The Complete Alice in Wonderland (Wonderland Imprints Master Editions)

by Lewis Carroll

  They placed themselves close to where Hatta, the other Messenger, was standing watching the fight, with a cup of tea in one hand and a piece of bread-and-butter in the other.

  “He’s only just out of prison, and he hadn’t finished his tea when he was sent in,” Haigha whispered to Alice: “and they only give them oyster-shells in there—so you see he’s very hungry and thirsty. How are you, dear child?” he went on, putting his arm affectionately round Hatta’s neck.

  Hatta looked round and nodded, and went on with his bread-and-butter.

  “Were you happy in prison, dear child?” said Haigha.

  Hatta looked round once more, and this time a tear or two trickled down his cheek; but not a word would he say.

  “Speak, ca’n’t you!” Haigha cried impatiently. But Hatta only munched away, and drank some more tea.

  “Speak, wo’n’t you!” cried the King. “How are they getting on with the fight?”

  Hatta made a desperate effort, and swallowed a large piece of bread-and-butter. “They’re getting on very well,” he said in a choking voice: “each of them has been down about eighty-seven times.”

  “Then I suppose they’ll soon bring the white bread and the brown?” Alice ventured to remark.

  “It’s waiting for ’em now,” said Hatta; “this is a bit of it as I’m eating.”

  There was a pause in the fight just then, and the Lion and the Unicorn sat down, panting, while the King called out “Ten minutes allowed for refreshments!” Haigha and Hatta set to work at once, carrying round trays of white and brown bread. Alice took a piece to taste, but it was very dry.

  “I don’t think they’ll fight any more to-day,” the King said to Hatta: “go and order the drums to begin.” And Hatta went bounding away like a grasshopper.

  For a minute or two Alice stood silent, watching him. Suddenly she brightened up. “Look, look!” she cried, pointing eagerly. “There’s the White Queen running across the country! She came flying out of the wood over yonder—How fast those Queens can run!”

  “There’s some enemy after her, no doubt,” the King said, without even looking round. “That wood’s full of them.”

  “But aren’t you going to run and help her?” Alice asked, very much surprised at his taking it so quietly.

  “No use, no use!” said the King. “She runs so fearfully quick. You might as well try to catch a Bandersnatch! But I’ll make a memorandum about her, if you like—She’s a dear good creature,” he repeated softly to himself, as he opened his memorandum-book. “Do you spell ‘creature’ with a double ‘e’?”

  At this moment the Unicorn sauntered by them, with his hands in his pockets. “I had the best of it this time?” he said to the King, just glancing at him as he passed.

  “A little—a little,” the King replied, rather nervously. “You shouldn’t have run him through with your horn, you know.”

  “It didn’t hurt him,” the Unicorn said carelessly, and he was going on, when his eye happened to fall upon Alice: he turned round instantly, and stood for some time looking at her with an air of the deepest disgust.

  “What—is—this?” he said at last.

  “This is a child!” Haigha replied eagerly, coming in front of Alice to introduce her, and spreading out both his hands towards her in an Anglo-Saxon attitude. “We only found it to-day. It’s as large as life, and twice as natural!”

  “I always thought they were fabulous monsters!” said the Unicorn. “Is it alive?”

  “It can talk,” said Haigha solemnly.

  The Unicorn looked dreamily at Alice, and said “Talk, child.”

  Alice could not help her lips curling up into a smile as she began: “Do you know, I always thought Unicorns were fabulous monsters, too? I never saw one alive before!”

  “Well, now that we have seen each other,” said the Unicorn, “if you’ll believe in me, I’ll believe in you. Is that a bargain?”

  “Yes, if you like,” said Alice.

  “Come, fetch out the plum-cake, old man!” the Unicorn went on, turning from her to the King. “None of your brown bread for me!”

  “Certainly—certainly!” the King muttered, and beckoned to Haigha. “Open the bag!” he whispered. “Quick! Not that one—that’s full of hay!”

  Haigha took a large cake out of the bag, and gave it to Alice to hold, while he got out a dish and carving-knife. How they all came out of it Alice couldn’t guess. It was just like a conjuring trick, she thought.

  The Lion had joined them while this was going on: he looked very tired and sleepy, and his eyes were half shut. “What’s this!” he said, blinking lazily at Alice, and speaking in a deep hollow tone that sounded like the tolling of a great bell.

  “Ah, what is it, now?” the Unicorn cried eagerly. “You’ll never guess! I couldn’t.”

  The Lion looked at Alice wearily. “Are you animal—or vegetable—or mineral?” he said, yawning at every other word.

  “It’s a fabulous monster!” the Unicorn cried out, before Alice could reply.

  “Then hand round the plum-cake, Monster,” the Lion said, lying down and putting his chin on his paws. “And sit down, both of you,” (to the King and the Unicorn): “fair play with the cake, you know!”

  The King was evidently very uncomfortable at having to sit down between the two great creatures; but there was no other place for him.

  “What a fight we might have for the crown, now!” the Unicorn said, looking slyly up at the crown, which the poor King was nearly shaking off his head, he trembled so much.

  “I should win easy,” said the Lion.

  “I’m not so sure of that,” said the Unicorn.

  “Why, I beat you all round the town, you chicken!” the Lion replied angrily, half getting up as he spoke.

  Here the King interrupted, to prevent the quarrel going on: he was very nervous, and his voice quite quivered. “All round the town?” he said. “That’s a good long way. Did you go by the old bridge, or the market-place? You get the best view by the old bridge.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know,” the Lion growled out as he lay down again. “There was too much dust to see anything. What a time the Monster is, cutting up that cake!”

  Alice had seated herself on the bank of a little brook, with the great dish on her knees, and was sawing away diligently with the knife. “It’s very provoking!” she said, in reply to the Lion (she was getting quite used to being called ‘the Monster’). “I’ve cut several slices already, but they always join on again!”

  “You don’t know how to manage looking-glass cakes,” the Unicorn remarked. “Hand it round first, and cut it afterwards.”

  This sounded nonsense, but Alice very obediently got up, and carried the dish round, and the cake divided itself into three pieces as she did so. “Now cut it up,” said the Lion, as she returned to her place with the empty dish.

  “I say, this isn’t fair!” cried the Unicorn, as Alice sat with the knife in her hand, very much puzzled how to begin. “The Monster has given the Lion twice as much as me!”

  “She’s kept none for herself, anyhow,” said the Lion. “Do you like plum cake, Monster?”

  But before Alice could answer him, the drums began.

  Where the noise dame from, she couldn’t make out: the air seemed full of it, and it rang through and through her head till she felt quite deafened. She started to her feet and sprang across the little brook in her terror,

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  * * * * *

  and had just time to see the Lion and the Unicorn rise to their feet, with angry looks at being interrupted in their feast, before she dropped to her knees, and put her hands over her ears, vainly trying to shut out the dreadful uproar.

  “If that doesn’t ‘drum them out of town,’” she thought to herself, “nothing ever will!”

  Chapter VIII

  “It’s My Own Invention”

  AFTER A WHILE the noise seemed gradually to die away, till all was dead si
lence, and Alice lifted up her head in some alarm. There was no one to be seen, and her first thought was that she must have been dreaming about the Lion and the Unicorn and those queer Anglo-Saxon Messengers. However, there was the great dish still lying at her feet, on which she had tried to cut the plum-cake, “So I wasn’t dreaming, after all,” she said to herself, “unless—unless we’re all part of the same dream. Only I do hope it’s my dream, and not the Red King’s! I don’t like belonging to another person’s dream,” she went on in a rather complaining tone: “I’ve a great mind to go and wake him, and see what happens!”

  At this moment her thoughts were interrupted by a loud shouting of “Ahoy! Ahoy! Check!” and a Knight, dressed in crimson armour, came galloping down upon her, brandishing a great club. Just as he reached her, the horse stopped suddenly: “You’re my prisoner!” the Knight cried, as he tumbled off his horse.

  Startled as she was, Alice was more frightened for him than for herself at the moment, and watched him with some anxiety as he mounted again. As soon as he was comfortably in the saddle, he began once more “You’re my —” but here another voice broke in “Ahoy! Ahoy! Check!” and Alice looked round in some surprise for the new enemy.

  This time it was a White Knight. He drew up at Alice’s side, and tumbled off his horse just as the Red Knight had done: then he got on again, and the two Knights sat and looked at each other for some time without speaking. Alice looked from one to the other in some bewilderment.

  “She’s my prisoner, you know!” the Red Knight said at last.

  “Yes, but then I came and rescued her!” the White Knight replied.

  “Well, we must fight for her, then,” said the Red Knight, as he took up his helmet (which hung from the saddle, and was something the shape of a horse’s head) and put it on.

  “You will observe the Rules of Battle, of course?” the White Knight remarked, putting on his helmet too.

  “I always do,” said the Red Knight, and they began banging away at each other with such fury that Alice got behind a tree to be out of the way of the blows.

  “I wonder, now, what the Rules of Battle are,” she said to herself, as she watched the fight, timidly peeping out from her hiding-place. “One Rule seems to be, that if one Knight hits the other, he knocks him off his horse; and, if he misses, he tumbles off himself—and another Rule seems to be that they hold their clubs with their arms, as if they were Punch and Judy—What a noise they make when they tumble! Just like a whole set of fire-irons falling into the fender! And how quiet the horses are! They let them get on and off them just as if they were tables!”

  Another Rule of Battle, that Alice had not noticed, seemed to be that they always fell on their heads; and the battle ended with their both falling off in this way, side by side. When they got up again, they shook hands, and then the Red Knight mounted and galloped off.

  “It was a glorious victory, wasn’t it?” said the White Knight, as he came up panting.

  “I don’t know,” Alice said doubtfully. “I don’t want to be anybody’s prisoner. I want to be a Queen.”

  “So you will, when you’ve crossed the next brook,” said the White Knight. “I’ll see you safe to the end of the wood—and then I must go back, you know. That’s the end of my move.”

  “Thank you very much,” said Alice. “May I help you off with your helmet?” It was evidently more than he could manage by himself; however she managed to shake him out of it at last.

  “Now one can breathe more easily,” said the Knight, putting back his shaggy hair with both hands, and turning his gentle face and large mild eyes to Alice. She thought she had never seen such a strange-looking soldier in all her life.

  He was dressed in tin armour, which seemed to fit him very badly, and he had a queer-shaped little deal box fastened across his shoulders, upside-down, and with the lid hanging open. Alice looked at it with great curiosity.

  “I see you’re admiring my little box,” the Knight said in a friendly tone. “It’s my own invention—to keep clothes and sandwiches in. You see I carry it upside-down, so that the rain ca’n’t get in.”

  “But the things can get out,” Alice gently remarked. “Do you know the lid’s open?”

  “I didn’t know it,” the Knight said, a shade of vexation passing over his face. “Then all the things must have fallen out! And the box is no use without them.” He unfastened it as he spoke, and was just going to throw it into the bushes, when a sudden thought seemed to strike him, and he hung it carefully on a tree. “Can you guess why I did that?” he said to Alice.

  Alice shook her head.

  “In hopes some bees may make a nest in it—then I should get the honey.”

  “But you’ve got a bee-hive—or something like one—fastened to the saddle,” said Alice.

  “Yes, it’s a very good bee-hive,” the Knight said in a discontented tone, “one of the best kind. But not a single bee has come near it yet. And the other thing is a mouse-trap. I suppose the mice keep the bees out—or the bees keep the mice out, I don’t know which.”

  “I was wondering what the mouse-trap was for,” said Alice. “It isn’t very likely there would be any mice on the horse’s back.”

  “Not very likely, perhaps,” said the Knight; “but, if they do come, I don’t choose to have them running all about.”

  “You see,” he went on after a pause, “it’s as well to be provided for everything. That’s the reason the horse has all those anklets round his feet.”

  “But what are they for?” Alice asked in a tone of great curiosity.

  “To guard against the bites of sharks,” the Knight replied. “It’s an invention of my own. And now help me on. I’ll go with you to the end of the wood—What’s that dish for?”

  “It’s meant for plum-cake,” said Alice.

  “We’d better take it with us,” the Knight said. “It’ll come in handy if we find any plum-cake. Help me to get it into this bag.”

  This took a long time to manage, though Alice held the bag open very carefully, because the knight was so very awkward in putting in the dish: the first two or three times that he tried he fell in himself instead. “It’s rather a tight fit, you see,” he said, as they got it in at last; “there are so many candlesticks in the bag.” And he hung it to the saddle, which was already loaded with bunches of carrots, and fire-irons, and many other things.

  “I hope you’ve got your hair well fastened on?” he continued, as they set off.

  “Only in the usual way,” Alice said, smiling.

  “That’s hardly enough,” he said, anxiously. “You see the wind is so very strong here. It’s as strong as soup.”

  “Have you invented a plan for keeping the hair from being blown off?” Alice inquired.

  “Not yet,” said the Knight. “But I’ve got a plan for keeping it from falling off.”

  “I should like to hear it, very much.”

  “First you take an upright stick,” said the Knight. “Then you make your hair creep up it, like a fruit-tree. Now the reason hair falls off is because it hangs down—things never fall upwards, you know. It’s a plan of my own invention. You may try it if you like.”

  It didn’t sound a comfortable plan, Alice thought, and for a few minutes she walked on in silence, puzzling over the idea, and every now and then stopping to help the poor Knight, who certainly was not a good rider.

  Whenever the horse stopped (which it did very often), he fell off in front; and, whenever it went on again (which it generally did rather suddenly), he fell off behind. Otherwise he kept on pretty well, except that he had a habit of now and then falling off sideways; and, as he generally did this on the side on which Alice was walking, she soon found that it was the best plan not to walk quite close to the horse.

  “I’m afraid you’ve not had much practice in riding,” she ventured to say, as she was helping him up from his fifth tumble.

  The Knight looked very much surprised, and a little offended at the remark. “What makes
you say that?” he asked, as he scrambled back into the saddle, keeping hold of Alice’s hair with one hand, to save himself from falling over on the other side.

  “Because people don’t fall off quite so often, when they’ve had much practice.”

  “I’ve had plenty of practice,” the Knight said very gravely: “plenty of practice!”

  Alice could think of nothing better to say than “Indeed?” but she said it as heartily as she could. They went on a little way in silence after this, the Knight with his eyes shut, muttering to himself, and Alice watching anxiously for the next tumble.

  “The great art of riding,” the Knight suddenly began in a loud voice, waving his right arm as he spoke, “is to keep—” Here the sentence ended as suddenly as it had begun, as the Knight fell heavily on the top of his head exactly in the path where Alice was walking. She was quite frightened this time, and said in an anxious tone, as she picked him up, “I hope no bones are broken?”

  “None to speak of,” the Knight said, as if he didn’t mind breaking two or three of them. “The great art of riding, as I was saying, is—to keep your balance properly. Like this, you know —”

  He let go the bridle, and stretched out both his arms to show Alice what he meant, and this time he fell flat on his back, right under the horse’s feet.

  “Plenty of practice!” he went on repeating, all the time that Alice was getting him on his feet again. “Plenty of practice!”

  “It’s too ridiculous!” cried Alice, losing all her patience this time. “You ought to have a wooden horse on wheels, that you ought!”

  “Does that kind go smoothly?” the Knight asked in a tone of great interest, clasping his arms round the horse’s neck as he spoke, just in time to save himself from tumbling off again.

  “Much more smoothly than a live horse,” Alice said, with a little scream of laughter, in spite of all she could do to prevent it.