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 she is wearing her best frock, and so on, and perhaps you
put this down to naughtiness. But it is not; it simply means that she
is doing as she has seen the fairies do; she begins by following their
ways, and it takes about two years to get her into the human ways. Her
fits of passion, which are awful to behold, and are usually called
teething, are no such thing; they are her natural exasperation, because
we don't understand her, though she is talking an intelligible
language. She is talking fairy. The reason mothers and nurses know
what her remarks mean, before other people know, as that 'Guch' means
'Give it to me at once,' while 'Wa' is 'Why do you wear such a funny
hat?' is because, mixing so much with babies, they have picked up a
little of the fairy language.
[Illustration: A fairy ring]
Of late 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 which 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 distinctly 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 'What
hideous trimming!' and so on.
[Illustration: These tricky fairies sometimes slyly change the board on
a ball night]
The fairies are exquisite dancers, and that is why one of the first
things the baby does 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 they make it by
waltzing round and round. Sometimes you will find mushrooms inside the
ring, and these are fairy 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 the ball before it takes
place. You know the boards which tell at what time the Gardens are to
close to-day. Well, these tricky fairies sometimes slyly 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 the 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, holding up the
ladies' trains, and linkmen running in front carrying winter cherries,
which are the fairy-lanterns; the cloakroom where they put on their
silver slippers and get a ticket for their wraps; the flowers streaming
up from the Baby Walk to look on, and always welcome because they can
lend a pin; the supper-table, 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.
[Illustration: Linkmen running in front carrying winter cherries]
The table-cloth varies according to the seasons, and in May it is made
of chestnut blossom. The way the fairy servants do is this: The men,
scores of them, climb up the trees and shake the branches, and the
blossom falls like snow. Then 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 Queen 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. The
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. When
the Queen sees them doing this she signs to the servants to wash up and
put away, 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 corner
of the invitation-cards sent out by all really good families. They are
grateful little people, too, and 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.
[Illustration: When her Majesty wants to know the time]
The way it was done was this. The Queen ordered 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 nose 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, putting 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 his cleverness rather
shocked them, and he said that his first wish was to go to his mother,
but with the right to return to the Gardens if he found her
disappointing. His second wish he would hold in reserve.
They tried to dissuade him, and even put obstacles 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 grant 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 Palace 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 be to become
a bird.
The window was wide open, just as he knew it would be, and in he
fluttered, and there was his mother lying asleep. Peter alighted
softly on the wooden rail 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 was 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
and squeeze him tight. How nice that would 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 thought, than to have a little boy of your own. How
proud of him they are! and very right and proper, too.
[Illustration: The fairies sit round on mushrooms, and at first they
are well behaved]
But why 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 should enjoy wearing clothes again? He popped
off the bed and opened some drawers to have a look at his old garments.
They were 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 one 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 lovely
word in the language. He remained sitting 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 his 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 boat just once more,' he said wistfully to his sleeping
mother. He quite argued with her as if she could hear him. 'It would
be so splendid to tell the birds of this adventure,' he said coaxingly.
'I promise to come back,' he said solemnly, and meant it, too.
[Illustration: Butter is got from the roots of old trees (missing from
book)]
And in the end, you know, he flew away. Twice he came back from the
window, wanting to kiss his mother, but he feared the delight 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 had
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 was 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 for 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 yet
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 going 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 anxious 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 would 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 arms
that this time he flew straight to the window, which was always to be
open for him.
[Illustration: Wallflower juice is good for reviving dancers who fall
to the ground in a fit]
But the window was closed, and there were iron bars on it, and peering
inside he saw 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 Gardens, and he never saw his dear again. What a glorious boy
he had meant to be to her! Ah, Peter! we who have made the great
mistake, how differently we should 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 life.
[Illustration: Tailpiece to 'Lock-out Time']
[Illustration: Headpiece to 'The Little House']
V
THE LITTLE HOUSE
Everybody has heard of the Little House in the Kensington Gardens,
which is the only house in the whole world that the fairies have built
for humans. But no one has really seen it, except just three or four,
and they have not only seen it but slept in it, and unless you sleep in
it you never see it. This is because it is not there when you 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. David, for instance, saw it quite distinctly far away
among the trees as we were going home from the pantomime, and Oliver
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 have
been the fairies building the house, for they build it every night, and
always in a different part of the Gardens. She thought one of the
lights was bigger than the others, though she was not quite 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 have 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 him
in the right way, and tried in vain to imitate him, and was flattered
rather than annoyed when he shoved her about. Also, when she was
batting, she would pause though the ball was in the air to point out to
you that she was wearing new shoes. She was quite the ordinary kind in
the daytime.
[Illustration: Peter Pan is the fairies' orchestra]
But as 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-night, 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! what 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 meant to remain
behind in the Gardens after the gates were closed.
'O Tony,' she would say with awful respect, 'but 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.
[Illustration: They all tickled him on the shoulder (missing from book)]
But they 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 day 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, 'Just
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 waiting 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 to 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-past five. Poor ayah! she is the one who
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 read 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 was to be a ball to-night. She said
there was only time now to walk to the top of the Hump and back, and as
they trotted along with her she little guessed what was thrilling their
little breasts. You see the chance had come of seeing a fairy ball.
Never, Tony felt, could he hope for a better chance.
[Illustration: One day they were overheard by a fairy]
He had 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 whispered 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 afraid 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, 'Then
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 blankly, as if all
her lapful of darling treasures were suddenly spilled, and then for
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 far in front she thought
her other charge was with him and passed out. Twilight crept over the
Gardens, and hundreds 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
come from above, and she looked up in time to see an elm-tree
stretching out its arms and yawning.
[Illustration: The little people weave their summer curtains from
skeleton leaves]
She was about to say, 'I never knew you could speak!' when a metallic
voice that seemed 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 numb standing so long on one leg,'
and he flapped his arms vigorously just as the cabmen do before they
drive off. Maimie 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
pelisse and had the hood over her head, so that nothing of her showed
except her dear little face and her curls. The rest 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 Walk, 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 they used crutches. An elderberry hobbled across
the walk, and stood chatting with some young quinces, and they all had
crutches. The crutches were the sticks that are tied to young trees
and shrubs. They were quite familiar objects to Maimie, but she had
never known what they were for until to-night.
[Illustration: There was a good deal going on in the Baby Walk]
She peeped up the walk and saw her first fairy. He was a street boy
fairy who was running up the walk closing the weeping trees. The way
he did it was this: he pressed a spring in the trunks and they shut
like umbrellas, deluging the little plants 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 rather puzzled what to do.
[Illustration: An afternoon when the Gardens were white with snow]
'Of course 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, which 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 carry tales. They then said,
'Well-a-day,' and 'Such is life,' for they can be frightfully
sarcastic; but she felt sorry for those of them who had no crutches,
and she said good-naturedly, 'Before I go 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 escorted them up the Baby
Walk and back again, one at a time, putting an arm or a finger round
the very frail, setting their leg right when it got too ridiculous, and
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 longer felt afraid. The reason she felt no
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 death, or compel you
to nurse their children, or turn you into something tedious, like an
evergreen oak.' As they said this 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.
[Illustration: She ran to St. Govor's Well and hid]
She learned 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 had 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 bewitch 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 head 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 Cupids 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.
[Illustration: She escorted them up the Baby Walk and back again]
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 had just
time to hide from them by bending her knees and holding out her arms
and pretending to be a garden chair. There 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 travel about.
She was dressed in golden rain, but the most enviable part of her was
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 admired effect by
pricking their skin, which lets the blue blood come through and dye
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 for even fairies to tilt
them, and she concluded that this must be another case in which the
doctor had said, 'Cold, quite cold.'
[Illustration: An elderberry hobbled across the walk, and stood
chatting with some young quinces]
Well, she followed the ribbon to a place where it became a bridge over
a dry puddle into 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 chatting 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 said 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 fashionable 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 scudded away up the ribbon, calling out to Maimie not to
follow lest the Queen should 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 near it, and then she peeped from behind a tree.
[Illustration: A chrysanthemum heard her, and said pointedly,
'Hoity-toity, what is this?']
The light, 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 over the fairy ring. There were thousands of
little people looking on, but they were in shadow and drab in colour
compared to the 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 ladies 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 feeling 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
disgraced 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 just 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 doctor 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.
[Illustration: They warned her]
Everybody 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 evidently on fire,
for he had to jerk his fingers away from it and put them in his mouth.
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 and he flung himself into them, the Queen leapt into the arms of
the Lord Chamberlain, 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 ribbons 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 spoiled everything.
She couldn't help it. She was crazy with delight over her little
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 Maimie; 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 murmur 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 thought 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. And when she heard talking through her dreams she
thought it was mother bringing father to the nursery door to look at
her as she slept. But it was the fairies.
I am very glad to be able to say that they no longer desired to
mischief her. When 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 while they discussed who should
march in front, and this gave Duchess Brownie time 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. 'Anything except that,' replied Queen Mab sternly, and all the
fairies echoed, 'Anything except that.' But when they learned 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 keeping step with it. They traced Maimie easily
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 address 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 could 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. By this time all
the ladies were crying in their handkerchiefs, but presently the Cupids
had a lovely idea. 'Build a house round her,' they cried, and at once
everybody perceived that this was the thing to do; in a moment a
hundred fairy sawyers were among the branches, architects were running
round Maimie, measuring her; a bricklayer's yard sprang up at her feet,
seventy-five masons rushed up with the foundation-stone, and the Queen
laid it, overseers were appointed to keep the boys off, scaffoldings
were run up, the whole place rang with hammers and chisels and
turning-lathes, and by this time the roof was on and the glaziers were
putting in the windows.
[Illustration: Queen Mab, who rules in the Gardens]
The house 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 the front door. The windows
were the size of a coloured picture-book and the door rather smaller,
but it would be easy for her to get out by taking off the roof. The
fairies, as is their custom, clapped their hands with delight over
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 sighed.
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 arrived 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 garden 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.
[Illustration: Shook his bald head and murmured, 'Cold, quite cold']
Oh, how 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 hands to it as they went away, and the
last to go was Brownie. She stayed a moment behind the others to drop
a pleasant dream down the chimney.
All through the night the exquisite little house stood there in the
Figs taking care of Maimie, and she never knew. She slept until the
dream was quite finished, 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 this 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 the 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 passed the night. It so entranced her that
she could think of nothing else.
'O you darling! O you sweet! O you love!' she cried.
Perhaps a human voice frightened the little house, 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 complete 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 her knees, for
the little house was now the size of a reel of thread, but still quite
complete. But as she stretched 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.
[Illustration: Fairies never say, 'We feel happy': what they say is,
'We feel _dancey_']
Maimie stamped her foot naughtily, and was putting her fingers to her
eyes, when she 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. She knew at once that he must be Peter Pan.
[Illustration: Tailpiece to 'The Little House']
[Illustration: Headpiece to 'Peter's Goat']
VI
PETER'S GOAT
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. They 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 together and he found that people knew a great deal about him,
but not everything, not that he had gone back to his mother and been
barred out, for instance, and he said nothing of this to Maimie, for it
still humiliated him.
'Do they know that I play games exactly like real boys?' he asked very
proudly. 'O Maimie, please tell them!' But when he revealed how he
played, by sailing his hoop on the Round Pond, and so on, she was
simply 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 play.'
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 hers, and she thought it best to pretend
that this was what she had meant.
[Illustration: Looking very undancey indeed]
She said out of pity for him, 'I shall give you a kiss if you like,'
but though he once knew, he had long forgotten what kisses are, and he
replied, 'Thank you,' and 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 Peter a thimble which happened to be in her pocket, and
pretended that it was a kiss. Poor little boy! he quite believed her,
and to this day he wears it on his finger, though there can be scarcely
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 with whiskers.
But you must not think that Peter Pan was a boy to pity rather than to
admire; if Maimie began by thinking this, she soon found she was very
much mistaken. Her eyes 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 was as brave as Tony!'
It quite irritated her. 'You are twenty thousand times braver than
Tony,' she said; 'you are ever so much the bravest boy I ever knew.'
He could scarcely believe she meant it, but when 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 thimble off his finger. He
thought she wanted 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 said gravely, so he gave
her one. He gave her quite a number of thimbles, and then a delightful
idea came into his head. 'Maimie,' he said, 'will you marry me?'
[Illustration: 'My Lord Duke,' said the physician elatedly, 'I have the
honour to inform your excellency that your grace is in love']
Now, strange to tell, the same idea had come at exactly the same time
into Maimie's head. 'I should like to,' she answered, '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 have 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.
'No,' he said, still fondling it, however, 'no. O Maimie,' he said
rapturously, 'do you know why I love you? It is because you are like a
beautiful nest.'
Somehow this made her uneasy. 'I think you are speaking more like a
bird than a boy now,' she said, holding back, and indeed he was even
looking rather like a bird. 'After all,' she said, 'you are only a
Betwixt-and-Between.' But 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 implored 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!'
[Illustration: Building the house for Maimie]
But as they drew near the Serpentine, she shivered a little, and said,
'Of course I shall 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 least
like that.'
'Oh no,' answered Peter, but in his heart he knew 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, and be happy with
me,' he kept saying to himself, and he hurried her on, giving her
thimbles by the way.
But even when she had seen the boat and exclaimed ecstatically over its
loveliness, she still talked tremblingly about her mother. 'You know
quite well, Peter, don't you,' she said, 'that I wouldn't come unless I
knew for certain I could 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 huskily.
'The door,' replied Maimie, 'will always, always 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 Nest.
'But why don't you look at me?' she asked, taking 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 you 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 you to-night,' he said, squeezing close, 'but if you hurry
away I think you will be in time.'
Then he pressed a last thimble on her sweet little 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 time.
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 sharp
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.
[Illustration: If the bad ones among the fairies happen to be out
(missing from book)]
'Nothing,' 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 mother.
'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, accompanied 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 ring, and
then her mother, who was a rather gifted lady, said--
_'My daughter, tell me, if you can,
What have you got for Peter Pan?'_
To which Maimie replied--
_'I have 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 ne'er again make me to fear?'_
And Maimie answered--
_'By dark or light I fondly swear
Never to see goats anywhere.'_
She also 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 riding 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 sublimely on his pipe. And Maimie kept her promise, and never
frightened Tony with a goat again, though I have heard that she created
another animal. Until she was quite a big girl she continued to leave
presents for Peter in the Gardens (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, and we shall tell you if you like, but for mercy's
sake don't ask us before Porthos, for he is so fond of toys that, were
he to find out the place, he would take every one of them.
[Illustration: They will certainly mischief you (missing from book)]
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 the
eaves of the houses where they lived when they were humans, and
sometimes they try 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, every 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 for 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 merely
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. If 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 which Maimie had told
him the true use, and he digs a grave for the child and erects 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 that 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 the parish of Westminster St. Mary's is said to meet the parish
of Paddington. 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 putting any age on his stone. They lie side 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.
[Illustration: I think that quite the most touching sight in the
Gardens is the two tombstones of Walter Stephen Matthews and Phoebe
Phelps]
But how 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 not too ready with
his spade. It is all rather sad.
[Illustration: Tailpiece to 'Peter's Goat']
Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to His Majesty at the
Edinburgh University Press
End of Project Gutenberg's Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, by J. M. Barrie