CHAPTER XI
ON THE KING’S GREAT HIGHWAY
Riding along the king’s great highway, the sun was very bright and all the birds were out and many large and colorful wild flowers grew right down to the white road. Janet Jane, who knew the names of almost all the wild flowers in the meadow and the woodlot and up on the little hills beyond, couldn’t recognize any of these.
“I’m all mixed up about time,” said Johnathan, squinting up at the sun--“Seems to me it’s been ages and ages since we left home before breakfast.”
“Seems to me it’s morning again,” said Janet Jane, “although we haven’t been to bed.”
“It’s the morning of adventure,” said Grandma, taking in a deep breath of the keen air that smelled of flowers and of dew. Grandma seemed to have become younger and all her delicate wrinkles seemed ironed out.
“Do you suppose we’ll _really_ have to fight Dallahan?” asked the worried Janet Jane.
Grandma was about to reply when Crubby crawled up over the dragon’s forehead and slid down the long green neck. Landing on his feet and springing up straight, he was very severe and spoke with military harshness. “This is no time to be discussing the time and the weather or the suppose, either!” he shouted. “Everybody up on their feet! Quick!”
Startled, they all scrambled up.
“Stand at attention! Swords by your sides!” commanded Crubby. “Now, in order to outwit Dallahan and rescue the princess, you’ve got to be in good physical condition. No one can do battle and expect to win without training.”
“That’s right,” Grandma agreed.
Crubby clicked his heels together. “Arms out!” he snapped--“Take a deep breath! Hold it! Let it out! Arms down! Arms raise! Take a deep breath! Hold it! Let it out! Arms down! Arms raise! Take a deep breath! Hold it! Let it out! Bend the knees! Straighten the knees! Bend the knees! Straighten the knees! Down flat! Stand up! Down flat! Stand up!” Well, you’ve never seen exercises given so fast, and soon everybody was out of breath and doing everything the wrong way, and Grandma’s face was the color of cooked beets.
But Crubby didn’t give them a chance to rest. “Now, we’ll have a race down to the very tip of the dragon’s tail and back again. Are you ready? On your mark. Get set. Go!” And down the dragon’s back they raced, tripping over their swords; falling; getting up again; crashing down once more; their joints squeaking like a whole chorus of baby mice.
They reached the tip of the dragon’s tail, and they turned to rush back when small Peter tripped over one of the dragon’s scales; lost his balance; gave a cry for help; was not heard by the others who raced on toward the dragon’s head, and fell off, rolling over and over until he lay in the ditch by the king’s great highway. When he sat up he could see the dragon, a tiny speck, running very fast down the white road, and in a moment he was lost to sight.
Peter stood up and looked about him, dazed for a moment. It was very quiet on the road, as quiet as the woodlot,--even more quiet because there was no drip, drip, drip of the spring. Now, here was a pretty fix indeed. Small Peter alone in the Dark Ages, dressed in a suit of armor with a sword in his hand. This was a morning of adventure, to be sure,--Peter lost in the once upon a time, way, way back in the long, long ago.
He climbed up to the road again and for a moment he was afraid, and called at the top of his voice: “Grams! Johnathan! Janet Jane! Dwagon!” But of course they didn’t hear him, being out of sight and far away.
“Well,” he reasoned, at last, his little brow all knitted, “I guess there’s nothing to do but follow the dwagon’s footprints up the king’s highway, until I meet an auto or a motorcycle,” but here he paused and laughed, correcting himself--“There’s no autos or motorcycles here.”
No! People in this age used horses almost entirely. When Peter played Sir Launcelot he rode a horse, too, but that was only a broomstick horse. Could he ride a real one if it should happen to come along without a rider? He didn’t think so, because in the first place he couldn’t see how he could possibly get on the horse’s back, all alone. The horse would be very tall--most horses were--and encased as he was in stiff armor, that made it simply out of the question.
So on Peter trudged, head down, following the dragon’s tracks. “Why don’t they notice I’m gone and come back for me?” he asked himself, puzzled--“They _must_ notice by this time that I’m not with them. Why doesn’t Mr. Dwagon turn around?” And he strained his eyes ahead, looking for a black spot to appear.
Finally a black spot did come into sight and Peter took heart, although when the spot came nearer and took on form, he could see it was not the dragon. It was a strange company,--a dark, pretty girl with clothes like a gypsy--a mountebank in a motley suit of red, green and yellow, ornamented with many tiny bells, and a black bear walking on his hind legs with a silver ring in his nose, to which was attached a long silver chain that the girl held in her hand.
When they saw Peter standing in the middle of the road with his sword clasped tightly, they stopped short, and the mountebank turned a handspring in the dust and said in a high falsetto voice: “Honored knight, we’re only poor show folk on our way to the fair. If you won’t harm us we’ll give you a show, free of charge.” And then he stood on his head and made faces upside down.
“I won’t harm you,” Peter said in a manly little voice, which instantly made the girl laugh, and the mountebank flipped himself to his feet and said, shaking his bauble of bells, “Good Master Popinjay, he’s nothing but a child, heigho!”
“I’m--I’m not!” said Peter, “I’m Sir Launcelot and I’m going to kill Dallahan, the Iwish dwagon.”
This information threw the girl into fits of laughter; the mountebank turned two complete somersaults in mid-air, landing on his feet with a whoop, and even the bear chuckled, shaking his fat sides. He was a very humorous appearing bear who could appreciate a joke, there was no doubt about that.
The mountebank pranced up to Peter and peeked through his vizor and said, “Whoops! here’s a wee lad lost in the Middle Ages. Where did you come from?” And the bear peeked through the vizor also and licked Peter’s small nose with his long red tongue.
“I--I was going to kill the Iwish Dwagon,” Peter said in answer to the mountebank’s question, “but--but I fell off.”
“Fell off? Fell off of what?--the roof?--the bridge?--the swing?--the branch, like a plum? Make yourself plainer,” chortled the clown, ringing all his bells by shaking himself like a dog that has just come out of the water.
“Off the dwagon’s back.”
“Who?--the Irish Dragon?”
“No, my dwagon.”
“_Your_ dragon?” the mountebank looked severe--“Do you own a dragon?”
“N--no, but”--
“Then why did you say you did?”
“I--I mean--it’s _our_ dwagon, but--but _I_ found him in the cave”----By this time, poor Peter was very confused.
“I know, Beppo,” spoke up the pretty girl, “he was riding that dragon we saw running up the road, just a little while ago.”
“_Were_ you?” asked the mountebank, wriggling one ear and keeping the other perfectly still.
“Yes.”
“And you fell off?”
“Yes.”
The mountebank shook his head, dismally, “Dear, dear me, what a careless thing to do!”
“I was running a race and I tripped,” explained Peter.
“Tripped? Then you can’t blame anybody for it but yourself, can you now?” asked the mountebank, winking his right eye and wriggling his left ear at the same time, which is a very difficult thing to do.
“I don’t want to blame anybody. I just want to find the dragon, again, that’s all,” said Peter.
“Oh, you can’t possibly do that,” the mountebank returned. “He’s probably two thousand leagues away from here already, more or less.”
“Which way is Ireland?” Peter asked.
“I don’t know exactly,” said the mountebank. “It’s follow your nose, I guess. I’ve never been there, but you’d never walk it in twenty years. Better come along with us.”
“Can you dance?” inquired the gipsy girl.
“I went to dancing school once, but I can’t dance,” said Peter. “Why?”
“We need somebody else to dance at the fair,” the girl said, taking a few fancy steps and the bear joined in, ending with a high kick.
“Can you juggle hoops and balls?” asked the mountebank.
“No,” Peter said, feeling quite useless.
“Can you swallow a sharp sword?”
“No.”
“Can you walk a tight rope?”
“No. I can’t do anything like that. I can only kill a dwagon with my sword.”
“Well, you can’t very well kill a dragon when there’s none to kill, can you now?” questioned the mountebank, cocking his head, “so come and walk with us to the fair.”
“Where is it?” Peter asked.
“Just across those hills. You can see the church steeple straight ahead if you only use your eyes.”
Peter nodded as he saw a thin point, far in the distance, sticking up above a hill like the blade of a sword.
“Heigho, let’s go, to the beautiful show!” cried the clown, linking his arm in Peter’s, and they started off for the fair, the bear walking behind with the pretty gipsy girl who began to sing the sweetest song.