LITMIR.BIZ

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“I knew I should have to tell a story. Oh, why did I leave my pleasant fireside? Well, I will tell you a story. Only let me think a minute.”

      So he thought a minute, and then he told us this story.

      Long ago — might have been hundreds of years ago — in a cottage half-way between this village and yonder shoulder with his wife and their little son. Now the shepherd spent his days — and at certain times of the year his nights too — up on the wide ocean-bosom of the Downs, with only the sun and the stars and the sheep for company, and the friendly chattering world of men and women far out of sight and hearing. But his little son, when he wasn’t helping his father, and often when he was as well, spent much of his time buried in big volumes that he borrowed from the affable gentry and interested parsons of the country round about. And his parents were very fond of him, and rather proud of him too, though they didn’t let on in his hearing, so he was left to go his own way and read as much as he liked; and instead of frequently getting a cuff on the side of the head, as might very well have happened to him, he was treated more or less as an equal by his parents, who sensibly thought it a very fair division of labour that they should supply the practical knowledge, and he the book-learning. They knew that book-learning often came in useful at a pinch, in spite of what their neighbours said. What the Boy chiefly dabbled in was natural history and fairy-tales, and he just took them as they came, in a sandwichy sort of way, without making any distinctions; and really his course of reading strikes one as rather sensible.

      One evening the shepherd, who for some nights past had been disturbed and preoccupied, and off his usual mental balance, came home all of a tremble, and, sitting down at the table where his wife and son were peacefully employed, she with her seam, he in following out the adventures of the Giant with no Heart in his Body, exclaimed with much agitation:

      “It’s all up with me, Maria! Never no more can I go up on them there Downs, was it ever so!”

      “Now don’t you take on like that,” said his wife, who was a very sensible woman: “but tell us all about it first, whatever it is as has given you this shake-up, and then me and you and the son here, between us, we ought to be able to get to the bottom of it!”

      “It began some nights ago,” said the shepherd. “You know that cave up there — I never liked it, somehow, and the sheep never liked it neither, and when sheep don’t like a thing there’s generally some reason for it. Well, for some time past there’s been faint noises coming from that cave — noises like heavy sighings, with grunts mixed up in them; and sometimes a snoring, far away down — real snoring, yet somehow not honest snoring, like you and me o’nights, you know!”

      “I know,” remarked the Boy, quietly.

      “Of course I was terrible frightened,” the shepherd went on; “yet somehow I couldn’t keep away. So this very evening, before I come down, I took a cast round by the cave, quietly. And there — O Lord! there I saw him at last, as plain as I see you!”

      “Saw who?” said his wife, beginning to share in her husband’s nervous terror.

      “Why him, I ‘m a telling you!” said the shepherd. “He was sticking half-way out of the cave, and seemed to be enjoying of the cool of the evening in a poetical sort of way. He was as big as four cart-horses, and all covered with shiny scales — deep-blue scales at the top of him, shading off to a tender sort o’ green below. As he breathed, there was that sort of flicker over his nostrils that you see over our chalk roads on a baking windless day in summer. He had his chin on his paws, and I should say he was meditating about things. Oh, yes, a peaceable sort o beast enough, and not ramping or carrying on or doing anything but what was quite right and proper. I admit all that. And yet, what am I to do? Scales, you know, and claws, and a tail for certain, though I didn’t see that end of him — I ain’t used to ’em, and I don’t hold with ’em, and that ‘s a fact!”

      The Boy, who had apparently been absorbed in his book during his father s recital, now closed the volume, yawned, clasped his hands behind his head, and said sleepily:

      “It’s all right, father. Don’t you worry. It’s only a dragon.”

      “Only a dragon?” cried his father. “What do you mean, sitting there, you and your dragons? Only a dragon indeed! And what do you know about it?”

      “‘Cos it is, and ‘cos I do know,” replied the Boy, quietly. “Look here, father, you know we’ve each of us got our line. You know about sheep, and weather, and things; I know about dragons. I always said, you know, that that cave up there was a dragon-cave. I always said it must have belonged to a dragon some time, and ought to belong to a dragon now, if rules count for anything. Well, now you tell me it has got a dragon, and so that’s all right. I’m not half as much surprised as when you told me it hadn’t got a dragon. Rules always come right if you wait quietly. Now, please, just leave this all to me. And I’ll stroll up to-morrow morning — no, in the morning I can’t, I’ve got a whole heap of things to do — well, perhaps in the evening, if I’m quite free, I’ll go up and have a talk to him, and you’ll find it’ll be all right. Only, please, don’t you go worrying round there without me. You don’t understand ’em a bit, and they’re very sensitive, you know!”

      “He’s quite right, father,” said the sensible mother. “As he says, dragons is his line and not ours. He’s wonderful knowing about book-beasts, as every one allows. And to tell the truth, I’m not half happy in my own mind, thinking of that poor animal lying alone up there, without a bit o’ hot supper or anyone to change the news with; and maybe we’ll be able to do something for him; and if he ain’t quite respectable our Boy’ll find it out quick enough. He’s got a pleasant sort o’ way with him that makes everybody tell him everything.”

      Next day, after he’d had his tea, the Boy strolled up the chalky track that led to the summit of the Downs; and there, sure enough, he found the dragon, stretched lazily on the sward in front of his cave. The view from that point was a magnificent one. To the right and left, the bare and billowy leagues of Downs; in front, the vale, with its clustered homesteads, its threads of white roads running through orchards and well-tilled acreage, and, far away, a hint of grey old cities on the horizon. A cool breeze played over the surface of the grass and the silver shoulder of a large moon was showing above distant junipers. No wonder the dragon seemed in a peaceful and contented mood; indeed, as the Boy approached he could hear the beast purring with a happy regularity. “Well, we live and learn!” he said to himself. “None of my books ever told me that dragons purred!

      “Hullo, dragon!” said the Boy, quietly, when he had got up to him.

      The dragon, on hearing the approaching footsteps, made the beginning of a courteous effort to rise. But when he saw it was a Boy, he set his eyebrows severely.

      “Now don’t you hit me,” he said; “or bung stones, or squirt water, or anything. I won’t have it, I tell you!”

      “Not goin’ to hit you,” said the Boy wearily, dropping on the grass beside the beast: “and don’t, for goodness’ sake, keep on saying ‘Don’t;’ I hear so much of it, and it’s monotonous, and makes me tired. I’ve simply looked in to ask you how you were and all that sort of thing; but if I’m in the way I can easily clear out. I’ve lots of friends, and no one can say I’m in the habit of shoving myself in where I’m not wanted!”

      “No, no, don’t go off in a huff,” said the dragon, hastily; “fact is, — I ‘m as happy up here as the day’s long; never without an occupation, dear fellow, never without an occupation! And yet, between ourselves, it is a trifle dull at times.”

      The Boy bit off a stalk of grass and chewed it. “Going to make a long stay here?” he asked, politely.

      “Can’t hardly say at present,” replied the dragon. “It seems a nice place enough — but I’ve only been here a short time, and one must look about and reflect and consider before settling down. It’s rather a serious thing, settling down. Besides — now I ‘m going to tell you something! You’d never guess it if you tried ever so! — fact is, I’m such a confoundedly lazy beggar!”

      “You

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