Tales Before Tolkien (27 page)

The dragon had purred till he was quite out of breath—so now he stopped, and as soon as everything was quiet the baby thought everyone must have settled for the night, and that it was time to begin to scream. So it began.

“Oh dear,” said the dragon, “this is awful.”

He patted the baby with his claw, but it screamed more than ever.

“And I am so tired, too,” said the dragon. “I did so hope I should have had a good night.”

The baby went on screaming.

“There'll be no peace for me after this,” said the dragon; “it's enough to ruin one's nerves. Hush, then—did ‘ums, then.” And he tried to quiet the baby as if it had been a young dragon. But when he began to sing “Hush-a-by, dragon,” the baby screamed more and more and more. “I can't keep it quiet,” said the dragon; and then suddenly he saw a woman sitting on the steps. “Here, I say,” said he, “do you know anything about babies?”

“I do, a little,” said the mother.

“Then I wish you'd take this one, and let me get some sleep,” said the dragon, yawning. “You can bring it back in the morning before the blacksmith comes.”

So the mother picked up the baby and took it upstairs and told her husband, and they went to bed happy, for they had caught the dragon and saved the baby.

The next day John went down and explained carefully to the dragon exactly how matters stood, and he got an iron gate with a grating to it, and set it up at the foot of the steps, and the dragon mewed furiously for days and days, but when he found it was no good he was quiet.

So now John went to the mayor, and said: “I've got the dragon and I've saved the town.”

“Noble preserver,” cried the mayor, “we will get up a subscription for you, and crown you in public with a laurel wreath.”

So the mayor put his name down for five pounds, and the corporation each gave three, and other people gave their guineas, and half-guineas, and half-crowns and crowns, and while the subscription was being made the mayor ordered three poems at his own expense from the town poet to celebrate the occasion. The poems were very much admired, especially by the mayor and corporation.

The first poem dealt with the noble conduct of the mayor in arranging to have the dragon tied up. The second described the splendid assistance rendered by the corporation. And the third expressed the pride and joy of the poet in being permitted to sing such deeds, beside which the actions of Saint George must appear quite commonplace to all with a feeling heart or a well-balanced brain.

When the subscription was finished there was a thousand pounds, and a committee was formed to settle what should be done with it. A third of it went to pay for a banquet to the mayor and corporation; another third was spent in buying a gold collar with a dragon on it for the mayor, and gold medals with dragons on them for the corporation; and what was left went in committee expenses.

So there was nothing for the blacksmith except the laurel wreath, and the knowledge that it really
was
he who had saved the town. But after this things went a little better with the blacksmith. To begin with, the baby did not cry so much as it had before. Then the rich lady who owned the goat was so touched by John's noble action that she ordered a complete set of shoes at 2s 4d., and even made it up to 2s. 6d. in grateful recognition of his public-spirited conduct. Then tourists used to come in breaks from quite a long way off, and pay twopence each to go down the steps and peep through the iron grating at the rusty dragon in the dungeon—and it was threepence extra for each party if the blacksmith let off coloured fire to see it by, which, as the fire was extremely short, was twopence-halfpenny clear profit every time. And the blacksmith's wife used to provide teas at ninepence a head, and altogether things grew brighter week by week.

The baby—named John, after his father, and called Johnnie for short—began presently to grow up. He was great friends with Tina, the daughter of the whitesmith, who lived nearly opposite. She was a dear little girl, with yellow pigtails and blue eyes, and she was never tired of hearing the story of how Johnnie, when he was a baby, had been minded by a real dragon.

The two children used to go together to peep through the iron grating at the dragon, and sometimes they would hear him mew piteously. And they would light a halfpennyworth of coloured fire to look at him by. And they grew older and wiser.

Now, at last one day the mayor and corporation, hunting the hare in their gold gowns, came screaming back to the town gates with the news that a lame, humpy giant, as big as a tin church, was coming over the marshes towards the town.

“We're lost,” said the mayor. “I'd give a thousand pounds to anyone who could keep that giant out of the town.
I
know what he eats—by his teeth.”

No one seemed to know what to do. But Johnnie and Tina were listening, and they looked at each other, and ran off as fast as their boots would carry them.

They ran through the forge, and down the dungeon steps, and knocked at the iron door.

“Who's there?” said the dragon.

“It's only us,” said the children.

And the dragon was so dull from having been alone for ten years that he said: “Come in, dears.”

“You won't hurt us, or breathe fire at us or anything?” asked Tina.

And the dragon said, “Not for worlds.”

So they went in and talked to him, and told him what the weather was like outside, and what there was in the papers, and at last Johnnie said: “There's a lame giant in the town. He wants you.”

“Does he?” said the dragon, showing his teeth. “If only I were out of this!”

“If we let you loose you might manage to run away before he could catch you.”

“Yes, I
might,
” answered the dragon, “but then again I mightn't.”

“Why—you'd never fight him?” said Tina.

“No,” said the dragon; “I'm all for peace, I am. You let me out, and you'll see.”

So the children loosed the dragon from the chains and the collar, and he broke down one end of the dungeon and went out—only pausing at the forge door to get the blacksmith to rivet his wing.

He met the lame giant at the gate of the town, and the giant banged on the dragon with his club as if he were banging an iron foundry, and the dragon behaved like a smelting works—all fire and smoke. It was a fearful sight, and people watched it from a distance, falling off their legs with the shock of every bang, but always getting up to look again.

At last the dragon won, and the giant sneaked away across the marshes, and the dragon, who was very tired, went home to sleep, announcing his intention of eating the town in the morning. He went back into his old dungeon because he was a stranger in the town, and he did not know of any other respectable lodging. Then Tina and Johnnie went to the mayor and corporation and said, “The giant is settled. Please give us the thousand pounds reward.”

But the mayor said, “No, no, my boy. It is not you who have settled the giant, it is the dragon. I suppose you have chained him up again? When
he
comes to claim the reward he shall have it.”

“He isn't chained up yet,” said Johnnie. “Shall I send him to claim the reward?”

But the mayor said he need not trouble; and now he offered a thousand pounds to anyone who would get the dragon chained up again.

“I don't trust you,” said Johnnie. “Look how you treated my father when he chained up the dragon.”

But the people who were listening at the door interrupted, and said that if Johnnie could fasten up the dragon again they would turn out the mayor and let Johnnie be mayor in his place. For they had been dissatisfied with the mayor for some time, and thought they would like a change.

So Johnnie said, “Done,” and off he went, hand-in-hand with Tina, and they called on all their little friends and said: “Will you help us to save the town?”

And all the children said, “Yes, of course we will. What fun!”

“Well, then,” said Tina, “you must all bring your basins of bread and milk to the forge tomorrow at breakfast-time.”

“And if ever I am mayor,” said Johnnie, “I will give a banquet, and you shall be invited. And we'll have nothing but sweet things from beginning to end.”

All the children promised, and next morning Tina and Johnnie rolled the big washing-tub down the winding stair.

“What's that noise?” asked the dragon.

“It's only a big giant breathing,” said Tina; “he's gone by, now.”

Then, when all the town children brought their bread and milk, Tina emptied it into the wash-tub, and when the tub was full Tina knocked at the iron door with the grating in it, and said: “May we come in?”

“Oh, yes,” said the dragon; “it's very dull here.”

So they went in, and with the help of nine other children they lifted the washing-tub in and set it down by the dragon. Then all the other children went away, and Tina and Johnnie sat down and cried.

“What's this?” asked the dragon, “and what's the matter?”

“This
is bread and milk,” said Johnnie; “it's our breakfast all of it.”

“Well,” said the dragon, “I don't see what you want with breakfast. I'm going to eat everyone in the town as soon as I've rested a little.”

“Dear Mr. Dragon,” said Tina, “I wish you wouldn't eat us. How would you like to be eaten yourself?”

“Not at all,” the dragon confessed, “but nobody will eat me.”

“I don't know,” said Johnnie, “there's a giant—”

“I know. I fought with him, and licked him—”

“Yes, but there's another come now—the one you fought was only this one's little boy. This one is half as big again.”

“He's seven times as big,” said Tina.

“No, nine times,” said Johnnie. “He's bigger than the steeple.”

“Oh dear,” said the dragon. “I never expected this.”

“And the mayor has told him where you are,” Tina went on, “and he is coming to eat you as soon as he has sharpened his big knife. The mayor told him you were a wild dragon—but he didn't mind. He said he only ate wild dragons—with bread sauce.”

“That's tiresome,” said the dragon, “and I suppose this sloppy stuff in the tub is the bread sauce?”

The children said it was. “Of course,” they added, “bread sauce is only served with wild dragons. Tame ones are served with apple sauce and onion stuffing. What a pity you're not a tame one: he'd never look at you then,” they said. “Good-bye, poor dragon, we shall never see you again, and now you'll know what it's like to be eaten.” And they began to cry again.

“Well, but look here,” said the dragon, “couldn't you pretend I was a tame dragon? Tell the giant that I'm just a poor little, timid tame dragon that you kept for a pet.”

“He'd never believe it,” said Johnnie. “If you were our tame dragon we should keep you tied up, you know. We shouldn't like to risk losing such a dear, pretty pet.”

Then the dragon begged them to fasten him up at once, and they did so: with the collar and chains that were made years ago—in the days when men sang over their work and made it strong enough to bear any strain.

And then they went away and told the people what they had done, and Johnnie was made mayor, and had a glorious feast exactly as he had said he would—with nothing in it but sweet things. It began with Turkish delight and halfpenny buns, and went on with oranges, toffee, cocoanut-ice, peppermints, jam-puffs, raspberry-noyeau, ice-creams, and meringues, and ended with bull's-eyes and ginger-bread and acid-drops.

This was all very well for Johnnie and Tina; but if you are kind children with feeling hearts you will perhaps feel sorry for the poor deceived, deluded dragon—chained up in the dull dungeon, with nothing to do but to think over the shocking untruths that Johnnie had told him.

When he thought how he had been tricked the poor captive dragon began to weep—and the large tears fell down over his rusty plates. And presently he began to feel faint, as people sometimes do when they have been crying, especially if they have not had anything to eat for ten years or so.

And then the poor creature dried his eyes and looked about him, and there he saw the tub of bread and milk. So he thought, “If giants like this damp, white stuff, perhaps
I
should like it too,” and he tasted a little, and liked it so much that he ate it all up.

And the next time the tourists came, and Johnnie let off the coloured fire, the dragon said, shyly: “Excuse my troubling you, but could you bring me a little more bread and milk?”

So Johnnie arranged that people should go round with cars every day to collect the children's bread and milk for the dragon. The children were fed at the town's expense—on whatever they liked; and they ate nothing but cake and buns and sweet things, and they said the poor dragon was very welcome to their bread and milk.

Now, when Johnnie had been mayor ten years or so he married Tina, and on their wedding morning they went to see the dragon. He had grown quite tame, and his rusty plates had fallen off in places, and underneath he was soft and furry to stroke. So now they stroked him.

And he said, “I don't know how I could ever have liked eating anything but bread and milk. I am a tame dragon, now, aren't I?” And when they said “Yes, he was,” the dragon said: “I
am
so tame, won't you undo me?” And some people would have been afraid to trust him, but Johnnie and Tina were so happy on their wedding-day that they could not believe any harm of anyone in the world. So they loosed the chains, and the dragon said, “Excuse me a moment, there are one or two little things I should like to fetch,” and he moved off to those mysterious steps and went down them, out of sight into the darkness. And as he moved more and more of his rusty plates fell off.

In a few minutes they heard him clanking up the steps. He brought something in his mouth—it was a bag of gold.