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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–his head won’t stand it.” The woman looked up at the cloudless sky. “For God’s sake take your fun elsewhere!” she cried.

The women who were led to judgment looked at her stupidly. They too suffered, without understanding, the heavy sport of men. At last one said–

“Old woman, let him come. We’ll have more mercy from a mazed man.”

“Sister, you’ve been loose, they tell me,” answered the old woman, “an’ must eat the bitter fruit o’t. But my son’s an innocent. Jonathan, they’ll look for you at the works.”

“There’s prouder work for me ‘pon Dragon’s Moor,” the Mounster decided, with smiling eyes. “Come along, mother, an’ see me exalted.”

The crowd bore him off at their head, and the din broke out again. The new Mayor strutted among them with lifted chin and a radiant face. He thought it glorious. His mother ran into the cottage, fetched a bottle and followed after the dusty tail of the procession. Once, as they were passing a running stream, she halted and filled the bottle carefully, emptying it again and again until the film outside the glass was to her liking. Then she followed again, and came to Dragon’s Moor.

They sat the Mayor on a mound, took off his hat, placed a crown on his head and a broomstick in his hand, and brought him the cases to try.

The first was a grey mare, possessed (they alleged) with a devil. Her skin hung like a sack on her bones.

“‘Tis Eli Thoms’ mare. What’s to be done to cure her?” they asked.

“Let Eli Thoms buy a comb, an’ comb his mare’s tail while she eats her feed. So Eli’ll know if ’tis the devil or no that steals oats from his manger.”

They applauded his wisdom and brought forward the woman who had pleaded just now with his mother.

“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.