The Dragon MEGAPACK ®. Kenneth Grahame

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СКАЧАТЬ Yes—he definitely heard something. Perhaps Grothnir had caught a foolish rat. Well, vermin would little sustain it.

      “Grothnir!” he bellowed, as had become his custom. “Come out!”

      “Soon,” came the rumbling reply.

      Sir Horace raced to his tent and began to sharpen his sword. Soon! The word sent his blood racing. Soon!

      * * * *

      Each day for a fortnight, the dragon repeated its promise. By the fifteenth day Sir Horace felt his patience wane.

      “Soon!” he snorted. “I will be an old man before we do battle! How much longer will you make me wait, O serpent?”

      “Tomorrow,” promised Grothnir.

      Filled with hope and ambition, Sir Horace retired early to his prayers.

      * * * *

      The next day, Sir Horace rose before dawn, made his morning ablutions, and crossed to Grothnir’s cave. The day had come! Today he would slay the dragon. He wore a garland of fresh flowers on his shield; he carried his sword unsheathed. As he walked he whistled, and his step had a merry bounce.

      “Ho, dragon!” he called at the cave’s mouth. “Come out!”

      “Step back,” came the reply. “I must stretch my wings.”

      Obligingly, Sir Horace removed himself to the far edge of the plateau. Yet he remained steadfast in his vigilance; he would not give the serpent a chance to fly away.

      Slowly Grothnir emerged into the sunlight, sixty feet long from smoking snout to barbed black tail. Sir Horace noticed how thin it was, how its hide hung slack and its bony ribs and hips stuck out. The dragon’s scales had lost their rainbow sparkle from a year underground; its gold eyes blinked, dull and listless. Slowly it shook dust from its leathery wings, then stood on its hind legs and roared at the sky.

      The ground shook, but Sir Horace kept his feet. Even half starved, the dragon looked impossibly huge and strong. Yet, remembering its cowardice, he drew new strength. It feared him! It had taken nearly a year of starvation to force Grothnir into the open. It knew he must inevitably triumph!

      He stepped forward boldly, raising his shield against the monster’s flaming breath.

      “Come out!” the dragon called.

      Sir Horace peeked around his shield, but the dragon was not talking to him. He followed its gaze to the mouth of the cave, where ten or twelve smaller versions of Grothnir watched. The dragonlings, thin and bright-eyed, were little bigger than a man, with twin plumes of smoke rising from their nostrils. One still had a bit of shell stuck to its shoulder.

      Sir Horace gulped. It hadn’t been cowardice that kept Grothnir in the cave. She had been sitting on eggs. He took a deep breath. Even so, a dragon was a dragon, and a knight’s duty was clear. He would slay them all.

      “Pay attention,” said Grothnir to her hatchlings.

      Sir Horace raised his shield and advanced. He felt the heat of a fiery blast, but the shield saved him. More confident, he rushed forward.

      Giant claws plucked shield and sword from his hands, then knocked him to the ground. Dazed, he heard the scurry of tiny claws, and suddenly the hatchlings ringed him, staring down curiously.

      “The most important thing,” said Grothnir cheerfully, looming above, “is not to overcook your food.”

      Sir Horace began to scream even before the flames struck.

      THE FOUR CLEVER BROTHERS, by The Brothers Grimm

      “Dear children,” said a poor man to his four sons, “I have nothing to give you; you must go out into the wide world and try your luck. Begin by learning some craft or another, and see how you can get on.”

      So the four brothers took their walking-sticks in their hands, and their little bundles on their shoulders, and after bidding their father goodbye, went all out at the gate together. When they had got on some way they came to four crossways, each leading to a different country.

      Then the eldest said, “Here we must part; but this day four years we will come back to this spot, and in the meantime each must try what he can do for himself.”

      So each brother went his way; and as the eldest was hastening on a man met him, and asked him where he was going, and what he wanted. “I am going to try my luck in the world, and should like to begin by learning some art or trade,” answered he.

      “Then,” said the man, “go with me, and I will teach you to become the cunningest thief that ever was.”

      “No,” said the other, “that is not an honest calling, and what can one look to earn by it in the end but the gallows?”

      “Oh!” said the man, “you need not fear the gallows; for I will only teach you to steal what will be fair game: I meddle with nothing but what no one else can get or care anything about, and where no one can find you out.”

      So the young man agreed to follow his trade, and he soon showed himself so clever, that nothing could escape him that he had once set his mind upon.

      The second brother also met a man, who, when he found out what he was setting out upon, asked him what craft he meant to follow. “I do not know yet,” said he.

      “Then come with me, and be a star-gazer. It is a noble art, for nothing can be hidden from you, when once you understand the stars.”

      The plan pleased him much, and he soon became such a skilful star-gazer, that when he had served out his time, and wanted to leave his master, he gave him a glass, and said, “With this you can see all that is passing in the sky and on earth, and nothing can be hidden from you.”

      The third brother met a huntsman, who took him with him, and taught him so well all that belonged to hunting, that he became very clever in the craft of the woods; and when he left his master he gave him a bow, and said, “Whatever you shoot at with this bow you will be sure to hit.”

      The youngest brother likewise met a man who asked him what he wished to do. “Would not you like,” said he, “to be a tailor?”

      “Oh, no!” said the young man; “sitting cross-legged from morning to night, working backwards and forwards with a needle and goose, will never suit me.”

      “Oh!” answered the man, “that is not my sort of tailoring; come with me, and you will learn quite another kind of craft from that.”

      Not knowing what better to do, he came into the plan, and learnt tailoring from the beginning; and when he left his master, he gave him a needle, and said, “You can sew anything with this, be it as soft as an egg or as hard as steel; and the joint will be so fine that no seam will be seen.”

      * * * *

      After the space of four years, at the time agreed upon, the four brothers met at the four cross-roads; and having welcomed each other, set off towards their father’s home, where they told him all that had happened to them, and how each had learned some craft.

      Then, one day, as they were sitting СКАЧАТЬ