In a time long forgotten by man, there existed a magical dragon named Jade. I perched high upon the peaks of the mystic mountains, with only the snow and clouds to keep me company. My scales shimmered like emeralds, known throughout the lands for their beauty, but it was a treasure I kept secret from all: a jewel that lay upon my forehead, a cousin of the moon, a drop of sunlight fallen by chance. What it could do, none knew but me, and I wished to keep it so.
Ah me, I was not always a dragon! I once was a common Chinese maiden, soft and gentle, all blushing like the day-break, yet I was little thought of. Gradually, my goodness and beauty faded away, and we all know what women’s hearts are made of; only a little grief, treated lovingly, can keep them fresh and pure. But my heart turned to stone, and I left the world behind, dying to its frowns and smiles, to be born again a dragon.
But I was alone. I peered over my icebound crags, down into the green valleys, where the sunbeams slept among the trees, but company like that was wearisome. I heard the echoes answering the plash of the summer showers. ‘A leaf of the sweetbriar,’ I cried, ‘where are they gone?’
‘Merrily laughing, brave Williams, the knight whom the King had sent to annex the hills and valleys, stood in his castle courtyard laughing over five great wounded fellows who lay on the straw.
‘Wherein lies the humour?’ asked a lady entering through the stone doors. ‘They are men!’
‘But they are soldiers!’ replied he.
‘It is so,’ smiled she.
‘They fought,’ explained he, ‘like brave men and were cast forth by as valiant enemies; five for one, bravely did they battle! What joy if their general had been with them, would he not have spurred them on, and turned the battle at the last?’
‘How empty is your laughter!’ sighed she.
Just then a bird emerged from a bush close by. It was one of those bright-winged birds that come up from the south in great companies, search diligently for food, and return in the autumn. Its cry was plaintive, as if it, too, had missed a friend.
‘Oh, fellow sufferer!’ quoth the knight, alighting in his turn. ‘Say, does it leave yet?’
But the fowls were silent.
That bright sunny day drew on towards twilight, but the knight’s courtiers begged for more tales of old-time battles to listen to, though the birds stopped singing and flocks of butterflies turned to rest amongst the bushes. Just peering out from under the leaves, amidst the fading light, they formed a firegleam on the clayey wall, illuminated with bright glimpses of daffodil. It was like the first daffodils peeping through the pale soil in winter, promising the spring to come.
‘Draw your swords,’ shouted he, ‘and may God prosper our arms!’ Flashes of bright swords illuminated the dying daylight.
At dawn, five fowls stood peering in through the grey windows over the battlements.
‘Our minds may make a mockery of our senses. But is it possible that fowls sleeping peacefully in the straw can grow hard and senseless by dawn and thickens the air with the dew?’ said the lad of the castle.
‘Peace, good squire; they are either dead or injured! Summon a votive Mass to the honour of our Lady,’ said the lady, ‘I feel a sudden chill creep through every vein.’
As daylight emerged from the misty valley shadow, and rolled over the peaks of granite, the stone walls lifted their black surfaces out of the mists. Five stout combatants grinned as ever, but all more or less wounded; and one with an ear sorely swelled could do little else but grin.
They were no combatants. An hour went past whilst the man-at-arms was handing to his comrades dishes containing the rarest fruits severe frost had captured untouched in the woods. But in chatting, they scarce remarked the famishing, grinning, half-dead fowls, tearing at the straw in the courtyard.
Listening to the replies of the dew-laden cupboards, the dutiful page discovered the ladies were knitting gloves and hose for the knight fighting in the woods. ‘They will be finished to-morrow,’ he repeated to the squire and set off to warm his master’s slippers.
On the morrow the fifth combat, under the red-and-white flag of St. George, rose suddenly; and all four men under the circumstance excellent knights; things all looked promising! yet an earlier battle below kasht four knights already.
Through the straw in the courtyard acclaims of joy resounded among the employees. ‘All the king’s prisoners,’ said the knights, ‘squires, battling as good knights and at all years under the enemy’s flag! Respect for valour prompted amnesty alone.’
The quiet day’s meetings were indefinitely prolonged.
Meantime, the fowls on gaining health to fight again were stiffened in their straw cage, alternatively resting on each other’s backs or following up the openings of the lattice-boxes.
They were allowed to wander over the castle top at warm sunshine, but the importance of their outraged rights kept them quiet: absent themselves a moment, four always did, envoying the fifth to negotiate terms of a congress; then general manifestations from the rest were as benevolent as ever.
Each knight planned an excursion for the happy, hopeful prisoners, aggrieved in body and mind.
The dames championed most nobly their respective arms.
Smoother days brought strange thoughts to myself. Four indignifiers fowl challenged our challenges. We clashed so in the eyes of the world. We belonged all to the dispute; the fowls less than ourselves. I felt one day moody and was about to sell my jewels, when down in the full-blown rockore the lady guests, gliding around in white veils, handed in harmless envelopes of gold, and white and red roses in crowds.
They print in beautiful letters this Bibelot’s title.
They are your sale, my jewel, a deed of civil right serving the end!
‘What wouldst thou say?’ I heard a lady asking.
Quoth he: ‘My fowls and I were always together; and even when stiff all with abundance of straw to fight in, we loved to gossip round–flattering or angry, both most entertained! But our company, though of a municipality well-favoured, is not strong enough even to amuse a tiger; which returned home from dinner most despondchaftlie.’