Through the Looking-Glass
she was afraid that he really _was_ hurt this time. However, though she
could see nothing but the soles of his feet, she was much relieved to
hear that he was talking on in his usual tone. “All kinds of fastness,”
he repeated: “but it was careless of him to put another man’s helmet
on—with the man in it, too.”
“How _can_ you go on talking so quietly, head downwards?” Alice asked,
as she dragged him out by the feet, and laid him in a heap on the bank.
The Knight looked surprised at the question. “What does it matter where
my body happens to be?” he said. “My mind goes on working all the same.
In fact, the more head downwards I am, the more I keep inventing new
things.”
“Now the cleverest thing of the sort that I ever did,” he went on after
a pause, “was inventing a new pudding during the meat-course.”
“In time to have it cooked for the next course?” said Alice.
“Well, not the _next_ course,” the Knight said in a slow thoughtful
tone: “no, certainly not the next _course_.”
“Then it would have to be the next day. I suppose you wouldn’t have two
pudding-courses in one dinner?”
“Well, not the _next_ day,” the Knight repeated as before: “not the
next _day_. In fact,” he went on, holding his head down, and his voice
getting lower and lower, “I don’t believe that pudding ever _was_
cooked! In fact, I don’t believe that pudding ever _will_ be cooked!
And yet it was a very clever pudding to invent.”
“What did you mean it to be made of?” Alice asked, hoping to cheer him
up, for the poor Knight seemed quite low-spirited about it.
“It began with blotting paper,” the Knight answered with a groan.
“That wouldn’t be very nice, I’m afraid—”
“Not very nice _alone_,” he interrupted, quite eagerly: “but you’ve no
idea what a difference it makes mixing it with other things—such as
gunpowder and sealing-wax. And here I must leave you.” They had just
come to the end of the wood.
Alice could only look puzzled: she was thinking of the pudding.
“You are sad,” the Knight said in an anxious tone: “let me sing you a
song to comfort you.”
“Is it very long?” Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry
that day.
“It’s long,” said the Knight, “but very, _very_ beautiful. Everybody
that hears me sing it—either it brings the _tears_ into their eyes, or
else—”
“Or else what?” said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause.
“Or else it doesn’t, you know. The name of the song is called
‘_Haddocks’ Eyes_.’”
“Oh, that’s the name of the song, is it?” Alice said, trying to feel
interested.
“No, you don’t understand,” the Knight said, looking a little vexed.
“That’s what the name is _called_. The name really _is_ ‘_The Aged Aged
Man_.’”
“Then I ought to have said ‘That’s what the _song_ is called’?” Alice
corrected herself.
“No, you oughtn’t: that’s quite another thing! The _song_ is called
‘_Ways and Means_’: but that’s only what it’s _called_, you know!”
“Well, what _is_ the song, then?” said Alice, who was by this time
completely bewildered.
“I was coming to that,” the Knight said. “The song really _is_
‘_A-sitting On A Gate_’: and the tune’s my own invention.”
So saying, he stopped his horse and let the reins fall on its neck:
then, slowly beating time with one hand, and with a faint smile
lighting up his gentle foolish face, as if he enjoyed the music of his
song, he began.
Of all the strange things that Alice saw in her journey Through The
Looking-Glass, this was the one that she always remembered most
clearly. Years afterwards she could bring the whole scene back again,
as if it had been only yesterday—the mild blue eyes and kindly smile of
the Knight—the setting sun gleaming through his hair, and shining on
his armour in a blaze of light that quite dazzled her—the horse quietly
moving about, with the reins hanging loose on his neck, cropping the
grass at her feet—and the black shadows of the forest behind—all this
she took in like a picture, as, with one hand shading her eyes, she
leant against a tree, watching the strange pair, and listening, in a
half dream, to the melancholy music of the song.
“But the tune _isn’t_ his own invention,” she said to herself: “it’s
‘_I give thee all, I can no more_.’” She stood and listened very
attentively, but no tears came into her eyes.
“I’ll tell thee everything I can;
There’s little to relate.
I saw an aged aged man,
A-sitting on a gate.
‘Who are you, aged man?’ I said,
‘and how is it you live?’
And his answer trickled through my head
Like water through a sieve.
He said ‘I look for butterflies
That sleep among the wheat:
I make them into mutton-pies,
And sell them in the street.
I sell them unto men,’ he said,
‘Who sail on stormy seas;
And that’s the way I get my bread—
A trifle, if you please.’
But I was thinking of a plan
To dye one’s whiskers green,
And always use so large a fan
That they could not be seen.
So, having no reply to give
To what the old man said,
I cried, ‘Come, tell me how you live!’
And thumped him on the head.
His accents mild took up the tale:
He said ‘I go my ways,
And when I find a mountain-rill,
I set it in a blaze;
And thence they make a stuff they call
Rolands’ Macassar Oil—
Yet twopence-halfpenny is all
They give me for my toil.’
But I was thinking of a way
To feed oneself on batter,
And so go on from day to day
Getting a little fatter.
I shook him well from side to side,
Until his face was blue:
‘Come, tell me how you live,’ I cried,
‘And what it is you do!’
He said ‘I hunt for haddocks’ eyes
Among the heather bright,
And work them into waistcoat-buttons
In the silent night.
And these I do not sell for gold
Or coin of silvery shine
But for a copper halfpenny,
And that will purchase nine.
‘I sometimes dig for buttered rolls,
Or set limed twigs for crabs;
I sometimes search the grassy knolls
For wheels of Hansom-cabs.
And that’s the way’ (he gave a wink)
‘By which I get my wealth—
And very gladly will I drink
Your Honour’s noble health.’
I heard him then, for I had just
Completed my design
To keep the Menai bridge from rust
By boiling it in wine.
I thanked him much for telling me
The way he got his wealth,
But chiefly for his wish that he
Might drink my noble health.
And now, if e’er by chance I put
My fingers into glue
Or madly squeeze a right-hand foot
Into a left-hand shoe,
Or if I drop upon my toe
A very heavy weight,
I weep, for it reminds me so,
Of that old man I used to know—
Whose look was mild, whose speech was slow,
Whose hair was whiter than the snow,
Whose face was very like a crow,
With eyes, like cinders, all aglow,
Who seemed distracted with his woe,
Who rocked his body to and fro,
And muttered mumblingly and low,
As if his mouth were full of dough,
Who snorted like a buffalo—
That summer evening, long ago,
A-sitting on a gate.”
As the Knight sang the last words of the ballad, he gathered up the
reins, and turned his horse’s head along the road by which they had
come. “You’ve only a few yards to go,” he said, “down the hill and over
that little brook, and then you’ll be a Queen—But you’ll stay and see
me off first?” he added as Alice turned with an eager look in the
direction to which he pointed. “I shan’t be long. You’ll wait and wave
your handkerchief when I get to that turn in the road? I think it’ll
encourage me, you see.”
“Of course I’ll wait,” said Alice: “and thank you very much for coming
so far—and for the song—I liked it very much.”
“I hope so,” the Knight said doubtfully: “but you didn’t cry so much as
I thought you would.”
So they shook hands, and then the Knight rode slowly away into the
forest. “It won’t take long to see him _off_, I expect,” Alice said to
herself, as she stood watching him. “There he goes! Right on his head
as usual! However, he gets on again pretty easily—that comes of having
so many things hung round the horse—” So she went on talking to
herself, as she watched the horse walking leisurely along the road, and
the Knight tumbling off, first on one side and then on the other. After
the fourth or fifth tumble he reached the turn, and then she waved her
handkerchief to him, and waited till he was out of sight.
“I hope it encouraged him,” she said, as she turned to run down the
hill: “and now for the last brook, and to be a Queen! How grand it
sounds!” A very few steps brought her to the edge of the brook. “The
Eighth Square at last!” she cried as she bounded across,
* * * * * * *
* * * * * *
* * * * * * *
and threw herself down to rest on a lawn as soft as moss, with little
flower-beds dotted about it here and there. “Oh, how glad I am to get
here! And what _is_ this on my head?” she exclaimed in a tone of
dismay, as she put her hands up to something very heavy, and fitted
tight all round her head.
“But how _can_ it have got there without my knowing it?” she said to
herself, as she lifted it off, and set it on her lap to make out what
it could possibly be.
It was a golden crown.
CHAPTER IX.
Queen Alice
“Well, this _is_ grand!” said Alice. “I never expected I should be a
Queen so soon—and I’ll tell you what it is, your majesty,” she went on
in a severe tone (she was always rather fond of scolding herself),
“it’ll never do for you to be lolling about on the grass like that!
Queens have to be dignified, you know!”
So she got up and walked about—rather stiffly just at first, as she was
afraid that the crown might come off: but she comforted herself with
the thought that there was nobody to see her, “and if I really am a
Queen,” she said as she sat down again, “I shall be able to manage it
quite well in time.”
Everything was happening so oddly that she didn’t feel a bit surprised
at finding the Red Queen and the White Queen sitting close to her, one
on each side: she would have liked very much to ask them how they came
there, but she feared it would not be quite civil. However, there would
be no harm, she thought, in asking if the game was over. “Please, would
you tell me—” she began, looking timidly at the Red Queen.
“Speak when you’re spoken to!” The Queen sharply interrupted her.
“But if everybody obeyed that rule,” said Alice, who was always ready
for a little argument, “and if you only spoke when you were spoken to,
and the other person always waited for _you_ to begin, you see nobody
would ever say anything, so that—”
“Ridiculous!” cried the Queen. “Why, don’t you see, child—” here she
broke off with a frown, and, after thinking for a minute, suddenly
changed the subject of the conversation. “What do you mean by ‘If you
really are a Queen’? What right have you to call yourself so? You can’t
be a Queen, you know, till you’ve passed the proper examination. And
the sooner we begin it, the better.”
“I only said ‘if’!” poor Alice pleaded in a piteous tone.
The two Queens looked at each other, and the Red Queen remarked, with a
little shudder, “She _says_ she only said ‘if’—”
“But she said a great deal more than that!” the White Queen moaned,
wringing her hands. “Oh, ever so much more than that!”
“So you did, you know,” the Red Queen said to Alice. “Always speak the
truth—think before you speak—and write it down afterwards.”
“I’m sure I didn’t mean—” Alice was beginning, but the Red Queen
interrupted her impatiently.
“That’s just what I complain of! You _should_ have meant! What do you
suppose is the use of child without any meaning? Even a joke should
have some meaning—and a child’s more important than a joke, I hope. You
couldn’t deny that, even if you tried with both hands.”