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Peter Pan In Kensington Gardens<=
/span>
By
J. M. Barrie
PETER PAN
IN
KENSINGTON
GARDENS
FROM
THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD
BY
J. M. BARRIE
TO SY=
LVIA
AND ARTHUR LLEWELYN DAVIES
AND THEIR BOYS (MY BOYS)
Contents
I - THE GRAND TOUR OF THE GARDENS=
You must see for yourselves that it will be
difficult to follow Peter Pan's adventures unless you are familiar with the
Kensington Gardens. They are in London, where the King lives, and I used to
take David there nearly every day unless he was looking decidedly flushed.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> No child has ever been in the whole of =
the
Gardens, because it is so soon time to turn back. The reason it is soon time to turn back=
is
that, if you are as small as David, you sleep from twelve to one. If your mother was not so sure that you=
sleep
from twelve to one, you could most likely see the whole of them.
The Gardens are bounded on one side by a
never-ending line of omnibuses, over which your nurse has such authority th=
at
if she holds up her finger to any one of them it stops immediately. She then crosses with you in safety to =
the
other side. There are more gates t=
o the
Gardens than one gate, but that is the one you go in at, and before you go =
in
you speak to the lady with the balloons, who sits just outside. This is as near to being inside as she =
may
venture, because, if she were to let go her hold of the railings for one
moment, the balloons would lift her up, and she would be flown away. She sits very squat, for the balloons a=
re
always tugging at her, and the strain has given her quite a red face. Once she was a new one, because the old=
one
had let go, and David was very sorry for the old one, but as she did let go=
, he
wished he had been there to see.
the big races are run]
The Gardens are a tremendous big place, with
millions and hundreds of trees; and first you come to the Figs, but you sco=
rn
to loiter there, for the Figs is the resort of superior little persons, who=
are
forbidden to mix with the commonalty, and is so named, according to legend,
because they dress in full fig. Th=
ese
dainty ones are themselves contemptuously called Figs by David and other
heroes, and you have a key to the manners and customs of this dandiacal sec=
tion
of the Gardens when I tell you that cricket is called crickets here. Occasi=
onally
a rebel Fig climbs over the fence into the world, and such a one was Miss M=
abel
Grey, of whom I shall tell you when we come to Miss Mabel Grey's gate. She was the only really celebrated Fig.=
We are now in the Broad Walk, and it is as much
bigger than the other walks as your father is bigger than you. David wondered if it began little, and =
grew
and grew, until it was quite grown up, and whether the other walks are its
babies, and he drew a picture, which diverted him very much, of the Broad W=
alk
giving a tiny walk an airing in a perambulator.
In the Broad Walk you meet all the people who are worth knowing, and
there is usually a grown-up with them to prevent them going on the damp gra=
ss,
and to make them stand disgraced at the corner of a seat if they have been
mad-dog or Mary-Annish. To be
Mary-Annish is to behave like a girl, whimpering because nurse won't carry =
you,
or simpering with your thumb in your mouth, and it is a hateful quality; bu=
t to
be mad-dog is to kick out at everything, and there is some satisfaction in
that.
If I were to point out all the notable places =
as
we pass up the Broad Walk, it would be time to turn back before we reach th=
em,
and I simply wave my stick at Cecco Hewlett's Tree, that memorable spot whe=
re a
boy called Cecco lost his penny, and, looking for it, found twopence. There=
has
been a good deal of excavation going on there ever since. Farther up the wa=
lk
is the little wooden house in which Marmaduke Perry hid. There is no more awful story of the Gar=
dens
than this of Marmaduke Perry, who had been Mary-Annish three days in
succession, and was sentenced to appear in the Broad Walk dressed in his
sister's clothes. He hid in the li=
ttle
wooden house, and refused to emerge until they brought him knickerbockers w=
ith
pockets.
You now try to go to the Round Pond, but nurses
hate it, because they are not really manly, and they make you look the other
way, at the Big Penny and the Baby's Palace.
She was the most celebrated baby of the Gardens, and lived in the pa=
lace
all alone, with ever so many dolls, so people rang the bell, and up she got=
out
of her bed, though it was past six o'clock, and she lighted a candle and op=
ened
the door in her nighty, and then they all cried with great rejoicings, 'Hai=
l,
Queen of England!' What puzzled Da=
vid
most was how she knew where the matches were kept. The Big Penny is a statue about her.
Next we come to the Hump, which is the part of=
the
Broad Walk where all the big races are run; and even though you had no
intention of running you do run when you come to the Hump, it is such a
fascinating, slide-down kind of place.
Often you stop when you have run about half-way down it, and then you
are lost; but there is another little wooden house near here, called the Lo=
st
House, and so you tell the man that you are lost and then he finds you. It is glorious fun racing down the Hump=
, but
you can't do it on windy days because then you are not there, but the fallen
leaves do it instead of you. There=
is
almost nothing that has such a keen sense of fun as a fallen leaf.
From the Hump we can see the gate that is call=
ed
after Miss Mabel Grey, the Fig I promised to tell you about. There were always two nurses with her, =
or
else one mother and one nurse, and for a long time she was a pattern-child =
who
always coughed off the table and said, 'How do you do?' to the other Figs, =
and
the only game she played at was flinging a ball gracefully and letting the
nurse bring it back to her. Then o=
ne day
she tired of it all and went mad-dog, and, first, to show that she really w=
as
mad-dog, she unloosened both her boot-laces and put out her tongue east, we=
st,
north, and south. She then flung h=
er
sash into a puddle and danced on it till dirty water was squirted over her
frock, after which she climbed the fence and had a series of incredible adv=
entures,
one of the least of which was that she kicked off both her boots. At last she came to the gate that is now
called after her, out of which she ran into streets David and I have never =
been
in though we have heard them roaring, and still she ran on and would never
again have been heard of had not her mother jumped into a 'bus and thus ove=
rtaken
her. It all happened, I should say=
, long
ago, and this is not the Mabel Grey whom David knows.
fun as a fallen leaf (missing from book)]
Returning up the Broad Walk we have on our rig=
ht
the Baby Walk, which is so full of perambulators that you could cross from =
side
to side stepping on babies, but the nurses won't let you do it. From this walk a passage called Bunting=
's
Thumb, because it is that length, leads into Picnic Street, where there are
real kettles, and chestnut-blossom falls into your mug as you are
drinking. Quite common children pi=
cnic
here also, and the blossom falls into their mugs just the same.
Next comes St. Govor's Well, which was full of
water when Malcolm the Bold fell into it.
He was his mother's favourite, and he let her put her arm round his =
neck
in public because she was a widow; but he was also partial to adventures, a=
nd
liked to play with a chimney-sweep who had killed a good many bears. The sweep's name was Sooty, and one day=
, when
they were playing near the well, Malcolm fell in and would have been drowned
had not Sooty dived in and rescued him; and the water had washed Sooty clea=
n,
and he now stood revealed as Malcolm's long-lost father. So Malcolm would not let his mother put=
her
arm round his neck any more.
Between the well and the Round Pond are the
cricket pitches, and frequently the choosing of sides exhausts so much time
that there is scarcely any cricket.
Everybody wants to bat first, and as soon as he is out he bowls unle=
ss
you are the better wrestler, and while you are wrestling with him the field=
ers
have scattered to play at something else.
The Gardens are noted for two kinds of cricket: boy cricket, which is
real cricket with a bat, and girl cricket, which is with a racquet and the
governess. Girls can't really play
cricket, and when you are watching their futile efforts you make funny soun=
ds
at them. Nevertheless, there was a very disagreeable incident one day when =
some
forward girls challenged David's team, and a disturbing creature called Ang=
ela
Clare sent down so many yorkers that--However, instead of telling you the
result of that regrettable match I shall pass on hurriedly to the Round Pon=
d,
which is the wheel that keeps all the gardens going.
It is=
round
because it is in the very middle of the Gardens, and when you are come to it
you never want to go any farther. =
You
can't be good all the time at the Round Pond, however much you try. You can be good in the Broad Walk all t=
he
time, but not at the Round Pond, and the reason is that you forget, and, wh=
en
you remember, you are so wet that you may as well be wetter. There are men who sail boats on the Roun=
d Pond,
such big boats that they bring them in barrows, and sometimes in perambulat=
ors,
and then the baby has to walk. The
bow-legged children in the Gardens are those who had to walk too soon becau=
se
their father needed the perambulator.
You always want to have a yacht to sail on the
Round Pond, and in the end your uncle gives you one; and to carry it to the
pond the first day is splendid, also to talk about it to boys who have no u=
ncle
is splendid, but soon you like to leave it at home. For the sweetest craft that slips her
moorings in the Round Pond is what is called a stick-boat, because she is
rather like a stick until she is in the water and you are holding the
string. Then as you walk round, pu=
lling her,
you see little men running about her deck, and sails rise magically and cat=
ch
the breeze, and you put in on dirty nights at snug harbours which are unkno=
wn
to the lordly yachts. Night passes=
in a twink,
and again your rakish craft noses for the wind, whales spout, you glide over
buried cities, and have brushes with pirates, and cast anchor on coral
isles. You are a solitary boy whil=
e all
this is taking place, for two boys together cannot adventure far upon the R=
ound
Pond, and though you may talk to yourself throughout the voyage, giving ord=
ers
and executing them with despatch, you know not, when it is time to go home,
where you have been or what swelled your sails; your treasure-trove is all
locked away in your hold, so to speak, which will be opened, perhaps, by
another little boy many years afterwards.
But those yachts have nothing in their hold. Does any one return to this haunt of his
youth because of the yachts that used to sail it? Oh no.
It is the stick-boat that is freighted with memories. The yachts are toys, their owner a
fresh-water mariner; they can cross and recross a pond only while the
stick-boat goes to sea. You yachts=
men
with your wands, who think we are all there to gaze on you, your ships are =
only
accidents of this place, and were they all to be boarded and sunk by the du=
cks,
the real business of the Round Pond would be carried on as usual.
Paths=
from
everywhere crowd like children to the pond.
Some of them are ordinary paths, which have a rail on each side, and=
are
made by men with their coats off, but others are vagrants, wide at one spot,
and at another so narrow that you can stand astride them. They are called Paths that have Made
Themselves, and David did wish he could see them doing it. But, like all the most wonderful things=
that
happen in the Gardens, it is done, we concluded, at night after the gates a=
re
closed. We have also decided that the paths make themselves because it is t=
heir
only chance of getting to the Round Pond.
One of these gypsy paths comes from the place =
where
the sheep get their hair cut. When=
David
shed his curls at the hairdresser's, I am told, he said good-bye to them
without a tremor, though his mother has never been quite the same bright
creature since; so he despises the sheep as they run from their shearer, and
calls out tauntingly, 'Cowardly, cowardly custard!' But when the man grips them between his=
legs
David shakes a fist at him for using such big scissors. Another startling moment is when the man
turns back the grimy wool from the sheep's shoulders and they look suddenly
like ladies in the stalls of a theatre.
The sheep are so frightened by the shearing that it makes them quite
white and thin, and as soon as they are set free they begin to nibble the g=
rass
at once, quite anxiously, as if they feared that they would never be worth
eating. David wonders whether they=
know
each other, now that they are so different, and if it makes them fight with=
the
wrong ones. They are great fighter=
s, and
thus so unlike country sheep that every year they give my St. Bernard dog,
Porthos, a shock. He can make a field of country sheep fly by merely announ=
cing
his approach, but these town sheep come toward him with no promise of gentle
entertainment, and then a light from last year breaks upon Porthos. He cannot with dignity retreat, but he =
stops
and looks about him as if lost in admiration of the scenery, and presently =
he
strolls away with a fine indifference and a glint at me from the corner of =
his eye.
The
Serpentine begins near here. It is=
a
lovely lake, and there is a drowned forest at the bottom of it. If you peer over the edge you can see t=
he
trees all growing upside down, and they say that at night there are also
drowned stars in it. If so, Peter =
Pan
sees them when he is sailing across the lake in the Thrush's Nest. A small part only of the Serpentine is =
in the
Gardens, for soon it passes beneath a bridge to far away where the island i=
s on
which all the birds are born that become baby boys and girls. No one who is human, except Peter Pan (=
and he
is only half human), can land on the island, but you may write what you want
(boy or girl, dark or fair) on a piece of paper, and then twist it into the
shape of a boat and slip it into the water, and it reaches Peter Pan's isla=
nd
after dark.
We ar=
e on
the way home now, though of course, it is all pretence that we can go to so
many of the places in one day. I s=
hould
have had to be carrying David long ago, and resting on every seat like old =
Mr. Salford. That was what we called him, because he
always talked to us of a lovely place called Salford where he had been
born. He was a crab-apple of an old
gentleman who wandered all day in the Gardens from seat to seat trying to f=
all
in with somebody who was acquainted with the town of Salford, and when we h=
ad
known him for a year or more we actually did meet another aged solitary who=
had
once spent Saturday to Monday in Salford.
He was meek and timid, and carried his address inside his hat, and
whatever part of London he was in search of he always went to Westminster A=
bbey
first as a starting-point. Him we =
carried
in triumph to our other friend, with the story of that Saturday to Monday, =
and
never shall I forget the gloating joy with which Mr. Salford leapt at him.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> They have been cronies ever since, and I
notice that Mr. Salford, who naturally does most of the talking, keeps tigh=
t grip
of the other old man's coat.
The two last places before you come to our gate
are the Dogs' Cemetery and the chaffinch's nest, but we pretend not to know
what the Dogs' Cemetery is, as Porthos is always with us. The nest is very sad. It is quite white, and the way we found=
it
was wonderful. We were having anot=
her
look among the bushes for David's lost worsted ball, and instead of the bal=
l we
found a lovely nest made of the worsted, and containing four eggs, with
scratches on them very like David's handwriting, so we think they must have
been the mother's love-letters to the little ones inside. Every day we were in the Gardens we pai=
d a call
at the nest, taking care that no cruel boy should see us, and we dropped
crumbs, and soon the bird knew us as friends, and sat in the nest looking a=
t us
kindly with her shoulders hunched up.
But one day when we went there were only two eggs in the nest, and t=
he
next time there were none. The sad=
dest
part of it was that the poor little chaffinch fluttered about the bushes,
looking so reproachfully at us that we knew she thought we had done it; and
though David tried to explain to her, it was so long since he had spoken the
bird language that I fear she did not understand. He and I left the Gardens that day with=
our
knuckles in our eyes.
If you ask your mother whether she knew about
Peter Pan when she was a little girl, she will say, 'Why, of course I did,
child'; and if you ask her whether he rode on a goat in those days, she will
say, 'What a foolish question to ask; certainly he did.' Then if you ask your grandmother whethe=
r she
knew about Peter Pan when she was a girl, she also says, 'Why, of course I =
did,
child,' but if you ask her whether he rode on a goat in those days, she says
she never heard of his having a goat.
Perhaps she has forgotten, just as she sometimes forgets your name a=
nd
calls you Mildred, which is your mother's name.
Still, she could hardly forget such an important thing as the goat.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Therefore there was no goat when your
grandmother was a little girl. This
shows that, in telling the story of Peter Pan, to begin with the goat (as m=
ost
people do) is as silly as to put on your jacket before your vest.
Of course, it also shows that Peter is ever so
old, but he is really always the same age, so that does not matter in the
least. His age is one week, and th=
ough
he was born so long ago he has never had a birthday, nor is there the sligh=
test
chance of his ever having one. The reason is that he escaped from being a h=
uman
when he was seven days old; he escaped by the window and flew back to the
Kensington Gardens.
If you think he was the only baby who ever wan=
ted
to escape, it shows how completely you have forgotten your own young days.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> When David heard this story first he was
quite certain that he had never tried to escape, but I told him to think ba=
ck
hard, pressing his hands to his temples, and when he had done this hard, and
even harder, he distinctly remembered a youthful desire to return to the
tree-tops, and with that memory came others, as that he had lain in bed
planning to escape as soon as his mother was asleep, and how she had once
caught him half-way up the chimney. All
children could have such recollections if they would press their hands hard=
to
their temples, for, having been birds before they were human, they are
naturally a little wild during the first few weeks, and very itchy at the
shoulders, where their wings used to be.
So David tells me.
I oug=
ht to
mention here that the following is our way with a story: First I tell it to
him, and then he tells it to me, the understanding being that it is quite a
different story; and then I retell it with his additions, and so we go on u=
ntil
no one could say whether it is more his story or mine. In this story of Peter Pan, for instanc=
e, the
bald narrative and most of the moral reflections are mine, though not all, =
for
this boy can be a stern moralist; but the interesting bits about the ways a=
nd
customs of babies in the bird-stage are mostly reminiscences of David's,
recalled by pressing his hands to his temples and thinking hard.
Well, Peter Pan got out by the window, which h=
ad
no bars. Standing on the ledge he =
could
see trees far away, which were doubtless the Kensington Gardens, and the mo=
ment
he saw them he entirely forgot that he was now a little boy in a nightgown,=
and
away he flew, right over the houses to the Gardens. It is wonderful that he could fly witho=
ut wings,
but the place itched tremendously, and--and--perhaps we could all fly if we
were as dead-confident-sure of our capacity to do it as was bold Peter Pan =
that
evening.
He alighted gaily on the open sward, between t=
he
Baby's Palace and the Serpentine, and the first thing he did was to lie on =
his
back and kick. He was quite unaware already that he had ever been human, and
thought he was a bird, even in appearance, just the same as in his early da=
ys, and
when he tried to catch a fly he did not understand that the reason he misse=
d it
was because he had attempted to seize it with his hand, which, of course, a
bird never does. He saw, however, =
that
it must be past Lock-out Time, for there were a good many fairies about, all
too busy to notice him; they were getting breakfast ready, milking their co=
ws,
drawing water, and so on, and the sight of the water-pails made him thirsty=
, so
he flew over to the Round Pond to have a drink.
He stooped and dipped his beak in the pond; he thought it was his be=
ak, but,
of course, it was only his nose, and therefore, very little water came up, =
and
that not so refreshing as usual, so next he tried a puddle and he fell flop
into it. When a real bird falls in=
flop,
he spreads out his feathers and pecks them dry, but Peter could not remember
what was the thing to do, and he decided rather sulkily to go to sleep on t=
he
weeping-beech in the Baby Walk.
At first he found some difficulty in balancing himself on a branch, but presently he remembered the way, and fell asleep.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> He awoke long before morning, shivering= , and saying to himself, 'I never was out on such a cold night'; he had really be= en out on colder nights when he was a bird, but, of course, as everybody knows, what seems a warm night to a bird is a cold night to a boy in a nightgown.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Peter also felt strangely uncomfortable= , as if his head was stuffy; he heard loud noises that made him look round sharp= ly, though they were really himself sneezing. There was something he wanted very much, but, though he knew he want= ed it, he could not think what it was. What he wanted so much was his mother to blow his nose, but that never struck hi= m, so he decided to appeal to the fairies for enlightenment. They are reputed to know a good deal. <= o:p>
There=
were
two of them strolling along the Baby Walk, with their arms round each other=
's
waists, and he hopped down to address them.
The fairies have their tiffs with the birds, but they usually give a
civil answer to a civil question, and he was quite angry when these two ran=
away
the moment they saw him. Another w=
as
lolling on a garden chair, reading a postage-stamp which some human had let
fall, and when he heard Peter's voice he popped in alarm behind a tulip.
To Peter's bewilderment he discovered that eve=
ry
fairy he met fled from him. A band=
of
workmen, who were sawing down a toadstool, rushed away, leaving their tools
behind them. A milkmaid turned her=
pail
upside down and hid in it. Soon the
Gardens were in an uproar. Crowds =
of fairies
were running this way and that, asking each other stoutly who was afraid;
lights were extinguished, doors barricaded, and from the grounds of Queen M=
ab's
palace came the rub-a-dub of drums, showing that the royal guard had been
called out. A regiment of Lancers =
came charging
down the Broad Walk, armed with holly-leaves, with which they jag the enemy
horribly in passing. Peter heard t=
he
little people crying everywhere that there was a human in the Gardens after
Lock-out Time, but he never thought for a moment that he was the human. He was feeling stuffier and stuffier, a=
nd
more and more wistful to learn what he wanted done to his nose, but he purs=
ued
them with the vital question in vain; the timid creatures ran from him, and
even the Lancers, when he approached them up the Hump, turned swiftly into a
side-walk, on the pretence that they saw him there.
Despa=
iring
of the fairies, he resolved to consult the birds, but now he remembered, as=
an
odd thing, that all the birds on the weeping-beech had flown away when he
alighted on it, and though this had not troubled him at the time, he saw it=
s meaning
now. Every living thing was shunni=
ng
him. Poor little Peter Pan! he sat=
down
and cried, and even then he did not know that, for a bird, he was sitting on
his wrong part. It is a blessing t=
hat he
did not know, for otherwise he would have lost faith in his power to fly, a=
nd
the moment you doubt whether you can fly, you cease for ever to be able to =
do
it. The reason birds can fly and we
can't is simply that they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have
wings.
Now, except by flying, no one can reach the is=
land
in the Serpentine, for the boats of humans are forbidden to land there, and
there are stakes round it, standing up in the water, on each of which a bir=
d-sentinel
sits by day and night. It was to t=
he
island that Peter now flew to put his strange case before old Solomon Caw, =
and
he alighted on it with relief, much heartened to find himself at last at ho=
me,
as the birds call the island. All =
of
them were asleep, including the sentinels, except Solomon, who was wide awa=
ke
on one side, and he listened quietly to Peter's adventures, and then told h=
im
their true meaning.
'Look at your nightgown, if you don't believe =
me,'
Solomon said; and with staring eyes Peter looked at his nightgown, and then=
at
the sleeping birds. Not one of the=
m wore
anything.
'How many of your toes are thumbs?' said Solom=
on a
little cruelly, and Peter saw, to his consternation, that all his toes were
fingers. The shock was so great th=
at it
drove away his cold.
'Ruffle your feathers,' said that grim old
Solomon, and Peter tried most desperately hard to ruffle his feathers, but =
he
had none. Then he rose up, quaking=
, and
for the first time since he stood on the window ledge, he remembered a lady=
who
had been very fond of him.
'I th=
ink I
shall go back to mother,' he said, timidly.
'Good-bye,' replied Solomon Caw with a queer l=
ook.
But Peter hesitated. 'Why don't you go?' the old one asked
politely.
'I suppose,' said Peter huskily, 'I suppose I =
can
still fly?'
You see he had lost faith.
'Poor little half-and-half!' said Solomon, who=
was
not really hard-hearted, 'you will never be able to fly again, not even on
windy days. You must live here on =
the
island always.'
'And never even go to the Kensington Gardens?'
Peter asked tragically.
'How could you get across?' said Solomon. He promised very kindly, however, to te=
ach
Peter as many of the bird ways as could be learned by one of such an awkward
shape.
'Then I shan't be exactly a human?' Peter aske=
d.
'No.'
'Nor exactly a bird?'
'No.'
'What shall I be?'
'You will be a Betwixt-and-Between,' Solomon s=
aid,
and certainly he was a wise old fellow, for that is exactly how it turned o=
ut.
The birds on the island never got used to
him. His oddities tickled them eve=
ry
day, as if they were quite new, though it was really the birds that were
new. They came out of the eggs dai=
ly,
and laughed at him at once; then off they soon flew to be humans, and other
birds came out of other eggs; and so it went on for ever. The crafty mother-birds, when they tire=
d of
sitting on their eggs, used to get the young ones to break their shells a d=
ay
before the right time by whispering to them that now was their chance to see
Peter washing or drinking or eating.
Thousands gathered round him daily to watch him do these things, jus=
t as
you watch the peacocks, and they screamed with delight when he lifted the
crusts they flung him with his hands instead of in the usual way with the
mouth. All his food was brought to=
him from
the Gardens at Solomon's orders by the birds.
He would not eat worms or insects (which they thought very silly of
him), so they brought him bread in their beaks.
Thus, when you cry out, 'Greedy! Greedy!' to the bird that flies away
with the big crust, you know now that you ought not to do this, for he is v=
ery
likely taking it to Peter Pan.
Peter=
wore
no nightgown now. You see, the bir=
ds
were always begging him for bits of it to line their nests with, and, being
very good-natured, he could not refuse, so by Solomon's advice he had hidde=
n what
was left of it. But, though he was=
now
quite naked, you must not think that he was cold or unhappy. He was usually very happy and gay, and =
the
reason was that Solomon had kept his promise and taught him many of the bird
ways. To be easily pleased, for
instance, and always to be really doing something, and to think that whatev=
er
he was doing was a thing of vast importance.
Peter became very clever at helping the birds to build their nests; =
soon
he could build better than a wood-pigeon, and nearly as well as a blackbird,
though never did he satisfy the finches, and he made nice little water-trou=
ghs
near the nests and dug up worms for the young ones with his fingers. He also became very learned in bird-lor=
e, and
knew an east wind from a west wind by its smell, and he could see the grass
growing and hear the insects walking about inside the tree-trunks. But the best thing Solomon had done was=
to
teach him to have a glad heart. All
birds have glad hearts unless you rob their nests, and so, as they were the
only kind of heart Solomon knew about, it was easy to him to teach Peter ho=
w to
have one.
Peter=
's
heart was so glad that he felt he must sing all day long, just as the birds
sing for joy, but, being partly human, he needed an instrument, so he made a
pipe of reeds, and he used to sit by the shore of the island of an evening,
practising the sough of the wind and the ripple of the water, and catching
handfuls of the shine of the moon, and he put them all in his pipe and play=
ed
them so beautifully that even the birds were deceived, and they would say to
each other, 'Was that a fish leaping in the water or was it Peter playing
leaping fish on his pipe?' And som=
etimes
he played the birth of birds, and then the mothers would turn round in their
nests to see whether they had laid an egg.
If you are a child of the Gardens you must know the chestnut-tree ne=
ar
the bridge, which comes out in flower first of all the chestnuts, but perha=
ps
you have not heard why this tree leads the way.
It is because Peter wearies for summer and plays that it has come, a=
nd
the chestnut being so near, hears him and is cheated.
But as
Peter sat by the shore tootling divinely on his pipe he sometimes fell into=
sad
thoughts, and then the music became sad also, and the reason of all this
sadness was that he could not reach the Gardens, though he could see them
through the arch of the bridge. He=
knew
he could never be a real human again, and scarcely wanted to be one, but oh!
how he longed to play as other children play, and of course there is no suc=
h lovely
place to play in as the Gardens. T=
he birds
brought him news of how boys and girls play, and wistful tears started in
Peter's eyes.
Perhaps you wonder why he did not swim
across. The reason was that he cou=
ld not
swim. He wanted to know how to swi=
m, but
no one on the island knew the way except the ducks, and they are so
stupid. They were quite willing to=
teach
him, but all they could say about it was, 'You sit down on the top of the w=
ater
in this way, and then you kick out like that.'
Peter tried it often, but always before he could kick out he sank. What he really needed to know was how y=
ou sit
on the water without sinking, and they said it was quite impossible to expl=
ain such
an easy thing as that. Occasionally
swans touched on the island, and he would give them all his day's food and =
then
ask them how they sat on the water, but as soon as he had no more to give t=
hem
the hateful things hissed at him and sailed away.
Once he really thought he had discovered a way=
of
reaching the Gardens. A wonderful white thing, like a runaway newspaper,
floated high over the island and then tumbled, rolling over and over after =
the
manner of a bird that has broken its wing.
Peter was so frightened that he hid, but the birds told him it was o=
nly
a kite, and what a kite is, and that it must have tugged its string out of a
boy's hand, and soared away. After that they laughed at Peter for being so =
fond
of the kite; he loved it so much that he even slept with one hand on it, an=
d I
think this was pathetic and pretty, for the reason he loved it was because =
it had
belonged to a real boy.
To the
birds this was a very poor reason, but the older ones felt grateful to him =
at
this time because he had nursed a number of fledglings through the German
measles, and they offered to show him how birds fly a kite. So six of them took the end of the stri=
ng in
their beaks and flew away with it; and to his amazement it flew after them =
and
went even higher than they.
Peter screamed out, 'Do it again!' and with gr=
eat
good-nature they did it several times, and always instead of thanking them =
he
cried, 'Do it again!' which shows that even now he had not quite forgotten =
what
it was to be a boy.
At last, with a grand design burning within his
brave heart, he begged them to do it once more with him clinging to the tai=
l,
and now a hundred flew off with the string, and Peter clung to the tail,
meaning to drop off when he was over the Gardens. But the kite broke to pieces in the air=
, and
he would have been drowned in the Serpentine had he not caught hold of two
indignant swans and made them carry him to the island. After this the birds said that they wou=
ld
help him no more in his mad enterprise.
Nevertheless, Peter did reach the Gardens at l=
ast
by the help of Shelley's boat, as I am now to tell you.
Shelley was a young gentleman and as grown-up =
as
he need ever expect to be. He was a
poet; and they are never exactly grown-up.
They are people who despise money except what you need for to-day, a=
nd
he had all that and five pounds over.
So, when he was walking in the Kensington Gardens, he made a paper b=
oat
of his bank-note, and sent it sailing on the Serpentine.
It reached the island at night; and the look-o=
ut
brought it to Solomon Caw, who thought at first that it was the usual thing=
, a
message from a lady, saying she would be obliged if he could let her have a
good one. They always ask for the best one he has, and if he likes the lett=
er
he sends one from Class A, but if it ruffles him he sends very funny ones i=
ndeed. Sometimes he sends none at all, and at
another time he sends a nestful; it all depends on the mood you catch him
in. He likes you to leave it all t=
o him,
and if you mention particularly that you hope he will see his way to making=
it
a boy this time, he is almost sure to send another girl. And whether you are a lady or only a li=
ttle
boy who wants a baby-sister, always take pains to write your address clearl=
y. You
can't think what a lot of babies Solomon has sent to the wrong house.
Shelley's boat, when opened, completely puzzled
Solomon, and he took counsel of his assistants, who having walked over it
twice, first with their toes pointed out, and then with their toes pointed =
in,
decided that it came from some greedy person who wanted five. They thought this because there was a l=
arge
five printed on it. 'Preposterous!=
' cried
Solomon in a rage, and he presented it to Peter; anything useless which dri=
fted
upon the island was usually given to Peter as a plaything.
But he did not play with his precious bank-not=
e,
for he knew what it was at once, having been very observant during the week
when he was an ordinary boy. With =
so
much money, he reflected, he could surely at last contrive to reach the
Gardens, and he considered all the possible ways, and decided (wisely, I th=
ink)
to choose the best way. But, first=
, he
had to tell the birds of the value of Shelley's boat; and though they were =
too
honest to demand it back, he saw that they were galled, and they cast such
black looks at Solomon, who was rather vain of his cleverness, that he flew
away to the end of the island, and sat there very depressed with his head
buried in his wings. Now Peter kne=
w that
unless Solomon was on your side, you never got anything done for you in the
island, so he followed him and tried to hearten him.
Nor w=
as
this all that Peter did to gain the powerful old fellow's good-will. You must know that Solomon had no inten=
tion
of remaining in office all his life. He
looked forward to retiring by and by, and devoting his green old age to a l=
ife
of pleasure on a certain yew-stump in the Figs which had taken his fancy, a=
nd
for years he had been quietly filling his stocking. It was a stocking belonging to some bat=
hing
person which had been cast upon the island, and at the time I speak of it
contained a hundred and eighty crumbs, thirty-four nuts, sixteen crusts, a
pen-wiper, and a boot-lace. When h=
is
stocking was full, Solomon calculated that he would be able to retire on a =
competency. Peter now gave him a pound. He cut it off his bank-note with a sharp
stick.
This made Solomon his friend for ever, and aft=
er
the two had consulted together they called a meeting of the thrushes. You will see presently why thrushes onl=
y were
invited.
The scheme to be put before them was really
Peter's, but Solomon did most of the talking, because he soon became irrita=
ble
if other people talked. He began by
saying that he had been much impressed by the superior ingenuity shown by t=
he
thrushes in nest-building, and this put them into good-humour at once, as it
was meant to do; for all the quarrels between birds are about the best way =
of
building nests. Other birds, said
Solomon, omitted to line their nests with mud, and as a result they did not
hold water. Here he cocked his hea=
d as
if he had used an unanswerable argument; but, unfortunately, a Mrs. Finch h=
ad come
to the meeting uninvited, and she squeaked out, 'We don't build nests to ho=
ld
water, but to hold eggs,' and then the thrushes stopped cheering, and Solom=
on
was so perplexed that he took several sips of water.
'Consider,' he said at last, 'how warm the mud
makes the nest.'
'Consider,' cried Mrs. Finch, 'that when water
gets into the nest it remains there and your little ones are drowned.'
The thrushes begged Solomon with a look to say
something crushing in reply to this, but again he was perplexed.
'Try another drink,' suggested Mrs. Finch
pertly. Kate was her name, and all=
Kates
are saucy.
Solom=
on did
try another drink, and it inspired him.
'If,' said he, 'a finch's nest is placed on the Serpentine it fills =
and
breaks to pieces, but a thrush's nest is still as dry as the cup of a swan's
back.'
How the thrushes applauded! Now they knew why they lined their nest=
s with
mud, and when Mrs. Finch called out, 'We don't place our nests on the Serpe=
ntine,'
they did what they should have done at first--chased her from the meeting.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> After this it was most orderly. What they had been brought together to =
hear,
said Solomon, was this: their young friend, Peter Pan, as they well knew,
wanted very much to be able to cross to the Gardens, and he now proposed, w=
ith
their help, to build a boat.
At this the thrushes began to fidget, which ma=
de
Peter tremble for his scheme.
Solomon explained hastily that what he meant w=
as
not one of the cumbrous boats that humans use; the proposed boat was to be
simply a thrush's nest large enough to hold Peter.
But still, to Peter's agony, the thrushes were
sulky. 'We are very busy people,' =
they
grumbled, 'and this would be a big job.'
'Quite so,' said Solomon, 'and, of course, Pet=
er
would not allow you to work for nothing.
You must remember that he is now in comfortable circumstances, and he
will pay you such wages as you have never been paid before. Peter Pan authorises me to say that you=
shall
all be paid sixpence a day.'
Then all the thrushes hopped for joy, and that
very day was begun the celebrated Building of the Boat. All their ordinary business fell into a=
rrears. It was the time of the year when they s=
hould
have been pairing, but not a thrush's nest was built except this big one, a=
nd
so Solomon soon ran short of thrushes with which to supply the demand from =
the
mainland. The stout, rather greedy
children, who look so well in perambulators but get puffed easily when they
walk, were all young thrushes once, and ladies often ask specially for
them. What do you think Solomon
did? He sent over to the house-top=
s for
a lot of sparrows and ordered them to lay their eggs in old thrushes' nests,
and sent their young to the ladies and swore they were all thrushes! It was known afterwards on the island a=
s the
Sparrows' Year; and so, when you meet grown-up people in the Gardens who pu=
ff
and blow as if they thought themselves bigger than they are, very likely th=
ey
belong to that year. You ask them.=
Peter=
was a
just master, and paid his work-people every evening. They stood in rows on the branches, wai=
ting
politely while he cut the paper sixpences out of his bank-note, and present=
ly
he called the roll, and then each bird, as the names were mentioned, flew d=
own
and got sixpence. It must have bee=
n a
fine sight.
And at last, after months of labour, the boat =
was
finished. O the glory of Peter as =
he saw
it growing more and more like a great thrush's nest! From the very beginning of the building=
of it
he slept by its side, and often woke up to say sweet things to it, and afte=
r it
was lined with mud and the mud had dried he always slept in it. He sleeps in his nest still, and has a
fascinating way of curling round in it, for it is just large enough to hold=
him
comfortably when he curls round like a kitten.
It is brown inside, of course, but outside it is mostly green, being
woven of grass and twigs, and when these wither or snap the walls are thatc=
hed
afresh. There are also a few feath=
ers
here and there, which came off the thrushes while they were building.
The other birds were extremely jealous, and sa=
id
that the boat would not balance on the water, but it lay most beautifully
steady; they said the water would come into it, but no water came into it.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Next they said that Peter had no oars, =
and
this caused the thrushes to look at each other in dismay; but Peter replied
that he had no need of oars, for he had a sail, and with such a proud, happy
face he produced a sail which he had fashioned out of his nightgown, and th=
ough
it was still rather like a nightgown it made a lovely sail. And that night, the moon being full, an=
d all
the birds asleep, he did enter his coracle (as Master Francis Pretty would =
have
said) and depart out of the island. And first, he knew not why, he looked
upward, with his hands clasped, and from that moment his eyes were pinned to
the west.
He had promised the thrushes to begin by making
short voyages, with them as his guides, but far away he saw the Kensington
Gardens beckoning to him beneath the bridge, and he could not wait. His face was flushed, but he never look=
ed
back; there was an exultation in his little breast that drove out fear. Was Peter the least gallant of the Engl=
ish
mariners who have sailed westward to meet the Unknown?
At first, his boat turned round and round, and=
he
was driven back to the place of his starting, whereupon he shortened sail, =
by
removing one of the sleeves, and was forthwith carried backwards by a contr=
ary breeze,
to his no small peril. He now let =
go the
sail, with the result that he was drifted towards the far shore, where are
black shadows he knew not the dangers of, but suspected them, and so once m=
ore
hoisted his nightgown and went roomer of the shadows until he caught a favo=
uring
wind, which bore him westward, but at so great a speed that he was like to =
be
broke against the bridge. Which, h=
aving
avoided, he passed under the bridge and came, to his great rejoicing, within
full sight of the delectable Gardens.
But having tried to cast anchor, which was a stone at the end of a p=
iece
of the kite-string, he found no bottom, and was fain to hold off, seeking f=
or
moorage; and, feeling his way, he buffeted against a sunken reef that cast =
him
overboard by the greatness of the shock, and he was near to being drowned, =
but
clambered back into the vessel. Th=
ere
now arose a mighty storm, accompanied by roaring of waters, such as he had
never heard the like, and he was tossed this way and that, and his hands so
numbed with the cold that he could not close them. Having escaped the danger of which, he =
was mercifully
carried into a small bay, where his boat rode at peace.
Nevertheless, he was not yet in safety; for, on
pretending to disembark, he found a multitude of small people drawn up on t=
he
shore to contest his landing, and shouting shrilly to him to be off, for it=
was
long past Lock-out Time. This, wit=
h much
brandishing of their holly-leaves; and also a company of them carried an ar=
row
which some boy had left in the Gardens, and this they were prepared to use =
as a
battering-ram.
Then Peter, who knew them for the fairies, cal=
led
out that he was not an ordinary human and had no desire to do them displeas=
ure,
but to be their friend; nevertheless, having found a jolly harbour, he was =
in
no temper to draw off therefrom, and he warned them if they sought to misch=
ief
him to stand to their harms.
So saying, he boldly leapt ashore, and they
gathered around him with intent to slay him, but there then arose a great c=
ry
among the women, and it was because they had now observed that his sail was=
a
baby's nightgown. Whereupon, they
straightway loved him, and grieved that their laps were too small, the whic=
h I
cannot explain, except by saying that such is the way of women. The men-fairies now sheathed their weap=
ons on
observing the behaviour of their women, on whose intelligence they set great
store, and they led him civilly to their queen, who conferred upon him the
courtesy of the Gardens after Lock-out Time, and henceforth Peter could go
whither he chose, and the fairies had orders to put him in comfort.
Such =
was
his first voyage to the Gardens, and you may gather from the antiquity of t=
he
language that it took place a long time ago.
But Peter never grows any older, and if we could be watching for him
under the bridge to-night (but, of course, we can't), I dare say we should =
see
him hoisting his nightgown and sailing or paddling towards us in the Thrush=
's
Nest. When he sails, he sits down,=
but
he stands up to paddle. I shall te=
ll you
presently how he got his paddle.
Long before the time for the opening of the ga=
tes
comes he steals back to the island, for people must not see him (he is not =
so
human as all that), but this gives him hours for play, and he plays exactly=
as
real children play. At least he th=
inks
so, and it is one of the pathetic things about him that he often plays quite
wrongly.
You see, he had no one to tell him how children
really play, for the fairies are all more or less in hiding until dusk, and=
so
know nothing, and though the birds pretended that they could tell him a gre=
at
deal, when the time for telling came, it was wonderful how little they real=
ly knew. They told him the truth about hide-and-=
seek,
and he often plays it by himself, but even the ducks on the Round Pond could
not explain to him what it is that makes the pond so fascinating to boys. Every night the ducks have forgotten al=
l the
events of the day, except the number of pieces of cake thrown to them. They are gloomy creatures, and say that=
cake
is not what it was in their young days.
So Peter had to find out many things for
himself. He often played ships at =
the
Round Pond, but his ship was only a hoop which he had found on the grass. Of course, he had never seen a hoop, an=
d he wondered
what you play at with them, and decided that you play at pretending they are
boats. This hoop always sank at on=
ce,
but he waded in for it, and sometimes he dragged it gleefully round the rim=
of
the pond, and he was quite proud to think that he had discovered what boys =
do
with hoops.
Anoth=
er
time, when he found a child's pail, he thought it was for sitting in, and he
sat so hard in it that he could scarcely get out of it. Also he found a balloon. It was bobbing about on the Hump, quite=
as if
it was having a game by itself, and he caught it after an exciting chase. <=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> But he thought it was a ball, and Jenny =
Wren
had told him that boys kick balls, so he kicked it; and after that he could=
not
find it anywhere.
Perhaps the most surprising thing he found was=
a
perambulator. It was under a lime-=
tree,
near the entrance to the Fairy Queen's Winter Palace (which is within the
circle of the seven Spanish chestnuts), and Peter approached it warily, for=
the
birds had never mentioned such things to him.
Lest it was alive, he addressed it politely; and then, as it gave no
answer, he went nearer and felt it cautiously.
He gave it a little push, and it ran from him, which made him think =
it
must be alive after all; but, as it had run from him, he was not afraid.
Do you pity Peter Pan for making these
mistakes? If so, I think it rather=
silly
of you. What I mean is that, of co=
urse,
one must pity him now and then, but to pity him all the time would be
impertinence. He thought he had th=
e most
splendid time in the Gardens, and to think you have it is almost quite as g=
ood
as really to have it. He played wi=
thout
ceasing, while you often waste time by being mad-dog or Mary-Annish. He could be neither of these things, fo=
r he
had never heard of them, but do you think he is to be pitied for that?
Oh, he was merry!
He was as much merrier than you, for instance, as you are merrier th=
an
your father. Sometimes he fell, li=
ke a spinning-top,
from sheer merriment. Have you see=
n a
greyhound leaping the fences of the Gardens?
That is how Peter leaps them.
And t=
hink
of the music of his pipe. Gentleme=
n who
walk home at night write to the papers to say they heard a nightingale in t=
he
Gardens, but it is really Peter's pipe they hear. Of course, he had no mother--at least, =
what
use was she to him? You can be sor=
ry for
him for that, but don't be too sorry, for the next thing I mean to tell you=
is
how he revisited her. It was the f=
airies
who gave him the chance.
It is frightfully difficult to know much about=
the
fairies, and almost the only thing known for certain is that there are fair=
ies
wherever there are children. Long =
ago
children were forbidden the Gardens, and at that time there was not a fairy=
in
the place; then the children were admitted, and the fairies came trooping in
that very evening. They can't resi=
st
following the children, but you seldom see them, partly because they live in
the daytime behind the railings, where you are not allowed to go, and also
partly because they are so cunning. They
are not a bit cunning after Lock-out, but until Lock-out, my word!
When you were a bird you knew the fairies pret=
ty
well, and you remember a good deal about them in your babyhood, which it is=
a
great pity you can't write down, for gradually you forget, and I have heard=
of children
who declared that they had never once seen a fairy. Very likely if they said this in the
Kensington Gardens, they were standing looking at a fairy all the time. The reason they were cheated was that s=
he
pretended to be something else. Th=
is is
one of their best tricks. They usually pretend to be flowers, because the c=
ourt
sits in the Fairies' Basin, and there are so many flowers there, and all al=
ong
the Baby Walk, that a flower is the thing least likely to attract attention=
. They dress exactly like flowers, and ch=
ange
with the seasons, putting on white when lilies are in and blue for bluebell=
s, and
so on. They like crocus and hyacin=
th
time best of all, as they are partial to a bit of colour, but tulips (except
white ones, which are the fairy cradles) they consider garish, and they
sometimes put off dressing like tulips for days, so that the beginning of t=
he
tulip weeks is almost the best time to catch them.
When they think you are not looking they skip
along pretty lively, but if you look, and they fear there is no time to hid=
e,
they stand quite still pretending to be flowers. Then, after you have passed without kno=
wing
that they were fairies, they rush home and tell their mothers they have had
such an adventure. The Fairy Basin=
, you
remember, is all covered with ground-ivy (from which they make their
castor-oil), with flowers growing in it here and there. Most of them really are flowers, but so=
me of
them are fairies. You never can be=
sure
of them, but a good plan is to walk by looking the other way, and then turn
round sharply. Another good plan, =
which
David and I sometimes follow, is to stare them down. After a long time they can't help winki=
ng,
and then you know for certain that they are fairies.
There=
are
also numbers of them along the Baby Walk, which is a famous gentle place, as
spots frequented by fairies are called.
Once twenty-four of them had an extraordinary adventure. They were a girls' school out for a wal=
k with
the governess, and all wearing hyacinth gowns, when she suddenly put her fi=
nger
to her mouth, and then they all stood still on an empty bed and pretended t=
o be
hyacinths. Unfortunately what the governess had heard was two gardeners com=
ing
to plant new flowers in that very bed.
They were wheeling a hand-cart with the flowers in it, and were quite
surprised to find the bed occupied.
'Pity to lift them hyacinths,' said the one man. 'Duke's orders,' replied the other, and,
having emptied the cart, they dug up the boarding-school and put the poor,
terrified things in it in five rows. Of
course, neither the governess nor the girls dare let on that they were fair=
ies,
so they were carted far away to a potting-shed, out of which they escaped in
the night without their shoes, but there was a great row about it among the
parents, and the school was ruined.
As for their houses, it is no use looking for
them, because they are the exact opposite of our houses. You can see our houses by day but you c=
an't
see them by dark. Well, you can see
their houses by dark, but you can't see them by day, for they are the colou=
r of
night, and I never heard of any one yet who could see night in the
daytime. This does not mean that t=
hey
are black, for night has its colours just as day has, but ever so much
brighter. Their blues and reds and
greens are like ours with a light behind them.
The palace is entirely built of many-coloured glasses, and it is qui=
te
the loveliest of all royal residences, but the queen sometimes complains
because the common people will peep in to see what she is doing. They are very inquisitive folk, and pre=
ss
quite hard against the glass, and that is why their noses are mostly
snubby. The streets are miles long=
and
very twisty, and have paths on each side made of bright worsted. The birds used to steal the worsted for=
their
nests, but a policeman has been appointed to hold on at the other end.
One o=
f the
great differences between the fairies and us is that they never do anything
useful. When the first baby laughe=
d for
the first time, his laugh broke into a million pieces, and they all went
skipping about. That was the begin=
ning
of fairies. They look tremendously=
busy,
you know, as if they had not a moment to spare, but if you were to ask them
what they are doing, they could not tell you in the least. They are frightf=
ully
ignorant, and everything they do is make-believe. They have a postman, but =
he
never calls except at Christmas with his little box, and though they have
beautiful schools, nothing is taught in them; the youngest child being chief
person is always elected mistress, and when she has called the roll, they a=
ll
go out for a walk and never come back.
It is a very noticeable thing that, in fairy families, the youngest =
is
always chief person, and usually becomes a prince or princess; and children
remember this, and think it must be so among humans also, and that is why t=
hey
are often made uneasy when they come upon their mother furtively putting new
frills on the basinette.
You have probably observed that your baby-sist=
er
wants to do all sorts of things that your mother and her nurse want her not=
to
do--to stand up at sitting-down time, and to sit down at stand-up time, for=
instance,
or to wake up when she should fall asleep, or to crawl on the floor when sh=
e is
wearing her best frock, and so on, and perhaps you put this down to
naughtiness. But it is not; it sim=
ply
means that she is doing as she has seen the fairies do; she begins by follo=
wing
their ways, and it takes about two years to get her into the human ways.
Of la=
te
David has been thinking back hard about the fairy tongue, with his hands
clutching his temples, and he has remembered a number of their phrases whic=
h I
shall tell you some day if I don't forget.
He had heard them in the days when he was a thrush, and though I
suggested to him that perhaps it is really bird language he is remembering,=
he says
not, for these phrases are about fun and adventures, and the birds talked of
nothing but nest-building. He dist=
inctly
remembers that the birds used to go from spot to spot like ladies at shop
windows, looking at the different nests and saying, 'Not my colour, my dear=
,'
and 'How would that do with a soft lining?' and 'But will it wear?' and 'Wh=
at hideous
trimming!' and so on.
The f=
airies
are exquisite dancers, and that is why one of the first things the baby doe=
s is
to sign to you to dance to him and then to cry when you do it. They hold their great balls in the open=
air,
in what is called a fairy ring. For
weeks afterwards you can see the ring on the grass. It is not there when they begin, but th=
ey
make it by waltzing round and round.
Sometimes you will find mushrooms inside the ring, and these are fai=
ry
chairs that the servants have forgotten to clear away. The chairs and the rings are the only
tell-tale marks these little people leave behind them, and they would remove
even these were they not so fond of dancing that they toe it till the very
moment of the opening of the gates.
David and I once found a fairy ring quite warm.
But there is also a way of finding out about t=
he
ball before it takes place. You kn=
ow the
boards which tell at what time the Gardens are to close to-day. Well, these tricky fairies sometimes sl=
yly
change the board on a ball night, so that it says the Gardens are to close =
at six-thirty,
for instance, instead of at seven. This
enables them to get begun half an hour earlier.
If on such a night we could remain behind in t=
he
Gardens, as the famous Maimie Mannering did, we might see delicious sights;
hundreds of lovely fairies hastening to the ball, the married ones wearing
their wedding rings round their waists; the gentlemen, all in uniform, hold=
ing
up the ladies' trains, and linkmen running in front carrying winter cherrie=
s, which
are the fairy-lanterns; the cloakroom where they put on their silver slippe=
rs
and get a ticket for their wraps; the flowers streaming up from the Baby Wa=
lk
to look on, and always welcome because they can lend a pin; the supper-tabl=
e,
with Queen Mab at the head of it, and behind her chair the Lord Chamberlain,
who carries a dandelion on which he blows when her Majesty wants to know the
time.
The t=
able-cloth
varies according to the seasons, and in May it is made of chestnut
blossom. The way the fairy servant=
s do
is this: The men, scores of them, climb up the trees and shake the branches,
and the blossom falls like snow. T=
hen
the lady servants sweep it together by whisking their skirts until it is
exactly like a tablecloth, and that is how they get their tablecloth.
They have real glasses and real wine of three
kinds, namely, blackthorn wine, berberris wine, and cowslip wine, and the Q=
ueen
pours out, but the bottles are so heavy that she just pretends to pour
out. There is bread-and-butter to =
begin
with, of the size of a threepenny bit; and cakes to end with, and they are =
so
small that they have no crumbs. Th=
e fairies
sit round on mushrooms, and at first they are well-behaved and always cough=
off
the table, and so on, but after a bit they are not so well-behaved and stick
their fingers into the butter, which is got from the roots of old trees, and
the really horrid ones crawl over the tablecloth chasing sugar or other
delicacies with their tongues. Whe=
n the
Queen sees them doing this she signs to the servants to wash up and put awa=
y,
and then everybody adjourns to the dance, the Queen walking in front while =
the
Lord Chamberlain walks behind her, carrying two little pots, one of which
contains the juice of wallflower and the other the juice of Solomon's
Seal. Wallflower juice is good for=
reviving
dancers who fall to the ground in a fit, and Solomon's Seal juice is for
bruises. They bruise very easily, =
and
when Peter plays faster and faster they foot it till they fall down in
fits. For, as you know without my
telling you, Peter Pan is the fairies' orchestra. He sits in the middle of =
the
ring, and they would never dream of having a smart dance nowadays without
him. 'P. P.' is written on the cor=
ner of
the invitation-cards sent out by all really good families. They are grateful little people, too, a=
nd at
the princess's coming-of-age ball (they come of age on their second birthday
and have a birthday every month) they gave him the wish of his heart.
The w=
ay it
was done was this. The Queen order=
ed him
to kneel, and then said that for playing so beautifully she would give him =
the
wish of his heart. Then they all
gathered round Peter to hear what was the wish of his heart, but for a long
time he hesitated, not being certain what it was himself.
'If I chose to go back to mother,' he asked at
last, 'could you give me that wish?'
Now this question vexed them, for were he to
return to his mother they should lose his music, so the Queen tilted her no=
se
contemptuously and said, 'Pooh! ask for a much bigger wish than that.'
'Is that quite a little wish?' he inquired.
'As little as this,' the Queen answered, putti=
ng
her hands near each other.
'What size is a big wish?' he asked.
She measured it off on her skirt and it was a =
very
handsome length.
Then Peter reflected and said, 'Well, then, I
think I shall have two little wishes instead of one big one.'
Of course, the fairies had to agree, though hi=
s cleverness
rather shocked them, and he said that his first wish was to go to his mothe=
r, but
with the right to return to the Gardens if he found her disappointing. His second wish he would hold in reserv=
e.
They tried to dissuade him, and even put obsta=
cles
in the way.
'I can give you the power to fly to her house,'
the Queen said, 'but I can't open the door for you.'
'The window I flew out at will be open,' Peter
said confidently. 'Mother always keeps it open in the hope that I may fly
back.'
'How do you know?' they asked, quite surprised,
and, really, Peter could not explain how he knew.
'I just do know,' he said.
So as he persisted in his wish, they had to gr=
ant
it. The way they gave him power to=
fly
was this: They all tickled him on the shoulder, and soon he felt a funny
itching in that part, and then up he rose higher and higher, and flew away =
out
of the Gardens and over the housetops.
It was so delicious that instead of flying
straight to his own home he skimmed away over St. Paul's to the Crystal Pal=
ace
and back by the river and Regent's Park, and by the time he reached his
mother's window he had quite made up his mind that his second wish should b=
e to
become a bird.
The window was wide open, just as he knew it w=
ould
be, and in he fluttered, and there was his mother lying asleep. Peter alighted softly on the wooden rai=
l at
the foot of the bed and had a good look at her.
She lay with her head on her hand, and the hollow in the pillow was =
like
a nest lined with her brown wavy hair.
He remembered, though he had long forgotten it, that she always gave=
her
hair a holiday at night. How sweet=
the
frills of her nightgown were! He w=
as
very glad she was such a pretty mother.
But she looked sad, and he knew why she looked
sad. One of her arms moved as if it
wanted to go round something, and he knew what it wanted to go round.
'O mother!' said Peter to himself, 'if you just
knew who is sitting on the rail at the foot of the bed.'
Very gently he patted the little mound that her
feet made, and he could see by her face that she liked it. He knew he had but to say 'Mother' ever=
so
softly, and she would wake up. They
always wake up at once if it is you that says their name. Then she would give such a joyous cry a=
nd
squeeze him tight. How nice that w=
ould
be to him, but oh! how exquisitely delicious it would be to her. That, I am afraid, is how Peter regarded
it. In returning to his mother he =
never
doubted that he was giving her the greatest treat a woman can have. Nothing can be more splendid, he though=
t,
than to have a little boy of your own.
How proud of him they are! and very right and proper, too.
But w=
hy
does Peter sit so long on the rail; why does he not tell his mother that he=
has
come back?
I quite shrink from the truth, which is that he
sat there in two minds. Sometimes he looked longingly at his mother, and
sometimes he looked longingly at the window.
Certainly it would be pleasant to be her boy again, but on the other
hand, what times those had been in the Gardens! Was he so sure that he shou=
ld
enjoy wearing clothes again? He po=
pped off
the bed and opened some drawers to have a look at his old garments. They we=
re
still there, but he could not remember how you put them on. The socks, for
instance, were they worn on the hands or on the feet? He was about to try o=
ne
of them on his hand, when he had a great adventure. Perhaps the drawer had creaked; at any =
rate,
his mother woke up, for he heard her say 'Peter,' as if it was the most lov=
ely word
in the language. He remained sitti=
ng on
the floor and held his breath, wondering how she knew that he had come
back. If she said 'Peter' again, he
meant to cry 'Mother' and run to her.
But she spoke no more, she made little moans only, and when he next
peeped at her she was once more asleep, with tears on her face.
It made Peter very miserable, and what do you
think was the first thing he did?
Sitting on the rail at the foot of the bed, he played a beautiful
lullaby to his mother on his pipe. He
had made it up himself out of the way she said 'Peter,' and he never stopped
playing until she looked happy.
He thought this so clever of him that he could
scarcely resist wakening her to hear her say, 'O Peter, how exquisitely you
play!' However, as she now seemed
comfortable, he again cast looks at the window.
You must not think that he meditated flying away and never coming
back. He had quite decided to be h=
is
mother's boy, but hesitated about beginning to-night. It was the second wish which troubled
him. He no longer meant to make it=
a
wish to be a bird, but not to ask for a second wish seemed wasteful, and, of
course, he could not ask for it without returning to the fairies. Also, if he put off asking for his wish=
too long
it might go bad. He asked himself =
if he
had not been hard-hearted to fly away without saying good-bye to Solomon. 'I should like awfully to sail in my bo=
at
just once more,' he said wistfully to his sleeping mother. He quite argued with her as if she coul=
d hear
him. 'It would be so splendid to t=
ell
the birds of this adventure,' he said coaxingly. 'I promise to come back,' =
he
said solemnly, and meant it, too.
And i=
n the
end, you know, he flew away. Twice=
he
came back from the window, wanting to kiss his mother, but he feared the de=
light
of it might waken her, so at last he played her a lovely kiss on his pipe, =
and
then he flew back to the Gardens.
Many nights, and even months, passed before he
asked the fairies for his second wish; and I am not sure that I quite know =
why
he delayed so long. One reason was=
that
he had so many good-byes to say, not only to his particular friends, but to=
a
hundred favourite spots. Then he h=
ad his
last sail, and his very last sail, and his last sail of all, and so on. Again, a number of farewell feasts were=
given
in his honour; and another comfortable reason was that, after all, there wa=
s no
hurry, for his mother would never weary of waiting for him. This last reason displeased old Solomon=
, for
it was an encouragement to the birds to procrastinate. Solomon had several excellent mottoes f=
or
keeping them at their work, such as 'Never put off laying to-day because you
can lay to-morrow,' and 'In this world there are no second chances,' and ye=
t here
was Peter gaily putting off and none the worse for it. The birds pointed this out to each other=
, and
fell into lazy habits.
But, mind you, though Peter was so slow in goi=
ng
back to his mother, he was quite decided to go back. The best proof of this was his caution =
with
the fairies. They were most anxiou=
s that
he should remain in the Gardens to play to them, and to bring this to pass =
they
tried to trick him into making such a remark as 'I wish the grass was not so
wet,' and some of them danced out of time in the hope that he might cry, 'I=
do wish
you would keep time!' Then they wo=
uld
have said that this was his second wish.
But he smoked their design, and though on occasions he began, 'I
wish----' he always stopped in time. So
when at last he said to them bravely, 'I wish now to go back to mother for =
ever
and always,' they had to tickle his shoulders and let him go.
He went in a hurry in the end, because he had
dreamt that his mother was crying, and he knew what was the great thing she
cried for, and that a hug from her splendid Peter would quickly make her to
smile. Oh! he felt sure of it, and so eager was he to be nestling in her ar=
ms that
this time he flew straight to the window, which was always to be open for h=
im.
But t=
he
window was closed, and there were iron bars on it, and peering inside he sa=
w his
mother sleeping peacefully with her arm round another little boy.
Peter called, 'Mother! mother!' but she heard =
him
not; in vain he beat his little limbs against the iron bars. He had to fly back, sobbing, to the Gar=
dens,
and he never saw his dear again. W=
hat a
glorious boy he had meant to be to her!
Ah, Peter! we who have made the great mistake, how differently we sh=
ould
all act at the second chance. But =
Solomon
was right--there is no second chance, not for most of us. When we reach the window it is Lock-out
Time. The iron bars are up for lif=
e.
<=
span
style=3D'font-size:12.0pt;mso-bidi-font-size:14.0pt;line-height:115%'>V - T=
HE
LITTLE HOUSE
Everybody has heard of the Little House in the
Kensington Gardens, which is the only house in the whole world that the fai=
ries
have built for humans. But no one =
has
really seen it, except just three or four, and they have not only seen it b=
ut
slept in it, and unless you sleep in it you never see it. This is because it is not there when yo=
u lie down,
but it is there when you wake up and step outside.
In a kind of way every one may see it, but what
you see is not really it, but only the light in the windows. You see the light after Lock-out Time.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> David, for instance, saw it quite disti=
nctly
far away among the trees as we were going home from the pantomime, and Oliv=
er Bailey
saw it the night he stayed so late at the Temple, which is the name of his
father's office. Angela Clare, who=
loves
to have a tooth extracted because then she is treated to tea in a shop, saw
more than one light, she saw hundreds of them all together; and this must h=
ave been
the fairies building the house, for they build it every night, and always i=
n a
different part of the Gardens. She
thought one of the lights was bigger than the others, though she was not qu=
ite
sure, for they jumped about so, and it might have been another one that was=
bigger. But if it was the same one, it was Peter
Pan's light. Heaps of children hav=
e seen
the light, so that is nothing. But
Maimie Mannering was the famous one for whom the house was first built.
Maimie was always rather a strange girl, and it
was at night that she was strange. She
was four years of age, and in the daytime she was the ordinary kind. She was pleased when her brother Tony, =
who
was a magnificent fellow of six, took notice of her, and she looked up to h=
im in
the right way, and tried in vain to imitate him, and was flattered rather t=
han
annoyed when he shoved her about. =
Also,
when she was batting, she would pause though the ball was in the air to poi=
nt
out to you that she was wearing new shoes.
She was quite the ordinary kind in the daytime.
But a=
s the
shades of night fell, Tony, the swaggerer, lost his contempt for Maimie and
eyed her fearfully; and no wonder, for with dark there came into her face a
look that I can describe only as a leary look.
It was also a serene look that contrasted grandly with Tony's uneasy=
glances. Then he would make her presents of his
favourite toys (which he always took away from her next morning), and she
accepted them with a disturbing smile.
The reason he was now become so wheedling and she so mysterious was =
(in
brief) that they knew they were about to be sent to bed. It was then that Maimie was terrible. Tony entreated her not to do it to-nigh=
t, and
the mother and their coloured nurse threatened her, but Maimie merely smiled
her agitating smile. And by and by=
when they
were alone with their night-light she would start up in bed crying 'Hsh! wh=
at
was that?' Tony beseeches her, 'It=
was
nothing--don't, Maimie, don't!' and pulls the sheet over his head. 'It is coming nearer!' she cries. 'Oh, look at it, Tony! It is feeling your bed with its horns--=
it is
boring for you, O Tony, oh!' and she desists not until he rushes downstairs=
in
his combinations, screeching. When=
they came
up to whip Maimie they usually found her sleeping tranquilly--not shamming,=
you
know, but really sleeping, and looking like the sweetest little angel, which
seems to me to make it almost worse.
But of course it was daytime when they were in=
the
Gardens, and then Tony did most of the talking.
You could gather from his talk that he was a very brave boy, and no =
one
was so proud of it as Maimie. She =
would
have loved to have a ticket on her saying that she was his sister. And at no time did she admire him more =
than
when he told her, as he often did with splendid firmness, that one day he m=
eant
to remain behind in the Gardens after the gates were closed.
'O Tony,' she would say with awful respect, 'b=
ut
the fairies will be so angry!'
'I dare say,' replied Tony carelessly.
'Perhaps,' she said, thrilling, 'Peter Pan will
give you a sail in his boat!'
'I shall make him,' replied Tony; no wonder she
was proud of him.
But t=
hey
should not have talked so loudly, for one day they were overheard by a fairy
who had been gathering skeleton leaves, from which the little people weave
their summer curtains, and after that Tony was a marked boy. They loosened the rails before he sat on
them, so that down he came on the back of his head; they tripped him up by
catching his bootlace, and bribed the ducks to sink his boat. Nearly all the nasty accidents you meet=
with
in the Gardens occur because the fairies have taken an ill-will to you, and=
so
it behoves you to be careful what you say about them.
Maimie was one of the kind who like to fix a d=
ay
for doing things, but Tony was not that kind, and when she asked him which =
day
he was to remain behind in the Gardens after Lock-out he merely replied, 'J=
ust some
day'; he was quite vague about which day except when she asked, 'Will it be
to-day?' and then he could always say for certain that it would not be
to-day. So she saw that he was wai=
ting
for a real good chance.
This brings us to an afternoon when the Gardens
were white with snow, and there was ice on the Round Pond; not thick enough=
to
skate on, but at least you could spoil it for to-morrow by flinging stones,=
and
many bright little boys and girls were doing that.
When Tony and his sister arrived they wanted t=
o go
straight to the pond, but their ayah said they must take a sharp walk first,
and as she said this she glanced at the time-board to see when the Gardens
closed that night. It read half-pa=
st
five. Poor ayah! she is the one wh=
o laughs
continuously because there are so many white children in the world, but she=
was
not to laugh much more that day.
Well, they went up the Baby Walk and back, and
when they returned to the time-board she was surprised to see that it now r=
ead
five o'clock for closing-time. But=
she
was unacquainted with the tricky ways of the fairies, and so did not see (as
Maimie and Tony saw at once) that they had changed the hour because there w=
as
to be a ball to-night. She said th=
ere
was only time now to walk to the top of the Hump and back, and as they trot=
ted
along with her she little guessed what was thrilling their little breasts.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> You see the chance had come of seeing a=
fairy
ball. Never, Tony felt, could he hope for a better chance.
He ha=
d to
feel this, for Maimie so plainly felt it for him. Her eager eyes asked the question, 'Is =
it
to-day?' and he gasped and then nodded. Maimie slipped her hand into Tony's,
and hers was hot, but his was cold. She
did a very kind thing; she took off her scarf and gave it to him. 'In case you should feel cold,' she
whispered. Her face was aglow, but
Tony's was very gloomy.
As they turned on the top of the Hump he whisp=
ered
to her, 'I'm afraid nurse would see me, so I shan't be able to do it.'
Maimie admired him more than ever for being af=
raid
of nothing but their ayah, when there were so many unknown terrors to fear,=
and
she said aloud, 'Tony, I shall race you to the gate,' and in a whisper, 'Th=
en you
can hide,' and off they ran.
Tony could always outdistance her easily, but
never had she known him speed away so quickly as now, and she was sure he
hurried that he might have more time to hide.
'Brave, brave!' her doting eyes were crying when she got a dreadful
shock; instead of hiding, her hero had run out at the gate! At this bitter sight Maimie stopped bla=
nkly,
as if all her lapful of darling treasures were suddenly spilled, and then f=
or very
disdain she could not sob; in a swell of protest against all puling cowards=
she
ran to St. Govor's Well and hid in Tony's stead.
When the ayah reached the gate and saw Tony fa=
r in
front she thought her other charge was with him and passed out. Twilight crept over the Gardens, and hu=
ndreds
of people passed out, including the last one, who always has to run for it,=
but
Maimie saw them not. She had shut =
her eyes
tight and glued them with passionate tears.
When she opened them something very cold ran up her legs and up her =
arms
and dropped into her heart. It was=
the
stillness of the Gardens. Then she=
heard
clang, then from another part clang, then clang, clang far away. It was the
Closing of the Gates.
Immediately the last clang had died away Maimie
distinctly heard a voice say, 'So that's all right.' It had a wooden sound and seemed to com=
e from
above, and she looked up in time to see an elm-tree stretching out its arms=
and
yawning.
She w=
as
about to say, 'I never knew you could speak!' when a metallic voice that se=
emed
to come from the ladle at the well remarked to the elm, 'I suppose it is a =
bit
coldish up there?' and the elm replied, 'Not particularly, but you do get n=
umb
standing so long on one leg,' and he flapped his arms vigorously just as the
cabmen do before they drive off. M=
aimie
was quite surprised to see that a number of other tall trees were doing the
same sort of thing, and she stole away to the Baby Walk and crouched
observantly under a Minorca holly which shrugged its shoulders but did not =
seem
to mind her.
She was not in the least cold. She was wearing a russet-coloured pelis=
se and
had the hood over her head, so that nothing of her showed except her dear
little face and her curls. The res=
t of
her real self was hidden far away inside so many warm garments that in shape
she seemed rather like a ball. She=
was
about forty round the waist.
There was a good deal going on in the Baby Wal=
k,
where Maimie arrived in time to see a magnolia and a Persian lilac step over
the railing and set off for a smart walk.
They moved in a jerky sort of way certainly, but that was because th=
ey
used crutches. An elderberry hobbl=
ed
across the walk, and stood chatting with some young quinces, and they all h=
ad crutches. The crutches were the sticks that are t=
ied to
young trees and shrubs. They were =
quite
familiar objects to Maimie, but she had never known what they were for until
to-night.
She p=
eeped
up the walk and saw her first fairy. He
was a street boy fairy who was running up the walk closing the weeping tree=
s. The way he did it was this: he pressed a
spring in the trunks and they shut like umbrellas, deluging the little plan=
ts
beneath with snow. 'O you naughty,
naughty child!' Maimie cried indignantly, for she knew what it was to have a
dripping umbrella about your ears.
Fortunately the mischievous fellow was out of
earshot, but a chrysanthemum heard her, and said so pointedly, 'Hoity-toity,
what is this?' that she had to come out and show herself. Then the whole vegetable kingdom was ra=
ther
puzzled what to do.
'Of c=
ourse
it is no affair of ours,' a spindle-tree said after they had whispered
together, 'but you know quite well you ought not to be here, and perhaps our
duty is to report you to the fairies; what do you think yourself?'
'I think you should not,' Maimie replied, whic=
h so
perplexed them that they said petulantly there was no arguing with her. 'I wouldn't ask it of you,' she assured=
them,
'if I thought it was wrong,' and of course after this they could not well c=
arry
tales. They then said, 'Well-a-day=
,' and
'Such is life,' for they can be frightfully sarcastic; but she felt sorry f=
or
those of them who had no crutches, and she said good-naturedly, 'Before I g=
o to
the fairies' ball, I should like to take you for a walk one at a time; you =
can
lean on me, you know.'
At this they clapped their hands, and she esco=
rted
them up the Baby Walk and back again, one at a time, putting an arm or a fi=
nger
round the very frail, setting their leg right when it got too ridiculous, a=
nd treating
the foreign ones quite as courteously as the English, though she could not
understand a word they said.
They behaved well on the whole, though some
whimpered that she had not taken them as far as she took Nancy or Grace or
Dorothy, and others jagged her, but it was quite unintentional, and she was=
too
much of a lady to cry out. So much
walking tired her, and she was anxious to be off to the ball, but she no lo=
nger
felt afraid. The reason she felt n=
o more
fear was that it was now night-time, and in the dark, you remember, Maimie =
was
always rather strange.
They were now loth to let her go, for, 'If the
fairies see you,' they warned her, 'they will mischief you--stab you to dea=
th,
or compel you to nurse their children, or turn you into something tedious, =
like
an evergreen oak.' As they said th=
is
they looked with affected pity at an evergreen oak, for in winter they are =
very
envious of the evergreens.
'Oh, la!' replied the oak bitingly, 'how
deliciously cosy it is to stand here buttoned to the neck and watch you poor
naked creatures shivering.'
This made them sulky, though they had really
brought it on themselves, and they drew for Maimie a very gloomy picture of=
the
perils that would face her if she insisted on going to the ball.
She l=
earned
from a purple filbert that the court was not in its usual good temper at
present, the cause being the tantalising heart of the Duke of Christmas
Daisies. He was an Oriental fairy,=
very
poorly of a dreadful complaint, namely, inability to love, and though he ha=
d tried
many ladies in many lands he could not fall in love with one of them. Queen
Mab, who rules in the Gardens, had been confident that her girls would bewi=
tch
him, but alas! his heart, the doctor said, remained cold. This rather
irritating doctor, who was his private physician, felt the Duke's heart
immediately after any lady was presented, and then always shook his bald he=
ad
and murmured, 'Cold, quite cold.'
Naturally Queen Mab felt disgraced, and first she tried the effect of
ordering the court into tears for nine minutes, and then she blamed the Cup=
ids
and decreed that they should wear fools' caps until they thawed the Duke's =
frozen
heart.
'How I should love to see the Cupids in their =
dear
little fools' caps!' Maimie cried, and away she ran to look for them very
recklessly, for the Cupids hate to be laughed at.
It is always easy to discover where a fairies'
ball is being held, as ribbons are stretched between it and all the populous
parts of the Gardens, on which those invited may walk to the dance without
wetting their pumps. This night the
ribbons were red, and looked very pretty on the snow.
Maimie
walked alongside one of them for some distance without meeting anybody, but=
at
last she saw a fairy cavalcade approaching.
To her surprise they seemed to be returning from the ball, and she h=
ad
just time to hide from them by bending her knees and holding out her arms a=
nd
pretending to be a garden chair. T=
here
were six horsemen in front and six behind; in the middle walked a prim lady
wearing a long train held up by two pages, and on the train, as if it were a
couch, reclined a lovely girl, for in this way do aristocratic fairies trav=
el
about. She was dressed in golden rain, but the most enviable part of her wa=
s her
neck, which was blue in colour and of a velvet texture, and of course showed
off her diamond necklace as no white throat could have glorified it. The high-born fairies obtain this admir=
ed
effect by pricking their skin, which lets the blue blood come through and d=
ye them,
and you cannot imagine anything so dazzling unless you have seen the ladies'
busts in the jewellers' windows.
Maimie also noticed that the whole cavalcade
seemed to be in a passion, tilting their noses higher than it can be safe f=
or
even fairies to tilt them, and she concluded that this must be another case=
in
which the doctor had said, 'Cold, quite cold.'
Well,=
she
followed the ribbon to a place where it became a bridge over a dry puddle i=
nto
which another fairy had fallen and been unable to climb out. At first this little damsel was afraid =
of
Maimie, who most kindly went to her aid, but soon she sat in her hand chatt=
ing
gaily and explaining that her name was Brownie, and that though only a poor=
street
singer she was on her way to the ball to see if the Duke would have her.
'Of course,' she said, 'I am rather plain,' and
this made Maimie uncomfortable, for indeed the simple little creature was
almost quite plain for a fairy.
It was difficult to know what to reply.
'I see you think I have no chance,' Brownie sa=
id
falteringly.
'I don't say that,' Maimie answered politely; =
'of
course your face is just a tiny bit homely, but----' Really it was quite awkward for her.
Fortunately she remembered about her father and
the bazaar. He had gone to a fashi=
onable
bazaar where all the most beautiful ladies in London were on view for half a
crown the second day, but on his return home, instead of being dissatisfied
with Maimie's mother, he had said, 'You can't think, my dear, what a relief=
it
is to see a homely face again.'
Maimie repeated this story, and it fortified
Brownie tremendously, indeed she had no longer the slightest doubt that the
Duke would choose her. So she scud=
ded
away up the ribbon, calling out to Maimie not to follow lest the Queen shou=
ld
mischief her.
But Maimie's curiosity tugged her forward, and
presently at the seven Spanish chestnuts she saw a wonderful light. She crept forward until she was quite n=
ear
it, and then she peeped from behind a tree.
The l=
ight,
which was as high as your head above the ground, was composed of myriads of
glow-worms all holding on to each other, and so forming a dazzling canopy o=
ver
the fairy ring. There were thousan=
ds of little
people looking on, but they were in shadow and drab in colour compared to t=
he
glorious creatures within that luminous circle, who were so bewilderingly
bright that Maimie had to wink hard all the time she looked at them.
It was amazing and even irritating to her that=
the
Duke of Christmas Daisies should be able to keep out of love for a moment: =
yet
out of love his dusky grace still was: you could see it by the shamed looks=
of the
Queen and court (though they pretended not to care), by the way darling lad=
ies
brought forward for his approval burst into tears as they were told to pass=
on,
and by his own most dreary face.
Maimie could also see the pompous doctor feeli=
ng
the Duke's heart and hear him give utterance to his parrot cry, and she was
particularly sorry for the Cupids, who stood in their fools' caps in obscure
places and, every time they heard that 'Cold, quite cold,' bowed their disg=
raced
little heads.
She was disappointed not to see Peter Pan, and=
I
may as well tell you now why he was so late that night. It was because his boat had got wedged =
on the
Serpentine between fields of floating ice, through which he had to break a
perilous passage with his trusty paddle.
The fairies had as yet scarcely missed him, for
they could not dance, so heavy were their hearts. They forget all the steps when they are=
sad,
and remember them again when they are merry.
David tells me that fairies never say, 'We feel happy': what they say
is, 'We feel dancey.'
Well, they were looking very undancey indeed, =
when
sudden laughter broke out among the onlookers, caused by Brownie, who had j=
ust
arrived and was insisting on her right to be presented to the Duke.
Maimie craned forward eagerly to see how her
friend fared, though she had really no hope; no one seemed to have the least
hope except Brownie herself, who, however, was absolutely confident. She was led before his grace, and the d=
octor
putting a finger carelessly on the ducal heart, which for convenience' sake=
was
reached by a little trap-door in his diamond shirt, had begun to say
mechanically, 'Cold, qui--,' when he stopped abruptly.
'What's this?' he cried, and first he shook the
heart like a watch, and then he put his ear to it.
'Bless my soul!' cried the doctor, and by this
time of course the excitement among the spectators was tremendous, fairies
fainting right and left.
Every=
body
stared breathlessly at the Duke, who was very much startled, and looked as =
if
he would like to run away. 'Good
gracious me!' the doctor was heard muttering, and now the heart was evident=
ly
on fire, for he had to jerk his fingers away from it and put them in his mo=
uth.
The suspense was awful.
Then in a loud voice, and bowing low, 'My Lord
Duke,' said the physician elatedly, 'I have the honour to inform your
excellency that your grace is in love.'
You can't conceive the effect of it. Brownie held out her arms to the Duke a=
nd he
flung himself into them, the Queen leapt into the arms of the Lord Chamberl=
ain,
and the ladies of the court leapt into the arms of her gentlemen, for it is
etiquette to follow her example in everything.
Thus in a single moment about fifty marriages took place, for if you
leap into each other's arms it is a fairy wedding. Of course a clergyman has to be present=
.
How the crowd cheered and leapt! Trumpets brayed, the moon came out, and
immediately a thousand couples seized hold of its rays as if they were ribb=
ons
in a May dance and waltzed in wild abandon round the fairy ring. Most gladsome sight of all, the Cupids
plucked the hated fools' caps from their heads and cast them high in the
air. And then Maimie went and spoi=
led
everything.
She couldn't help it. She was crazy with delight over her lit=
tle friend's
good fortune, so she took several steps forward and cried in an ecstasy, 'O
Brownie, how splendid!'
Everybody stood still, the music ceased, the
lights went out, and all in the time you may take to say, 'Oh dear!' An awful sense of her peril came upon M=
aimie;
too late she remembered that she was a lost child in a place where no human
must be between the locking and the opening of the gates; she heard the mur=
mur
of an angry multitude; she saw a thousand swords flashing for her blood, and
she uttered a cry of terror and fled.
How she ran! and all the time her eyes were
starting out of her head. Many times she lay down, and then quickly jumped =
up
and ran on again. Her little mind was so entangled in terrors that she no
longer knew she was in the Gardens. The
one thing she was sure of was that she must never cease to run, and she tho=
ught
she was still running long after she had dropped in the Figs and gone to
sleep. She thought the snowflakes
falling on her face were her mother kissing her good-night. She thought her
coverlet of snow was a warm blanket, and tried to pull it over her head.
I am very glad to be able to say that they no
longer desired to mischief her. Wh=
en she
rushed away they had rent the air with such cries as 'Slay her!' 'Turn her =
into
something extremely unpleasant!' and so on, but the pursuit was delayed whi=
le
they discussed who should march in front, and this gave Duchess Brownie tim=
e to
cast herself before the Queen and demand a boon.
Every bride has a right to a boon, and what she
asked for was Maimie's life. 'Anyt=
hing
except that,' replied Queen Mab sternly, and all the fairies echoed, 'Anyth=
ing
except that.' But when they learne=
d how Maimie
had befriended Brownie and so enabled her to attend the ball to their great
glory and renown, they gave three huzzas for the little human, and set off,
like an army, to thank her, the court advancing in front and the canopy kee=
ping
step with it. They traced Maimie e=
asily by
her footprints in the snow.
But though they found her deep in snow in the
Figs, it seemed impossible to thank Maimie, for they could not waken her. They went through the form of thanking
her--that is to say, the new King stood on her body and read her a long add=
ress
of welcome, but she heard not a word of it.
They also cleared the snow off her, but soon she was covered again, =
and
they saw she was in danger of perishing of cold.
'Turn her into something that does not mind the
cold,' seemed a good suggestion of the doctor's, but the only thing they co=
uld
think of that does not mind cold was a snowflake. 'And it might melt,' the Queen pointed =
out,
so that idea had to be given up.
A magnificent attempt was made to carry her to=
a
sheltered spot, but though there were so many of them she was too heavy.
The h=
ouse
was exactly the size of Maimie, and perfectly lovely. One of her arms was extended, and this =
had
bothered them for a second, but they built a verandah round it leading to t=
he
front door. The windows were the s=
ize of
a coloured picture-book and the door rather smaller, but it would be easy f=
or
her to get out by taking off the roof.
The fairies, as is their custom, clapped their hands with delight ov=
er their
cleverness, and they were so madly in love with the little house that they
could not bear to think they had finished it.
So they gave it ever so many little extra touches, and even then they
added more extra touches.
For instance, two of them ran up a ladder and =
put
on a chimney.
'Now we fear it is quite finished,' they sighe=
d.
But no, for another two ran up the ladder, and
tied some smoke to the chimney.
'That certainly finishes it,' they said
reluctantly.
'Not at all,' cried a glow-worm; 'if she were =
to
wake without seeing a night-light she might be frightened, so I shall be her
night-light.'
'Wait one moment,' said a china merchant, 'and=
I
shall make you a saucer.'
Now, alas! it was absolutely finished.
Oh, dear no!
'Gracious me!' cried a brass manufacturer,
'there's no handle on the door,' and he put one on.
An ironmonger added a scraper, and an old lady=
ran
up with a door-mat. Carpenters arrived with a water-butt, and the painters
insisted on painting it.
Finished at last!
'Finished! how can it be finished,' the plumber
demanded scornfully, 'before hot and cold are put in?' and he put in hot and
cold. Then an army of gardeners ar=
rived
with fairy carts and spades and seeds and bulbs and forcing-houses, and soon
they had a flower-garden to the right of the verandah, and a vegetable gard=
en
to the left, and roses and clematis on the walls of the house, and in less =
time
than five minutes all these dear things were in full bloom.
Oh, h=
ow
beautiful the little house was now! But
it was at last finished true as true, and they had to leave it and return to
the dance. They all kissed their h=
ands
to it as they went away, and the last to go was Brownie. She stayed a moment behind the others t=
o drop
a pleasant dream down the chimney.
All through the night the exquisite little hou=
se
stood there in the Figs taking care of Maimie, and she never knew. She slept until the dream was quite fin=
ished,
and woke feeling deliciously cosy just as morning was breaking from its egg,
and then she almost fell asleep again, and then she called out, 'Tony,' for=
she
thought she was at home in the nursery.
As Tony made no answer, she sat up, whereupon her head hit the roof,=
and
it opened like the lid of a box, and to her bewilderment she saw all around=
her
the Kensington Gardens lying deep in snow.
As she was not in the nursery she wondered whether this was really
herself, so she pinched her cheeks, and then she knew it was herself, and t=
his
reminded her that she was in the middle of a great adventure. She remembered now everything that had
happened to her from the closing of the gates up to her running away from t=
he
fairies, but how ever, she asked herself, had she got into this funny
place? She stepped out by the roof,
right over the garden, and then she saw the dear house in which she had pas=
sed
the night. It so entranced her tha=
t she
could think of nothing else.
'O you darling!
O you sweet! O you love!' s=
he
cried.
Perhaps a human voice frightened the little ho=
use,
or maybe it now knew that its work was done, for no sooner had Maimie spoken
than it began to grow smaller; it shrank so slowly that she could scarce
believe it was shrinking, yet she soon knew that it could not contain her
now. It always remained as complet=
e as
ever, but it became smaller and smaller, and the garden dwindled at the same
time, and the snow crept closer, lapping house and garden up. Now the house was the size of a little =
dog's
kennel, and now of a Noah's Ark, but still you could see the smoke and the
door-handle and the roses on the wall, every one complete. The glow-worm light was waning too, but=
it
was still there. 'Darling, loveliest, don't go!' Maimie cried, falling on h=
er
knees, for the little house was now the size of a reel of thread, but still
quite complete. But as she stretch=
ed out
her arms imploringly the snow crept up on all sides until it met itself, and
where the little house had been was now one unbroken expanse of snow.
Maimie
stamped her foot naughtily, and was putting her fingers to her eyes, when s=
he
heard a kind voice say, 'Don't cry, pretty human, don't cry,' and then she
turned round and saw a beautiful little naked boy regarding her wistfully.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> She knew at once that he must be Peter =
Pan.
Maimie felt quite shy, but Peter knew not what=
shy
was.
'I hope you have had a good night,' he said
earnestly.
'Thank you,' she replied, 'I was so cosy and
warm. But you'--and she looked at =
his
nakedness awkwardly--'don't you feel the least bit cold?'
Now cold was another word Peter had forgotten,=
so
he answered, 'I think not, but I may be wrong: you see I am rather
ignorant. I am not exactly a boy;
Solomon says I am a Betwixt-and-Between.'
'So that is what it is called,' said Maimie
thoughtfully.
'That's not my name,' he explained, 'my name is
Peter Pan.'
'Yes, of course,' she said, 'I know, everybody
knows.'
You can't think how pleased Peter was to learn
that all the people outside the gates knew about him. He begged Maimie to tell him what they =
knew and
what they said, and she did so. Th=
ey
were sitting by this time on a fallen tree; Peter had cleared off the snow =
for
Maimie, but he sat on a snowy bit himself.
'Squeeze closer,' Maimie said.
'What is that?' he asked, and she showed him, =
and
then he did it. They talked togeth=
er and
he found that people knew a great deal about him, but not everything, not t=
hat
he had gone back to his mother and been barred out, for instance, and he sa=
id
nothing of this to Maimie, for it still humiliated him.
'Do they know that I play games exactly like r=
eal
boys?' he asked very proudly. 'O M=
aimie,
please tell them!' But when he rev=
ealed
how he played, by sailing his hoop on the Round Pond, and so on, she was si=
mply
horrified.
'All your ways of playing,' she said with her =
big
eyes on him, 'are quite, quite wrong, and not in the least like how boys pl=
ay.'
Poor Peter uttered a little moan at this, and =
he
cried for the first time for I know not how long. Maimie was extremely sorry for him, and=
lent
him her handkerchief, but he didn't know in the least what to do with it, so
she showed him, that is to say, she wiped her eyes, and then gave it back to
him, saying, 'Now you do it,' but instead of wiping his own eyes he wiped h=
ers,
and she thought it best to pretend that this was what she had meant.
She s=
aid
out of pity for him, 'I shall give you a kiss if you like,' but though he o=
nce
knew, he had long forgotten what kisses are, and he replied, 'Thank you,' a=
nd
held out his hand, thinking she had offered to put something into it. This was a great shock to her, but she =
felt she
could not explain without shaming him, so with charming delicacy she gave P=
eter
a thimble which happened to be in her pocket, and pretended that it was a
kiss. Poor little boy! he quite be=
lieved
her, and to this day he wears it on his finger, though there can be scarcel=
y any
one who needs a thimble so little. You
see, though still a tiny child, it was really years and years since he had =
seen
his mother, and I dare say the baby who had supplanted him was now a man wi=
th
whiskers.
But you must not think that Peter Pan was a bo=
y to
pity rather than to admire; if Maimie began by thinking this, she soon found
she was very much mistaken. Her ey=
es
glistened with admiration when he told her of his adventures, especially of=
how
he went to and fro between the island and the Gardens in the Thrush's Nest.=
'How romantic!' Maimie exclaimed, but this was
another unknown word, and he hung his head thinking she was despising him. =
'I suppose Tony would not have done that?' he =
said
very humbly.
'Never, never!' she answered with conviction, =
'he
would have been afraid.'
'What is afraid?' asked Peter longingly. He thought it must be some splendid
thing. 'I do wish you would teach =
me how
to be afraid, Maimie,' he said.
'I believe no one could teach that to you,' she
answered adoringly, but Peter thought she meant that he was stupid. She had told him about Tony and of the =
wicked
thing she did in the dark to frighten him (she knew quite well that it was
wicked), but Peter misunderstood her meaning and said, 'Oh, how I wish I wa=
s as
brave as Tony!'
It quite irritated her. 'You are twenty thousand times braver t=
han Tony,'
she said; 'you are ever so much the bravest boy I ever knew.'
He could scarcely believe she meant it, but wh=
en
he did believe he screamed with joy.
'And if you want very much to give me a kiss,'
Maimie said, 'you can do it.'
Very reluctantly Peter began to take the thimb=
le
off his finger. He thought she wan=
ted it
back.
'I don't mean a kiss,' she said hurriedly, 'I =
mean
a thimble.'
'What's that?' Peter asked.
'It's like this,' she said, and kissed him.
'I should love to give you a thimble,' Peter s=
aid
gravely, so he gave her one. He ga=
ve her
quite a number of thimbles, and then a delightful idea came into his head.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> 'Maimie,' he said, 'will you marry me?'=
Now,
strange to tell, the same idea had come at exactly the same time into Maimi=
e's
head. 'I should like to,' she answ=
ered,
'but will there be room in your boat for two?'
'If you squeeze close,' he said eagerly.
'Perhaps the birds would be angry?'
He assured her that the birds would love to ha=
ve
her, though I am not so certain of it myself.
Also that there were very few birds in winter. 'Of course they might want your clothes=
,' he
had to admit rather falteringly.
She was somewhat indignant at this.
'They are always thinking of their nests,' he =
said
apologetically, 'and there are some bits of you'--he stroked the fur on her
pelisse--'that would excite them very much.'
'They shan't have my fur,' she said sharply. <= o:p>
'No,' he said, still fondling it, however,
'no. O Maimie,' he said rapturousl=
y, 'do
you know why I love you? It is bec=
ause
you are like a beautiful nest.'
Somehow this made her uneasy. 'I think you are speaking more like a b=
ird
than a boy now,' she said, holding back, and indeed he was even looking rat=
her
like a bird. 'After all,' she said=
, 'you
are only a Betwixt-and-Between.' B=
ut it
hurt him so much that she immediately added, 'It must be a delicious thing =
to
be.'
'Come and be one, then, dear Maimie,' he implo=
red
her, and they set off for the boat, for it was now very near Open-Gate
time. 'And you are not a bit like a
nest,' he whispered to please her.
'But I think it is rather nice to be like one,'
she said in a woman's contradictory way.
'And, Peter, dear, though I can't give them my fur, I wouldn't mind
their building in it. Fancy a nest=
in my
neck with little spotty eggs in it! O
Peter, how perfectly lovely!'
But a=
s they
drew near the Serpentine, she shivered a little, and said, 'Of course I sha=
ll
go and see mother often, quite often. It
is not as if I was saying good-bye for ever to mother, it is not in the lea=
st like
that.'
'Oh no,' answered Peter, but in his heart he k=
new
it was very like that, and he would have told her so had he not been in a
quaking fear of losing her. He was=
so
fond of her, he felt he could not live without her. 'She will forget her mother in time, an=
d be
happy with me,' he kept saying to himself, and he hurried her on, giving he=
r thimbles
by the way.
But even when she had seen the boat and exclai=
med
ecstatically over its loveliness, she still talked tremblingly about her
mother. 'You know quite well, Pete=
r,
don't you,' she said, 'that I wouldn't come unless I knew for certain I cou=
ld
go back to mother whenever I want to?
Peter, say it.'
He said it, but he could no longer look her in=
the
face.
'If you are sure your mother will always want
you,' he added rather sourly.
'The idea of mother's not always wanting me!'
Maimie cried, and her face glistened.
'If she doesn't bar you out,' said Peter huski=
ly.
'The door,' replied Maimie, 'will always, alwa=
ys
be open, and mother will always be waiting at it for me.'
'Then,' said Peter, not without grimness, 'step
in, if you feel so sure of her,' and he helped Maimie into the Thrush's Nes=
t.
'But why don't you look at me?' she asked, tak=
ing
him by the arm.
Peter tried hard not to look, he tried to push
off, then he gave a great gulp and jumped ashore and sat down miserably in =
the
snow.
She went to him.
'What is it, dear, dear Peter?' she said, wondering.
'O Maimie,' he cried, 'it isn't fair to take y=
ou
with me if you think you can go back!
Your mother'--he gulped again--'you don't know them as well as I do.=
'
And then he told her the woeful story of how he
had been barred out, and she gasped all the time. 'But my mother,' she said, 'my mother--=
--'
'Yes, she would,' said Peter, 'they are all the
same. I dare say she is looking for
another one already.'
Maimie said aghast, 'I can't believe it. You see, when you went away your mother=
had
none, but my mother has Tony, and surely they are satisfied when they have
one.'
Peter replied bitterly, 'You should see the
letters Solomon gets from ladies who have six.'
Just then they heard a grating creak, followed=
by
creak, creak, all round the Gardens. It
was the Opening of the Gates, and Peter jumped nervously into his boat. He knew Maimie would not come with him =
now, and
he was trying bravely not to cry. =
But
Maimie was sobbing painfully.
'If I should be too late,' she said in agony, =
'O
Peter, if she has got another one already!'
Again he sprang ashore as if she had called him
back. 'I shall come and look for y=
ou
to-night,' he said, squeezing close, 'but if you hurry away I think you wil=
l be
in time.'
Then he pressed a last thimble on her sweet li=
ttle
mouth, and covered his face with his hands so that he might not see her go.=
'Dear Peter!' she cried.
'Dear Maimie!' cried the tragic boy.
She leapt into his arms, so that it was a sort=
of
fairy wedding, and then she hurried away.
Oh, how she hastened to the gates!
Peter, you may be sure, was back in the Gardens that night as soon as
Lock-out sounded, but he found no Maimie, and so he knew she had been in ti=
me. For
long he hoped that some night she would come back to him; often he thought =
he
saw her waiting for him by the shore of the Serpentine as his bark drew to
land, but Maimie never went back. =
She
wanted to, but she was afraid that if she saw her dear Betwixt-and-Between
again she would linger with him too long, and besides the ayah now kept a s=
harp
eye on her. But she often talked
lovingly of Peter, and she knitted a kettle-holder for him, and one day when
she was wondering what Easter present he would like, her mother made a
suggestion.
'Noth=
ing,'
she said thoughtfully, 'would be so useful to him as a goat.'
'He could ride on it,' cried Maimie, 'and play=
on
his pipe at the same time.'
'Then,' her mother asked, 'won't you give him =
your
goat, the one you frighten Tony with at night?'
'But it isn't a real goat,' Maimie said.
'It seems very real to Tony,' replied her moth=
er.
'It seems frightfully real to me too,' Maimie
admitted, 'but how could I give it to Peter?'
Her mother knew a way, and next day, accompani=
ed
by Tony (who was really quite a nice boy, though of course he could not
compare), they went to the Gardens, and Maimie stood alone within a fairy r=
ing,
and then her mother, who was a rather gifted lady, said--
'My
daughter, tell me, if you can, Wh=
at
have you got for Peter Pan?'
To which Maimie replied--
'I h=
ave a
goat for him to ride, Observe me =
cast
it far and wide.'
She then flung her arms about as if she were
sowing seed, and turned round three times.
Next Tony said--
'If =
P.
doth find it waiting here, Wilt n=
e'er
again make me to fear?'
And Maimie answered--
'By =
dark
or light I fondly swear Never to =
see
goats anywhere.'
She a=
lso
left a letter to Peter in a likely place, explaining what she had done, and
begging him to ask the fairies to turn the goat into one convenient for rid=
ing
on. Well, it all happened just as =
she
hoped, for Peter found the letter, and of course nothing could be easier for
the fairies than to turn the goat into a real one, and so that is how Peter=
got
the goat on which he now rides round the Gardens every night playing sublim=
ely
on his pipe. And Maimie kept her
promise, and never frightened Tony with a goat again, though I have heard t=
hat
she created another animal. Until =
she
was quite a big girl she continued to leave presents for Peter in the Garde=
ns
(with letters explaining how humans play with them), and she is not the only
one who has done this. David does =
it,
for instance, and he and I know the likeliest place for leaving them in, an=
d we
shall tell you if you like, but for mercy's sake don't ask us before Portho=
s,
for he is so fond of toys that, were he to find out the place, he would take
every one of them.
Though
Peter still remembers Maimie he is become as gay as ever, and often in sheer
happiness he jumps off his goat and lies kicking merrily on the grass. Oh, he has a joyful time! But he has still a vague memory that he=
was a
human once, and it makes him especially kind to the house-swallows when they
visit the island, for house-swallows are the spirits of little children who
have died. They always build in th=
e eaves
of the houses where they lived when they were humans, and sometimes they tr=
y to
fly in at a nursery window, and perhaps that is why Peter loves them best of
all the birds.
And the little house? Every lawful night (that is to say, eve=
ry
night except ball nights) the fairies now build the little house lest there=
should
be a human child lost in the Gardens, and Peter rides the marches looking f=
or
lost ones, and if he finds them he carries them on his goat to the little
house, and when they wake up they are in it, and when they step out they see
it. The fairies build the house me=
rely because
it is so pretty, but Peter rides round in memory of Maimie, and because he
still loves to do just as he believes real boys would do.
But you must not think that, because somewhere
among the trees the little house is twinkling, it is a safe thing to remain=
in
the Gardens after Lock-out time. I=
f the
bad ones among the fairies happen to be out that night they will certainly
mischief you, and even though they are not, you may perish of cold and dark
before Peter Pan comes round. He has been too late several times, and when =
he
sees he is too late he runs back to the Thrush's Nest for his paddle, of wh=
ich
Maimie had told him the true use, and he digs a grave for the child and ere=
cts
a little tombstone, and carves the poor thing's initials on it. He does this at once because he thinks =
it is
what real boys would do, and you must have noticed the little stones, and t=
hat
there are always two together. He =
puts
them in twos because they seem less lonely.
I think that quite the most touching sight in the Gardens is the two
tombstones of Walter Stephen Matthews and Phoebe Phelps. They stand together at the spot where t=
he
parish of Westminster St. Mary's is said to meet the parish of Paddington.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Here Peter found the two babes, who had
fallen unnoticed from their perambulators, Phoebe aged thirteen months and =
Walter
probably still younger, for Peter seems to have felt a delicacy about putti=
ng
any age on his stone. They lie sid=
e by
side, and the simple inscriptions read--
+---------+ +---------=
+ |
W. | |=
13a | | St. M.
| and | P.
P. | | =
| |
1841. | +---------+ +---------+
David
sometimes places white flowers on these two innocent graves.
But h=
ow
strange for parents, when they hurry into the Gardens at the opening of the
gates looking for their lost one, to find the sweetest little tombstone
instead. I do hope that Peter is n=
ot too
ready with his spade. It is all ra=
ther
sad.