CHAPTER VIII
“It’s My Own Invention”
After a while the noise seemed gradually to die away, till all was dead silence, and Alice
lifted up her head in some alarm. There was no one to be seen, and her first thought was that
she must have been dreaming about the Lion and the Unicorn and those still lying at her feet, on
which she had tried to cut the plum-cake, “So I wasn’t dreaming, after all,” she
said to herself, “unless — unless we’re all part of the same dream. Only I
do hope it’s my dream, and not the Red King’s! I don’t like
belonging to another person’s dream,” she went on in a rather complaining tone:
“I’ve a great mind to go and wake him, and see what happens!”
At this moment her thoughts were interrupted by a loud shouting of “Ahoy!
Ahoy! Check!” and a Knight dressed in crimson armour came galloping down upon her,
brandishing a great club. Just as he reached her, the horse stopped suddenly:
“You’re my prisoner!” the Knight cried, as he tumbled off his horse.
Startled as she was, Alice was more frightened for him than for herself at the moment, and
watched him with some anxiety as he mounted again. As soon as he was comfortably in the
saddle, he began once more “You’re my ——” but here another voice
broke in “Ahoy! Ahoy! Check!” and Alice looked round in some surprise for
the new enemy.
This time it was a White Knight. He drew up at Alice’s side, and tumbled off his
horse just as the Red Knight had done: then he got on again, and the two Knights sat and
looked at each other for some time without speaking. Alice looked from one to the other in
some bewilderment.
“She’s my prisoner, you know!” the Red Knight said at last.
“Yes, but then I came and rescued her!” the White Knight replied.
“Well, we must fight for her, then,” said the Red Knight, as he took up his helmet
(which hung from the saddle, and was something the shape of a horse’s head), and put it
on.
“You will observe the Rules of Battle, of course?” the White Knight remarked,
putting on his helmet too.
“I always do,” said the Red Knight, and they began banging away at each other with
such fury that Alice got behind a tree to be out of the way of the blows.
“I wonder, now, what the Rules of Battle are,” she said to herself, as she watched
the fight, timidly peeping out from her hiding-place: “one Rule seems to be, that if
one Knight hits the other, he knocks him off his horse, and if he misses, he tumbles off himself
— and another Rule seems to be that they hold their clubs with their arms, as if they were
Punch and Judy —— What a noise they make when they tumble! Just like a whole set
of fire-irons falling into the fender! And how quiet the horses are! They let them get
on and off them just as if they were tables!”
Another Rule of Battle, that Alice had not noticed, seemed to be that they always fell on their
heads, and the battle ended with their both falling off in this way, side by side: when they
got up again, they shook hands, and then the Red Knight mounted and galloped off.
“It was a glorious victory, wasn’t it?” said the White Knight, as he came up
panting.
“I don’t know,” Alice said doubtfully. “I don’t want to be
anybody’s prisoner. I want to be a Queen.”
“So you will, when you’ve crossed the next brook,” said the White
Knight. “I’ll see you safe to the end of the wood — and then I must go
back, you know. That’s the end of my move.”
“Thank you very much,” said Alice. “May I help you off with your
helmet?” It was evidently more than he could manage by himself; however, she managed to
shake him out of it at last.
“Now one can breathe more easily,” said the Knight, putting back his shaggy hair
with both hands, and turning his gentle face and large mild eyes to Alice. She thought she
had never seen such a strange-looking soldier in all her life.
He was dressed in tin armour, which seemed to fit him very badly, and he had a queer-shaped
little deal box fastened across his shoulder, upside-down, and with the lid hanging open.
Alice looked at it with great curiosity.
“I see you’re admiring my little box.” the Knight said in a friendly
tone. “It’s my own invention — to keep clothes and sandwiches in. You
see I carry it upside-down, so that the rain can’t get in.”
“But the things can get out,” Alice gently remarked. “Do you
know the lid’s open?”
“I didn’t know it,” the Knight said, a shade of vexation passing over his
face. “Then all the things much have fallen out! And the box is no use without
them.” He unfastened it as he spoke, and was just going to throw it into the bushes,
when a sudden thought seemed to strike him, and he hung it carefully on a tree. “Can
you guess why I did that?” he said to Alice.
Alice shook her head.
“In hopes some bees may make a nest in it — then I should get the honey.”
“But you’ve got a bee-hive — or something like one — fastened to the
saddle,” said Alice.
“Yes, it’s a very good bee-hive,” the Knight said in a discontented tone,
“one of the best kind. But not a single bee has come near it yet. And the other
thing is a mouse-trap. I suppose the mice keep the bees out — or the bees keep the mice
out, I don’t know which.”
“I was wondering what the mouse-trap was for,” said Alice. “It
isn’t very likely there would be any mice on the horse’s back.”
“Not very likely, perhaps,” said the Knight: “but if they do
come, I don’t choose to have them running all about.”
“You see,” he went on after a pause, “it’s as well to be provided for
everything. That’s the reason the horse has all those anklets round his
feet.”
“But what are they for?” Alice asked in a tone of great curiosity.
“To guard against the bites of sharks,” the Knight replied. “It’s an
invention of my own. And now help me on. I’ll go with you to the end of the wood
— What’s the dish for?”
“It’s meant for plum-cake,” said Alice.
“We’d better take it with us,” the Knight said. “It’ll come
in handy if we find any plum-cake. Help me to get it into this bag.”
This took a very long time to manage, though Alice held the bag open very carefully, because the
Knight was so very awkward in putting in the dish: the first two or three times that
he tried he fell in himself instead. “It’s rather a tight fit, you see,” he
said, as they got it in a last; “There are so many candlesticks in the bag.” And
he hung it to the saddle, which was already loaded with bunches of carrots, and fire-irons, and
many other things.
“I hope you’ve got your hair well fastened on?” he continued, as they set
off.
“Only in the usual way,” Alice said, smiling.
“That’s hardly enough,” he said, anxiously. “You see the wind is
so very strong here. It’s as strong as soup.”
“Have you invented a plan for keeping the hair from being blown off?” Alice
enquired.
“Not yet,” said the Knight. “But I’ve got a plan for keeping it
from falling off.”
“I should like to hear it, very much.”
“First you take an upright stick,” said the Knight. “Then you make your
hair creep up it, like a fruit-tree. Now the reason hair falls off is because it hangs
down — things never fall upwards, you know. It’s a plan of my own
invention. You may try it if you like.”
It didn’t sound a comfortable plan, Alice thought, and for a few minutes she walked on in
silence, puzzling over the idea, and every now and then stopping to help the poor Knight, who
certainly was not a good rider.
Whenever the horse stopped (which it did very often), he fell off in front; and whenever it went
on again (which it generally did rather suddenly), he fell off behind. Otherwise he kept on
pretty well, except that he had a habit of now and then falling off sideways; and as he generally
did this on the side on which Alice was walking, she soon found that it was the best plan not to
walk quite close to the horse.
“I’m afraid you’ve not had much practice in riding,” she ventured to
say, as she was helping him up from his fifth tumble.
The Knight looked very much surprised, and a little offended at the remark. “What
makes you say that?” he asked, as he scrambled back into the saddle, keeping hold of
Alice’s hair with one hand, to save himself from falling over on the other side.
“Because people don’t fall off quite so often, when they’ve had much
practice.”
“I’ve had plenty of practice,” the Knight said very gravely: “plenty of
practice!”
Alice could think of nothing better to say than “Indeed?” but she said it as
heartily as she could. They went on a little way in silence after this, the Knight with his
eyes shut, muttering to himself, and Alice watching anxiously for the next tumble.
“The great art of riding,” the Knight suddenly began in a loud voice, waving his
right arm as he spoke, “is to keep ——” Here the sentence ended as suddenly
as it had begun, as the Knight fell heavily on the top of his head exactly in the path where Alice
was walking. She was quite frightened this time, and said in an anxious tone, as she picked
him up, “I hope no bones are broken?”
“None to speak of,” the Knight said, as if he didn’t mind breaking two or
three of them. “The great art of riding, as I was saying, is — to keep your
balance properly. Like this, you know ——”
He let go the bridle, and stretched out both his arms to show Alice what he meant, and this time
he fell flat on his back, right under the horse’s feet.
“Plenty of practice!” he went on repeating, all the time that Alice was getting him
on his feet again. “Plenty of practice!”
“It’s too ridiculous!” cried Alice, losing all her patience this time.
“You ought to have a wooden horse on wheels, that you ought!”
“Does that kind go smoothly?” the Knight asked in a tone of great interest, clasping
his arms round the horse’s neck as he spoke, just in time to save himself from tumbling off
again.
“Much more smoothly than a live horse,” Alice said, with a little scream of
laughter, in spite of all she could do to prevent it.
“I’ll get one,” the Knight said thoughtfully to himself. “One or
two — several.”
There was a short silence after this, and then the Knight went on again. “I’m
a great hand at inventing things. Now, I daresay you noticed, that last time you picked me
up, that I was looking rather thoughtful?”
“You were a little grave,” said Alice.
“Well, just then I was inventing a new way of getting over a gate — would you like
to hear it?”
“Very much indeed,” Alice said politely.
“I’ll tell you how I came to think of it,” said the Knight. “You see, I
said to myself, ‘The only difficulty is with the feet: the head is high enough
already.’ Now, first I put my head on the top of the gate — then I stand on my
head — then the feet are high enough, you see — then I’m over, you
see.”
“Yes, I suppose you’d be over when that was done,” Alice said
thoughtfully: “but don’t you think it would be rather hard?”
“I haven’t tried it yet,” the Knight said, gravely: “so I
can’t tell for certain — but I’m afraid it would be a little
hard.”
He looked so vexed at the idea, that Alice changed the subject hastily. “What a
curious helmet you’ve got!” she said cheerfully. “Is that your invention
too?”
The Knight looked down proudly at his helmet, which hung from the saddle.
“Yes,” he said, “but I’ve invented a better one than that — like a
sugar loaf. When I used to wear it, if I fell off the horse, it always touched the ground
directly. So I had a very little way to fall, you see — But there was
the danger of falling into it, to be sure. That happened to me once — and the
worst of it was, before I could get out again, the other White Knight came and put it on. He
thought it was his own helmet.”
The knight looked so solemn about it that Alice did not dare to laugh. “I’m
afraid you must have hurt him,” she said in a trembling voice, “being on the top of his
head.”
“I had to kick him, of course,” the Knight said, very seriously. “And then he
took the helmet off again — but it took hours and hours to get me out. I was as fast as
— as lightning, you know.”
“But that’s a different kind of fastness,” Alice objected.
The Knight shook his head. “It was all kinds of fastness with me, I can assure
you!” he said. He raised his hands in some excitement as he said this, and instantly
rolled out of the saddle, and fell headlong into a deep ditch.
Alice ran to the side of the ditch to look for him. She was rather startled by the fall,
as for some time he had kept on very well, and 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, that
was quick work, certainly!”
“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 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.
This text is in the public domain.
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