company fell on the pasteboard dragon with sticks and
whacked him into small pieces, which they buried in a small hollow
called Dragon Pit; and so returned gladly to their homes to start on
another twelve months of sin.

This feast of purification fell always on the 12th of July; and in
the heyday of its celebration there lived in this cottage a
widow-woman and her only son, a demented man about forty years old.
There was no harm in the poor creature, who worked at the Lanihorne
slate-quarries, six miles off, as a "hollibubber"--that is to say, in
carting away the refuse slate. Every morning he walked to his work,
mumbling to himself as he went; and though the children followed him
at times, hooting and flinging stones, they grew tired at last,
finding that he never resented it. His mother--a tall, silent woman
with an inscrutable face--had supper ready for him when he returned,
and often was forced to feed him, while he unlocked his tongue and
babbled over the small adventures of the day. He was not one of
those gifted idiots who hear voices in the wind and know the language
of the wild birds. His talk was merely imbecile; and, for the rest,
he had large grey eyes, features of that regularity which we call
Greek, and stood six foot two in his shoes.

One hot morning--it was the 12th of July--he was starting for his
work when an indescribable hubbub sounded up the road, and presently
came by the whole rabble of Gantick with cow-horns and instruments of
percussion, and in their midst the famous dragon--all green, with
fiery, painted eyes, and a long tongue of red flannel. Behind it the
prisoners were escorted--a pale woman or two with dazed, terrified
eyes, an old man suspected of egg-stealing, a cow addicted to
trespass, and so on.

The Mayor was not chosen yet, this ceremony being deferred by rule
till the crowd reached Dragon's Moor. But drawing near the cottage
door and catching sight of the half-witted man with his foot on the
threshold, a village wit called out and proposed that they should
take "the Mounster" (as he was called) along with them for Mayor.

It hit the mob's humour, and they cheered. The Mounster's mother,
standing in the doorway, went white as if painted.

"Man in the lump's a hateful animal," she said to herself, hoarsely.
"Come indoors, Jonathan, an' let 'em go by."

"Come an' rule over us," the crowd invited him, and a gleam of proud
delight woke in his silly face.

"The heat--hi