homelanders had become less good because
of it. Thia had often said so. Of course she had never blamed him for
that. Still, perhaps she would not have ceased to love him if his deed
had not done harm. Was there no deed by which the harm could be undone?
Day by day, night by night, Thol went on thinking.
After the lapse of what we should call a week or so, he began to act
also.
He knew that there could be no great thickness of barrier between the
back of his cave and the back of the cave that had been the dragon’s;
for in his childhood he had often heard through it quite clearly the
sound of the voices of Gra and her children. To make in it now a
breach big enough to crawl through on hands and knees was the first
step in the plan that he had formed. With a great sharp stone, hour
after hour, daily, he knelt at work. Fortunately--for else must the
whole plan have come to naught--the barrier was but of earth, with
quite small stones in it. Nevertheless, much of strength and patience
had been exerted before the first little chink of daylight met Thol’s
eyes.
It was a glad moment for him when, that same evening, at sunset, at
last he was able to crawl through into the western cave; but as he rose
and gazed around the soot-blackened lair he did not exult. His work
had but begun. And his work would never end while he lived. He prayed
earnestly to the sun that he might live long and always do his work
rightly. Also he prayed that Thia might soon again love him.
That night, in his own cave, just as he was falling asleep, he had a
doubt which greatly troubled him. He arose and went forth to a place
where some ducks were. One of these he took and slew, and strode
away with it to the marshes. There he heaved it into the ooze. It was
quickly sucked down. This was well.
On the next night he became a woodman; and many were the nights he
spent in going to and fro in the dark between his cave and the nearest
margin of the forest, lopping off great branches and bearing them away
for storage, and even uprooting saplings and bearing away these also,
and, with a flint axe, felling young trees, and chopping them into
lengths that were portable. He continued this night-work until both
caves were neatly stacked with wood enough to serve his purpose for a
longish while.
And then--for he had thought out everything, with that thoroughness
which is the virtue of slow minds--he wove two thick screens of osiers
and withes, each screen rather bigger than either end of the tunnel.
On the evening when the second of these was finished, he made in the
dragon’s cave, not far from the left-hand side of the cave’s mouth, a
thick knee-high heap of branches and logs, some of them dry, others
green. He placed at the other side of the mouth two thick flat stones,
one upon the other.
Back in his own cave, he smeared with sheep’s fat a certain great stick
of very dry pine-wood.
* * * * *
And on the following morning history began to repeat itself. With some
variations, however. For example, it was not a puny little boy but a
great strong man who, as the sun rose, came rushing with every symptom
of terror down the western side of the hill. And the man was not really
frightened. He only seemed so.
He careered around the valley, howling now like one distraught.
Responsive sheep, goats, geese, what not, made great noises of their
own. From the mouths of caves and huts people darted and stood agape.
Thol waved his arms wildly towards the cave upon the hill. People saw a
great column of smoke climbing up from it into the sky.
‘A dragon! Another dragon!’ was Thol’s burthen.
People gathered round him in deep wonder and agitation. He told
them, in gasps, that he had come down early--very early--to look for
mushrooms--and had looked back and--seen a dragon crawling up the hill.
He said that he had seen it only for a moment or two: it crawled very
quickly--far more quickly than the old one. He added that it was rather
smaller than the old one--smaller and yet far more terrible, though its
smoke was less black. Also, that it held high its head, not scorching
the grass on its way.
There was no panic.
‘O Thol,’ said one, ‘we need not fear the dragon, for here are you, to
come between us and him.’
‘Here by this stream,’ said another, ‘we shall presently bury him with
great rejoicings, O high god.’
The crowd went down on its knees, thanking Thol in anticipation. But
he, provident plodder, had foreseen what would happen, and had his
words ready. ‘Nay, O homelanders,’ he said, plucking at his great
beard, ‘I am less young than I was. I am heavier, and not so brave.
Peradventure some younger man will dare meet this dragon for us, some
day. Meanwhile, let us tempt him with the flesh of beasts, as of yore,
hoping that so he will come but seldom into our midst.’
In consternation the crowd rose from its knees, and Thol walked quickly
away, with a rather shambling gait.
The awful news spread apace. The valley was soon full. Long and
earnestly the great throng prayed to the sun that he would call the
dragon away from them. He did not so. Up, up went the steadfast smoke
from within the cave. Less black it certainly was than that of the
other dragon, but not less dreadful. Almost as great as the terror
that it inspired was the general contempt for Thol. Many quite old
men vowed to practise the needful stroke of the spear. All the youths
vowed likewise--yea, and many of the maidens too. It was well-known,
of course, that Thol had practised for a long while, and that any
haste would be folly; but such knowledge rather heartened than dejected
the vowers. Meanwhile, the thing to do was what the craven Thol had
suggested before he slunk away: to offer food as of yore. Shib,
bristling with precedents, organised the labour. Thol had said that
the dragon was a smaller one than the other. Perhaps therefore not so
much food would be needed. But it was better to be on the safe side and
offer the same ration. Up to the little shelf of ground in front of the
cave’s mouth were borne two goats, three ducks, two deer, three geese
and two sheep.
All day long the valley was crowded with gazers, hopers, comforters of
one another, offerers-up of prayers.
As day drew to its close, the tensity increased. Would this dragon wake
and eat at sunset, as that other had been wont to do? How soon would
appear through the smoke that glimpse of nether fire which proclaimed
that his head was out of the cave, alert and active? And would that
glow rise and fall, in the old way, twelve times, with the sound of the
clashed jaws? What was in store for the homeland to-night?
None but Thol knew.
* * * * *
He, very wisely, had rested all day in preparation for the tasks of
evening and night. Two or three times, moving aside the screen that
kept the smoke out of his cave, he had crawled through the opening and,
drawing the other screen across the other side of it, had tended the
fire. For the rest, he had been all inactive.
As twilight crept into the cave, he knelt in solemn supplication to the
departing sun. Presently, when darkness had descended, he struck two
flints, lit one end of his pine-wood staff, moved the screen aside,
drew a long deep breath, and crawled swiftly into the other cave.
Slowly he moved his torch from side to side of the cave’s mouth, along
the ground. He was holding it in his left hand, and in his right hand
was holding one of the two flat stones. After a pause, still kneeling,
he raised high the torch for a moment or two and then sharply lowered
it in the direction of one of the smoke-clouded animals. At the same
time he powerfully clashed the one stone down upon the other. Another
pause, and he repeated these actions exactly, directing the torch
towards the next animal. He performed them ten times in all. Then he
extinguished his torch and crept quickly home, puffing and spluttering
and snorting, glad to escape into clear air.
When he had regained his breath, he crawled back to drag the carcasses
in. The roe and the buck he left where they were. He had calculated
that three nightly journeys to the marshes and back would be all that
he could achieve. First he would take the two sheep, one on each
shoulder; next, the goats; lastly the birds, three necks in either
hand. The buck and the roe would be too heavy to be carried together;
and for five journeys there would certainly not be time. It was for
this reason that he had described the dragon as smaller than the old
one, and had clashed the stones ten times only.
From the valley rose sounds of rejoicing that all was well for the
homeland to-night. One by one, Thol transferred the carcasses to his
own cave. He waited there among them till the dead of night, when all
folk would be sleeping. Then, shouldering the two sheep, he sallied
forth down the hill and away to the marshes.
He accomplished the whole of his night-work before the stars had begun
to fade. Then, having replenished and banked the fire, he lay down to
sleep. Some four hours later he woke to go and tend the fire again, and
then again slept.
* * * * *
It was a toilsome, lonesome, monotonous and fuliginous life that
Thol had chosen; but he never faltered in it. Always at nightfall he
impersonated the dragon, and in the small hours went his journeys to
the marshes; and never once did he let the fire die.
The afternoons passed very slowly. He wished he could sally forth into
the sunshine, like other men. He paced round and round his cave, hour
after hour, a strange figure, dark-handed, dark-visaged, dark-bearded.
In so far as they deigned to remember him at all, the homelanders
supposed he had gone away, that first morning, across the waters or
through the forests, to some land where he could look men in the face.
Here he was, however, in their midst, a strenuous and faithful servant.
He had a stern grim joy in the hardness of his life--save that he could
never ask Thia to share it with him. He had not foreseen--it was the
one thing he had not thought out well--how hard the life would be.
The great deed by which he had thought to bring Thia back to him must
forever keep them asunder. Thus he had done an even greater deed than
he intended. And his stern grim joy in it was thereby the greater.
* * * * *
Had she so wished, Thia might have become very popular and have
regained something of her past glory. After Thol’s confession of
cowardice she had instantly risen in the homelanders’ esteem. How very
right she had been to leave him! Friendly eyes and friendly words
greeted her. But when they all knelt praying the sun to call the dragon
away, she remained upright and mute. And afterwards, when she was asked
why, she said that it was well that the dragon should abide among them,
for thus would they all be the better, in heart and deed, and therefore
truly the happier, could they but know it. She said that whether or not
they could know it, so it was.
These sayings of hers were taken in bad part, and she was shunned
because of them. This did not mar the joy she had in knowing that all
was well once more in the homeland.
She felt herself not at all unblest in the quiet spinsterly life she
was leading, in and out of her trim new hut, with her dear flock of
geese about her.
Of Thol, nowadays, she thought more gently. She felt that if he had
stayed in the homeland she would have gone back to him. It would have
been her bounden duty to be with him and to comfort him in his shame.
Indeed his shame made him dear to her once more. As the days passed
she thought more and more about him. It was strange that he had gone
from the homeland. No homelander ever had gone forth into the perils
of the lands beyond. If she herself, daughter of wanderers, had roved
away instead of building this hut to dwell in, she might not have much
marvelled at herself, less brave though she was than Thol. And Thol was
no longer brave. How had he, fearing a dragon smaller than that other,
conquered his fear of known and unknown things that were worse yet, far
worse yet?
And one evening a strange doubt came to her. Might it not be that Thol
was still in the homeland? In one of all these dark forests he might be
living, with nuts and berries to support life. Or, she further guessed,
he might even be in his own cave, stealing out at night when all but
the watchmen on the other side of the hill were sleeping. This notion,
foolish though it seemed to her, possessed her mind.
So soon as silence and sleep had descended on the homeland, Thia
herself stole out into the clear starlit night. Not far from the
eastern spur of the hill she lay down in a clump of long grass, and
thence, gazing up, watched the cave’s mouth steadily.
* * * * *
Some one presently came forth: and yes, it was Thol. Slowly he came
down the hill, with his head bent forward, with his hands up to his
bowed shoulders, and two burdens at his back--two goats, as Thia saw
when presently Thol turned aside southward. He looked very strange. His
hair and face seemed to have grown quite dark. And what was he doing
with those two goats? Thia lay still, with a fast-beating heart. She
felt that her voice would not have come, even had she tried to call to
him.
She watched him out of sight, then rose to her feet and, hesitatingly,
went to the foot of the hill, and then, quickly and resolutely, went up
it and into the cave.
Quick-witted though she was, the sight of three geese and three ducks
and of two sheep puzzled her deeply; and not less did she wonder at the
quantity of stacked wood. And what was that fence of osiers against the
wall? She moved it slightly and saw a great breach in the wall; and
through this some smoke came drifting in. And now her quick wits began
to work--but in such wise as to make her bewilderment the deeper.
Suddenly, drawing a deep breath, she went down on her hands and knees,
and crawled rapidly through.
She was soon back again. Blinking hard and shaking the smoke from
her nostrils, she went to breathe the clear air at the cave’s mouth.
But, good though this air was, she hardly tasted it. She had burst
out sobbing. She, who never in all her life had shed tears, sobbed
much now. But she remembered that tears make people’s eyes ugly. So
she controlled herself and dried her eyes vigorously. She had not
remembered that the palms of her hands must be all black from her
crawl. When she saw them, and knew what her face must be now, she burst
out laughing. And the sound made her feel very young, for it was long
since she had laughed. But, as she wished to please Thol’s eyes, she
retired to the back of the cave and crouched where she would scarcely
be seen by him when he came.
He came at last, and then, very softly, she cried out to him, ‘Thol!’
He, brave though he was, started violently.
‘Do not look at me, O Thol! Not yet! For my face is black and would
displease you. Look at me only after you have heard me. O Thol, if they
said now that you were a god, almost would I believe them. But if you
were a god your deed would be less great. The wonder is that you are
a man, and were once mine. O Thol, forgive me, keep me here with you,
need me!’
But he slowly answered, ‘Nay, O Thia, this cave is not now for a woman.’
‘Not for a woman that is your wife and lover? Think! Was it not for my
sake and for love of me that you thought to do what you are doing?’
‘Yea, O Thia. Yet, now that I am doing it, itself suffices me. I am
strong, and suffer not under the burden of it. The very heaviness of
it makes me glad. And now your knowledge of it gladdens me, too. But I
would not have you bear the least part of it with me. Go to your own
home!’
‘You speak firmly, O great dragon! Yet will not I obey you. Tell me of
your work. Is it to the marshes that you take the beasts and the birds?’
‘Yea. Begone, small dear one!’ And he stooped down to take the two
sheep.
‘Once, long ago, you wished that a lad might help you in your hard
work. O Thol, I am as I was, trustier than any lad. It were better that
you should go twice, not thrice, every night, to the marshes. I will
always take the birds.’ And she rose to take them.
But a thought, a very important thought, came to her, giving her pause.
And she said, ‘The fire must first be tended.’
‘It has no need yet,’ he answered. ‘I tend it when I come back from the
last journey.’
‘To-night it shall be tended earlier. And I will so tend it that it
shall last long.’ She was down on her knees and off into the smoke
before he could stop her. He followed her, protesting that such work
was not for her. She did it, nevertheless, very well. And presently,
side by side, he with two sheep, she with three birds’ necks in either
fist, they went forth into the starlight, and down away to the marshes.
There, having duly sunk their burdens, they took each other by the
hand, and turned homeward. At one of the running brooks on their way
home, Thia halted. ‘Here,’ she said, ‘will I wash my face well. And do
you, too, O Thol, wash yours, so that when we wake in the morning mine
shall not displease you.’
* * * * *
Every night Thia accompanied Thol on one of the two journeys; and
during the other she would go to the forest and gather wood, so that
there should always be plenty of fuel in hand. She was sorry to have
had to abandon her geese, for she felt they would not be as happy with
any one as they had been with her. Nothing else whatever was there
to mar her joy in the life that she and Thol were leading together,
and in the good that they were doing. It amused her to know that the
homelanders would think she had wandered away--she who was serving them
so well. Its very secrecy made her life the more joyous.
Daily she prayed to the sun and other gods that she and Thol might live
to be very old and might never fail in their work.
But the sun and those others were not good listeners.
As the nights lengthened and the leaves began to fall, the mists over
the marshes and around them grew ever thicker. It was not easy to find
the way through them; and they were very cold, and had a savour that
was bitter to the tongue and to the nostrils. And one morning Thia,
when she woke, was shivering from head to foot, though she was in
Thol’s arms. She slipped away from him without waking him, and went not
merely to tend the fire but also to warm herself at it. All through the
morning she was shivering; and in the evening her hands became hot, as
did her face and all her body. She felt very weak. She could laugh no
more now at Thol’s disquietude. She lay down, but could not lie very
still. At about the time when they were wont to sally forth, she rose
up, feeling that even though she might not be able to carry the birds
to-night the journey would freshen her. She soon found that she was too
weak even to stand. Thol was loth to leave her; but she insisted that
the work must be done. Again and again, next day and during the next
night, she implored him that if she died he would not mourn her very
much and would not once falter in the work. He promised that he would
not falter. Other days and nights passed. It seemed to Thol that Thia
had ceased to know him. She did not even follow him with her eyes now.
One morning, at daybreak, soon after his return from the third journey,
she seemed, by her gaze, to know him. But presently she died in his
arms.
On that night he went to the forest and dug a grave for his wife. Then,
returning to the cave, he took her in his arms, and carried her away,
and buried her.
In the time that followed, he was not altogether lonely. He felt by day
that somehow she was in the cave with him still, and by night he felt
that she walked with him. He never faltered in the work.
He faltered not much even when the marshes did to him as they had done
to Thia. Shivering in every limb, or hot and aching, and very weak, he
yet forced himself to tend the fire and at nightfall to brandish the
torch and clash the stones and drag in the beasts and birds. It irked
him that he was not strong enough to carry even one sheep away. Surely,
he would be strong again soon? For Thia’s sake, and for the homeland’s,
he wished ardently to live. But there came an evening when the watchers
in the valley saw no rising and falling, heard no clashing, of the
dragon’s jaws.
* * * * *
Would the dragon come forth to-night? The valley on the further side of
the stream was now thickly crowded. On the nearer side were many single
adventurers, with spears. Their prowess and skill were not tested. The
dragon came not forth.
In the dawn it was noted that his smoke was far less thick than it was
wont to be. Soon it ceased altogether. What had happened? Perchance the
dragon was ailing? But even an ailing dragon would breathe. A great
glad surmise tremulously formed itself. Was the dragon dead?
The surmise quickly became a firm belief--so firm that, in spite of
protests from the precise Shib, songs of thanksgiving were heartily
sung before the cave was approached and examined.
People were much puzzled. The dead man lying at the cave’s mouth,
grasping in one hand a flat stone and in the other a charred staff,
was not quickly recognised as Thol, so black were his hair and skin;
nor was he at once known to have been the dragon. The quantities of
stacked wood, the tunnel into the cave where Thol had lived, did not
quickly divulge their meaning. Only after long arguments and many
conjectures did the homelanders understand the trick that had been
played on them. Why, with what evil intent, it had been played, they
were almost too angry to discuss at present. But certain words of
Thia’s were remembered; and it was felt that she herself perhaps had
put the trick into Thol’s mind and that this was why she had fled the
homeland. She had better not set foot in it again.
Before the sun sank, Thol was buried without honour, and far from Thia.
And before the sun sank many other times the homelanders were as they
had been before the coming of the true dragon, and as they had been
again before the false one was among them.
FINIS
And thus--does our tale end unhappily? I think not. After all, the
homelanders at large are rather shadowy to us. Oc and Loga, Shib and
Veo, Afa and her like, and all those others, all those nameless others,
do not mean much to us. It is Thol and Thia that we care about. For
their sake we wish that the good they did could have been lasting. But
it is not in the nature of things that anything--except the nature
of things--should last. Saints and wise statesmen can do much. Their
reward is in the doing of it. They are lucky if they do not live long
enough to see the undoing. It should suffice us that Thol and Thia
together in their last days knew a happiness greater than they had ever
known--Thol a greater happiness than in the days of his glory, and Thia
than in the days of hers.
PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY THE WHITEFRIARS PRESS, LTD.,
LONDON AND TONBRIDGE.
FOOTNOTE:
[A] Lest the reader assume that in the course of this narrative one or
both of Thia’s parents will return to claim her, let me at once state
that within a few months of her being left in the homeland her father
was killed by a lion, and her mother by a lioness, in what has since
become Shropshire.
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:
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