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 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 though 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 my 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 some 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 at 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 were
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 of
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, 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 green, 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 not, 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 he 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,
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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 7
Through the Looking Glass
Chapter 9