Alice in Wonderland Part 4

"My name is Al-ice, so please your ma-jes-ty," said Al-ice, but she thought to her-self, "Why they're a mere pack of cards. I need have no fears of them."

"And who are these?" asked the Queen, as she point-ed to the three men who still lay round the rose tree; for you see as they all lay on their faces and their backs were the same as the rest of the pack, she could not tell who they were.

"How should I know?" said Al-ice, and thought it strange that she should speak to a Queen in that way.

The Queen turned red with rage, glared at her for a mo-ment like a wild beast, then screamed, "Off with her head! Off--"

"Non-sense!" said Al-ice, in a loud, firm voice, and the Queen said no more.

The King laid his hand on the Queen's arm and said, "Think, my dear, she is but a child!"

The Queen turned from him with a scowl and said to the Knave, "Turn them o-ver!"

The Knave did so, with one foot.

"Get up!" said the Queen in a shrill loud voice, and the three men jumped up, at once, and bowed to the King, and Queen and to the whole crowd.

"Leave off that!" screamed the Queen; "you make me gid-dy." Then she turned to the rose tree and asked, "What have you been do-ing here?"

"May it please your ma-jes-ty," said Two, and went down on one knee as he spoke, "we were try-ing--"

"I see!" said the Queen, who in the mean time had seen that some of the ros-es were paint-ed red and some were still white. "Off with their heads!" and the crowd moved on, while three of the sol-diers stayed to cut off the heads of the poor men, who ran to Al-ice for help.

"They shan't hurt you," she said, as she hid them in a large flow-er pot that stood near. The three sol-diers walked round and looked for them a short while, then marched off.

"Are their heads off?" shout-ed the Queen.

"Their heads are gone, if it please your ma-jes-ty," the sol-diers shouted back.

"That's right!" shouted the Queen. "Can you play cro-quet?" she asked Al-ice.

"Yes," shouted Al-ice.

"Come on then!" roared the Queen, and Al-ice went on with them.

"It's--it's a fine day!" said a weak voice at her side. It was the White Rab-bit who peeped up in-to her face.

"Yes," said Al-ice: "where's the Duch-ess?"

"Hus.h.!.+ Hus.h.!.+" said the Rab-bit, in a low tone. He looked back as he spoke, then raised up on tip-toe, put his mouth close to her ear and whis-pered, "She's to have her head cut off."

"What for?" asked Al-ice.

"Did you say, 'What a pit-y!'?" the Rab-bit asked.

"No, I didn't," said Al-ice: "I don't think it's at all a pit-y. I said 'What for?'"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"She boxed the Queen's ears--" the Rab-bit be-gan. Al-ice gave a lit-tle scream of joy.

"Oh, hus.h.!.+" the Rab-bit whis-pered in a great fright. "The Queen will hear you! You see she came late, and the Queen said--"

"Each one to his place!" shout-ed the Queen in a loud voice, and peo-ple ran this way and that in great haste and soon each one had found his place, and the game be-gan.

Al-ice thought she had nev-er seen such a strange cro-quet ground in all her life: it was all ridges; the b.a.l.l.s were live hedge-hogs; the mal-lets were live birds, and the sol-diers bent down and stood on their hands and feet to make the arch-es.

At first Al-ice found it hard to use a live bird for a mal-let. It was a large bird with a long neck and long legs. She tucked it un-der her arm with its legs down, but just as she got its neck straight and thought now she could give the ball a good blow with its head, the bird would twist its neck round and give her such a queer look, that she could not help laugh-ing; and by the time she had got its head down a-gain, she found that the hedge-hog had crawled off. Then too there was al-ways a ridge or a hole in the way of where she want-ed to send her ball; and she couldn't find an arch in its place, for the men would get up and walk off when it pleased them. Al-ice soon made up her mind that it was a ve-ry hard game to play.

The Queen was soon in a great rage, and stamped a-bout, shout-ing "Off with his head!" or "Off with her head!" with each breath.

Al-ice felt quite ill at ease; to be sure, she had not as yet had cause to feel the wrath of the Queen, but she knew not how soon it might be her turn; "and then," she thought, "what shall I do?"

As she was look-ing round for some way to get off with-out be-ing seen, she saw a strange thing in the air, which she at last made out to be a grin, and she said to her-self, "It's the Cat; now I shall have some one to talk to."

"How do you do?" said the Cat as soon as its whole mouth came out.

Al-ice wait-ed till she saw the eyes, then nod-ded. "It's no use to speak to it till its ears have come, or at least one of them." In a short time the whole head came in view, then she put down her bird and told him of the game; glad that she had some one that was pleased to hear her talk.

"I don't think they are at all fair in the game," said Al-ice with a scowl; "and they all talk so loud that one can't hear one's self speak--and they don't have rules to play by; at least if they have, they don't mind them--and you don't know how bad it is to have to use live things to play with. The arch I have to go through next walked off just now to the far end of the ground--and I should have struck the Queen's hedge-hog, but it ran off when it saw that mine was near!"

"How do you like the Queen?" asked the Cat in a low voice.

"Not at all," said Al-ice, "she's so--" Just then she saw that the Queen was be-hind her and heard what she said; so she went on, "sure to win that it's not worth while to go on with the game."

The Queen smiled and pa.s.sed on.

"Who are you talk-ing to?" said the King, as he came up to Al-ice and stared at the Cat's head as if it were a strange sight.

"It's a friend of mine--a Che-s.h.i.+re Cat," said Al-ice.

"I don't like the look of it at all," said the King; "it may kiss my hand if it likes."

"I don't want to," said the Cat.

"Don't be rude; and don't look at me like that," said the King.

"A cat may look at a king," said Al-ice. "I've read that in some book, but I can't tell where."

"Well, it must get off from here," said the King in a firm voice, and he called to the Queen, who was near, "My dear! I wish you would see that this cat leaves here at once!"

The Queen had but one cure for all ills, great or small. "Off with his head," she said, and did not so much as look round.

"I'll fetch the sol-dier my-self," said the King, and rushed off.

Al-ice thought she might as well go back, and see how the game went on. She heard the Queen's voice in the dis-tance, as she screamed with rage, "Off with his head! He has missed his turn!" Al-ice did not like the look of things at all, for the game was so mixed she could not tell when her turn came; so she went off to find her hedge-hog.

She came up with two hedge-hogs in a fierce fight, and thought now was a good time to strike one of them, but her mal-let was gone to the oth-er side of the ground, and she saw it in a weak sort of way as it tried to fly up in-to a tree.

By the time she had caught the bird and brought it back, the fight was o-ver, and both hedge-hogs were out of sight. "I don't care much," thought Al-ice, "for there is not an arch on this side the ground." So she went back to have some more talk with her friend.

When she reached the place, she found quite a crowd round the Cat. The King and the Queen and the sol-dier who had come with the axe, to cut off the Cat's head, were all talking at once, while all the rest stood with closed lips and looked quite grave.

As soon as they saw Al-ice, they want-ed her to say which one was right, but as all three spoke at once, she found it hard to make out what they said.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

The sol-dier said that you couldn't cut off a head unless there was a bod-y to cut it off from; that he had nev-er had to do such a thing, and he wouldn't be-gin it now, at his time of life.

The King said that all heads could be cut off, and that you weren't to talk non-sense.

The Queen said, if some-thing wasn't done in less than no time, heads should come off all round. (It was this last threat that had made the whole crowd look so grave as Al-ice came up.) Al-ice could think of nothing else to say but, "Ask the Duch-ess, it is her Cat."

"Fetch her here," the Queen said to the sol-dier, and he went off like an ar-row.

The Cat's head start-ed to fade out of sight as soon as he was gone, and by the time he had come back with the Duch-ess, it could not be seen at all; so the King and the man ran up and down look-ing for it, while the rest went back to the game.

CHAPTER IX.

THE MOCK TUR-TLE.

"You can't think how glad I am to see you once more, you dear old thing!" said the Duch-ess as she took Al-ice's arm, and they walked off side by side.

Al-ice was glad to see her in such a fine mood, and thought to her-self that the Duch-ess might not be so bad as she had seemed to be when they first met.

Then Al-ice fell in-to a long train of thought as to what she would do if she were a Duch-ess.

She quite lost sight of the Duch-ess by her side, and was star-tled when she heard her voice close to her ear.

"You have some-thing on your mind, my dear, and that makes you for-get to talk. I can't tell you just now what the mor-al of that is, but I shall think of it in a bit."

"Are you sure it has one?" asked Al-ice.

"Tut, tut, child!" said the Duch-ess; "all things have a mor-al if you can but find it." And she squeezed up close to Al-ice's side as she spoke.

Al-ice did not much like to have the Duch-ess keep so close, but she didn't like to be rude, so she bore it as well as she could.

"The game is not so bad now," Al-ice said, think-ing she ought to fill in the time with talk of some kind.

"'Tis so," said the Duch-ess, "and the mor-al of that is--'Oh, 'tis love, 'tis love, that makes the world go round!'"

"Some one said, it's done by each one mind-ing his own work," said Al-ice.

"Ah! well, it means much the same thing," said the Duch-ess, then add-ed, "and the mor-al of that is--'Take care of the sense and the sounds will take care of themselves.'"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

"How she likes to find mor-als in things," said Al-ice.

"Why don't you talk more and not think so long?" asked the Duch-ess.

"I've a right to think," said Al-ice in a sharp tone, for she was tired and vexed.

"Just as much right," said the Duch-ess, "as pigs have to fly; and the mor--"

But here the voice of the Duch-ess died out in the midst of her pet word, "mor-al," and Al-ice felt the arm that was linked in hers shake as if with fright. Al-ice looked up and there stood the Queen in front of them with her arms fold-ed, and a dark frown up-on her face.

"A fine day, your ma-jes-ty!" the Duch-ess be-gan in a weak voice.

"Now, I warn you in time," shout-ed the Queen, with a stamp on the ground as she spoke; "ei-ther you or your head must be off, and that in a-bout half no time! Take your choice!"

The Duch-ess took her choice and was gone in a mo-ment.

"Let's go on with the game," the Queen said to Al-ice; and Al-ice was in too great a fright to speak, but went with her, back to the cro-quet ground.

The guests had all sat down in the shade to rest while the Queen was a-way, but as soon as they saw her they rushed back to the game; while the Queen said if they were not in their pla-ces at once, it would cost them their lives.

All the time the game went on the Queen kept shout-ing, "Off with his head!" or "Off with her head!" so that by the end of half an hour there was no one left on the grounds but the King, the Queen, and Al-ice.

Then the Queen left off, quite out of breath, and said to Al-ice, "Have you seen the Mock Tur-tle yet?"

"No," said Al-ice, "I don't know what a Mock-tur-tle is."

"It is a thing Mock Tur-tle Soup is made from," the Queen said.

"I've nev-er seen or heard of one," Alice said.

"Come on then, and he shall tell you his sto-ry," said the Queen.

As they walked off, Al-ice heard the King say in a low tone to those whom the Queen had doomed to death, "You may all go free!" "Come, that's a good thing," thought Al-ice, for she felt ver-y sad that all those men must have their heads cut off.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

They soon came to where a Gry-phon lay fast a-sleep in the sun. (If you don't know what it is like, look at the pic-ture.) "Up, dull thing!" said the Queen, "and take this young la-dy to see the Mock Tur-tle. I must go back now;" and she walked a-way and left Al-ice with the Gry-phon. Al-ice was by no means pleased with its looks, but she thought she would be quite as safe with it as she would be with the Queen; so she wait-ed.

The Gry-phon sat up and rubbed its eyes; then watched the Queen till she was out of sight; then it laughed. "What fun!" it said, half to it-self, half to Alice.

"What is the fun?" she asked.

"Why, she," it said. "It's all a whim of hers; they nev-er cut off those heads, you know. Come on."

Soon they saw the Mock Tur-tle sitting sad and lone on a ledge of rock, and as they came near, Al-ice could hear him sigh as if his heart would break. "What makes him so sad?" Al-ice asked.