The dreadful dragon of Hay Hill

by Sir Max Beerbohm

In so far as they deigned to remember him at all, the homelanders supposed he had gone away, that first morning, across the waters or through the forests, to some land where he could look men in the face.

Here he was, however, in their midst, a strenuous and faithful servant.

He had a stern grim joy in the hardness of his life—save that he could never ask Thia to share it with him. He had not foreseen—it was the one thing he had not thought out well—how hard the life would be. The great deed by which he had thought to bring Thia back to him must forever keep them asunder. Thus he had done an even greater deed than he intended. And his stern grim joy in it was thereby the greater.

Had she so wished, Thia might have become very popular and have regained something of her past glory. After Thol’s confession of cowardice she had instantly risen in the homelanders’ esteem. How very right she had been to leave him! Friendly eyes and friendly words greeted her. But when they all knelt praying the sun to call the dragon away, she remained upright and mute. And afterwards, when she was asked why, she said that it was well that the dragon should abide among them, for thus would they all be the better, in heart and deed, and therefore truly the happier, could they but know it. She said that whether or not they could know it, so it was.

These sayings of hers were taken in bad part, and she was shunned because of them. This did not mar the joy she had in knowing that all was well once more in the homeland.

She felt herself not at all unblest in the quiet spinsterly life she was leading, in and out of her trim new hut, with her dear flock of geese about her.

Of Thol, nowadays, she thought more gently. She felt that if he had stayed in the homeland she would have gone back to him. It would have been her bounden duty to be with him and to comfort him in his shame. Indeed his shame made him dear to her once more. As the days passed she thought more and more about him. It was strange that he had gone from the homeland. No homelander ever had gone forth into the perils of the lands beyond. If she herself, daughter of wanderers, had roved away instead of building this hut to dwell in, she might not have much marvelled at herself, less brave though she was than Thol. And Thol was no longer brave. How had he, fearing a dragon smaller than that other, conquered his fear of known and unknown things that were worse yet, far worse yet?

And one evening a strange doubt came to her. Might it not be that Thol was still in the homeland? In one of all these dark forests he might be living, with nuts and berries to support life. Or, she further guessed, he might even be in his own cave, stealing out at night when all but the watchmen on the other side of the hill were sleeping. This notion, foolish though it seemed to her, possessed her mind.

So soon as silence and sleep had descended on the homeland, Thia herself stole out into the clear starlit night. Not far from the eastern spur of the hill she lay down in a clump of long grass, and thence, gazing up, watched the cave’s mouth steadily.