The Book of Dragons Page 4

  III. The Deliverers of Their Country

  It all began with Effie's getting something in her eye. It hurt verymuch indeed, and it felt something like a red-hot spark--only it seemedto have legs as well, and wings like a fly. Effie rubbed and cried--notreal crying, but the kind your eye does all by itself without your beingmiserable inside your mind--and then she went to her father to have thething in her eye taken out. Effie's father was a doctor, so of course heknew how to take things out of eyes--he did it very cleverly with a softpaintbrush dipped in castor oil.

  When he had gotten the thing out, he said: "This is very curious." Effiehad often got things in her eye before, and her father had always seemedto think it was natural--rather tiresome and naughty perhaps, but stillnatural. He had never before thought it curious.

  Effie stood holding her handkerchief to her eye, and said: "I don'tbelieve it's out." People always say this when they have had somethingin their eyes.

  "Oh, yes--it's out," said the doctor. "Here it is, on the brush. This isvery interesting."

  Effie had never heard her father say that about anything that she hadany share in. She said: "What?"

  The doctor carried the brush very carefully across the room, and heldthe point of it under his microscope--then he twisted the brass screwsof the microscope, and looked through the top with one eye.

  "Dear me," he said. "Dear, dear me! Four well-developed limbs; a longcaudal appendage; five toes, unequal in lengths, almost like one of the_Lacertidae_, yet there are traces of wings." The creature under his eyewriggled a little in the castor oil, and he went on: "Yes; a batlikewing. A new specimen, undoubtedly. Effie, run round to the professor andask him to be kind enough to step in for a few minutes."

  "You might give me sixpence, Daddy," said Effie, "because I did bringyou the new specimen. I took great care of it inside my eye, and my eye_does_ hurt."

  The doctor was so pleased with the new specimen that he gave Effie ashilling, and presently the professor stepped round. He stayed to lunch,and he and the doctor quarreled very happily all the afternoon about thename and the family of the thing that had come out of Effie's eye.

  But at teatime another thing happened. Effie's brother Harry fishedsomething out of his tea, which he thought at first was an earwig. Hewas just getting ready to drop it on the floor, and end its life in theusual way, when it shook itself in the spoon--spread two wet wings, andflopped onto the tablecloth. There it sat, stroking itself with its feetand stretching its wings, and Harry said: "Why, it's a tiny newt!"

  The professor leaned forward before the doctor could say a word. "I'llgive you half a crown for it, Harry, my lad," he said, speaking veryfast; and then he picked it up carefully on his handkerchief.

  "It is a new specimen," he said, "and finer than yours, Doctor."

  It was a tiny lizard, about half an inch long--with scales and wings.

  So now the doctor and the professor each had a specimen, and they wereboth very pleased. But before long these specimens began to seem lessvaluable. For the next morning, when the knife-boy was cleaning thedoctor's boots, he suddenly dropped the brushes and the boot and theblacking, and screamed out that he was burnt.

  And from inside the boot came crawling a lizard as big as a kitten, withlarge, shiny wings.

  "Why," said Effie, "I know what it is. It is a dragon like the one St.George killed."

  And Effie was right. That afternoon Towser was bitten in the garden by adragon about the size of a rabbit, which he had tried to chase, and thenext morning all the papers were full of the wonderful "winged lizards"that were appearing all over the country. The papers would not call themdragons, because, of course, no one believes in dragons nowadays--and atany rate the papers were not going to be so silly as to believe in fairystories. At first there were only a few, but in a week or two thecountry was simply running alive with dragons of all sizes, and in theair you could sometimes see them as thick as a swarm of bees. They alllooked alike except as to size. They were green with scales, and theyhad four legs and a long tail and great wings like bats' wings, only thewings were a pale, half-transparent yellow, like the gear-boxes onbicycles.

  They breathed fire and smoke, as all proper dragons must, but still thenewspapers went on pretending they were lizards, until the editor of the_Standard_ was picked up and carried away by a very large one, and thenthe other newspaper people had not anyone left to tell them what theyought not to believe. So when the largest elephant in the Zoo wascarried off by a dragon, the papers gave up pretending--and put ALARMINGPLAGUE OF DRAGONS at the top of the paper.

  "The largest elephant in the zoo was carried off." _Seepage 43._]

  You have no idea how alarming it was, and at the same time howaggravating. The large-size dragons were terrible certainly, but whenonce you had found out that the dragons always went to bed early becausethey were afraid of the chill night air, you had only to stay indoorsall day, and you were pretty safe from the big ones. But the smallersizes were a perfect nuisance. The ones as big as earwigs got in thesoap, and they got in the butter. The ones as big as dogs got in thebath, and the fire and smoke inside them made them steam like anythingwhen the cold water tap was turned on, so that careless people wereoften scalded quite severely. The ones that were as large as pigeonswould get into workbaskets or corner drawers and bite you when you werein a hurry to get a needle or a handkerchief. The ones as big as sheepwere easier to avoid, because you could see them coming; but when theyflew in at the windows and curled up under your eiderdown, and you didnot find them till you went to bed, it was always a shock. The ones thissize did not eat people, only lettuce, but they always scorched thesheets and pillowcases dreadfully.

  Of course, the County Council and the police did everything that couldbe done: It was no use offering the hand of the Princess to anyone whokilled a dragon. This way was all very well in olden times--when therewas only one dragon and one Princess; but now there were far moredragons than Princesses--although the Royal Family was a large one. Andbesides, it would have been a mere waste of Princesses to offer rewardsfor killing dragons, because everybody killed as many dragons as theycould quite out of their own heads and without rewards at all, just toget the nasty things out of the way. The County Council undertook tocremate all dragons delivered at their offices between the hours of tenand two, and whole wagonloads and cartloads and truckloads of deaddragons could be seen any day of the week standing in a long line in thestreet where the County Council had their offices. Boys broughtbarrowloads of dead dragons, and children on their way home from morningschool would call in to leave the handful or two of little dragons theyhad brought in their satchels, or carried in their knotted pockethandkerchiefs. And yet there seemed to be as many dragons as ever. Thenthe police stuck up great wood and canvas towers covered with patentglue. When the dragons flew against these towers, they stuck fast, asflies and wasps do on the sticky papers in the kitchen; and when thetowers were covered all over with dragons, the police inspector used toset fire to the towers, and burnt them and dragons and all.

  And yet there seemed to be more dragons than ever. The shops were fullof patent dragon poison and anti-dragon soap, and dragonproof curtainsfor the windows; and indeed, everything that could be done was done.

  And yet there seemed to be more dragons than ever.

  It was not very easy to know what would poison a dragon, because, yousee, they ate such different things. The largest kind ate elephants aslong as there were any, and then went on with horses and cows. Anothersize ate nothing but lilies of the valley, and a third size ate onlyPrime Ministers if they were to be had, and, if not, would feed freelyon servants in livery. Another size lived on bricks, and three of themate two thirds of the South Lambeth Infirmary in one afternoon.

  But the size Effie was most afraid of was about as big as your diningroom, and that size ate little girls and boys.

  At first Effie and her brother were quite pleased with the change intheir lives. It was so amusing to sit up all night instead of goin
g tosleep, and to play in the garden lighted by electric lamps. And itsounded so funny to hear Mother say, when they were going to bed: "Goodnight, my darlings, sleep sound all day, and don't get up too soon. Youmust not get up before it's quite dark. You wouldn't like the nastydragons to catch you."

  But after a time they got very tired of it all: They wanted to see theflowers and trees growing in the fields, and to see the pretty sunshineout of doors, and not just through glass windows and patent dragonproofcurtains. And they wanted to play on the grass, which they were notallowed to do in the electric lamp-lighted garden because of thenight-dew.

  And they wanted so much to get out, just for once, in the beautiful,bright, dangerous daylight, that they began to try and think of somereason why they ought to go out. Only they did not like to disobey theirmother.

  But one morning their mother was busy preparing some new dragon poisonto lay down in the cellars, and their father was bandaging the hand ofthe boot boy, which had been scratched by one of the dragons who likedto eat Prime Ministers when they were to be had, so nobody remembered tosay to the children: "Don't get up till it is quite dark!"

  "Go now," said Harry. "It would not be disobedient to go. And I knowexactly what we ought to do, but I don't know how we ought to do it."

  "What ought we to do?" said Effie.

  "We ought to wake St. George, of course," said Harry. "He was the onlyperson in his town who knew how to manage dragons; the people in thefairy tales don't count. But St. George is a real person, and he is onlyasleep, and he is waiting to be waked up. Only nobody believes in St.George now. I heard father say so."

  "We do," said Effie.

  "Of course we do. And don't you see, Ef, that's the very reason why wecould wake him? You can't wake people if you don't believe in them, canyou?"

  Effie said no, but where could they find St. George?

  "We must go and look," said Harry boldly. "You shall wear a dragonprooffrock, made of stuff like the curtains. And I will smear myself all overwith the best dragon poison, and--"

  Effie clasped her hands and skipped with joy and cried: "Oh, Harry! Iknow where we can find St. George! In St. George's Church, of course."

  "Um," said Harry, wishing he had thought of it for himself, "you have alittle sense sometimes, for a girl."

  So the next afternoon, quite early, long before the beams of sunsetannounced the coming night, when everybody would be up and working, thetwo children got out of bed. Effie wrapped herself in a shawl ofdragonproof muslin--there was no time to make the frock--and Harry madea horrid mess of himself with the patent dragon poison. It was warrantedharmless to infants and invalids, so he felt quite safe.

  Then they joined hands and set out to walk to St. George's Church. Asyou know, there are many St. George's churches, but fortunately theytook the turning that leads to the right one, and went along in thebright sunlight, feeling very brave and adventurous.

  There was no one about in the streets except dragons, and the place wassimply swarming with them. Fortunately none of the dragons were just theright size for eating little boys and girls, or perhaps this story mighthave had to end here. There were dragons on the pavement, and dragons onthe roadway, dragons basking on the front doorsteps of public buildings,and dragons preening their wings on the roofs in the hot afternoon sun.The town was quite green with them. Even when the children had gottenout of the town and were walking in the lanes, they noticed that thefields on each side were greener than usual with the scaly legs andtails; and some of the smaller sizes had made themselves asbestos nestsin the flowering hawthorn hedges.

  Effie held her brother's hand very tight, and once when a fat dragonflopped against her ear she screamed out, and a whole flight of greendragons rose from the field at the sound, and sprawled away across thesky. The children could hear the rattle of their wings as they flew.

  "Oh, I want to go home," said Effie.

  "Don't be silly," said Harry. "Surely you haven't forgotten about theSeven Champions and all the princes. People who are going to be theircountry's deliverers never scream and say they want to go home."

  "And are we," asked Effie--"deliverers, I mean?"

  "You'll see," said her brother, and on they went.

  When they came to St. George's Church they found the door open, and theywalked right in--but St. George was not there, so they walked around thechurchyard outside, and presently they found the great stone tomb of St.George, with the figure of him carved in marble outside, in his armorand helmet, and with his hands folded on his breast.

  "How ever can we wake him?" they said. Then Harry spoke to St.George--but he would not answer; and he called, but St. George did notseem to hear; and then he actually tried to waken the greatdragon-slayer by shaking his marble shoulders. But St. George took nonotice.

  Then Effie began to cry, and she put her arms around St. George's neckas well as she could for the marble, which was very much in the way atthe back, and she kissed the marble face, and she said: "Oh, dear, good,kind St. George, please wake up and help us."

  And at that St. George opened his eyes sleepily, and stretched himselfand said: "What's the matter, little girl?"

  So the children told him all about it; he turned over in his marble andleaned on one elbow to listen. But when he heard that there were so manydragons he shook his head.

  "It's no good," he said, "they would be one too many for poor oldGeorge. You should have waked me before. I was always for a fairfight--one man one dragon, was my motto."

  Just then a flight of dragons passed overhead, and St. George half drewhis sword.

  But he shook his head again and pushed the sword back as the flight ofdragons grew small in the distance.

  "I can't do anything," he said. "Things have changed since my time. St.Andrew told me about it. They woke him up over the engineers' strike,and he came to talk to me. He says everything is done by machinery now;there must be some way of settling these dragons. By the way, what sortof weather have you been having lately?"

  This seemed so careless and unkind that Harry would not answer, butEffie said patiently, "It has been very fine. Father says it is thehottest weather there has ever been in this country."

  "Ah, I guessed as much," said the Champion, thoughtfully. "Well, theonly thing would be ... dragons can't stand wet and cold, that's theonly thing. If you could find the taps."

  St. George was beginning to settle down again on his stone slab.

  "Good night, very sorry I can't help you," he said, yawning behind hismarble hand.

  "Oh, but you can," cried Effie. "Tell us--what taps?"

  "Oh, like in the bathroom," said St. George, still more sleepily. "Andthere's a looking glass, too; shows you all the world and what's goingon. St. Denis told me about it; said it was a very pretty thing. I'msorry I can't--good night."

  And he fell back into his marble and was fast asleep again in a moment.

  "We shall never find the taps," said Harry. "I say, wouldn't it be awfulif St. George woke up when there was a dragon near, the size that eatschampions?"

  Effie pulled off her dragonproof veil. "We didn't meet any the size ofthe dining room as we came along," she said. "I daresay we shall bequite safe."

  So she covered St. George with the veil, and Harry rubbed off as much ashe could of the dragon poison onto St. George's armor, so as to makeeverything quite safe for him.

  "We might hide in the church till it is dark," he said, "and then--"

  But at that moment a dark shadow fell on them, and they saw that it wasa dragon exactly the size of the dining room at home.

  So then they knew that all was lost. The dragon swooped down and caughtthe two children in his claws; he caught Effie by her green silk sash,and Harry by the little point at the back of his Eton jacket--and then,spreading his great yellow wings, he rose into the air, rattling like athird-class carriage when the brake is hard on.

  "Oh, Harry," said Effie, "I wonder when he will eat us!" The dragon wasflying across woods and fields with great fla
ps of his wings thatcarried him a quarter of a mile at each flap.

  "He rose into the air, rattling like a third-classcarriage." _See page 50._]

  Harry and Effie could see the country below, hedges and rivers andchurches and farmhouses flowing away from under them, much faster thanyou see them running away from the sides of the fastest express train.

  And still the dragon flew on. The children saw other dragons in the airas they went, but the dragon who was as big as the dining room neverstopped to speak to any of them, but just flew on quite steadily.

  "He knows where he wants to go," said Harry. "Oh, if he would only dropus before he gets there!"

  But the dragon held on tight, and he flew and flew and flew until atlast, when the children were quite giddy, he settled down, with arattling of all his scales, on the top of a mountain. And he lay thereon his great green scaly side, panting, and very much out of breath,because he had come such a long way. But his claws were fast in Effie'ssash and the little point at the back of Harry's Eton jacket.

  Then Effie took out the knife Harry had given her on her birthday. Ithad cost only sixpence to begin with, and she had had it a month, and itnever could sharpen anything but slate-pencils; but somehow she managedto make that knife cut her sash in front, and crept out of it, leavingthe dragon with only a green silk bow in one of his claws. That knifewould never have cut Harry's jacket-tail off, though, and when Effie hadtried for some time she saw that this was so and gave it up. But withher help Harry managed to wriggle quietly out of his sleeves, so thatthe dragon had only an Eton jacket in his other claw. Then the childrencrept on tiptoe to a crack in the rocks and got in. It was much toonarrow for the dragon to get in also, so they stayed in there and waitedto make faces at the dragon when he felt rested enough to sit up andbegin to think about eating them. He was very angry, indeed, when theymade faces at him, and blew out fire and smoke at them, but they ranfarther into the cave so that he could not reach them, and when he wastired of blowing he went away.

  But they were afraid to come out of the cave, so they went farther in,and presently the cave opened out and grew bigger, and the floor wassoft sand, and when they had come to the very end of the cave there wasa door, and on it was written: UNIVERSAL TAPROOM. PRIVATE. NO ONEALLOWED INSIDE.

  So they opened the door at once just to peep in, and then theyremembered what St. George had said.

  "We can't be worse off than we are," said Harry, "with a dragon waitingfor us outside. Let's go in."

  They went boldly into the taproom, and shut the door behind them.

  And now they were in a sort of room cut out of the solid rock, and allalong one side of the room were taps, and all the taps were labeled withchina labels like you see in baths. And as they could both read words oftwo syllables or even three sometimes, they understood at once that theyhad gotten to the place where the weather is turned on from. There weresix big taps labeled "Sunshine," "Wind," "Rain," "Snow," "Hail," "Ice,"and a lot of little ones, labeled "Fair to moderate," "Showery," "Southbreeze," "Nice growing weather for the crops," "Skating," "Good openweather," "South wind," "East wind," and so on. And the big tap labeled"Sunshine" was turned full on. They could not see any sunshine--the cavewas lighted by a skylight of blue glass--so they supposed the sunlightwas pouring out by some other way, as it does with the tap that washesout the underneath parts of patent sinks in kitchens.

  Then they saw that one side of the room was just a big looking glass,and when you looked in it you could see everything that was going on inthe world--and all at once, too, which is not like most looking glasses.They saw the carts delivering the dead dragons at the County Counciloffices, and they saw St. George asleep under the dragonproof veil. Andthey saw their mother at home crying because her children had gone outin the dreadful, dangerous daylight, and she was afraid a dragon hadeaten them. And they saw the whole of England, like a great puzzlemap--green in the field parts and brown in the towns, and black in theplaces where they make coal and crockery and cutlery and chemicals. Allover it, on the black parts, and on the brown, and on the green, therewas a network of green dragons. And they could see that it was stillbroad daylight, and no dragons had gone to bed yet.

  Effie said, "Dragons do not like cold." And she tried to turn off thesunshine, but the tap was out of order, and that was why there had beenso much hot weather, and why the dragons had been able to be hatched. Sothey left the sunshine tap alone, and they turned on the snow and leftthe tap full on while they went to look in the glass. There they saw thedragons running all sorts of ways like ants if you are cruel enough topour water into an ant-heap, which, of course, you never are. And thesnow fell more and more.

  Then Effie turned the rain tap quite full on, and presently the dragonsbegan to wriggle less, and by-and-by some of them lay quite still, sothe children knew the water had put out the fires inside them, and theywere dead. So then they turned on the hail--only half on, for fear ofbreaking people's windows--and after a while there were no more dragonsto be seen moving.

  Then the children knew that they were indeed the deliverers of theircountry.

  "They will put up a monument to us," said Harry, "as high as Nelson's!All the dragons are dead."

  "I hope the one that was waiting outside for us is dead!" said Effie."And about the monument, Harry, I'm not so sure. What can they do withsuch a lot of dead dragons? It would take years and years to bury them,and they could never be burnt now they are so soaking wet. I wish therain would wash them off into the sea."

  But this did not happen, and the children began to feel that they hadnot been so frightfully clever after all.

  "I wonder what this old thing's for," said Harry. He had found a rustyold tap, which seemed as though it had not been used for ages. Its chinalabel was quite coated over with dirt and cobwebs. When Effie hadcleaned it with a bit of her skirt--for curiously enough both thechildren had come out without pocket handkerchiefs--she found that thelabel said "Waste."

  "Let's turn it on," she said. "It might carry off the dragons."

  The tap was very stiff from not having been used for such a long time,but together they managed to turn it on, and then ran to the mirror tosee what happened.

  Already a great, round black hole had opened in the very middle of themap of England, and the sides of the map were tilting themselves up, sothat the rain ran down toward the hole.

  "Oh, hurrah, hurrah, hurrah!" cried Effie, and she hurried back to thetaps and turned on everything that seemed wet. "Showery," "Good openweather," "Nice growing weather for the crops," and even "South" and"South-West," because she had heard her father say that those windsbrought rain.

  And now the floods of rain were pouring down on the country, and greatsheets of water flowed toward the center of the map, and cataracts ofwater poured into the great round hole in the middle of the map, and thedragons were being washed away and disappearing down the waste pipe ingreat green masses and scattered green shoals--single dragons anddragons by the dozen; of all sizes, from the ones that carry offelephants down to the ones that get in your tea.

  Presently there was not a dragon left. So then they turned off the tapnamed "Waste," and they half-turned off the one labeled "Sunshine"--itwas broken, so that they could not turn it off altogether--and theyturned on "Fair to moderate" and "Showery" and both taps stuck, so thatthey could not be turned off, which accounts for our climate.

  * * * * *

  How did they get home again? By the Snowdon railway of course.

  And was the nation grateful? Well--the nation was very wet. And by thetime the nation had gotten dry again it was interested in the newinvention for toasting muffins by electricity, and all the dragons werealmost forgotten. Dragons do not seem so important when they are deadand gone, and, you know, there never was a reward offered.

  And what did Father and Mother say when Effie and Harry got home?

  My dear, that is the sort of silly question you children always willask. However, just for this once
I don't mind telling you.

  Mother said: "Oh, my darlings, my darlings, you're safe--you're safe!You naughty children--how could you be so disobedient? Go to bed atonce!"

  And their father the doctor said: "I wish I had known what you weregoing to do! I should have liked to preserve a specimen. I threw awaythe one I got out of Effie's eye. I intended to get a more perfectspecimen. I did not anticipate this immediate extinction of thespecies."

  The professor said nothing, but he rubbed his hands. He had kept hisspecimen--the one the size of an earwig that he gave Harry half a crownfor--and he has it to this day.

  You must get him to show it to you!

  THE ICE DRAGON]