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 themost tiresome boy that ever lived, but his grandmother and his otherfriends said that he had an inquiring mind. And his granny often addedthat 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 inthat case he was constant in his attendance at school, since there, ifanywhere, we may learn whatever there is to be learned. But Edmund didnot want to learn things: He wanted to find things out, which is quitedifferent. His inquiring mind led him to take clocks to pieces to seewhat 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 itbounce, and he never did see, any more than you did when you tried thesame experiment.
Edmund lived with his grandmother. She loved him very much, in spite ofhis inquiring mind, and hardly scolded him at all when he frizzled upher tortoiseshell comb in his anxiety to find out whether it was made ofreal tortoiseshell or of something that would burn. Edmund went toschool, of course, now and then, and sometimes he could not preventhimself from learning something, but he never did it on purpose.
"It is such waste of time," said he. "They only know what everybodyknows. 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 wisemen 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'stime and labor being thrown away on a boy like himself--who did not wishto learn, only to find out--when there were so many worthy ladsthirsting for instruction in geography and history and reading andciphering, and Mr. Smiles's "Self-Help."
Other boys played truant too, of course--and these went nutting orblackberrying or wild plum gathering, but Edmund never went on the sideof the town where the green woods and hedges grew. He always went up themountain where the great rocks were, and the tall, dark pine trees, andwhere other people were afraid to go because of the strange noises thatcame out of the caves.
Edmund was not afraid of these noises--though they were very strange andterrible. He wanted to find out what made them.
One day he did. He had invented, all by himself, a very ingenious andnew kind of lantern, made with a turnip and a tumbler, and when he tookthe candle out of Granny's bedroom candlestick to put in it, it gavequite a splendid light.
He had to go to school next day, and he was caned for being absentwithout leave--although he very straightforwardly explained that he hadbeen 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 hadready for him to take to school--two boiled eggs and an appleturnover--and he took his lantern and went off as straight as a dart tothe 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 stalagmitesand fossils, and all the things you read about in the instructive booksfor the young. But Edmund did not care for any of these things justthen. He wanted to find out what made the noises that people were afraidof, 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 ofnoises. There was a heavy rumbling sound, like a very large oldgentleman asleep after dinner; and there was a smaller sort of rumblegoing on at the same time; and there was a sort of crowing, cluckingsound, such as a chicken might make if it happened to be as big as ahaystack.
"It seems to me," said Edmund to himself, "that the clucking is nearerthan the others." So he started up again and explored the caves oncemore. 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; andit was the entrance to a rocky passage. And now the clucking soundedmore 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 hewent. The passage wound and twisted, and twisted and turned, and turnedand wound, but Edmund kept on.
"My lantern's burning better and better," said he presently, but thenext minute he saw that all the light did not come from his lantern. Itwas a pale yellow light, and it shone down the passage far ahead of himthrough what looked like the chink of a door.
"I expect it's the fire in the middle of the earth," said Edmund, whohad not been able to help learning about that at school.
But quite suddenly the fire ahead gave a pale flicker and went down; andthe clucking ceased.
The next moment Edmund turned a corner and found himself in front of arocky 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 avery big hand-washing basin, and in the middle of the basin Edmund sawa large pale person sitting.
This person had a man's face and a griffin's body, and big featherywings, 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 veryfaint voice, "and I shall die--oh, I know I shall! My fire's gone out! Ican't think how it happened; I must have been asleep. I have to stir itseven times round with my tail once in a hundred years to keep italight, 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 thepine trees outside, and with these and a lesson book or two that he hadforgotten to lose before, and which, quite by an oversight, were safe inhis 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 itwas a sort of liquid that burned like the brandy in a snapdragon. Andnow the cockatrice stirred it with his tail and flapped his wings in itso that some of it splashed out on Edmund's hand and burnt it ratherbadly. But the cockatrice grew red and strong and happy, and its combgrew scarlet, and its feathers glossy, and it lifted itself up andcrowed "Cock-a-trice-a-doodle-doo!" very loudly and clearly.
Edmund's kindly nature was charmed to see the cockatrice so muchimproved in health, and he said: "Don't mention it; delighted, I'msure," 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 andgeological formations, and about gnomes and fairies and dragons, andabout glaciers and the Stone Age and the beginning of the world, andabout the unicorn and the phoenix, and about Magic, black and white.
And Edmund ate his eggs and his turnover, and listened. And when he gothungry again he said good-bye and went home. But he came again the nextday 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 truetales, and the boys liked the stories; but when he told the master hewas caned for untruthfulness.
"But it's true," said Edmund. "Just you look where the fire burnt myhand."
"I see you've been playing with fire--into mischief as usual," said themaster, and he caned Edmund harder than ever. The master was ignorantand unbelieving: but I am told that some schoolmasters are not likethat.
Now, one day Edmund made a new lantern out of something chemical that hesneaked from the school laboratory. And with it he went exploring againto see if he could find the things that made the other sorts of noises.And in quite another part of the mountain he foun
d a dark passage, alllined 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 abrass plate on the door that said MRS. D. KNOCK AND RING, and a whitelabel that said CALL ME AT THREE. Edmund had a watch: It had been givento him on his birthday two days before, and he had not yet had time totake it to pieces and see what made it go, so it was still going. Helooked at it now. It said a quarter to three.
Did I tell you before what a kindhearted boy Edmund was? He sat down onthe brass doorstep and waited till three o'clock. Then he knocked andrang, and there was a rattling and puffing inside. The great door flewopen, and Edmund had only just time to hide behind it when out came animmense 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 therocks in the sun, and he crept past the great creature and tore down thehill into the town and burst into school, crying out: "There's a greatdragon coming! Somebody ought to do something, or we shall all bedestroyed."
He was caned for untruthfulness without any delay. His master was neverone for postponing a duty.
"But it's true," said Edmund. "You just see if it isn't."
He pointed out of the window, and everyone could see a vast yellow cloudrising up into the air above the mountain.
"It's only a thunder shower," said the master, and caned Edmund morethan ever. This master was not like some masters I know: He was veryobstinate, and would not believe his own eyes if they told him anythingdifferent from what he had been saying before his eyes spoke.
So while the master was writing _Lying is very wrong, and liars must becaned. It is all for their own good_ on the black-board for Edmund tocopy out seven hundred times, Edmund sneaked out of school and ran forhis life across the town to warn his granny, but she was not at home. Sothen he made off through the back door of the town, and raced up thehill to tell the cockatrice and ask for his help. It never occurred tohim that the cockatrice might not believe him. You see, he had heard somany wonderful tales from him and had believed them all--and when youbelieve all a person's stories they ought to believe yours. This is onlyfair.
At the mouth of the cockatrice's cave Edmund stopped, very much out ofbreath, to look back at the town. As he ran he had felt his little legstremble and shake, while the shadows of the great yellow cloud fell uponhim. Now he stood once more between warm earth and blue sky, and lookeddown on the green plain dotted with fruit trees and red-roofed farmsand plots of gold corn. In the middle of that plain the gray town lay,with its strong walls with the holes pierced for the archers, and itssquare towers with holes for dropping melted lead on the heads ofstrangers; its bridges and its steeples; the quiet river edged withwillow and alder; and the pleasant green garden place in the middle ofthe town, where people sat on holidays to smoke their pipes and listento the band.
Edmund saw it all; and he saw, too, creeping across the plain, markingher way by a black line as everything withered at her touch, the greatyellow dragon--and he saw that she was many times bigger than the wholetown.
"Oh, my poor, dear granny," said Edmund, for he had a feeling heart, asI ought to have told you before.
The yellow dragon crept nearer and nearer, licking her greedy lips withher long red tongue, and Edmund knew that in the school his master wasstill teaching earnestly and still not believing Edmund's tale the leastlittle bit.
"He'll jolly well have to believe it soon, anyhow," said Edmund tohimself, and though he was a very tender-hearted boy--I think it onlyfair to tell you that he was this--I am afraid he was not as sorry as heought to have been to think of the way in which his master was going tolearn how to believe what Edmund said. Then the dragon opened her jawswider and wider and wider. Edmund shut his eyes, for though his masterwas in the town, the amiable Edmund shrank from beholding the awfulsight.
When he opened his eyes again there was no town--only a bare place whereit had stood, and the dragon licking her lips and curling herself up togo to sleep, just as Kitty does when she has quite finished with amouse. Edmund gasped once or twice, and then ran into the cave to tellthe cockatrice.
"Well," said the cockatrice thoughtfully, when the tale had been told."What then?"
"I don't think you quite understand," said Edmund gently. "The dragonhas swallowed up the town."
"Does it matter?" said the cockatrice.
"Creeping across the plain." _See page 147._]
"But I live there," said Edmund blankly.
"Never mind," said the cockatrice, turning over in the pool of fire towarm its other side, which was chilly, because Edmund had, as usual,forgotten to close the cave door. "You can live here with me."
"I'm afraid I haven't made my meaning clear," said Edmund patiently."You see, my granny is in the town, and I can't bear to lose my grannylike this."
"I don't know what a granny may be," said the cockatrice, who seemed tobe growing weary of the subject, "but if it's a possession to which youattach any importance----"
"Of course it is," said Edmund, losing patience at last. "Oh--do helpme. What can I do?"
"If I were you," said his friend, stretching itself out in the pool offlame so that the waves covered him up to his chin, "I should find thedrakling and bring it here."
"But why?" said Edmund. He had gotten into the habit of asking why atschool, and the master had always found it trying. As for thecockatrice, he was not going to stand that sort of thing for a moment.
"Oh, don't talk to me!" he said, splashing angrily in the flames. "Igive you advice; take it or leave it--I shan't bother about you anymore.If you bring the drakling here to me, I'll tell you what to do next. Ifnot, not."
And the cockatrice drew the fire up close around his shoulders, tuckedhimself up in it, and went to sleep.
Now this was exactly the right way to manage Edmund, only no one hadever thought of trying to do it before.
He stood for a moment looking at the cockatrice; the cockatrice lookedat Edmund out of the corner of his eye and began to snore very loudly,and Edmund understood, once and for all, that the cockatrice wasn'tgoing to put up with any nonsense. He respected the cockatrice very muchfrom that moment, and set off at once to do exactly as he was told--forperhaps the first time in his life.
Though he had played truant so often, he knew one or two things thatperhaps you don't know, though you have always been so good and gone toschool regularly. For instance, he knew that a drakling is a dragon'sbaby, and he felt sure that what he had to do was to find the third ofthe three noises that people used to hear coming from the mountains. Ofcourse, the clucking had been the cockatrice, and the big noise like alarge gentleman asleep after dinner had been the big dragon. So thesmaller rumbling must have been the drakling.
He plunged boldly into the caves and searched and wandered and wanderedand searched, and at last he came to a third door in the mountain, andon it was written THE BABY IS ASLEEP. Just before the door stood fiftypairs of copper shoes, and no one could have looked at them for a momentwithout seeing what sort of feet they were made for, for each shoe hadfive holes in it for the drakling's five claws. And there were fiftypairs because the drakling took after his mother, and had a hundredfeet--no more and no less. He was the kind called _Draco centipedis_ inthe learned books.
Edmund was a good deal frightened, but he remembered the grim expressionof the cockatrice's eye, and the fixed determination of his snore stillrang in his ears, in spite of the snoring of the drakling, which was, initself, considerable. He screwed up his courage, flung the door open,and called out: "Hello, you drakling. Get out of bed this minute."
The drakling stopped snoring and said sleepily: "It ain't time yet."
"Your mother says you are to, anyhow; and look sharp about it, what'smore," said Edmund, gaining courage from the fact that the drakling hadnot yet eaten him.
The drakling sighed, and Edmund could hear it getting out of bed. Thenext moment it began
to come out of its room and to put on its shoes. Itwas not nearly so big as its mother; only about the size of a Baptistchapel.
"Hurry up," said Edmund, as it fumbled clumsily with the seventeenthshoe.
"Mother said I was never to go out without my shoes," said thedrakling; so Edmund had to help it to put them on. It took some time,and was not a comfortable occupation.
At last the drakling said it was ready, and Edmund, who had forgotten tobe frightened, said, "Come on then," and they went back to thecockatrice.
The cave was rather narrow for the drakling, but it made itself thin, asyou may see a fat worm do when it wants to get through a narrow crack ina piece of hard earth.
"Here it is," said Edmund, and the cockatrice woke up at once and askedthe drakling very politely to sit down and wait. "Your mother will behere presently," said the cockatrice, stirring up its fire.
The drakling sat down and waited, but it watched the fire with hungryeyes.
"I beg your pardon," it said at last, "but I am always accustomed tohaving a little basin of fire as soon as I get up, and I feel ratherfaint. Might I?"
It reached out a claw toward the cockatrice's basin.
"Certainly not," said the cockatrice sharply. "Where were you broughtup? Did they never teach you that 'we must not ask for all we see'? Eh?"
"I beg your pardon," said the drakling humbly, "but I am really _very_hungry."
The cockatrice beckoned Edmund to the side of the basin and whispered inhis ear so long and so earnestly that one side of the dear boy's hairwas quite burnt off. And he never once interrupted the cockatrice to askwhy. But when the whispering was over, Edmund--whose heart, as I mayhave mentioned, was very tender--said to the drakling: "If you arereally hungry, poor thing, I can show you where there is plenty offire." And off he went through the caves, and the drakling followed.
When Edmund came to the proper place he stopped.
There was a round iron thing in the floor, like the ones the men shootthe coals down into your cellar, only much larger. Edmund heaved it upby a hook that stuck out at one side, and a rush of hot air came upthat nearly choked him. But the drakling came close and looked down withone eye and sniffed, and said: "That smells good, eh?"
"Yes," said Edmund, "well, that's the fire in the middle of the earth.There's plenty of it, all done to a turn. You'd better go down and beginyour breakfast, hadn't you?"
So the drakling wriggled through the hole, and began to crawl faster andfaster down the slanting shaft that leads to the fire in the middle ofthe earth. And Edmund, doing exactly as he had been told, for a wonder,caught the end of the drakling's tail and ran the iron hook through itso that the drakling was held fast. And it could not turn around andwriggle up again to look after its poor tail, because, as everyoneknows, the way to the fires below is very easy to go down, but quiteimpossible to come back on. There is something about it in Latin,beginning: "_Facilis descensus_."
So there was the drakling, fast by the silly tail of it, and there wasEdmund very busy and important and very pleased with himself, hurryingback to the cockatrice.
"Now," said he.
"Well, now," said the cockatrice. "Go to the mouth of the cave and laughat the dragon so that she hears you."
Edmund very nearly said "Why?" but he stopped in time, and instead,said: "She won't hear me--"
"Oh, very well," said the cockatrice. "No doubt you know best," and hebegan to tuck himself up again in the fire, so Edmund did as he was bid.
And when he began to laugh his laughter echoed in the mouth of the cavetill it sounded like the laughter of a whole castleful of giants.
And the dragon, lying asleep in the sun, woke up and said very crossly:"What are you laughing at?"
"That smells good, eh?" _See page 152._]
"At you," said Edmund, and went on laughing. The dragon bore it as longas she could, but, like everyone else, she couldn't stand being made funof, so presently she dragged herself up the mountain very slowly,because she had just had a rather heavy meal, and stood outside andsaid, "What are you laughing at?" in a voice that made Edmund feel as ifhe should never laugh again.
Then the good cockatrice called out: "At you! You've eaten your owndrakling--swallowed it with the town. Your own little drakling! He, he,he! Ha, ha, ha!"
And Edmund found the courage to cry "Ha, ha!" which sounded liketremendous laughter in the echo of the cave.
"Dear me," said the dragon. "I _thought_ the town stuck in my throatrather. I must take it out, and look through it more carefully." Andwith that she coughed--and choked--and there was the town, on thehillside.
Edmund had run back to the cockatrice, and it had told him what to do.So before the dragon had time to look through the town again for herdrakling, the voice of the drakling itself was heard howling miserablyfrom inside the mountain, because Edmund was pinching its tail as hardas he could in the round iron door, like the one where the men pour thecoals out of the sacks into the cellar. And the dragon heard the voiceand said: "Why, whatever's the matter with Baby? He's not here!" andmade herself thin, and crept into the mountain to find her drakling. Thecockatrice kept on laughing as loud as it could, and Edmund kept onpinching, and presently the great dragon--very long and narrow she hadmade herself--found her head where the round hole was with the iron lid.Her tail was a mile or two off--outside the mountain. When Edmund heardher coming he gave one last nip to the drakling's tail, and then heavedup the lid and stood behind it, so that the dragon could not see him.Then he loosed the drakling's tail from the hook, and the dragon peepeddown the hole just in time to see her drakling's tail disappear down thesmooth, slanting shaft with one last squeak of pain. Whatever may havebeen the poor dragon's other faults, she was an excellent mother. Sheplunged headfirst into the hole, and slid down the shaft after her baby.Edmund watched her head go--and then the rest of her. She was so long,now she had stretched herself thin, that it took all night. It was likewatching a goods train go by in Germany. When the last joint of her tailhad gone Edmund slammed down the iron door. He was a kindhearted boy, asyou have guessed, and he was glad to think that dragon and draklingwould now have plenty to eat of their favorite food, forever and ever.He thanked the cockatrice for his kindness, and got home just in time tohave breakfast and get to school by nine. Of course, he could not havedone this if the town had been in its old place by the river in themiddle of the plain, but it had taken root on the hillside just wherethe dragon left it.
"Well," said the master, "where were you yesterday?"
Edmund explained, and the master at once caned him for not speaking thetruth.
"But it _is_ true," said Edmund. "Why, the whole town was swallowed bythe dragon. You know it was--"
"Nonsense," said the master. "There was a thunderstorm and anearthquake, that's all." And he caned Edmund more than ever.
"But," said Edmund, who always would argue, even in the least favorablecircumstances, "how do you account for the town being on the hillsidenow, instead of by the river as it used to be?"
"It was _always_ on the hillside," said the master. And all the classsaid the same, for they had more sense than to argue with a person whocarried a cane.
"But look at the maps," said Edmund, who wasn't going to be beaten inargument, whatever he might be in the flesh. The master pointed to themap on the wall.
There was the town, on the hillside! And nobody but Edmund could seethat of course the shock of being swallowed by the dragon had upset allthe maps and put them wrong.
And then the master caned Edmund again, explaining that this time it wasnot for untruthfulness, but for his vexatious argumentative habits. Thiswill show you what a prejudiced and ignorant man Edmund's masterwas--how different from the revered Head of the nice school where yourgood parents are kind enough to send you.
The next day Edmund thought he would prove his tale by showing peoplethe cockatrice, and he actually persuaded some people to go into thecave with him; but the cockatrice had bolted himself in and would notopen the door--
so Edmund got nothing by that except a scolding fortaking people on a wild-goose chase.
"A wild goose," said they, "is nothing like a cockatrice."
And poor Edmund could not say a word, though he knew how wrong theywere. The only person who believed him was his granny. But then she wasvery old and very kind, and had always said he was the best of boys.
Only one good thing came of all this long story. Edmund has never beenquite the same boy since. He does not argue quite so much, and he agreedto be apprenticed to a locksmith, so that he might one day be able topick the lock of the cockatrice's front door--and learn some more of thethings that other people don't know.
But he is quite an old man now, and he hasn't gotten that door openyet!
* * * * *
Transcriber's Notes:
Obvious punctuation errors repaired.
Page 23, "around" changed to "round" (round piece of land)
Page 152, "chocked" changed to "choked" (nearly choked him)
Page 154, "he" changed to "she" (that she coughed)
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