[Illustration]
They were indeed a curious looking party that assembled on the
bank--the birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their
fur clinging close to them--all dripping wet, cross, and
uncomfortable. The first question of course was, how to get dry:
they had a consultation about this, and Alice hardly felt at all
surprised at finding herself talking familiarly with the birds,
as if she had known them all her life. Indeed, she had quite a
long argument with the Lory, who at last turned sulky, and would
only say "I am older than you, and must know best," and this
Alice would not admit without knowing how old the Lory was, and
as the Lory positively refused to tell its age, there was nothing
more to be said.
At last the mouse, who seemed to have some authority among them,
called out "sit down, all of you, and attend to me! I'll soon
make you dry enough!" They all sat down at once, shivering, in a
large ring, Alice in the middle, with her eyes anxiously fixed on
the mouse, for she felt sure she would catch a bad cold if she
did not get dry very soon.
"Ahem!" said the mouse, with a self-important air, "are you all
ready? This is the driest thing I know. Silence all round, if you
please!
"William the Conqueror, whose cause was favoured by the pope, was
soon submitted to by the English, who wanted leaders, and had
been of late much accustomed to usurpation and conquest. Edwin
and Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria--"
"Ugh!" said the Lory with a shiver.
"I beg your pardon?" said the mouse, frowning, but very politely,
"did you speak?"
"Not I!" said the Lory hastily.
"I thought you did," said the mouse, "I proceed. Edwin and
Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him;
and even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found
it advisable to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William and offer
him the crown. William's conduct was at first moderate--how are
you getting on now, dear?" said the mouse, turning to Alice as it
spoke.
"As wet as ever," said poor Alice, "it doesn't seem to dry me at
all."
"In that case," said the Dodo solemnly, rising to his feet, "I
move that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more
energetic remedies--"
"Speak English!" said the Duck, "I don't know the meaning of half
those long words, and what's more, I don't believe you do
either!" And the Duck quacked a comfortable laugh to itself. Some
of the other birds tittered audibly.
"I only meant to say," said the Dodo in a rather offended tone,
"that I know of a house near here, where we could get the young
lady and the rest of the party dried, and then we could listen
comfortably to the story which I think you were good enough to
promise to tell us," bowing gravely to the mouse.
The mouse made no objection to this, and the whole party moved
along the river bank, (for the pool had by this time began to
flow out of the hall, and the edge of it was fringed with rushes
and forget-me-nots,) in a slow procession, the Dodo leading the
way. After a time the Dodo became impatient, and, leaving the
Duck to bring up the rest of the party, moved on at a quicker
pace with Alice, the Lory, and the Eaglet, and soon brought them
to a little cottage, and there they sat snugly by the fire,
wrapped up in blankets, until the rest of the party had arrived,
and they were all dry again.
Then they all sat down again in a large ring on the bank, and
begged the mouse to begin his story.
"Mine is a long and a sad tale!" said the mouse, turning to
Alice, and sighing.
"It is a long tail, certainly," said Alice, looking down with
wonder at the mouse's tail, which was coiled nearly all round the
party, "but why do you call it sad?" and she went on puzzling
about this as the mouse went on speaking, so that her idea of the
tale was something like this:
We lived beneath the mat
Warm and snug and fat
But one woe, & that
Was the cat!
To our joys
a clog, In
our eyes a
fog, On our
hearts a log
Was the dog!
When the
cat's away,
Then
the mice
will
play,
But, alas!
one day, (So they say)
Came the dog and
cat, Hunting
for a
rat,
Crushed
the mice
all flat;
Each
one
as
he
sat.
U
n
d
e
r
n
e
a
t
h
t
h
e
m
a
t
,
m r a W
g u n s &
t a f &
T h i n k?
o f t h a t!
"You are not attending!" said the mouse to Alice severely, "what
are you thinking of?"
"I beg your pardon," said Alice very humbly, "you had got to the
fifth bend, I think?"
"I had not!" cried the mouse, sharply and very angrily.
"A knot!" said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and
looking anxiously about her, "oh, do let me help to undo it!"
"I shall do nothing of the sort!" said the mouse, getting up and
walking away from the party, "you insult me by talking such
nonsense!"
"I didn't mean it!" pleaded poor Alice, "but you're so easily
offended, you know."
The mouse only growled in reply.
"Please come back and finish your story!" Alice called after it,
and the others all joined in chorus "yes, please do!" but the
mouse only shook its ears, and walked quickly away, and was soon
out of sight.
"What a pity it wouldn't stay!" sighed the Lory, and an old Crab
took the opportunity of saying to its daughter "Ah, my dear! let
this be a lesson to you never to lose your temper!" "Hold your
tongue, Ma!" said the young Crab, a little snappishly, "you're
enough to try the patience of an oyster!"
"I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do!" said Alice aloud,
addressing no one in particular, "she'd soon fetch it back!"
"And who is Dinah, if I might venture to ask the question?" said
the Lory.
[Illustration]
Alice replied eagerly, for she was always ready to talk about her
pet, "Dinah's our cat. And she's such a capital one for catching
mice, you can't think! And oh! I wish you could see her after the
birds! Why, she'll eat a little bird as soon as look at it!"
This answer caused a remarkable sensation among the party: some
of the birds hurried off at once; one old magpie began wrapping
itself up very carefully, remarking "I really must be getting
home: the night air does not suit my throat," and a canary called
out in a trembling voice to its children "come away from her, my
dears, she's no fit company for you!" On various pretexts, they
all moved off, and Alice was soon left alone.
[Illustration]
She sat for some while sorrowful and silent, but she was not long
before she recovered her spirits, and began talking to herself
again as usual: "I do wish some of them had stayed a little
longer! and I was getting to be such friends with them--really
the Lory and I were almost like sisters! and so was that dear
little Eaglet! And then the Duck and the Dodo! How nicely the
Duck sang to us as we came along through the water: and if the
Dodo hadn't known the way to that nice little cottage, I don't
know when we should have got dry again--" and there is no knowing
how long she might have prattled on in this way, if she had not
suddenly caught the sound of pattering feet.
It was the white rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and looking
anxiously about it as it went, as if it had lost something, and she
heard it muttering to itself "the Marchioness! the Marchioness! oh
my dear paws! oh my fur and whiskers! She'll have me executed, as
sure as ferrets are ferrets! Where can I have dropped them, I
wonder?" Alice guessed in a moment that it was looking for the
nosegay and the pair of white kid gloves, and she began hunting for
them, but they were now nowhere to be seen--everything seemed to
have changed since her swim in the pool, and her walk along the
river-bank with its fringe of rushes and forget-me-nots, and the
glass table and the little door had vanished.
Soon the rabbit noticed Alice, as she stood looking curiously
about her, and at once said in a quick angry tone, "why, Mary
Ann! what are you doing out here? Go home this moment, and look
on my dressing-table for my gloves and nosegay, and fetch them
here, as quick as you can run, do you hear?" and Alice was so
much frightened that she ran off at once, without saying a word,
in the direction which the rabbit had pointed out.
She soon found herself in front of a neat little house, on the
door of which was a bright brass plate with the name W. RABBIT,
ESQ. She went in, and hurried upstairs, for fear she should meet
the real Mary Ann and be turned out of the house before she had
found the gloves: she knew that one pair had been lost in the
hall, "but of course," thought Alice, "it has plenty more of them
in its house. How queer it seems to be going messages for a
rabbit! I suppose Dinah'll be sending me messages next!" And she
began fancying the sort of things that would happen: "Miss Alice!
come here directly and get ready for your walk!" "Coming in a
minute, nurse! but I've got to watch this mousehole till Dinah
comes back, and see that the mouse doesn't get out--" "only I
don't think," Alice went on, "that they'd let Dinah stop in the
house, if it began ordering people about like that!"
[Illustration]
By this time she had found her way into a tidy little room, with a
table in the window on which was a looking-glass and, (as Alice had
hoped,) two or three pairs of tiny white kid gloves: she took up a
pair of gloves, and was just going to leave the room, when her eye
fell upon a little bottle that stood near the looking-glass: there
was no label on it this time with the words "drink me," but
nonetheless she uncorked it and put it to her lips: "I know
something interesting is sure to happen," she said to herself,
"whenever I eat or drink anything, so I'll see what this bottle
does. I do hope it'll make me grow larger, for I'm quite tired of
being such a tiny little thing!"
[Illustration]
It did so indeed, and much sooner than she expected: before she
had drunk half the bottle, she found her head pressing against
the ceiling, and she stooped to save her neck from being broken,
and hastily put down the bottle, saying to herself "that's quite
enough--I hope I sha'n't grow any more--I wish I hadn't drunk so
much!"
[Illustration]
Alas! it was too late: she went on growing and growing, and very
soon had to kneel down: in another minute there was not room even
for this, and she tried the effect of lying down, with one elbow
against the door, and the other arm curled round her head. Still
she went on growing, and as a last resource she put one arm out
of the window, and one foot up the chimney, and said to herself
"now I can do no more--what will become of me?"
Luckily for Alice, the little magic bottle had now had its full
effect, and she grew no larger; still it was very uncomfortable,
and as there seemed to be no sort of chance of ever getting out
of the room again, no wonder she felt unhappy. "It was much
pleasanter at home," thought poor Alice, "when one wasn't always
growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about by mice and
rabbits--I almost wish I hadn't gone down that rabbit-hole, and
yet, and yet--it's rather curious, you know, this sort of life. I
do wonder what can have happened to me! When I used to read
fairy-tales, I fancied that sort of thing never happened, and now
here I am in the middle of one! There out to be a book written
about me, that there ought! and when I grow up I'll write
one--but I'm grown up now" said she in a sorrowful tone, "at
least there's no room to grow up any more here."
[Illustration]
"But then," thought Alice, "shall I never get any older than I
am now? That'll be a comfort, one way--never to be an old
woman--but then--always to have lessons to learn! Oh, I shouldn't
like that!"
"Oh, you foolish Alice!" she said again, "how can you learn
lessons in here? Why, there's hardly room for you, and no room at
all for any lesson-books!"
And so she went on, taking first one side, and then the other,
and making quite a conversation of it altogether, but after a few
minutes she heard a voice outside, which made her stop to listen.
"Mary Ann! Mary Ann!" said the voice, "fetch me my gloves this
moment!" Then came a little pattering of feet on the stairs:
Alice knew it was the rabbit coming to look for her, and she
trembled till she shook the house, quite forgetting that she was
now about a thousand times as large as the rabbit, and had no
reason to be afraid of it. Presently the rabbit came to the door,
and tried to open it, but as it opened inwards, and Alice's elbow
was against it, the attempt proved a failure. Alice heard it say
to itself "then I'll go round and get in at the window."
"That you wo'n't!" thought Alice, and, after waiting till she
fancied she heard the rabbit, just under the window, she suddenly
spread out her hand, and made a snatch in the air. She did not
get hold of anything, but she heard a little shriek and a fall
and a crash of breaking glass, from which she concluded that it
was just possible it had fallen into a cucumber-frame, or
something of the sort.
[Illustration]
Next came an angry voice--the rabbit's--"Pat, Pat! where are
you?" And then a voice she had never heard before, "shure then
I'm here! digging for apples, anyway, yer honour!"
"Digging for apples indeed!" said the rabbit angrily, "here, come
and help me out of this!"--Sound of more breaking glass.
"Now, tell me, Pat, what is that coming out of the window?"
"Shure it's an arm, yer honour!" (He pronounced it "arrum".)
"An arm, you goose! Who ever saw an arm that size? Why, it fills
the whole window, don't you see?"
"Shure, it does, yer honour, but it's an arm for all that."
"Well, it's no business there: go and take it away!"
There was a long silence after this, and Alice could only hear
whispers now and then, such as "shure I don't like it, yer
honour, at all at all!" "do as I tell you, you coward!" and at
last she spread out her hand again and made another snatch in the
air. This time there were two little shrieks, and more breaking
glass--"what a number of cucumber-frames there must be!" thought
Alice, "I wonder what they'll do next! As for pulling me out of
the window, I only wish they could! I'm sure I don't want to stop
in here any longer!"
She waited for some time without hearing anything more: at last
came a rumbling of little cart-wheels, and the sound of a good
many voices all talking together: she made out the words "where's
the other ladder?--why, I hadn't to bring but one, Bill's got the
other--here, put 'em up at this corner--no, tie 'em together
first--they don't reach high enough yet--oh, they'll do well
enough, don't be particular--here, Bill! catch hold of this
rope--will the roof bear?--mind that loose slate--oh, it's coming
down! heads below!--" (a loud crash) "now, who did that?--it was
Bill, I fancy--who's to go down the chimney?--nay, I sha'n't! you
do it!--that I won't then--Bill's got to go down--here, Bill! the
master says you've to go down the chimney!"
"Oh, so Bill's got to come down the chimney, has he?" said Alice
to herself, "why, they seem to put everything upon Bill! I
wouldn't be in Bill's place for a good deal: the fireplace is a
pretty tight one, but I think I can kick a little!"
She drew her foot as far down the chimney as she could, and
waited till she heard a little animal (she couldn't guess what
sort it was) scratching and scrambling in the chimney close above
her: then, saying to herself "this is Bill," she gave one sharp
kick, and waited again to see what would happen next.
[Illustration]
The first thing was a general chorus of "there goes Bill!" then
the rabbit's voice alone "catch him, you by the hedge!" then
silence, and then another confusion of voices, "how was it, old
fellow? what happened to you? tell us all about it."
Last came a little feeble squeaking voice, ("that's Bill" thought
Alice,) which said "well, I hardly know--I'm all of a fluster
myself--something comes at me like a Jack-in-the-box, and the
next minute up I goes like a rocket!" "And so you did, old
fellow!" said the other voices.
"We must burn the house down!" said the voice of the rabbit, and
Alice called out as loud as she could "if you do, I'll set Dinah
at you!" This caused silence again, and while Alice was thinking
"but how can I get Dinah here?" she found to her great delight
that she was getting smaller: very soon she was able to get up
out of the uncomfortable position in which she had been lying,
and in two or three minutes more she was once more three inches
high.
She ran out of the house as quick as she could, and found quite a
crowd of little animals waiting outside--guinea-pigs, white mice,
squirrels, and "Bill" a little green lizard, that was being
supported in the arms of one of the guinea-pigs, while another
was giving it something out of a bottle. They all made a rush at
her the moment she appeared, but Alice ran her hardest, and soon
found herself in a thick wood.
[Illustration]