The Book of Dragons
So they went, and the pigs came after, moving in stately blackness, two
by two. And, the minute he was married to the Princess, Elfin's hands
got quite well. And the people, who were weary of Prince Tiresome and
his hippopotamuses, hailed Sabrinetta and her husband as rightful
Sovereigns of the land.
Next morning the Prince and Princess went out to see if the dragon had
been washed ashore. They could see nothing of him; but when they looked
out toward the whirlpool they saw a cloud of steam; and the fishermen
reported that the water for miles around was hot enough to shave with!
And as the water is hot there to this day, we may feel pretty sure
that the fierceness of that dragon was such that all the waters of all
the sea were not enough to cool him. The whirlpool is too strong for him
to be able to get out of it, so there he spins around and around forever
and ever, doing some useful work at last, and warming the water for poor
fisher-folk to shave with.
* * * * *
The Prince and Princess rule the land well and wisely. The nurse lives
with them, and does nothing but fine sewing, and only that when she
wants to very much. The Prince keeps no hippopotamuses, and is
consequently very popular. The five and seventy devoted pigs live in
white marble sties with brass knockers and Pig on the doorplate, and are
washed twice a day with Turkish sponges and soap scented with violets,
and no one objects to their following the Prince when he walks abroad,
for they behave beautifully, and always keep to the footpath, and obey
the notices about not walking on the grass. The Princess feeds them
every day with her own hands, and her first edict on coming to the
throne was that the word _pork_ should never be uttered on pain of
death, and should, besides, be scratched out of all the dictionaries.
VIII. Kind Little Edmund, or The Caves and the Cockatrice
Edmund was a boy. The people who did not like him said that he was the
most tiresome boy that ever lived, but his grandmother and his other
friends said that he had an inquiring mind. And his granny often added
that he was the best of boys. But she was very kind and very old.
Edmund loved to find out about things. Perhaps you will think that in
that case he was constant in his attendance at school, since there, if
anywhere, we may learn whatever there is to be learned. But Edmund did
not want to learn things: He wanted to find things out, which is quite
different. His inquiring mind led him to take clocks to pieces to see
what made them go, to take locks off doors to see what made them stick.
It was Edmund who cut open the India rubber ball to see what made it
bounce, and he never did see, any more than you did when you tried the
same experiment.
Edmund lived with his grandmother. She loved him very much, in spite of
his inquiring mind, and hardly scolded him at all when he frizzled up
her tortoiseshell comb in his anxiety to find out whether it was made of
real tortoiseshell or of something that would burn. Edmund went to
school, of course, now and then, and sometimes he could not prevent
himself from learning something, but he never did it on purpose.
"It is such waste of time," said he. "They only know what everybody
knows. I want to find out new things that nobody has thought of but me."
"I don't think you're likely to find out anything that none of the wise
men in the whole world have thought of all these thousands of years,"
said Granny.
But Edmund did not agree with her. He played truant whenever he could,
for he was a kindhearted boy, and could not bear to think of a master's
time and labor being thrown away on a boy like himself--who did not wish
to learn, only to find out--when there were so many worthy lads
thirsting for instruction in geography and history and reading and
ciphering, and Mr. Smiles's "Self-Help."
Other boys played truant too, of course--and these went nutting or
blackberrying or wild plum gathering, but Edmund never went on the side
of the town where the green woods and hedges grew. He always went up the
mountain where the great rocks were, and the tall, dark pine trees, and
where other people were afraid to go because of the strange noises that
came out of the caves.
Edmund was not afraid of these noises--though they were very strange and
terrible. He wanted to find out what made them.
One day he did. He had invented, all by himself, a very ingenious and
new kind of lantern, made with a turnip and a tumbler, and when he took
the candle out of Granny's bedroom candlestick to put in it, it gave
quite a splendid light.
He had to go to school next day, and he was caned for being absent
without leave--although he very straightforwardly explained that he had
been too busy making the lantern to have time to come to school.
But the day after he got up very early and took the lunch Granny had
ready for him to take to school--two boiled eggs and an apple
turnover--and he took his lantern and went off as straight as a dart to
the mountains to explore the caves.
The caves were very dark, but his lantern lighted them up beautifully;
and they were most interesting caves, with stalactites and stalagmites
and fossils, and all the things you read about in the instructive books
for the young. But Edmund did not care for any of these things just
then. He wanted to find out what made the noises that people were afraid
of, and there was nothing in the caves to tell him.
Presently he sat down in the biggest cave and listened very carefully,
and it seemed to him that he could distinguish three different sorts of
noises. There was a heavy rumbling sound, like a very large old
gentleman asleep after dinner; and there was a smaller sort of rumble
going on at the same time; and there was a sort of crowing, clucking
sound, such as a chicken might make if it happened to be as big as a
haystack.
"It seems to me," said Edmund to himself, "that the clucking is nearer
than the others." So he started up again and explored the caves once
more. He found out nothing, but about halfway up the wall of the cave,
he saw a hole. And, being a boy, he climbed up to it and crept in; and
it was the entrance to a rocky passage. And now the clucking sounded
more plainly than before, and he could hardly hear the rumbling at all.
"I _am_ going to find out something at last," said Edmund, and on he
went. The passage wound and twisted, and twisted and turned, and turned
and wound, but Edmund kept on.
"My lantern's burning better and better," said he presently, but the
next minute he saw that all the light did not come from his lantern. It
was a pale yellow light, and it shone down the passage far ahead of him
through what looked like the chink of a door.
"I expect it's the fire in the middle of the earth," said Edmund, who
had not been able to help learning about that at school.
But quite suddenly the fire ahead gave a pale flicker and went down; and
the clucking ceased.
The next moment Edmund turned a corner and found himself in front of a
rocky door. The door was ajar. He went in, and there was a round cave,
like the dome of St. Paul's. In the middle of the cave was a hole like a
very big hand-washing basin, and in the middle of the basin Edmund saw
a large pale person sitting.
This person had a man's face and a griffin's body, and big feathery
wings, and a snake's tail, and a cock's comb and neck feathers.
"Whatever are you?" said Edmund.
"I'm a poor starving cockatrice," answered the pale person in a very
faint voice, "and I shall die--oh, I know I shall! My fire's gone out! I
can't think how it happened; I must have been asleep. I have to stir it
seven times round with my tail once in a hundred years to keep it
alight, and my watch must have been wrong. And now I shall die."
I think I have said before what a kindhearted boy Edmund was.
"Cheer up," said he. "I'll light your fire for you." And off he went,
and in a few minutes he came back with a great armful of sticks from the
pine trees outside, and with these and a lesson book or two that he had
forgotten to lose before, and which, quite by an oversight, were safe in
his pocket, he lit a fire all around the cockatrice. The wood blazed up,
and presently something in the basin caught fire, and Edmund saw that it
was a sort of liquid that burned like the brandy in a snapdragon. And
now the cockatrice stirred it with his tail and flapped his wings in it
so that some of it splashed out on Edmund's hand and burnt it rather
badly. But the cockatrice grew red and strong and happy, and its comb
grew scarlet, and its feathers glossy, and it lifted itself up and
crowed "Cock-a-trice-a-doodle-doo!" very loudly and clearly.
Edmund's kindly nature was charmed to see the cockatrice so much
improved in health, and he said: "Don't mention it; delighted, I'm
sure," when the cockatrice began to thank him.
"But what can I do for you?" said the creature.
"Tell me stories," said Edmund.
"What about?" said the cockatrice.
"About true things that they don't know at school," said Edmund.
So the cockatrice began, and he told him about mines and treasures and
geological formations, and about gnomes and fairies and dragons, and
about glaciers and the Stone Age and the beginning of the world, and
about the unicorn and the phoenix, and about Magic, black and white.
And Edmund ate his eggs and his turnover, and listened. And when he got
hungry again he said good-bye and went home. But he came again the next
day for more stories, and the next day, and the next, for a long time.
He told the boys at school about the cockatrice and his wonderful true
tales, and the boys liked the stories; but when he told the master he
was caned for untruthfulness.
"But it's true," said Edmund. "Just you look where the fire burnt my
hand."
"I see you've been playing with fire--into mischief as usual," said the
master, and he caned Edmund harder than ever. The master was ignorant
and unbelieving: but I am told that some schoolmasters are not like
that.
Now, one day Edmund made a new lantern out of something chemical that he
sneaked from the school laboratory. And with it he went exploring again
to see if he could find the things that made the other sorts of noises.
And in quite another part of the mountain he found a dark passage, all
lined with brass, so that it was like the inside of a huge telescope,
and at the very end of it he found a bright green door. There was a
brass plate on the door that said MRS. D. KNOCK AND RING, and a white
label that said CALL ME AT THREE. Edmund had a watch: It had been given
to him on his birthday two days before, and he had not yet had time to
take it to pieces and see what made it go, so it was still going. He
looked at it now. It said a quarter to three.
Did I tell you before what a kindhearted boy Edmund was? He sat down on
the brass doorstep and waited till three o'clock. Then he knocked and
rang, and there was a rattling and puffing inside. The great door flew
open, and Edmund had only just time to hide behind it when out came an
immense yellow dragon, who wriggled off down the brass cave like a long,
rattling worm--or perhaps more like a monstrous centipede.
Edmund crept slowly out and saw the dragon stretching herself on the
rocks in the sun, and he crept past the great creature and tore down the
hill into the town and burst into school, crying out: "There's a great
dragon coming! Somebody ought to do something, or we shall all be
destroyed."
He was caned for untruthfulness without any delay. His master was never
one for postponing a duty.
"But it's true," said Edmund. "You just see if it isn't."