Chapter I: Part 1

THE LAVENDER DRAGON

THE LAVENDER
DRAGON

BY
EDEN PHILLPOTTS

AUTHOR OF
“EVANDER,” “PAN AND THE TWINS,” “PIXIES’ PLOT,” ETC.

LONDON
GRANT RICHARDS LTD.
ST. MARTIN’S STREET
1923

Printed in Great Britain at _The Mayflower Press, Plymouth_.
William Brendon & Son, Ltd.

TO
ADAM GOWANS WHYTE
IN FRIENDSHIP

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. PONGLEY-IN-THE-MARSH 1

II. THE APPOINTMENT FOR RAINBARROW 21

III. VIGIL 39

IV. THE DRAGON KEEPS HIS WORD 46

V. THE DRAGON EXPLAINS 54

VI. THE DRAGON GOES ON EXPLAINING 81

VII. GREAT NEWS FOR GEORGE PIPKIN 105

VIII. THREE SONGS AND A STORY 124

IX. ANOTHER DRAGON GIVES A LOUDER ROAR 150

X. FROM JOY TO WOE 162

XI. THE PASSING 178

XII. BUTTERFLIES 194

I

_PONGLEY-IN-THE-MARSH_

Nigh about the middle of the Dark Ages, when ignorance, greed and superstition largely ruled the world, pretty much in fact as do these forces at present, a knight and his squire proceeded to their destination under the setting sun. Sir Jasper de Pomeroy, descendant of that distinguished man who assisted William the Conqueror, and received for his service fair hundreds in the County of Devon, was a youth who favoured his English mother and betrayed little of the Norman in his appearance or composition. He conformed to a style formerly regarded as noble and now considered somewhat fatuous. His architecture befitted the times and was Gothic, supple and exquisite. The knight’s hair flashed golden in the evening sunshine; his eyes were large, prominent and very blue; his complexion, though warmed to ruddiness by outdoor life, had naturally been pink and white. He wore a heavy amber moustache, which often caught in the mouthpiece of his helmet and gave him a painful tweak. His nose had a lofty bridge and his brow was high but wanted breadth. The purest ideals, combined with a profound lack of humour, characterised Sir Jasper’s quality. He resembled an admirable mother; and his father, a man of average ability and more than average selfishness, had bluntly told the young fellow that he possessed a heart of gold and a brain of clay. Weighing the criticism without resentment, Sir Jasper, determined on his career, took all the proper vows, and dedicated himself to the service of knight errantry.

He now approached the conclusion of his first circuit, and, up to the present, nothing of any note had challenged his knightly courage, or offered an obstacle to his uneventful progress. His squire, George Pipkin, was a plain dealer of large experience. He had filled similar appointments on former occasions, seen life and felt it, for he chanced to be unhappily married. A grizzled, lean Yorkshireman of fifty was George, and since Sir Jasper enjoyed great wealth and entertained the highest opinion of his supporter, the squire felt well satisfied of his present employ. The better was he pleased, because their expedition, now drawing to its close, had encountered no hardships and proceeded with reasonable comfort, smiled upon by good weather, devoid of any adventure whatsoever.

Sir Jasper rode a magnificent stallion with large chestnut markings on a white ground. In the Middle Ages a circus was not known, and therefore your pie-bald horse awakened no anticipation of merriment. Nor, in any case, had the knight been a man to find amusement in the colour of his steed. As for George Pipkin, he bestrode an elderly roan, as tough and wiry and experienced as himself.

The elder was talking as they traversed rough tracks of moorland, which ceased suddenly at an edge of limestone crags. Beneath these boundaries there subtended fertile plains, ran a river, and stood an attractive hamlet with gabled roof-trees and white-washed walls.

“What makes life picturesque,” declared the squire, “are the people who prefer their own experience to that of others--such men as yourself, Sir Jasper. But those who trust tradition and the accumulated wisdom of the race, go farther, are generally more satisfactory and invariably more prosperous members of society. They are safe and therefore rather dull to watch; while the adventurer, who casts loose for good or ill, is nearly always entertaining. Not that his experiences will be novel, or probably outside our own; but the freshness and charm of the spectacle he presents lie in the fact that familiar, old things are happening to a new spirit, unarmed against them with the trite weapons of precaution. Such a young man’s retort to the primitive tests of love, danger, temptation and so forth cannot be foretold. Hence every one of his adventures has the charm of novelty.”

“Do not imagine, George, that I flout tradition,” answered the younger. “My grandfather was a famous knight without fear or reproach. Indeed, my father devotes such leisure as he allows himself from the business of money-making and enjoyment of luxury, to writing a full and punctual account of Sir Hugo de Pomeroy’s attractive career.”

“Yes, he does; and that is the difference between you and your parent,” answered Pipkin. “He sees no charm in a suit of steel and the life that you have adopted. He feels it far more convenient to write of another’s devotion to high causes than seek high causes himself; while you, on the contrary, would emulate your famous ancestor.”

Sir Jasper sighed.

“Would that I might,” he replied. “The world has changed since his romantic day. The times are tame, George. The giants are dead and the dragons have fled; not a robber baron to chastise; not a village to rescue out of tyranny; not a maiden in need of succour from her oppressors.”

“We never know our greatest blessings,” replied Pipkin. “Many a knight has rued the day when he rescued a fair damsel. I need not repeat the story of a former master, Hildebrand of the Iron Forehead. You recollect particulars of his married life. When he passed to glory, under the scimitars of a thousand Saracens, there was a smile of pure happiness on his forbidding features. As for my own career, had I not wedded his lady’s serving maid, I should be a home-staying man at this moment.”

“Be sure that your wife will welcome you with awakened affection when you see her again, next September,” said Sir Jasper kindly; but George Pipkin shook his head.

“For the most part,” he answered,“marriage is like following the ocean. What married man, or mariner, would not change his state if he could do so? But they plunge into wedlock, or go down to the sea in ships, as the case may be, and only regret it once, and that is for ever afterwards.”

They had now reached the declivities, and Sir Jasper smiled at the scene of rural peace and beauty extended in the valley beneath them. George drew a roll of paper from his wallet and consulted a rough map, made by the innkeeper with whom they had lodged on the previous night.

“This will be Pongley-in-the-Marsh,” he said. “A populous hamlet apparently and good, no doubt, for comfortable quarters.”

“A place without a care as far as one may judge,” declared Sir Jasper, surveying the smiling thorpe. “Still we will proceed, as ever, with enthusiasm to inspire and hope to guide.”

The sun flamed upon his splendid figure and flashed along his armour and crested helm, so that it seemed a shooting-star descended the bridle-path into the valley. Indeed, an object so conspicuous could not be missed even by peasant eyes, and when, half an hour later, the knight and his companion approached the outskirts of Pongley-in-the-Marsh, he perceived some concourse of the folk.

George Pipkin frowned, for his experienced eyes feared a deputation, and a deputation usually meant labour at no distant date.

Some fifty people, of rustic and humble pattern, approached Sir Jasper, and at the head of the company marched a majestic, old man who bore a staff of office. He wore homespun garments, but was decorated with a chain round his neck and a badge upon his breast. His long, white hair curled about his stooping shoulders, and he appeared a little nervous, for his mouth worked tremulously.

“Welcome to Pongley-in-the-Marsh, most noble knight,” he said. “We are your servants, Sire, one and all, and beg that you will accept such simple but ample hospitality as we can offer, and such comfort as we know. The best we have is yours to command.”

Sir Jasper felt gratified, for the country folk were not wont to receive him thus, and George Pipkin stepped forward to rehearse in a loud voice his master’s style and title.

“Sir Jasper de Pomeroy,” he concluded, “rides the world to right all wrong, redress all grievance and place his sword and his lance at the service of the humblest sufferer, be he noble or simple. Therefore, if there are any among you who smart undeservedly, or endure evil within the power of a doughty knight to defeat, let him speak, that Sir Jasper of the Silver Lance may judge whether his cause be such as to claim right, as well as might, and unchain his unconquerable puissance upon the side of God and man.”

The ancient Portreeve of Pongley bowed to the earth, and the company behind him did the like. A rabblement of urchins were driven back, and a mongrel dog, who dared to sniff at the heels of Sir Jasper’s pie-bald steed, received a kick and howled unmelodiously. When silence had been restored, the old man spoke.

“Never have we heard a more gracious message, or welcomed a rarer knight,” he declared. “My name, Sir Jasper de Pomeroy, is Jacob Pratt, and I am master here by accordant vote of my friends and neighbours. You come to us at a moment when trouble and concern are heavy in the land, and when, despite the promise of good harvest and other propitious signs, we are cast into deep tribulation. For years we have suffered from a melancholy scourge, and but a week ago, after periods of peace, the evil broke forth again and our inveterate enemy has struck in the tenderest quarter and robbed us of the fairest maiden who ever brightened Pongley-in-the-Marsh with her radiant presence. In a word, Sir Knight, there is a dragon of formidable proportions and utmost malevolence, who abides in an impenetrable lair but a league and a half from this unhappy hamlet. From time to time he breaks upon us in our most secure hours and snatches from our midst now one citizen and now another. Not only men, but women and orphan children he devours; and such is his incredible cunning, that though our trained bands have often marched against him, he evades their sallies and is never faced save by unarmed and helpless persons. He flies through the air on immense pinions, but at a height invariably beyond bow-shot; nor would any cloth-yard shaft pierce the monster--of that be sure. Only once within my memory has an errant knight ever before visited Pongley; but nothing came of it; and we pray on our bended knees that you may have a stouter courage and better appetite to rid us of this cruel tyrant than had he.”

Sir Jasper’s eyes sparkled as he turned to Pipkin.

“My vade-mecum, George,” he said, and on receiving a little, well-thumbed volume, he turned to the index and looked up “Dragons.”

“These misbegotten monsters are few,” he told them. “I find here not above six or seven right, authentic dragons left in the land of the living, and of these four flourish abroad--two in Italy, one in France, and one in the Holy Land. We still appear to have ‘a great Worm’ in the Peak and--yes, ‘The Lavender Dragon’ of Yorkshire!”

“The Lavender Dragon! The Lavender Dragon!” cried the inhabitants of Pongley in melancholy chorus.

“He is our accursed foe, Sir Jasper,” explained Jacob Pratt. “He dwells some ten miles distant, amidst the impenetrable Woods of Blore, and from Caytor Fell good eyes may see a huge wall that circles his domain and strange, barbaric buildings of enormous size erected therein. For the monster is no cave-dweller, or laidly wretch, who lives beneath the earth. To such a measure of understanding has he attained, that he dares to assume human manners, lives in a castle and hides his iniquities behind cyclopean masonry. In fact, he is a dragon with a brain--the most perilous combination of mind and matter it is possible to imagine. For his intelligence only lends power to his ferocity, and though he may dwell in a castle and ape his betters, he does not scruple to destroy the sons and daughters of mankind and behave otherwise after the horrible custom of his own species.”

“My perambulation draws to a close,” replied Sir Jasper, “and it is a source of the keenest satisfaction to me that Providence has seen fit to guide my charger’s steps to this secluded spot. We will sup with you, Jacob Pratt, and accept the best that your means afford; and at the dawn of another day, having heard particulars, we will set forth into the marches of the Lavender Dragon and draw not rein until either he, or ourselves, have returned to the merciful Father of us all.”

Upon which welcome assurance, Sir Jasper and his squire proceeded among a joyful gathering into the village. After supper and before he retired for the night, the fearless lad sat by a fire of peat and listened to his host’s discourse, while George, in an adjoining chamber, overhauled the hero’s armour, his sword and his famous Silver Lance, all grown a little rusty from long dis-use.

The Portreeve perceived that he had to do with a brave and stalwart hero; but he threw no shadow on the immense difficulties of the enterprise.

“A high soul and a trusty spear are only the first essentials,” he ventured to say. “Craft must be met with craft, your honour, and cunning with cunning. He is a dragon of great age and vast experience. It is vain to suppose that no knight until now has tackled the ruffian; and as he still flourishes like the green bay tree, we are to fear that he has triumphed on previous occasions, when justice demanded another issue to the conflict. Too well we know, in this hard world, that might is often allowed to conquer right--doubtless for heavenly purposes by us not understood.”

Sir Jasper nodded.

“It is idle to blink facts,” he confessed. “One hears of our knightly triumphs, but the troubadours seldom sing those unhappy failures which tact conceals, though knowledge cannot deny. The dragon you say lies hidden upon the path of solitary individuals and spirits them away?”

“We have reason to believe that he devours them in situ,” answered Jacob Pratt. “So far as we can judge, the monster consumes them as we eat a radish, for not a fragment of mortality, not a garment, not a cap, not a tag, or shoestring, ever remains to tell the tale. Dusk is his happy hunting hour, and such as wander in the gloaming of dawn or night take their lives into their hands. Sometimes a scream is heard and the hurtle of his infernal wings and the scent of lavender, which always accompanies his progress by land and air. Then that lonely soul is gone for ever. He has a strange art to choose the widow, or the widower, and such as lack for friends or substance. As I have told you, an orphan possesses a horrible fascination for him, and children he cannot resist even in the noon of day. For many years he was but an evil legend; but of late his activities increase. Within my experience, as Portreeve of Pongley, he has snapped Thomas Fagg, the woodman; Nicol Prance, the thatcher; old John Cobbley, a swine-herd; and Hugh Hobanob, the baker’s man. Of females we have lost Avisa Snell and her child--devoured together; Mary Fern, a good girl, who lost her man in the wars; Betsy Snow, a widow; Jenifer Mardle, another widow; and, only last week, Lilian Lovenot, the belle of the village and the noblest, worthiest, loveliest maiden that ever gladdened the eyes of her fellow creatures. Her parents are both dead, or I should say her foster parents, for there is a mystery attaching to her birth, and we have never believed that such a homely pair as Peter and Nancy Lovenot could have begotten so distinguished a child as Lilian. But now she, too, has been snatched away, and as for the children, both boys and girls that he has laid his claws upon, their numbers can hardly be remembered. Thus our cup of grief is full, and you will guess with what gratitude we learn that you will destroy this abomination, or perish in the attempt.”

Sir Jasper pulled his great moustache, drank another stoup of metheglin and looked thoughtfully at the fire.

“What manner of knight was he of whom you spoke when first we met?” he inquired.

“One Sir Rollo Malherbe,” replied the Portreeve; “but----”

“Enough,” said George Pipkin, who had joined them for a drink; “if that gallant gentleman indeed learned that a formidable dragon was wasting your quarters, it is certain that he put no great tax upon the hospitality of Pongley-in-the-Marsh.”

“He stayed but four and twenty hours,” admitted Jacob Pratt. “On the morrow of his arrival he set forth, conducted by our valiant young men, and beheld the Lavender Dragon roaming at will along the Valley of Red Rocks, a favourite haunt nigh the Woods of Blore. One glance, at a distance of half a mile, proved enough for Sir Rollo. He remembered him of a fire-drake which he had undertaken to slay somewhere in the South Riding, many leagues distant, and, saying that he must keep faith, but would return at an early date, spurred his charger and was never seen again.”

“Your fire-drake, or hippogriff, is found but six to ten feet long,” mused Sir Jasper, “whereas your right dragon may number six hundred feet--or more.”

“Our enemy is computed to be perhaps five and thirty rods from beak to tail,” said the Portreeve’s right-hand man--a little, plump fellow with a cane-coloured beard and fat, pock-marked cheeks. “He is of a coerulean blue colour, having a rich rosy sheen in direct sunlight; and when he spreads his pinions they are as a flower-garden for beauty, being all shades of emerald and azure, purple and gold. In truth a lovelier beast God never made; yet within this fair and glittering carcase there hides the heart of a crocodile and the brain of a demon.”

“It would seem that I have my work cut out for me,” said Sir Jasper grimly.

“Fear nothing, noble knight. All Pongley will be upon its knees at the first moment of onset.”

From the adjacent chamber came the hum of a hone, where George was putting an edge to his master’s battle-axe.

He rejoined them presently, and mentioned one or two occasions whereon he had witnessed successful strife with dragons now defunct. But he was not in a sanguine mood and presently suggested that Sir Jasper should retire.

“What would you wish for breakfast?” inquired the Portreeve.

“Red meat, wheaten bread and honey,” replied Pipkin, “and plenty of mead. If we can engage the pest before noon, so much the better; if not, then we must eat again before doing so. Ere the sun goes west, a dragon, being largely nocturnal, is somnolent; but, as the day advances, he attains to his full energy, and he is at his worst and deadliest about the hour of dusk.”

“Take this for your comfort,” said Pratt’s right-hand man. “He is undoubtedly a very old reptile, and though far from infirm--be under no false hope as to that--cannot fairly be called a dragon in his prime. Youth will be served, as we all know.”

Thereupon both heroes retired and, despite the tremendous ordeal now before him, Sir Jasper, having said his orisons and committed himself and his fortunes to the Creator, prepared to sleep as soundly as usual.

“Though few knights but hold a lady in their hearts, to clear their eyes and strengthen their sword-arms, yet for my part, I still believe it better to do one’s work without such glorious and distracting obligations,” he reflected. “Some day, no doubt, I shall love and seek to prolong our line, now depending upon me for its continuation; but plenty of time, plenty of time; and if, meanwhile, destiny wills that I fall with my face to a foe who shall overtax my powers, then no heart is broken save my own.”

He slept, and the moon sailed over slumbering Pongley, while from the reed ronds round about arose the croak of a myriad frogs, and in the black Forest of Blore owls shouted their hollow laughter.

II

_THE APPOINTMENT FOR RAINBARROW_

Having made a meal worthy of the occasion, Sir Jasper and his squire, declining the assistance offered, set forth in a grey summer morning to reconnoitre the haunts of the enemy and, if possible, encounter him.

Chance willed that they discovered signs within three miles of the hamlet, for immense impressions of the Lavender Dragon’s feet suddenly stared up from a marshy bottom, and while George dismounted and measured these vast tridents stamped into the damp soil, out of willow brakes not above a quarter of a mile distant, the mighty creature himself sprang into the air. The sun had now broken through the mists of morning and his roseal beam struck upon the outstretched pinions of the dragon so that they appeared to be wrought of precious stones. They flapped with slow and solemn strokes and propelled the radiant body of the monster at speed not swifter than a heron’s flight. Slowly, lazily he rose, until he shrank to the size of a little morning cloud, then diminished until he appeared no greater than a golden pheasant speeding to the comfort of the distant forest.

Sir Jasper’s blue eyes were rolling and his tanned cheek flushed with excitement.

“Can such things be!” he cried.

“Evidently,” answered George Pipkin, but without enthusiasm.

“Did you observe that he was carrying a human being between his gigantic jaws?”

“I did, Sir Jasper. A big man he bore away; yet the unhappy wretch looked no larger than a hawthorn berry in the beak of a blackbird. But it is true: he is an old--a very old dragon. His flight proclaimed him.”

“Old in sin--if indeed a dragon can sin,” answered Sir Jasper.

They proceeded to the spot whence the monster had risen and found a clearing in a withy bed. The air was fragrant with the scent of lavender and willow wrens made music. The evidences of a victim did not lack, for beside a bundle of withy wands, freshly cut, they saw a frail, wherein the vanished swain had brought his mid-day meal, and a jerkin of leather, which he had evidently thrown off while at work. A dog also, that had fled before the onset of the dragon, slunk out of the willows and crept to them with his tail between his shaking legs.

Instantly knight and squire set their horses’ heads in the direction of the monster’s flight, and George expressed a hope that the event of the morning, while unfortunate enough for the day labourer, might yet prove satisfactory from the view-point of their own hopes.

“He has now gone to devour his prey,” said Pipkin, “and following the meal, after the manner of all such reptiles, he will seek to slumber. His scent is strong and happily not unpleasant. We may presently get upon it and then, tethering our horses, if fortune be with us, creep to him and destroy him under well-directed blows at the junction of the left wing and the shoulder. Only so will such an enormous creature succumb to us. Open fighting would be impossible. His head is adamant and his tail unapproachable, so long as he shall be wide awake. Indeed, though many a knight has ignored the fact to his detriment, the danger centre and point of highest peril is a dragon’s tail; and while engaged with his beak and claws, not a few daring spirits have received their quietus from the back blow, which sweeps a man off his horse, stuns him, and renders him impotent and easy game.”

“Should you regard this as a large dragon?” asked the younger.

“Quite the largest I have ever seen, or wish to see,” replied his squire.

“Let us talk of other things for a while,” responded Sir Jasper. “I am disagreeably conscious of having eaten a little too much of the excellent cold beef we enjoyed for breakfast.”

“A groaning table often makes a groaning stomach,” admitted George; “but think nothing of it. We shall not be called upon to exert ourselves for some hours at the earliest.” Indeed Pipkin was right, and ere they reached the Woods of Blore, Sir Jasper was hungry again. They had brought with them another ample meal, and having discussed it, made cautious sallies round about the forest in search of scent. To the east lay the Red Rocks, a favourite resting place of the dragon; but the sun had long passed the meridian before they found themselves within sight of this rugged and sequestered gorge. For many miles along the confines of the great wood they had ridden and admired the grandeur of such timber as neither remembered to have seen. Gigantic conifers towered above them, with stems that seemed fashioned of bright, pure silver; and overhead their boughs were dark as night, throwing down a dense shadow upon the flower-lit turf beneath.

It was evening before they reached the Valley of the Red Rocks, and the peaks and pinnacles of this impressive spot already glowed as though red hot under a fine sunset. The place was arid, yet beautiful, and the boulders and crags burned in wondrous and dazzling hues of orange and scarlet, amethyst and rose. It seemed that gems studded these precipices and ragged scarps, for they flashed with rainbow colours and answered the signals of the sinking sun. No herb or shrub appeared to adorn the region, yet, as they proceeded, suddenly beneath them extended a wondrous patch of pale, purple inflorescence and the fragrance of lavender rose to their nostrils.

George started with suspicion, and Sir Jasper inhaled the warning odour. Their steeds also sniffed the scent and pawed the earth.

“It comes from an extensive patch of natural flowers yonder,” declared the knight, but Pipkin better appreciated the situation.

“Murrain on your flowers,” he whispered. “It is the dragon himself!”

And, looking again, both recognised, in the mass of colour spread beneath them, the outlines of the slumbering saurian.

“It is as I hoped,” said George. “He is sleeping the sleep of repletion, and we have fortunately come up the wind to him.”

They made a detour and presently approached the monster. Taking cover behind great boulders strewed upon the valley bottom, they brought their horses nearer and still nearer, then drew up, dismounted and took stock of the insensible giant. He slept profoundly, and his great sides rose and fell three feet at every breath. From his open nostrils rumbled a not unmusical snoring, somewhat suggestive of the French horn, and round about him wild creatures gambolled without fear. Half a dozen rabbits leapt and danced between his huge front paws, lizards ran over him and birds hopped along the serrated summit of his vast back, lofty as the ridge-tiles of a mansion. There were indications of great age about him, for though of a sweet and wholesome appearance, he was thin and the elaborate architecture of massy ribs that supported his circumference appeared through his integument and coat of mail. His wings were furled, and his enormous eyes covered by heavy and wrinkled lids. Pipkin, in the greatest excitement, directed Sir Jasper how to proceed.

“Lose not a moment,” he said, “but draw off to the left, mount your charger, then couch your lance and let him have it, striking where the pinion lies over the shoulder. With weight of man and horse behind the blow, you shall reach his heart and destroy him instantly.”

Then, to his indignation and confusion, the knight made chilling answer.

“Not so, friend,” he replied. “It shall never be said that Sir Jasper de Pomeroy slew a sleeping foe. No glory attaches to the act of an assassin.”

“Odds bodikins!” hissed George. “This is a _dragon_, and when was it ever heard that a dragon demanded to be treated with the rules of chivalry? Would he have wakened you had the case been reversed? Providence has given the tormentor into your hands, and to ask him to fight fair is little better than self-destruction. He couldn’t even if he wanted to.”

Sir Jasper was, however, obdurate.

“No created thing shall perish in his sleep by hand of mine,” he answered. Then he struck his mailed glove upon his shield, lifted his voice and raised such a volume of sound among the echoing cliffs that the Lavender Dragon awoke. Like curtains his eye-lids ascended and revealed two enormous eyes, glorious as fire opals and large as the rose windows in some great cathedral.

“Bless my life!” cried the dragon in good, nervous English. “What have we here?”

“Death, vile reptile!” shouted Sir Jasper, and laying his lance in rest and drawing down his beevor, he spurred his pie-bald war-horse forward. But the mighty lizard heaved himself on to his feet and so placed his assailant at a great disadvantage. Now horse and man came only to the monster’s knees.

“Wait! Wait! Wait!” he said, lifting one gigantic paw. “Let us understand one another. I appreciate your courtesy in rousing me before you laid on. It was done like a true knight and indicates a courage probably only equalled by your mastery of arms. But I, too, am not devoid of fine feeling in these matters. The sun has already set, and as our encounter is likely to be of some duration, I must point out that, in the gloaming, I shall enjoy unfair advantage that I am loath to take. For I can see in the dark by the light of my own eye-balls--a gift denied to you. We may or may not be evenly matched by daylight, but, with the oncoming of darkness, there can be no question that you would suffer a severe handicap, and this must not be.”

Struck dumb to hear a primeval dragon speak after so gentlemanly a fashion, the knight and squire reined in their horses and stared upward with open mouths upon the enemy.

“I am perfectly willing to encounter you, if in your judgment the greatest good to the greatest number will be gained thereby,” continued the huge creature quietly, “but you, who have proved yourself the flower of chivalry, must not suffer greater disabilities than myself. I am an old dragon now and I never fought for pleasure even in my palmy days; but I still possess prodigious physical powers, and should little like to exercise them, save under conditions as fair to my opponent as myself.”

“This is a dark scheme to evade his doom,” whispered George Pipkin. “Parley not a moment, but advance upon him. He doesn’t want to fight! The man from the withy bed may have upset him.”

Sir Jasper, however, hesitated to take this course, and the enemy again addressed them.

“If I may suggest,” he said, “let us meet on Rainbarrow an hour after sunrise to-morrow. There you shall find a smooth, broad plateau whereon you and your squire will be able to manœuvre your gallant steeds; and the spot also affords an ample theatre for your friends to sustain and support you.”

“You would seem to be a reasonable adversary,” replied Sir Jasper in doubtful tones. “As for me, my purpose has ever been to play the game with every foe, and I like to believe an enemy is inspired by similar principles; but it is beyond belief that a foul, pestiferous and man-eating dragon should thus seek, even in the jaws of death, to make an honest bargain.”

“Why?” asked the monster. “Why suppose that I am acting contrary to my steadfast ideals in this affair?”

“Your ‘ideals,’ foul cockatrice!” cried George. “Have we not this morning seen you fly away with an innocent peasant from the withy beds? Are you not engaged in digesting him at this moment?”

“What credentials and evidence of good faith can you possibly put before me?” continued Sir Jasper. “Consider my position in this matter as well as your own. If I return to the inhabitants of Pongley-in-the-Marsh and inform them that you are engaged to meet me at sunrise on Rainbarrow, what are they likely to say about it? Surely they will flout me and drive me forth with scorn, judging me such another as Sir Rollo Manherbe, who aforetime came among them, learned particulars of your dimensions and recollected an engagement elsewhere. The natives of this district are no fools--indeed, no Yorkshireman is ever a fool. You see my predicament if I return with what must seem a fable to the Portreeve of Pongley and his neighbours.”

The Lavender Dragon lifted an enormous paw to his low but broad forehead.

“A genuine difficulty,” he admitted, “though I might summon witnesses--but no. You must, I fear, trust me to keep my word. I attach the utmost importance to truth-telling. Your squire will report the same tale and, if need be, you may exaggerate a trifle without overstepping strict veracity. Behold how night spreads her purple mantle upon the gorge, robbing the rocks and crags of their ruddy splendour; observe how my eyes now shine like glowing meteors and cast a ray of brilliance down the glen. They were far brighter once. But tell the Pongley people how you surprised me on the edge of twilight and that the day was too far spent for our encounter. Do not hesitate to assure them that you credit me; even indicate that I showed a measure of reason, little to have been expected from such a being. Inform Pongley that I shall be upon Rainbarrow at the appointed time, and pray, pray believe me yourself when I tell you so.”

Sir Jasper looked up at the huge head from which these words proceeded, in a sonorous but educated voice.

Then the dragon, tired of standing, sat down.

“Do you understand the nature of an oath?” inquired the knight.

“I do,” replied the monster. “I am not unfamiliar with humanity and have had relations with them quite other than those recorded, to my disfavour, by Pongley and more important places. I appreciate the significance of an oath and am perfectly willing to take one, if that will content you.”

“You are no ordinary dragon,” declared Sir Jasper. “Such as I have already heard about, conducted themselves in very different fashion, fought with abandon, spewed fire, hit below the belt and pursued their defensive and offensive operations without self-control, civil conversation, or any sense of honour. They have risen from the slime, they have been horrible, formidable and utterly repulsive in every way. Mankind is accustomed to believe that the only possible dragon is a dead one; yet here you sit, within reach of my unconquerable lance, and discourse as fluently and grammatically as myself. Even an oath appears to be within your experience. You are courteous, self-contained, intelligent. Your natural weapons are terrific, and no doubt you know exceedingly well how to use them; but, as you confess, you are no longer young, and, if I mistake not, your hinder claws show evidences of gout.”

“Once it was acute,” explained the Lavender Dragon. “Now alas! it threatens to become chronic. With acute gout, one throws it off and has good times between the attacks; but once the ailment assumes a chronic form, we are forced much to modify our activities. Do not think, however, that I advance these facts as a reason for evading your attack. Far from it. I am still in the possession of very great activity and may give you at least a run for your money.”

Like lamps fed by a rainbow the Lavender Dragon’s eyes burned steadily above them.

“It is as though we talked to a lighthouse,” murmured George Pipkin.

“In the name of your Maker, then--your Maker and my own--you swear to be on Rainbarrow to-morrow morning, wet or fine,” said Sir Jasper; and the dragon lowered his prodigious head with becoming reverence and shut his eyes. The action plunged the party into darkness.

“I will--so help me,” declared the great creature. It was a strange interview, even for the Dark Ages, and Sir Jasper began to believe that all must be a dream from which he would presently awaken.

“Have you ever fought with a belted knight before?” inquired the squire, and the dragon confessed that he had.

“Once, and once only,” he admitted.

“And seeing that you still live, I suppose--?”

The Lavender Dragon indicated a slight scar among the blue scales on his off fore leg.

“He pricked me and no more. I was younger and far more agile of body in those days than at present. The battle lasted exactly thirty-five seconds.”

“You slew him?”

“No. I gave him a good thumping and told him not to do it again. He never did.”

“His name?” inquired George briefly.

“Sir Claude Pontifex Fortescue,” replied the dragon.

“What befell him?” asked Sir Jasper. “He was before my time, and it is many a long year since he was at court, or in company. There is, however, still some speculation among his own generation as to what became of Sir Claude.”

“Little need to inquire farther,” growled George Pipkin. “A knight who has been thumped by a dragon, and told not to do it again, would scarcely show his face in the society of his peers.”

“That’s another story--too long to tell you now,” declared the huge creature. “Until to-morrow, then, on Rainbarrow?”

“I trust you--chiefly because I must,” replied Sir Jasper. “Do not disgrace yourself, or you will disgrace me. Observe that I treat you as an equal.”

“I do, and am flattered accordingly,” replied the other. “Fear nothing: I shall be there. And now draw off your steeds, and give me room to spread my wings. I thank you.”

He rose upon his four feet, towered above them, resembling, if anything, a cyclopean sofa, and slowly opened his pinions. They creaked a little and he sighed.

“Rheumatism,” he said, then sprang aloft with a roar, like a sixty-knot gale of wind, soared away and vanished under the stars.

“And that’s the last you’ll see of him,” prophesied the squire, relief and bitterness strangely mingled in his remark.

“Think better of the fellow,” urged Sir Jasper; but George refused to be comforted.

“You have spurned the gifts of Fortune,” he answered, “and can hope for no more of her favours.”

III

_VIGIL_

During the long ride back to Pongley, George Pipkin preserved a very unfavourable attitude toward his master.

“When new ideas clash with old,” he said, “when age falls back upon experience and youth advances, armed, as usual, with mistaken opinions, then comes the tug-of-war. But there is no place in knight-errantry for these ingenuous ideals, and to pit your mistaken standards of dragon warfare against my proven knowledge was the height of folly, as you will live to learn.”

Sir Jasper let him run on, but at length some word from George stung the hero into retort.

“Has this silver-shafted lance been blessed by three bishops and an archbishop, or has it not, Pipkin?” he asked, shaking his majestic spear.

“What of it?” replied the other.

“It has; and that being so, is it a weapon to thrust into anybody while he sleeps? I ask you?”

“The mistake you are making is to treat an atrocious reptile and enemy of man as though he were on the same footing as yourself,” replied Pipkin. “Your rules of conduct are all thrown upside down, just because this particular dragon, by some gift of necromancy, can talk and pretend to be a decent member of society. You know perfectly well that he is not. You have his disgusting record. He has devoured men, women and children. He has cast a cloud of horror and dismay upon this neighbourhood for years, and no doubt, before he came here, he carried on after the same fashion somewhere else. A dragon is a dragon. They are all the misbegotten spawn of hell, and we are told to bruise their heads and warned that they shall bruise our heels. By the will of God you had him at your mercy; he was given to you that you might destroy him; but you lost your senses and showed a lamentable confusion of thought, a mistaken code, both of honour and duty, whereof he took full advantage. Now one of two things must happen. Either he won’t come to Rainbarrow, or else he will. The betting is all Lombard Street to a crab apple that he doesn’t; but if he does, then you may be very sure he knows a great deal more about Rainbarrow than we do, and will not stand your onset unless he has secret advantages that the conflict must too soon reveal.”

“‘A good thumping,’” mused Sir Jasper. “That is unknightly language, George.”

“Bluff,” replied the squire. “He spoke only to pour scorn upon your Order. And now you yourself may cheapen knighthood, which is already at a low rate of discount for various reasons. Fight to-morrow, if you get the chance, as you never fought before; and for the sake of mankind and your own name, let no false ruth or other nonsense stay your steel. A dragon is like a mad dog. We do not encounter such a beast with punctilio, or the courtesies of the tourney. Get him down and out by the swiftest and most sanguinary means within your power. And trust me to help you if half a chance offers.”

“You lack imagination,” answered the younger and more enlightened adventurer. “You do not apparently see, or feel, George, that we have met a being by many degrees removed from the conventional dragon of history and experience. This beast, had he been created on a more economical plan and less material devoted to his prodigious carcase, might have been amenable to human discipline and even culture. He has a kind face. He is very old. I would even go so far as to say that, of course under other conditions, he might have left the world better than he found it.”

“He has left the world lonelier at any rate,” replied Pipkin sourly, “but so long as he does leave the world, between six and seven to-morrow morning, I care not. You may set his virtues on his tombstone; but first look to it there shall be a funeral.”

George proceeded to expatiate on the technique of fray with dragons and gave Sir Jasper many a valuable hint; yet there was none the less a cloud between them when they drew rein and entered the village. For the knight resented the squire’s attitude to their common enemy; while George much feared that the morrow might bring, either disgrace from a sceptical country-side, should the dragon play false, or some exhibition of ill-timed clemency, resulting in Sir Jasper’s own destruction if the monster did appear.

Nor could their supper serve to calm the agitated nerves of either; for the men and even more the women of Pongley showed a disinclination to believe the extraordinary story they brought back with them from the Red Rocks. A base fellow or two went so far as to sneer and hint that the Portreeve’s hospitality was being abused; but Jacob Pratt, with admirable courtesy, silenced the whisperers.

“It will be time to display our feelings to-morrow,” he said, “if Rainbarrow is drawn blank. To-night we are not justified in doubting Sir Jasper’s word, or the Lavender Dragon’s promise. Many strange things happen in the world, and I still hope to see the blood of our foe leap in a ruddy cataract down the steep of the hills after breakfast.”

When supper was ended, Sir Jasper got him to the little fane of St. Cormoran, a Yorkshire martyr of old time; and there, with his silver lance and helmet laid before the altar, he kept vigil before battle until the barn cocks crew. Then, at the first shiver of light when a glimmer as of old ivory widened about the morning star, the spectrum of St. Cormoran himself appeared to Sir Jasper, and the knight beheld the vision of a dignified ancient, clad in grey robe and cowl, and having a snow white beard that descended beneath the rope of his girdle.

The watcher expected some word of cheer and hope; but received no more than practical advice.

“Get off to bed,” said the saint. “Snatch a couple of good hours’ slumber while there is time, and make a light breakfast. Remarkable experiences await you to-day, and to enter upon them short of sleep is not piety but foolhardiness.”

With that the ghost vanished, and Sir Jasper, whose eyes indeed had long threatened to close, returned to the dwelling of the Portreeve, threw off his garments and was soon unconscious.

Anon George Pipkin aroused him, and whether he would or no, his master partook of a meagre meal as St. Cormoran directed, for there was not time to do otherwise. Already the entire population of Pongley-in-the-Marsh was streaming towards Rainbarrow, where that flat but elevated table of land rose dimly against the morning, and when Sir Jasper and his squire galloped on to the plateau, they were the last to arrive.

The Lavender Dragon, however, had not yet made his appearance, though it now wanted but five minutes of six o’clock.

IV

_THE DRAGON KEEPS HIS WORD_

About an open space, flanked with a forest on one side and sloping by abrupt declivities of thorn and furze upon the other, the inhabitants of Pongley were assembled. The elders of the hamlet stood grouped together, while the lesser folk surrounded the plateau and made an audience for the approaching struggle. Above a thousand souls were gathered there, and they greeted the knight and his squire somewhat coldly as they trotted out upon the arena.

Of the Lavender Dragon as yet appeared no hint, though, from time to time, this or that spectator, pointing to the air, cried that he was on the wing. But while many a delicate cloud, feathered with morning gold, swept westerly upon the wind, not one resolved itself into the foe.

At six o’clock, concealing a growing concern behind the bars of his helmet, Sir Jasper took the field, and the great piebald steed galloped, caracoled and curveted handsomely. He made a noble picture, but the public was not there for horsemanship; the sense of the company turned against him; hard words flew on Rainbarrow and the knight began to experience a moral chill under his armour. What if indeed he stood convicted of an awful error? Among all those present one only, George Pipkin, knew that his mistake was venial and centred in a blind trust, where trust had been folly; but the others would accuse him, and his squire also, of something far worse than credulity. Indeed, the few who had accepted his narrative, now scorned themselves for doing so, and even the Portreeve’s patience began to break down.

Sir Jasper, with his back to the woods, drew rein and considered how best to make his peace with a gathering body of opinion very unfavourable. He was just about to doff his helm and address them, when the Portreeve and others approached and Jacob Pratt spoke uncomfortable words.

“Sir Knight,” he said, “if knight indeed you are, it is now apparent that you have played upon the goodwill and trust of well-meaning and kindly folk. You have lied to us and fooled us, and you are either a coward or----”

Suddenly a chorus of loud cries stopped the speaker’s mouth and frenzied excitement broke out upon every face.

“Look to yourself! He is there--he is upon you!” screamed the people, while children shouted and ran to their parents, dogs barked and bristled, a fragrant scent permeated the morning breeze. In another moment the immense and roseal beak of the Lavender Dragon poked suddenly from the coppice, and before Sir Jasper could defend himself, or George Pipkin aid him, the monster had picked up both knight and charger as cleanly, firmly and gently as a trained retriever grasps a fallen bird.

Sir Jasper and his terrified steed struggled to escape, but the dragon lifted his head and they were now thirty feet above the herbage. Then, as the populace fled before him, the gorgeous but unsportsmanlike foe waddled hugely out upon the turf and spread his wings. They flashed, as though they had been gigantic Oriental umbrellas of state, and blinded the beholders; while in another moment the ancient saurian began to rise. Pipkin, with a wild oath, charged and swung Sir Jasper’s mace, which he carried until the knight should have need of it; but he did not get to close quarters for, with a swift but sure flick of the tail, his opponent swept squire and steed to the ground in utmost confusion and, before they could return to attack, the Lavender Dragon was on the wing. A few stones and quarterstaves rattled harmlessly against his purple stomach and fell back upon the heads of those who had thrown them; and then the great beast soared upward among the lights of the morning and soon dwindled to a little star amongst the streaming cirri in the blue.

All was over, and the baffled Pipkin, flinging himself again upon the earth, buried his brown face in the sward and wept like a child.

The Portreeve himself sought to comfort George.

“There is only one bright side to this unhappy incident,” declared Jacob Pratt. “Your master has been proved a man of his word and a knight without fear or reproach. Had his skill in arms been equal to his nobility of character--however, let that pass. He is not the first hero who has perished in a good cause. We will cherish his memory while regretting his inefficiency. And so home to breakfast, remembering always that God knows best.”

But George was not prepared to take this terrible misfortune lying down. Indeed, he rose immediately, dashed the tears from his eyes and declared that in his opinion all was not quite lost.

“I know better concerning the accursed thing than you do,” he replied, “and there is more in this rape of a rare knight than meets the eye. The dragon is a traitor, as might have been expected, for never was dragon known who did not fight foul and aid his clumsy and brute strength with cunning tactics and treacherous strategy. But Sir Jasper is not dead. The brute picked up him and his horse with a great deal of care. Neither one nor the other was injured, save morally, and I doubt not they have been conveyed to some secret holt and haunt of the creature, there to be kept alive for its own purposes. It may torture him, starve him and torment him in a thousand ways to make a dragon’s holiday; but one thing is certain: it will never fight him. The wretch is no fool, and very well knows that, put to test of open battle against a man of such incomparable powers as my master can display, it would soon be swept to destruction.”

“And what do you propose to do?” inquired the Portreeve.

“I propose to make my way through the dark Woods of Blore, to reach the entrance to the Lavender Dragon’s domain, to demand entrance, on pain of a punitive expedition, and learn the fate of Sir Jasper though my own life pay forfeit.”

All Pongley cheered the squire’s determination, and with one accord the people crowded about George, clasped his hand and wished him well.

As the assembly proceeded from Rainbarrow homeward, Pipkin explained that existence without Sir Jasper held scant attraction for him.

“I am not one of those fortunate men,” he said, “who is a hero to his wife. My home, to be frank, promises no welcome worth mentioning. A saddle suits me better than my chair in the ingle nook, and I prefer the sound of the winter wind to the voice of my spouse at the best of times. For that matter, they have much in common. In any case did I return, my own man, with this appalling story, there would be few flags flying for me, I assure you. Therefore, give me a day’s provender and I will set forth to the woods and save Sir Jasper, or perish with him.”

An hour later the old campaigner galloped off upon his self-appointed task; but he did not depart before uttering a promise to return and relate the facts concerning his master, if it should presently be within his power to do so.

V

_THE DRAGON EXPLAINS_