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, and he had all that
and five pounds over. So, when he was walking in the Kensington Gardens,
he made a paper boat of his bank-note, and sent it sailing on the
Serpentine.
It reached the island at night: and the look-out 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 letter he
sends one from Class A; but if it ruffles him he sends very funny ones
indeed. 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 to 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 little boy who wants
a baby-sister, always take pains to write your address clearly. 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 large five printed on it. “Preposterous!” cried
Solomon in a rage, and he presented it to Peter; anything useless which
drifted upon the island was usually given to Peter as a play-thing.
But he did not play with his precious bank-note, 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 think) 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 knew 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 was this all that Peter did to gain the powerful old fellow's good
will. You must know that Solomon had no intention of remaining in office
all his life. He looked forward to retiring by-and-by, and devoting his
green old age to a life of pleasure on a certain yew-stump in the Figs
which had taken his fancy, and for years he had been quietly filling his
stocking. It was a stocking belonging to some bathing 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 his 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 after the two had consulted
together they called a meeting of the thrushes. You will see presently
why thrushes only were invited.
The scheme to be put before them was really Peter's, but Solomon did
most of the talking, because he soon became irritable if other people
talked. He began by saying that he had been much impressed by the
superior ingenuity shown by the 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 head as if he had
used an unanswerable argument; but, unfortunately, a Mrs. Finch had come
to the meeting uninvited, and she squeaked out, “We don't build nests to
hold water, but to hold eggs,” and then the thrushes stopped cheering,
and Solomon 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.
Solomon 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 nests
with mud, and when Mrs. Finch called out, “We don't place our nests on
the Serpentine,” they did what they should have done at first: chased
her from the meeting. 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, with their help, to build a boat.
At this the thrushes began to fidget, which made Peter tremble for his
scheme.
Solomon explained hastily that what he meant was 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, Peter 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
arrears. It was the time of year when they should have been pairing, but
not a thrush's nest was built except this big one, and 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-tops 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 afterward on the island
as the Sparrows' Year, and so, when you meet, as you doubtless sometimes
do, grown-up people who puff and blow as if they thought themselves
bigger than they are, very likely they belong to that year. You ask
them.
Peter was a just master, and paid his workpeople every evening. They
stood in rows on the branches, waiting politely while he cut the paper
sixpences out of his bank-note, and presently he called the roll, and
then each bird, as the names were mentioned, flew down and got sixpence.
It must have been a fine sight.
And at last, after months of labor, the boat was finished. Oh, the
deportment 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 after 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 thatched afresh. There are also a few feathers here and there, which
came off the thrushes while they were building.
The other birds were extremely jealous and said 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. 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 night-gown, and though it was still rather like a
night-gown it made a lovely sail. And that night, the moon being full,
and 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
to 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 looked back; there was an exultation in his little breast that
drove out fear. Was Peter the least gallant of the English 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 backward by a contrary breeze, to
his no small peril. He now let go the sail, with the result that he was
drifted toward the far shore, where are black shadows he knew not the
dangers of, but suspected them, and so once more hoisted his night-gown
and went roomer of the shadows until he caught a favouring wind, which
bore him westward, but at so great a speed that he was like to be broke
against the bridge. Which, having 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 piece of the kite-string, he found no bottom, and was fain to hold
off, seeking for 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. There
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 the shore to contest
his landing, and shouting shrilly to him to be off, for it was long past
Lock-out Time. This, with much brandishing of their holly-leaves, and
also a company of them carried an arrow 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, called out that he was not an
ordinary human and had no desire to do them displeasure, 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 mischief 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 cry among the women,
and it was because they had now observed that his sail was a baby's
night-gown. Whereupon, they straightway loved him, and grieved that
their laps were too small, the which I cannot explain, except by saying
that such is the way of women. The men-fairies now sheathed their
weapons 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 the 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 daresay we should see
him hoisting his night-gown and sailing or paddling toward us in the
Thrush's Nest. When he sails, he sits down, but he stands up to paddle.
I shall tell you presently how he got his paddle.
Long before the time for the opening of the gates 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 thinks 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 were all more or less in hiding until dusk, and so know nothing,
and though the birds pretended that they could tell him a great deal,
when the time for telling came, it was wonderful how little they really
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 all 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, and he wondered what
you play at with them, and decided that you play at pretending they
are boats. This hoop always sank at once, 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.
Another 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. 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. So he stretched out
his hand to pull it to him, but this time it ran at him, and he was so
alarmed that he leapt the railing and scudded away to his boat. You must
not think, however, that he was a coward, for he came back next night
with a crust in one hand and a stick in the other, but the perambulator
had gone, and he never saw another one. I have promised to tell you also
about his paddle. It was a child's spade which he had found near St.
Govor's Well, and he thought it was a paddle.
Do you pity Peter Pan for making these mistakes? If so, I think it
rather silly of you. What I mean is that, of course, one must pity him
now and then, but to pity him all the time would be impertinence. He
thought he had the most splendid time in the Gardens, and to think you
have it is almost quite as good as really to have it. He played without
ceasing, while you often waste time by being mad-dog or Mary-Annish. He
could be neither of these things, for 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 than your father. Sometimes he fell, like a spinning-top,
from sheer merriment. Have you seen a greyhound leaping the fences of
the Gardens? That is how Peter leaps them.
And think of the music of his pipe. Gentlemen who walk home at night
write to the papers to say they heard a nightingale in the 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 sorry 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 fairies who gave him the chance.