VII. The Fiery Dragon,
or The Heart of Stone and the Heart of Gold
The little white Princess always woke in her little white bed when thestarlings began to chatter in the pearl gray morning. As soon as thewoods were awake, she used to run up the twisting turret-stairs with herlittle bare feet, and stand on the top of the tower in her whitebed-gown, and kiss her hands to the sun and to the woods and to thesleeping town, and say: "Good morning, pretty world!"
Then she would run down the cold stone steps and dress herself in hershort skirt and her cap and apron, and begin the day's work. She sweptthe rooms and made the breakfast, she washed the dishes and she scouredthe pans, and all this she did because she was a real Princess. For ofall who should have served her, only one remained faithful--her oldnurse, who had lived with her in the tower all the Princess's life. And,now the nurse was old and feeble, the Princess would not let her workany more, but did all the housework herself, while Nurse sat still anddid the sewing, because this was a real Princess with skin like milk andhair like flax and a heart like gold.
Her name was Sabrinetta, and her grandmother was Sabra, who married St.George after he had killed the dragon, and by real rights all thecountry belonged to her: the woods that stretched away to the mountains,the downs that sloped down to the sea, the pretty fields of corn andmaize and rye, the olive orchards and the vineyards, and the little townitself--with its towers and its turrets, its steep roofs and strangewindows--that nestled in the hollow between the sea, where the whirlpoolwas, and the mountains, white with snow and rosy with sunrise.
But when her father and mother had died, leaving her cousin to take careof the kingdom till she grew up, he, being a very evil Prince, tookeverything away from her, and all the people followed him, and nownothing was left her of all her possessions except the great dragonproof tower that her grandfather, St. George, had built, and of all whoshould have been her servants only the good nurse.
This was why Sabrinetta was the first person in all the land to get aglimpse of the wonder.
Early, early, early, while all the townspeople were fast asleep, she ranup the turret-steps and looked out over the field, and at the other sideof the field there was a green, ferny ditch and a rose-thorny hedge, andthen came the wood. And as Sabrinetta stood on her tower she saw ashaking and a twisting of the rose-thorny hedge, and then something verybright and shining wriggled out through it into the ferny ditch and backagain. It only came out for a minute, but she saw it quite plainly, andshe said to herself: "Dear me, what a curious, shiny, bright-lookingcreature! If it were bigger, and if I didn't know that there have beenno fabulous monsters for quite a long time now, I should almost think itwas a dragon."
The thing, whatever it was, did look rather like a dragon--but then itwas too small; and it looked rather like a lizard--only then it was toobig. It was about as long as a hearthrug.
"I wish it had not been in such a hurry to get back into the wood," saidSabrinetta. "Of course, it's quite safe for me, in my dragonproof tower;but if it is a dragon, it's quite big enough to eat people, and today'sthe first of May, and the children go out to get flowers in the wood."
When Sabrinetta had done the housework (she did not leave so much as aspeck of dust anywhere, even in the corneriest corner of the windingstair) she put on her milk white, silky gown with the moon-daisiesworked on it, and went up to the top of her tower again.
Across the fields troops of children were going out to gather the may,and the sound of their laughter and singing came up to the top of thetower.
"I do hope it wasn't a dragon," said Sabrinetta.
The children went by twos and by threes and by tens and by twenties, andthe red and blue and yellow and white of their frocks were scattered onthe green of the field.
"It's like a green silk mantle worked with flowers," said the Princess,smiling.
Then by twos and by threes, by tens and by twenties, the childrenvanished into the wood, till the mantle of the field was left plaingreen once more.
"All the embroidery is unpicked," said the Princess, sighing.
The sun shone, and the sky was blue, and the fields were quite green,and all the flowers were very bright indeed, because it was May Day.
Then quite suddenly a cloud passed over the sun, and the silence wasbroken by shrieks from far off; and, like a many-colored torrent, allthe children burst from the wood and rushed, a red and blue and yellowand white wave, across the field, screaming as they ran. Their voicescame up to the Princess on her tower, and she heard the words threadedon their screams like beads on sharp needles: "The dragon, the dragon,the dragon! Open the gates! The dragon is coming! The fiery dragon!"
And they swept across the field and into the gate of the town, and thePrincess heard the gate bang, and the children were out of sight--but onthe other side of the field the rose-thorns crackled and smashed in thehedge, and something very large and glaring and horrible trampled theferns in the ditch for one moment before it hid itself again in thecovert of the wood.
The Princess went down and told her nurse, and the nurse at once lockedthe great door of the tower and put the key in her pocket.
"Let them take care of themselves," she said, when the Princess beggedto be allowed to go out and help to take care of the children. "Mybusiness is to take care of you, my precious, and I'm going to do it.Old as I am, I can turn a key still."
So Sabrinetta went up again to the top of her tower, and cried whenevershe thought of the children and the fiery dragon. For she knew, ofcourse, that the gates of the town were not dragonproof, and that thedragon could just walk in whenever he liked.
The children ran straight to the palace, where the Prince was crackinghis hunting whip down at the kennels, and told him what had happened.
"Good sport," said the Prince, and he ordered out his pack ofhippopotamuses at once. It was his custom to hunt big game withhippopotamuses, and people would not have minded that so much--but hewould swagger about in the streets of the town with his pack yelping andgamboling at his heels, and when he did that, the green-grocer, who hadhis stall in the marketplace, always regretted it; and the crockerymerchant, who spread his wares on the pavement, was ruined for lifeevery time the Prince chose to show off his pack.
The Prince rode out of the town with his hippopotamuses trotting andfrisking behind him, and people got inside their houses as quickly asthey could when they heard the voices of his pack and the blowing of hishorn. The pack squeezed through the town gates and off across country tohunt the dragon. Few of you who had not seen a pack of hippopotamuses infull cry will be able to imagine at all what the hunt was like. To beginwith, hippopotamuses do not bay like hounds: They grunt like pigs, andtheir grunt is very big and fierce. Then, of course, no one expectshippopotamuses to jump. They just crash through the hedges and lumberthrough the standing corn, doing serious injury to the crops, andannoying the farmers very much. All the hippopotamuses had collars withtheir name and address on, but when the farmers called at the palace tocomplain of the injury to their standing crops, the Prince always saidit served them right for leaving their crops standing about in people'sway, and he never paid anything at all.
So now, when he and his pack went out, several people in the townwhispered, "I wish the dragon would eat him"--which was very wrong ofthem, no doubt, but then he was such a very nasty Prince.
They hunted by field, and they hunted by wold; they drew the woodsblank, and the scent didn't lie on the downs at all. The dragon was shy,and would not show himself.
But just as the Prince was beginning to think there was no dragon atall, but only a cock and bull, his favourite old hippopotamus gavetongue. The Prince blew his horn and shouted: "Tally ho! Hark forward!Tantivy!" and the whole pack charged downhill toward the hollow by thewood. For there, plain to be seen, was the dragon, as big as a barge,glowing like a furnace, and spitting fire and showing his shining teeth.
"The hunt is up!" cried the Prince. And indeed it was. For thedragon--instead of behavin
g as a quarry should, and running away--ranstraight at the pack, and the Prince, on his elephant, had themortification of seeing his prize pack swallowed up one by one in thetwinkling of an eye, by the dragon they had come out to hunt. The dragonswallowed all the hippopotamuses just as a dog swallows bits of meat. Itwas a shocking sight. Of the whole of the pack that had come outsporting so merrily to the music of the horn, now not even apuppy-hippopotamus was left, and the dragon was looking anxiously aroundto see if he had forgotten anything.
The Prince slipped off his elephant on the other side and ran into thethickest part of the wood. He hoped the dragon could not break throughthe bushes there, since they were very strong and close. He wentcrawling on hands and knees in a most un-Prince-like way, and at last,finding a hollow tree, he crept into it. The wood was very still--nocrashing of branches and no smell of burning came to alarm the Prince.He drained the silver hunting bottle slung from his shoulder, andstretched his legs in the hollow tree. He never shed a single tear forhis poor tame hippopotamuses who had eaten from his hand and followedhim faithfully in all the pleasures of the chase for so many years. Forhe was a false Prince, with a skin like leather and hair like hearthbrushes and a heart like a stone. He never shed a tear, but he just wentto sleep.
When he awoke it was dark. He crept out of the tree and rubbed his eyes.The wood was black about him, but there was a red glow in a dell closeby. It was a fire of sticks, and beside it sat a ragged youth with long,yellow hair; all around lay sleeping forms which breathed heavily.
"Who are you?" said the Prince.
"I'm Elfin, the pig keeper," said the ragged youth. "And who are you?"
"I'm Tiresome, the Prince," said the other.
"And what are you doing out of your palace at this time of night?" askedthe pig keeper, severely.
"I've been hunting," said the Prince.
The pig keeper laughed. "Oh, it was you I saw, then? A good hunt, wasn'tit? My pigs and I were looking on."
All the sleeping forms grunted and snored, and the Prince saw that theywere pigs: He knew it by their manners.
"If you had known as much as I do," Elfin went on, "you might have savedyour pack."
"What do you mean?" said Tiresome.
"Why, the dragon," said Elfin. "You went out at the wrong time of day.The dragon should be hunted at night."
"No, thank you," said the Prince, with a shudder. "A daylight hunt isquite good enough for me, you silly pig keeper."
"Oh, well," said Elfin, "do as you like about it--the dragon will comeand hunt you tomorrow, as likely as not. I don't care if he does, yousilly Prince."
"You're very rude," said Tiresome.
"Oh, no, only truthful," said Elfin.
"Well, tell me the truth, then. What is it that, if I had known as muchas you do about, I shouldn't have lost my hippopotamuses?"
"You don't speak very good English," said Elfin. "But come, what willyou give me if I tell you?"
"If you tell me what?" said the tiresome Prince.
"What you want to know."
"I don't want to know anything," said Prince Tiresome.
"Then you're more of a silly even than I thought," said Elfin. "Don'tyou want to know how to settle the dragon before he settles you?"
"It might be as well," the Prince admitted.
"Well, I haven't much patience at any time," said Elfin, "and now I canassure you that there's very little left. What will you give me if Itell you?"
"Half my kingdom," said the Prince, "and my cousin's hand in marriage."
"Done," said the pig keeper. "Here goes! The dragon grows small atnight! He sleeps under the root of this tree. I use him to light my firewith."
And, sure enough, there under the tree was the dragon on a nest ofscorched moss, and he was about as long as your finger.
"How can I kill him?" asked the Prince.
"I don't know that you can kill him," said Elfin, "but you can take himaway if you've brought anything to put him in. That bottle of yourswould do."
So between them they managed, with bits of stick and by singeing theirfingers a little, to poke and shove the dragon till they made it creepinto the silver hunting bottle, and then the Prince screwed on the toptight.
"Now we've got him," said Elfin. "Let's take him home and put Solomon'sseal on the mouth of the bottle, and then he'll be safe enough. Comealong--we'll divide up the kingdom tomorrow, and then I shall have somemoney to buy fine clothes to go courting in."
But when the wicked Prince made promises he did not make them to keep.
"Go on with you! What do you mean?" he said. "I found the dragon andI've imprisoned him. I never said a word about courtings or kingdoms. Ifyou say I did, I shall cut your head off at once." And he drew hissword.
"All right," said Elfin, shrugging his shoulders. "I'm better off thanyou are, anyhow."
"What do you mean?" spluttered the Prince.
"Why, you've only got a kingdom (and a dragon), but I've got clean hands(and five and seventy fine black pigs)."
So Elfin sat down again by his fire, and the Prince went home and toldhis Parliament how clever and brave he had been, and though he woke themup on purpose to tell them, they were not angry, but said: "You areindeed brave and clever." For they knew what happened to people withwhom the Prince was not pleased.
Then the Prime Minister solemnly put Solomon's seal on the mouth of thebottle, and the bottle was put in the Treasury, which was the strongestbuilding in the town, and was made of solid copper, with walls as thickas Waterloo Bridge.
The bottle was set down among the sacks of gold, and the juniorsecretary to the junior clerk of the last Lord of the Treasury wasappointed to sit up all night with it and see if anything happened. Thejunior secretary had never seen a dragon, and, what was more, he did notbelieve the Prince had ever seen a dragon either. The Prince had neverbeen a really truthful boy, and it would have been just like him tobring home a bottle with nothing in it and then to pretend that therewas a dragon inside. So the junior secretary did not at all mind beingleft. They gave him the key, and when everyone in the town had gone backto bed he let in some of the junior secretaries from other Governmentdepartments, and they had a jolly game of hide-and-seek among the sacksof gold, and played marbles with the diamonds and rubies and pearls inthe big ivory chests.
They enjoyed themselves very much, but by-and-by the copper treasurybegan to get warmer and warmer, and suddenly the junior secretary criedout, "Look at the bottle!"
The bottle sealed with Solomon's seal had swollen to three times itsproper size and seemed to be nearly red hot, and the air got warmer andwarmer and the bottle bigger and bigger, till all the junior secretariesagreed that the place was too hot to hold them, and out they went,tumbling over each other in their haste, and just as the last got outand locked the door the bottle burst, and out came the dragon, veryfiery, and swelling more and more every minute, and he began to eat thesacks of gold and crunch up the pearls and diamonds and rubies as ifthey were sugar.
By breakfasttime he had devoured the whole of the Prince's treasures,and when the Prince came along the street at about eleven, he met thedragon coming out of the broken door of the Treasury, with molten goldstill dripping from his jaws. Then the Prince turned and ran for hislife, and as he ran toward the dragonproof tower the little whitePrincess saw him coming, and she ran down and unlocked the door and lethim in, and slammed the dragonproof door in the fiery face of thedragon, who sat down and whined outside, because he wanted the Princevery much indeed.
The Princess took Prince Tiresome into the best room, and laid thecloth, and gave him cream and eggs and white grapes and honey and bread,with many other things, yellow and white and good to eat, and she servedhim just as kindly as she would have done if he had been anyone elseinstead of the bad Prince who had taken away her kingdom and kept it forhimself--because she was a true Princess and had a heart of gold.
When he had eaten and drunk, he begged the Princess to show him how tolock and unlock the door. T
he nurse was asleep, so there was no one totell the Princess not to, and she did.
"The junior secretary cried out, 'Look at the bottle!'"_See page 129._]
"You turn the key like this," she said, "and the door keeps shut. Butturn it nine times around the wrong way, and the door flies open."
And so it did. And the moment it opened, the Prince pushed the whitePrincess out of her tower, just as he had pushed her out of her kingdom,and shut the door. For he wanted to have the tower all for himself. Andthere she was, in the street, and on the other side of the way thedragon was sitting whining, but he did not try to eat her,because--though the old nurse did not know it--dragons cannot eat whitePrincesses with hearts of gold.
The Princess could not walk through the streets of the town in hermilky-silky gown with the daisies on it, and with no hat and no gloves,so she turned the other way, and ran out across the meadows, toward thewood. She had never been out of her tower before, and the soft grassunder her feet felt like grass of Paradise.
She ran right into the thickest part of the wood, because she did notknow what her heart was made of, and she was afraid of the dragon, andthere in a dell she came on Elfin and his five and seventy fine pigs. Hewas playing his flute, and around him the pigs were dancing cheerfullyon their hind legs.
"Oh, dear," said the Princess, "do take care of me. I am so frightened."
"I will," said Elfin, putting his arms around her. "Now you are quitesafe. What were you frightened of?"
"The dragon," she said.
"So it's gotten out of the silver bottle," said Elfin. "I hope it'seaten the Prince."
"No," said Sabrinetta. "But why?"
He told her of the mean trick that the Prince had played on him.
"And he promised me half his kingdom and the hand of his cousin thePrincess," said Elfin.
"Oh, dear, what a shame!" said Sabrinetta, trying to get out of hisarms. "How dare he?"
"What's the matter?" he asked, holding her tighter. "It _was_ a shame,or at least _I_ thought so. But now he may keep his kingdom, half andwhole, if I may keep what I have."
"What's that?" asked the Princess.
"Why, you--my pretty, my dear," said Elfin, "and as for the Princess,his cousin--forgive me, dearest heart, but when I asked for her I hadn'tseen the real Princess, the _only_ Princess, _my_ Princess."
"Do you mean me?" said Sabrinetta.
"Who else?" he asked.
"Yes, but five minutes ago you hadn't seen me!"
"Five minutes ago I was a pig keeper--now I've held you in my arms I'm aPrince, though I should have to keep pigs to the end of my days."
"But you haven't asked _me_," said the Princess.
"You asked me to take care of you," said Elfin, "and I will--all my lifelong."
So that was settled, and they began to talk of really important things,such as the dragon and the Prince, and all the time Elfin did not knowthat this was the Princess, but he knew that she had a heart of gold,and he told her so, many times.
"The mistake," said Elfin, "was in not having a dragonproof bottle. Isee that now."
"Oh, is that all?" said the Princess. "I can easily get you one ofthose--because everything in my tower is dragonproof. We ought to dosomething to settle the dragon and save the little children."
So she started off to get the bottle, but she would not let Elfin comewith her.
"If what you say is true," she said, "if you are sure that I have aheart of gold, the dragon won't hurt me, and somebody must stay with thepigs."
Elfin was quite sure, so he let her go.
She found the door of her tower open. The dragon had waited patientlyfor the Prince, and the moment he opened the door and came out--thoughhe was only out for an instant to post a letter to his Prime Ministersaying where he was and asking them to send the fire brigade to dealwith the fiery dragon--the dragon ate him. Then the dragon went back tothe wood, because it was getting near his time to grow small for thenight.
So Sabrinetta went in and kissed her nurse and made her a cup of tea andexplained what was going to happen, and that she had a heart of gold, sothe dragon couldn't eat her; and the nurse saw that of course thePrincess was quite safe, and kissed her and let her go.
She took the dragonproof bottle, made of burnished brass, and ran backto the wood, and to the dell, where Elfin was sitting among his sleekblack pigs, waiting for her.
"I thought you were never coming back," he said. "You have been away ayear, at least."
The Princess sat down beside him among the pigs, and they held eachother's hands till it was dark, and then the dragon came crawling overthe moss, scorching it as he came, and getting smaller as he crawled,and curled up under the root of the tree.
"Now then," said Elfin, "you hold the bottle." Then he poked and proddedthe dragon with bits of stick till it crawled into the dragonproofbottle. But there was no stopper.
"Never mind," said Elfin. "I'll put my finger in for a stopper."
"No, let me," said the Princess. But of course Elfin would not let her.He stuffed his finger into the top of the bottle, and the Princess criedout: "The sea--the sea--run for the cliffs!" And off they went, with thefive and seventy pigs trotting steadily after them in a long blackprocession.
The bottle got hotter and hotter in Elfin's hands, because the dragoninside was puffing fire and smoke with all his might--hotter and hotterand hotter--but Elfin held on till they came to the cliff edge, andthere was the dark blue sea, and the whirlpool going around and around.
Elfin lifted the bottle high above his head and hurled it out betweenthe stars and the sea, and it fell in the middle of the whirlpool.
"We've saved the country," said the Princess. "You've saved the littlechildren. Give me your hands."
"I can't," said Elfin. "I shall never be able to take your dear handsagain. My hands are burnt off."
And so they were: There were only black cinders where his hands ought tohave been. The Princess kissed them, and cried over them, and torepieces of her silky-milky gown to tie them up with, and the two wentback to the tower and told the nurse all about everything. And the pigssat outside and waited.
"He is the bravest man in the world," said Sabrinetta. "He has saved thecountry and the little children; but, oh, his hands--his poor, dear,darling hands!"
Here the door of the room opened, and the oldest of the five and seventypigs came in. It went up to Elfin and rubbed itself against him withlittle loving grunts.
"See the dear creature," said the nurse, wiping away a tear. "It knows,it knows!"
Sabrinetta stroked the pig, because Elfin had no hands for stroking orfor anything else.
"The only cure for a dragon burn," said the old nurse, "is pig's fat,and well that faithful creature knows it----"
"I wouldn't for a kingdom," cried Elfin, stroking the pig as best hecould with his elbow.
"Is there no other cure?" asked the Princess.
Here another pig put its black nose in at the door, and then another andanother, till the room was full of pigs, a surging mass of roundedblackness, pushing and struggling to get at Elfin, and grunting softlyin the language of true affection.
"There is one other," said the nurse. "The dear, affectionatebeasts--they all want to die for you."
"What is the other cure?" said Sabrinetta anxiously.
"If a man is burnt by a dragon," said the nurse, "and a certain numberof people are willing to die for him, it is enough if each should kissthe burn and wish it well in the depths of his loving heart."
"The number! The number!" cried Sabrinetta.
"Seventy-seven," said the nurse.
"We have only seventy-five pigs," said the Princess, "and with me that'sseventy-six!"
"It must be seventy-seven--and I really can't die for him, so nothingcan be done," said the nurse, sadly. "He must have cork hands."
"I knew about the seventy-seven loving people," said Elfin. "But I neverthought my dear pigs loved me so much as all this, and my dear too--and,of course, that
only makes it more impossible. There's one other charmthat cures dragon burns, though; but I'd rather be burnt black all overthan marry anyone but you, my dear, my pretty."
"Why, who must you marry to cure your dragon burns?" asked Sabrinetta.
"A Princess. That's how St. George cured his burns."
"There now! Think of that!" said the nurse. "And I never heard tell ofthat cure, old as I am."
But Sabrinetta threw her arms round Elfin's neck, and held him as thoughshe would never let him go.
"Then it's all right, my dear, brave, precious Elfin," she cried, "for Iam a Princess, and you shall be my Prince. Come along, Nurse--don't waitto put on your bonnet. We'll go and be married this very moment."
So they went, and the pigs came after, moving in stately blackness, twoby two. And, the minute he was married to the Princess, Elfin's handsgot quite well. And the people, who were weary of Prince Tiresome andhis hippopotamuses, hailed Sabrinetta and her husband as rightfulSovereigns of the land.
"They saw a cloud of steam." _See page 135._]
Next morning the Prince and Princess went out to see if the dragon hadbeen washed ashore. They could see nothing of him; but when they lookedout toward the whirlpool they saw a cloud of steam; and the fishermenreported 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 surethat the fierceness of that dragon was such that all the waters of allthe sea were not enough to cool him. The whirlpool is too strong for himto be able to get out of it, so there he spins around and around foreverand ever, doing some useful work at last, and warming the water for poorfisher-folk to shave with.
* * * * *
The Prince and Princess rule the land well and wisely. The nurse liveswith them, and does nothing but fine sewing, and only that when shewants to very much. The Prince keeps no hippopotamuses, and isconsequently very popular. The five and seventy devoted pigs live inwhite marble sties with brass knockers and Pig on the doorplate, and arewashed 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 obeythe notices about not walking on the grass. The Princess feeds themevery day with her own hands, and her first edict on coming to thethrone was that the word _pork_ should never be uttered on pain ofdeath, and should, besides, be scratched out of all the dictionaries.
VIII
KIND LITTLE EDMUND]