“Who made her?” he asked, having listened to the charge.

“God, ’tis to be supposed.”

“God makes no evil.”

“The Devil, then.”

“Then whack the Devil.”

They fell on the pasteboard dragon and belaboured him.  The sun poured down on the Mayor’s throne; and his mother, who sat by his right hand wondering at his sense, gave him water to drink from the bottle.  They brought a third case—­a boy who had been caught torturing a cow.  He had taken a saw, and tried to saw off one of her horns while she was tethered in her stall.

The Mayor leapt up from his seat.

“Kill him!” he shouted, “take him off and kill him!” His face was twisted with passion, and he lifted his stick.  The crowd fell back for a second, but the old woman leant forward and touched her son softly on the leg.  He stopped short:  the anger died out of his face, and he shivered.

“No,” he said, “I was wrong, naybours.  The boy is mad, I think; an’ ‘tis a terrible lot, to be mad.  This is the Devil’s doing, out o’ doubt.  Beat the Devil.”

“Simme,” said one in the crowd, “the sins o’ Gantick be wearin’ out the smoky man at a terrible rate.”

“Ay,” answered another, “His Naughtiness bain’t ekal to Gantick.”  And this observation was the original of a proverb, still repeated—­ “As naughty as Gantick, where the Devil struck for shorter hours.”

There was no cruelty that day on Dragon’s Moor.  All the afternoon the mad Mayor sat in the sun’s eye and gave judgment, while his mother from time to time wiped away the froth that gathered on his lips, and moistened them with water from her bottle.  From first to last she never spoke a word, but sat with a horror in her eyes, and watched the flushed cheeks of this grown-up, bearded son.  And all the afternoon the men of Gantick brayed the Devil into shreds.

I said there was no cruelty on Dragon’s Moor that day.  But at sundown the Mayor turned to his mother and said—­

“We’ve been over-hasty, mother.  We ought to ha’ found out who made the Devil what he is.”  At last the sun dropped; a shadow fell on the brown moors and crept up the mound where the mother and son sat.  The brightness died out of the Mayor’s face.

Three minutes after, he flung up his hands and cried, “Mother—­my head, my head!”

She rose, still without a word, pulled down his arms, slipped one within her own, and led him away to the road.  The crowd did not interfere; they were burying the broken dragon, with shouts and rough play.

A woman followed them to the road, and tried to clasp the Mayor’s knees as he staggered.  His mother beat her away.  “Off wi’ you!” she cried; “’tis your reproach he’s bearin’.”

She helped him slowly home.  In the shadow of the cottage the inspired look that he had worn all day returned for a moment.  Then a convulsion took him, casting him on the floor.