Chapter 1
PETER BREAKS THROUGH
All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that
they will grow up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day
when she was two years old she was playing in a garden, and
she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I
suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs.
Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, "Oh, why can't
you remain like this for ever!" This was all that passed
between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that
she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is
the beginning of the end.
Of course they lived at 14 [their house number on their
street], and until Wendy came her mother was the chief one.
She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet
mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes,
one within the other, that come from the puzzling East,
however many you discover there is always one more; and her
sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could
never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the
right-hand corner.
The way Mr. Darling won her was this: the many gentlemen
who had been boys when she was a girl discovered
simultaneously that they loved her, and they all ran to her
house to propose to her except Mr. Darling, who took a cab
and nipped in first, and so he got her. He got all of her,
except the innermost box and the kiss. He never knew about
the box, and in time he gave up trying for the kiss. Wendy
thought Napoleon could have got it, but I can picture him
trying, and then going off in a passion, slamming the door.
Mr. Darling used to boast to Wendy that her mother not
only loved him but respected him. He was one of those deep
ones who know about stocks and shares. Of course no one
really knows, but he quite seemed to know, and he often said
stocks were up and shares were down in a way that would have
made any woman respect him.
Mrs. Darling was married in white, and at first she kept
the books perfectly, almost gleefully, as if it were a game,
not so much as a Brussels sprout was missing; but by and by
whole cauliflowers dropped out, and instead of them there
were pictures of babies without faces. She drew them when
she should have been totting up. They were Mrs. Darling's
guesses.
Wendy came first, then John, then Michael.
For a week or two after Wendy came it was doubtful
whether they would be able to keep her, as she was another
mouth to feed. Mr. Darling was frightfully proud of her, but
he was very honourable, and he sat on the edge of Mrs.
Darling's bed, holding her hand and calculating expenses,
while she looked at him imploringly. She wanted to risk it,
come what might, but that was not his way; his way was with
a pencil and a piece of paper, and if she confused him with
suggestions he had to begin at the beginning again.
"Now don't interrupt," he would beg of her.
"I have one pound seventeen here, and two and six at the
office; I can cut off my coffee at the office, say ten
shillings, making two nine and six, with your eighteen and
three makes three nine seven, with five naught naught in my
cheque-book makes eight nine seven—who is that moving?—eight
nine seven, dot and carry seven—don't speak, my own—and the
pound you lent to that man who came to the door—quiet,
child—dot and carry child—there, you've done it!—did I say
nine nine seven? yes, I said nine nine seven; the question
is, can we try it for a year on nine nine seven?"
"Of course we can, George," she cried. But she was
prejudiced in Wendy's favour, and he was really the grander
character of the two.
"Remember mumps," he warned her almost threateningly, and
off he went again. "Mumps one pound, that is what I have put
down, but I daresay it will be more like thirty
shillings—don't speak—measles one five, German measles half
a guinea, makes two fifteen six—don't waggle your
finger—whooping-cough, say fifteen shillings"—and so on it
went, and it added up differently each time; but at last
Wendy just got through, with mumps reduced to twelve six,
and the two kinds of measles treated as one.
There was the same excitement over John, and Michael had
even a narrower squeak; but both were kept, and soon, you
might have seen the three of them going in a row to Miss
Fulsom's Kindergarten school, accompanied by their nurse.
Mrs. Darling loved to have everything just so, and Mr.
Darling had a passion for being exactly like his neighbours;
so, of course, they had a nurse. As they were poor, owing to
the amount of milk the children drank, this nurse was a prim
Newfoundland dog, called Nana, who had belonged to no one in
particular until the Darlings engaged her. She had always
thought children important, however, and the Darlings had
become acquainted with her in Kensington Gardens, where she
spent most of her spare time peeping into perambulators, and
was much hated by careless nursemaids, whom she followed to
their homes and complained of to their mistresses. She
proved to be quite a treasure of a nurse. How thorough she
was at bath-time, and up at any moment of the night if one
of her charges made the slightest cry. Of course her kennel
was in the nursery. She had a genius for knowing when a
cough is a thing to have no patience with and when it needs
stocking around your throat. She believed to her last day in
old-fashioned remedies like rhubarb leaf, and made sounds of
contempt over all this new-fangled talk about germs, and so
on. It was a lesson in propriety to see her escorting the
children to school, walking sedately by their side when they
were well behaved, and butting them back into line if they
strayed. On John's footer [in England soccer was called
football, "footer" for short] days she never once forgot his
sweater, and she usually carried an umbrella in her mouth in
case of rain. There is a room in the basement of Miss
Fulsom's school where the nurses wait. They sat on forms,
while Nana lay on the floor, but that was the only
difference. They affected to ignore her as of an inferior
social status to themselves, and she despised their light
talk. She resented visits to the nursery from Mrs. Darling's
friends, but if they did come she first whipped off
Michael's pinafore and put him into the one with blue
braiding, and smoothed out Wendy and made a dash at John's
hair.
No nursery could possibly have been conducted more
correctly, and Mr. Darling knew it, yet he sometimes
wondered uneasily whether the neighbours talked.
He had his position in the city to consider.
Nana also troubled him in another way. He had sometimes a
feeling that she did not admire him. "I know she admires you
tremendously, George," Mrs. Darling would assure him, and
then she would sign to the children to be specially nice to
father. Lovely dances followed, in which the only other
servant, Liza, was sometimes allowed to join. Such a midget
she looked in her long skirt and maid's cap, though she had
sworn, when engaged, that she would never see ten again. The
gaiety of those romps! And gayest of all was Mrs. Darling,
who would pirouette so wildly that all you could see of her
was the kiss, and then if you had dashed at her you might
have got it. There never was a simpler happier family until
the coming of Peter Pan.
Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up
her children's minds. It is the nightly custom of every good
mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their
minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking
into their proper places the many articles that have
wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of
course you can't) you would see your own mother doing this,
and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is
quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her
knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your
contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing
up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this
to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten, and
hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake in the
morning, the naughtiness and evil passions with which you
went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the
bottom of your mind and on the top, beautifully aired, are
spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.
I don't know whether you have ever seen a map of a
person's mind. Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of
you, and your own map can become intensely interesting, but
catch them trying to draw a map of a child's mind, which is
not only confused, but keeps going round all the time. There
are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on a
card, and these are probably roads in the island, for the
Neverland is always more or less an island, with astonishing
splashes of colour here and there, and coral reefs and
rakish-looking craft in the offing, and savages and lonely
lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves through
which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers, and
a hut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with
a hooked nose. It would be an easy map if that were all, but
there is also first day at school, religion, fathers, the
round pond, needle-work, murders, hangings, verbs that take
the dative, chocolate pudding day, getting into braces, say
ninety-nine, three-pence for pulling out your tooth
yourself, and so on, and either these are part of the island
or they are another map showing through, and it is all
rather confusing, especially as nothing will stand still.
Of course the Neverlands vary a good deal. John's, for
instance, had a lagoon with flamingoes flying over it at
which John was shooting, while Michael, who was very small,
had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it. John lived in a
boat turned upside down on the sands, Michael in a wigwam,
Wendy in a house of leaves deftly sewn together. John had no
friends, Michael had friends at night, Wendy had a pet wolf
forsaken by its parents, but on the whole the Neverlands
have a family resemblance, and if they stood still in a row
you could say of them that they have each other's nose, and
so forth. On these magic shores children at play are for
ever beaching their coracles [simple boat]. We too have been
there; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we
shall land no more.
Of all delectable islands the Neverland is the snuggest
and most compact, not large and sprawly, you know, with
tedious distances between one adventure and another, but
nicely crammed. When you play at it by day with the chairs
and table-cloth, it is not in the least alarming, but in the
two minutes before you go to sleep it becomes very real.
That is why there are night-lights.
Occasionally in her travels through her children's minds
Mrs. Darling found things she could not understand, and of
these quite the most perplexing was the word Peter. She knew
of no Peter, and yet he was here and there in John and
Michael's minds, while Wendy's began to be scrawled all over
with him. The name stood out in bolder letters than any of
the other words, and as Mrs. Darling gazed she felt that it
had an oddly cocky appearance.
"Yes, he is rather cocky," Wendy admitted with regret.
Her mother had been questioning her.
"But who is he, my pet?"
"He is Peter Pan, you know, mother."
At first Mrs. Darling did not know, but after thinking
back into her childhood she just remembered a Peter Pan who
was said to live with the fairies. There were odd stories
about him, as that when children died he went part of the
way with them, so that they should not be frightened. She
had believed in him at the time, but now that she was
married and full of sense she quite doubted whether there
was any such person.
"Besides," she said to Wendy, "he would be grown up by
this time."
"Oh no, he isn't grown up," Wendy assured her
confidently, "and he is just my size." She meant that he was
her size in both mind and body; she didn't know how she
knew, she just knew it.
Mrs. Darling consulted Mr. Darling, but he smiled
pooh-pooh. "Mark my words," he said, "it is some nonsense
Nana has been putting into their heads; just the sort of
idea a dog would have. Leave it alone, and it will blow
over."
But it would not blow over and soon the troublesome boy
gave Mrs. Darling quite a shock.
Children have the strangest adventures without being
troubled by them. For instance, they may remember to
mention, a week after the event happened, that when they
were in the wood they had met their dead father and had a
game with him. It was in this casual way that Wendy one
morning made a disquieting revelation. Some leaves of a tree
had been found on the nursery floor, which certainly were
not there when the children went to bed, and Mrs. Darling
was puzzling over them when Wendy said with a tolerant
smile:
"I do believe it is that Peter again!"
"Whatever do you mean, Wendy?"
"It is so naughty of him not to wipe his feet," Wendy
said, sighing. She was a tidy child.
She explained in quite a matter-of-fact way that she
thought Peter sometimes came to the nursery in the night and
sat on the foot of her bed and played on his pipes to her.
Unfortunately she never woke, so she didn't know how she
knew, she just knew.
"What nonsense you talk, precious. No one can get into
the house without knocking."
"I think he comes in by the window," she said.
"My love, it is three floors up."
"Were not the leaves at the foot of the window, mother?"
It was quite true; the leaves had been found very near
the window.
Mrs. Darling did not know what to think, for it all
seemed so natural to Wendy that you could not dismiss it by
saying she had been dreaming.
"My child," the mother cried, "why did you not tell me of
this before?"
"I forgot," said Wendy lightly. She was in a hurry to get
her breakfast.
Oh, surely she must have been dreaming.
But, on the other hand, there were the leaves. Mrs.
Darling examined them very carefully; they were skeleton
leaves, but she was sure they did not come from any tree
that grew in England. She crawled about the floor, peering
at it with a candle for marks of a strange foot. She rattled
the poker up the chimney and tapped the walls. She let down
a tape from the window to the pavement, and it was a sheer
drop of thirty feet, without so much as a spout to climb up
by.
Certainly Wendy had been dreaming.
But Wendy had not been dreaming, as the very next night
showed, the night on which the extraordinary adventures of
these children may be said to have begun.
On the night we speak of all the children were once more
in bed. It happened to be Nana's evening off, and Mrs.
Darling had bathed them and sung to them till one by one
they had let go her hand and slid away into the land of
sleep.
All were looking so safe and cosy that she smiled at her
fears now and sat down tranquilly by the fire to sew.
It was something for Michael, who on his birthday was
getting into shirts. The fire was warm, however, and the
nursery dimly lit by three night-lights, and presently the
sewing lay on Mrs. Darling's lap. Then her head nodded, oh,
so gracefully. She was asleep. Look at the four of them,
Wendy and Michael over there, John here, and Mrs. Darling by
the fire. There should have been a fourth night-light.
While she slept she had a dream. She dreamt that the
Neverland had come too near and that a strange boy had
broken through from it. He did not alarm her, for she
thought she had seen him before in the faces of many women
who have no children. Perhaps he is to be found in the faces
of some mothers also. But in her dream he had rent the film
that obscures the Neverland, and she saw Wendy and John and
Michael peeping through the gap.
The dream by itself would have been a trifle, but while
she was dreaming the window of the nursery blew open, and a
boy did drop on the floor. He was accompanied by a strange
light, no bigger than your fist, which darted about the room
like a living thing and I think it must have been this light
that wakened Mrs. Darling.
She started up with a cry, and saw the boy, and somehow
she knew at once that he was Peter Pan. If you or I or Wendy
had been there we should have seen that he was very like
Mrs. Darling's kiss. He was a lovely boy, clad in skeleton
leaves and the juices that ooze out of trees but the most
entrancing thing about him was that he had all his first
teeth. When he saw she was a grown-up, he gnashed the little
pearls at her.
Chapter 2
THE SHADOW
Mrs. Darling screamed, and, as if in answer to a bell,
the door opened, and Nana entered, returned from her evening
out. She growled and sprang at the boy, who leapt lightly
through the window. Again Mrs. Darling screamed, this time
in distress for him, for she thought he was killed, and she
ran down into the street to look for his little body, but it
was not there; and she looked up, and in the black night she
could see nothing but what she thought was a shooting star.
She returned to the nursery, and found Nana with
something in her mouth, which proved to be the boy's shadow.
As he leapt at the window Nana had closed it quickly, too
late to catch him, but his shadow had not had time to get
out; slam went the window and snapped it off.
You may be sure Mrs. Darling examined the shadow
carefully, but it was quite the ordinary kind.
Nana had no doubt of what was the best thing to do with
this shadow. She hung it out at the window, meaning "He is
sure to come back for it; let us put it where he can get it
easily without disturbing the children."
But unfortunately Mrs. Darling could not leave it hanging
out at the window, it looked so like the washing and lowered
the whole tone of the house. She thought of showing it to
Mr. Darling, but he was totting up winter great-coats for
John and Michael, with a wet towel around his head to keep
his brain clear, and it seemed a shame to trouble him;
besides, she knew exactly what he would say: "It all comes
of having a dog for a nurse."
She decided to roll the shadow up and put it away
carefully in a drawer, until a fitting opportunity came for
telling her husband. Ah me!
The opportunity came a week later, on that
never-to-be-forgotten Friday. Of course it was a Friday.
"I ought to have been specially careful on a Friday," she
used to say afterwards to her husband, while perhaps Nana
was on the other side of her, holding her hand.
"No, no," Mr. Darling always said, "I am responsible for
it all. I, George Darling, did it. MEA CULPA, MEA CULPA." He
had had a classical education.
They sat thus night after night recalling that fatal
Friday, till every detail of it was stamped on their brains
and came through on the other side like the faces on a bad
coinage.
"If only I had not accepted that invitation to dine at
27," Mrs. Darling said.
"If only I had not poured my medicine into Nana's bowl,"
said Mr. Darling.
"If only I had pretended to like the medicine," was what
Nana's wet eyes said.
"My liking for parties, George."
"My fatal gift of humour, dearest."
"My touchiness about trifles, dear master and mistress."
Then one or more of them would break down altogether;
Nana at the thought, "It's true, it's true, they ought not
to have had a dog for a nurse." Many a time it was Mr.
Darling who put the handkerchief to Nana's eyes.
"That fiend!" Mr. Darling would cry, and Nana's bark was
the echo of it, but Mrs. Darling never upbraided Peter;
there was something in the right-hand corner of her mouth
that wanted her not to call Peter names.
They would sit there in the empty nursery, recalling
fondly every smallest detail of that dreadful evening. It
had begun so uneventfully, so precisely like a hundred other
evenings, with Nana putting on the water for Michael's bath
and carrying him to it on her back.
"I won't go to bed," he had shouted, like one who still
believed that he had the last word on the subject, "I won't,
I won't. Nana, it isn't six o'clock yet. Oh dear, oh dear, I
shan't love you any more, Nana. I tell you I won't be
bathed, I won't, I won't!"
Then Mrs. Darling had come in, wearing her white
evening-gown. She had dressed early because Wendy so loved
to see her in her evening-gown, with the necklace George had
given her. She was wearing Wendy's bracelet on her arm; she
had asked for the loan of it. Wendy loved to lend her
bracelet to her mother.
She had found her two older children playing at being
herself and father on the occasion of Wendy's birth, and
John was saying:
"I am happy to inform you, Mrs. Darling, that you are now
a mother," in just such a tone as Mr. Darling himself may
have used on the real occasion.
Wendy had danced with joy, just as the real Mrs. Darling
must have done.
Then John was born, with the extra pomp that he conceived
due to the birth of a male, and Michael came from his bath
to ask to be born also, but John said brutally that they did
not want any more.
Michael had nearly cried. "Nobody wants me," he said, and
of course the lady in the evening-dress could not stand
that.
"I do," she said, "I so want a third child."
"Boy or girl?" asked Michael, not too hopefully.
"Boy."
Then he had leapt into her arms. Such a little thing for
Mr. and Mrs. Darling and Nana to recall now, but not so
little if that was to be Michael's last night in the
nursery.
They go on with their recollections.
"It was then that I rushed in like a tornado, wasn't it?"
Mr. Darling would say, scorning himself; and indeed he had
been like a tornado.
Perhaps there was some excuse for him. He, too, had been
dressing for the party, and all had gone well with him until
he came to his tie. It is an astounding thing to have to
tell, but this man, though he knew about stocks and shares,
had no real mastery of his tie. Sometimes the thing yielded
to him without a contest, but there were occasions when it
would have been better for the house if he had swallowed his
pride and used a made-up tie.
This was such an occasion. He came rushing into the
nursery with the crumpled little brute of a tie in his hand.
"Why, what is the matter, father dear?"
"Matter!" he yelled; he really yelled. "This tie, it will
not tie." He became dangerously sarcastic. "Not round my
neck! Round the bed-post! Oh yes, twenty times have I made
it up round the bed-post, but round my neck, no! Oh dear no!
begs to be excused!"
He thought Mrs. Darling was not sufficiently impressed,
and he went on sternly, "I warn you of this, mother, that
unless this tie is round my neck we don't go out to dinner
to-night, and if I don't go out to dinner to-night, I never
go to the office again, and if I don't go to the office
again, you and I starve, and our children will be flung into
the streets."
Even then Mrs. Darling was placid. "Let me try, dear,"
she said, and indeed that was what he had come to ask her to
do, and with her nice cool hands she tied his tie for him,
while the children stood around to see their fate decided.
Some men would have resented her being able to do it so
easily, but Mr. Darling had far too fine a nature for that;
he thanked her carelessly, at once forgot his rage, and in
another moment was dancing round the room with Michael on
his back.
"How wildly we romped!" says Mrs. Darling now, recalling
it.
"Our last romp!" Mr. Darling groaned.
"O George, do you remember Michael suddenly said to me,
'How did you get to know me, mother?'"
"I remember!"
"They were rather sweet, don't you think, George?"
"And they were ours, ours! and now they are gone."
The romp had ended with the appearance of Nana, and most
unluckily Mr. Darling collided against her, covering his
trousers with hairs. They were not only new trousers, but
they were the first he had ever had with braid on them, and
he had had to bite his lip to prevent the tears coming. Of
course Mrs. Darling brushed him, but he began to talk again
about its being a mistake to have a dog for a nurse.
"George, Nana is a treasure."
"No doubt, but I have an uneasy feeling at times that she
looks upon the children as puppies."
"Oh no, dear one, I feel sure she knows they have souls."
"I wonder," Mr. Darling said thoughtfully, "I wonder." It
was an opportunity, his wife felt, for telling him about the
boy. At first he pooh-poohed the story, but he became
thoughtful when she showed him the shadow.
"It is nobody I know," he said, examining it carefully,
"but it does look a scoundrel."
"We were still discussing it, you remember," says Mr.
Darling, "when Nana came in with Michael's medicine. You
will never carry the bottle in your mouth again, Nana, and
it is all my fault."
Strong man though he was, there is no doubt that he had
behaved rather foolishly over the medicine. If he had a
weakness, it was for thinking that all his life he had taken
medicine boldly, and so now, when Michael dodged the spoon
in Nana's mouth, he had said reprovingly, "Be a man,
Michael."
"Won't; won't!" Michael cried naughtily. Mrs. Darling
left the room to get a chocolate for him, and Mr. Darling
thought this showed want of firmness.
"Mother, don't pamper him," he called after her.
"Michael, when I was your age I took medicine without a
murmur. I said, 'Thank you, kind parents, for giving me
bottles to make we well.'"
He really thought this was true, and Wendy, who was now
in her night-gown, believed it also, and she said, to
encourage Michael, "That medicine you sometimes take,
father, is much nastier, isn't it?"
"Ever so much nastier," Mr. Darling said bravely, "and I
would take it now as an example to you, Michael, if I hadn't
lost the bottle."
He had not exactly lost it; he had climbed in the dead of
night to the top of the wardrobe and hidden it there. What
he did not know was that the faithful Liza had found it, and
put it back on his wash-stand.
"I know where it is, father," Wendy cried, always glad to
be of service. "I'll bring it," and she was off before he
could stop her. Immediately his spirits sank in the
strangest way.
"John," he said, shuddering, "it's most beastly stuff.
It's that nasty, sticky, sweet kind."
"It will soon be over, father," John said cheerily, and
then in rushed Wendy with the medicine in a glass.
"I have been as quick as I could," she panted.
"You have been wonderfully quick," her father retorted,
with a vindictive politeness that was quite thrown away upon
her. "Michael first," he said doggedly.
"Father first," said Michael, who was of a suspicious
nature.
"I shall be sick, you know," Mr. Darling said
threateningly.
"Come on, father," said John.
"Hold your tongue, John," his father rapped out.
Wendy was quite puzzled. "I thought you took it quite
easily, father."
"That is not the point," he retorted. "The point is, that
there is more in my glass than in Michael's spoon." His
proud heart was nearly bursting. "And it isn't fair: I would
say it though it were with my last breath; it isn't fair."
"Father, I am waiting," said Michael coldly.
"It's all very well to say you are waiting; so am I
waiting."
"Father's a cowardly custard."
"So are you a cowardly custard."
"I'm not frightened."
"Neither am I frightened."
"Well, then, take it."
"Well, then, you take it."
Wendy had a splendid idea. "Why not both take it at the
same time?"
"Certainly," said Mr. Darling. "Are you ready, Michael?"
Wendy gave the words, one, two, three, and Michael took
his medicine, but Mr. Darling slipped his behind his back.
There was a yell of rage from Michael, and "O father!"
Wendy exclaimed.
"What do you mean by 'O father'?" Mr. Darling demanded.
"Stop that row, Michael. I meant to take mine, but I—I
missed it."
It was dreadful the way all the three were looking at
him, just as if they did not admire him. "Look here, all of
you," he said entreatingly, as soon as Nana had gone into
the bathroom. "I have just thought of a splendid joke. I
shall pour my medicine into Nana's bowl, and she will drink
it, thinking it is milk!"
It was the colour of milk; but the children did not have
their father's sense of humour, and they looked at him
reproachfully as he poured the medicine into Nana's bowl.
"What fun!" he said doubtfully, and they did not dare expose
him when Mrs. Darling and Nana returned.
"Nana, good dog," he said, patting her, "I have put a
little milk into your bowl, Nana."
Nana wagged her tail, ran to the medicine, and began
lapping it. Then she gave Mr. Darling such a look, not an
angry look: she showed him the great red tear that makes us
so sorry for noble dogs, and crept into her kennel.
Mr. Darling was frightfully ashamed of himself, but he
would not give in. In a horrid silence Mrs. Darling smelt
the bowl. "O George," she said, "it's your medicine!"
"It was only a joke," he roared, while she comforted her
boys, and Wendy hugged Nana. "Much good," he said bitterly,
"my wearing myself to the bone trying to be funny in this
house."
And still Wendy hugged Nana. "That's right," he shouted.
"Coddle her! Nobody coddles me. Oh dear no! I am only the
breadwinner, why should I be coddled—why, why, why!"
"George," Mrs. Darling entreated him, "not so loud; the
servants will hear you." Somehow they had got into the way
of calling Liza the servants.
"Let them!" he answered recklessly. "Bring in the whole
world. But I refuse to allow that dog to lord it in my
nursery for an hour longer."
The children wept, and Nana ran to him beseechingly, but
he waved her back. He felt he was a strong man again. "In
vain, in vain," he cried; "the proper place for you is the
yard, and there you go to be tied up this instant."
"George, George," Mrs. Darling whispered, "remember what
I told you about that boy."
Alas, he would not listen. He was determined to show who
was master in that house, and when commands would not draw
Nana from the kennel, he lured her out of it with honeyed
words, and seizing her roughly, dragged her from the
nursery. He was ashamed of himself, and yet he did it. It
was all owing to his too affectionate nature, which craved
for admiration. When he had tied her up in the back-yard,
the wretched father went and sat in the passage, with his
knuckles to his eyes.
In the meantime Mrs. Darling had put the children to bed
in unwonted silence and lit their night-lights. They could
hear Nana barking, and John whimpered, "It is because he is
chaining her up in the yard," but Wendy was wiser.
"That is not Nana's unhappy bark," she said, little
guessing what was about to happen; "that is her bark when
she smells danger."
Danger!
"Are you sure, Wendy?"
"Oh, yes."
Mrs. Darling quivered and went to the window. It was
securely fastened. She looked out, and the night was
peppered with stars. They were crowding round the house, as
if curious to see what was to take place there, but she did
not notice this, nor that one or two of the smaller ones
winked at her. Yet a nameless fear clutched at her heart and
made her cry, "Oh, how I wish that I wasn't going to a party
to-night!"
Even Michael, already half asleep, knew that she was
perturbed, and he asked, "Can anything harm us, mother,
after the night-lights are lit?"
"Nothing, precious," she said; "they are the eyes a
mother leaves behind her to guard her children."
She went from bed to bed singing enchantments over them,
and little Michael flung his arms round her. "Mother," he
cried, "I'm glad of you." They were the last words she was
to hear from him for a long time.
No. 27 was only a few yards distant, but there had been a
slight fall of snow, and Father and Mother Darling picked
their way over it deftly not to soil their shoes. They were
already the only persons in the street, and all the stars
were watching them. Stars are beautiful, but they may not
take an active part in anything, they must just look on for
ever. It is a punishment put on them for something they did
so long ago that no star now knows what it was. So the older
ones have become glassy-eyed and seldom speak (winking is
the star language), but the little ones still wonder. They
are not really friendly to Peter, who had a mischievous way
of stealing up behind them and trying to blow them out; but
they are so fond of fun that they were on his side to-night,
and anxious to get the grown-ups out of the way. So as soon
as the door of 27 closed on Mr. and Mrs. Darling there was a
commotion in the firmament, and the smallest of all the
stars in the Milky Way screamed out:
"Now, Peter!"
Chapter 3
COME AWAY, COME AWAY!
For a moment after Mr. and Mrs. Darling left the house
the night-lights by the beds of the three children continued
to burn clearly. They were awfully nice little night-lights,
and one cannot help wishing that they could have kept awake
to see Peter; but Wendy's light blinked and gave such a yawn
that the other two yawned also, and before they could close
their mouths all the three went out.
There was another light in the room now, a thousand times
brighter than the night-lights, and in the time we have
taken to say this, it had been in all the drawers in the
nursery, looking for Peter's shadow, rummaged the wardrobe
and turned every pocket inside out. It was not really a
light; it made this light by flashing about so quickly, but
when it came to rest for a second you saw it was a fairy, no
longer than your hand, but still growing. It was a girl
called Tinker Bell exquisitely gowned in a skeleton leaf,
cut low and square, through which her figure could be seen
to the best advantage. She was slightly inclined to
EMBONPOINT. [plump hourglass figure]
A moment after the fairy's entrance the window was blown
open by the breathing of the little stars, and Peter dropped
in. He had carried Tinker Bell part of the way, and his hand
was still messy with the fairy dust.
"Tinker Bell," he called softly, after making sure that
the children were asleep, "Tink, where are you?" She was in
a jug for the moment, and liking it extremely; she had never
been in a jug before.
"Oh, do come out of that jug, and tell me, do you know
where they put my shadow?"
The loveliest tinkle as of golden bells answered him. It
is the fairy language. You ordinary children can never hear
it, but if you were to hear it you would know that you had
heard it once before.
Tink said that the shadow was in the big box. She meant
the chest of drawers, and Peter jumped at the drawers,
scattering their contents to the floor with both hands, as
kings toss ha'pence to the crowd. In a moment he had
recovered his shadow, and in his delight he forgot that he
had shut Tinker Bell up in the drawer.
If he thought at all, but I don't believe he ever
thought, it was that he and his shadow, when brought near
each other, would join like drops of water, and when they
did not he was appalled. He tried to stick it on with soap
from the bathroom, but that also failed. A shudder passed
through Peter, and he sat on the floor and cried.
His sobs woke Wendy, and she sat up in bed. She was not
alarmed to see a stranger crying on the nursery floor; she
was only pleasantly interested.
"Boy," she said courteously, "why are you crying?"
Peter could be exceeding polite also, having learned the
grand manner at fairy ceremonies, and he rose and bowed to
her beautifully. She was much pleased, and bowed beautifully
to him from the bed.
"What's your name?" he asked.
"Wendy Moira Angela Darling," she replied with some
satisfaction. "What is your name?"
"Peter Pan."
She was already sure that he must be Peter, but it did
seem a comparatively short name.
"Is that all?"
"Yes," he said rather sharply. He felt for the first time
that it was a shortish name.
"I'm so sorry," said Wendy Moira Angela.
"It doesn't matter," Peter gulped.
She asked where he lived.
"Second to the right," said Peter, "and then straight on
till morning."
"What a funny address!"
Peter had a sinking. For the first time he felt that
perhaps it was a funny address.
"No, it isn't," he said.
"I mean," Wendy said nicely, remembering that she was
hostess, "is that what they put on the letters?"
He wished she had not mentioned letters.
"Don't get any letters," he said contemptuously.
"But your mother gets letters?"
"Don't have a mother," he said. Not only had he no
mother, but he had not the slightest desire to have one. He
thought them very over-rated persons. Wendy, however, felt
at once that she was in the presence of a tragedy.
"O Peter, no wonder you were crying," she said, and got
out of bed and ran to him.
"I wasn't crying about mothers," he said rather
indignantly. "I was crying because I can't get my shadow to
stick on. Besides, I wasn't crying."
"It has come off?"
"Yes."
Then Wendy saw the shadow on the floor, looking so
draggled, and she was frightfully sorry for Peter. "How
awful!" she said, but she could not help smiling when she
saw that he had been trying to stick it on with soap. How
exactly like a boy!
Fortunately she knew at once what to do. "It must be sewn
on," she said, just a little patronisingly.
"What's sewn?" he asked.
"You're dreadfully ignorant."
"No, I'm not."
But she was exulting in his ignorance. "I shall sew it on
for you, my little man," she said, though he was tall as
herself, and she got out her housewife [sewing bag], and
sewed the shadow on to Peter's foot.
"I daresay it will hurt a little," she warned him.
"Oh, I shan't cry," said Peter, who was already of the
opinion that he had never cried in his life. And he clenched
his teeth and did not cry, and soon his shadow was behaving
properly, though still a little creased.
"Perhaps I should have ironed it," Wendy said
thoughtfully, but Peter, boylike, was indifferent to
appearances, and he was now jumping about in the wildest
glee. Alas, he had already forgotten that he owed his bliss
to Wendy. He thought he had attached the shadow himself.
"How clever I am!" he crowed rapturously, "oh, the
cleverness of me!"
It is humiliating to have to confess that this conceit of
Peter was one of his most fascinating qualities. To put it
with brutal frankness, there never was a cockier boy.
But for the moment Wendy was shocked. "You conceit
[braggart]," she exclaimed, with frightful sarcasm; "of
course I did nothing!"
"You did a little," Peter said carelessly, and continued
to dance.
"A little!" she replied with hauteur [pride]; "if I am no
use I can at least withdraw," and she sprang in the most
dignified way into bed and covered her face with the
blankets.
To induce her to look up he pretended to be going away,
and when this failed he sat on the end of the bed and tapped
her gently with his foot. "Wendy," he said, "don't withdraw.
I can't help crowing, Wendy, when I'm pleased with myself."
Still she would not look up, though she was listening
eagerly. "Wendy," he continued, in a voice that no woman has
ever yet been able to resist, "Wendy, one girl is more use
than twenty boys."
Now Wendy was every inch a woman, though there were not
very many inches, and she peeped out of the bed-clothes.
"Do you really think so, Peter?"
"Yes, I do."
"I think it's perfectly sweet of you," she declared, "and
I'll get up again," and she sat with him on the side of the
bed. She also said she would give him a kiss if he liked,
but Peter did not know what she meant, and he held out his
hand expectantly.
"Surely you know what a kiss is?" she asked, aghast.
"I shall know when you give it to me," he replied
stiffly, and not to hurt his feeling she gave him a thimble.
"Now," said he, "shall I give you a kiss?" and she
replied with a slight primness, "If you please." She made
herself rather cheap by inclining her face toward him, but
he merely dropped an acorn button into her hand, so she
slowly returned her face to where it had been before, and
said nicely that she would wear his kiss on the chain around
her neck. It was lucky that she did put it on that chain,
for it was afterwards to save her life.
When people in our set are introduced, it is customary
for them to ask each other's age, and so Wendy, who always
liked to do the correct thing, asked Peter how old he was.
It was not really a happy question to ask him; it was like
an examination paper that asks grammar, when what you want
to be asked is Kings of England.
"I don't know," he replied uneasily, "but I am quite
young." He really knew nothing about it, he had merely
suspicions, but he said at a venture, "Wendy, I ran away the
day I was born."
Wendy was quite surprised, but interested; and she
indicated in the charming drawing-room manner, by a touch on
her night-gown, that he could sit nearer her.
"It was because I heard father and mother," he explained
in a low voice, "talking about what I was to be when I
became a man." He was extraordinarily agitated now. "I don't
want ever to be a man," he said with passion. "I want always
to be a little boy and to have fun. So I ran away to
Kensington Gardens and lived a long long time among the
fairies."
She gave him a look of the most intense admiration, and
he thought it was because he had run away, but it was really
because he knew fairies. Wendy had lived such a home life
that to know fairies struck her as quite delightful. She
poured out questions about them, to his surprise, for they
were rather a nuisance to him, getting in his way and so on,
and indeed he sometimes had to give them a hiding
[spanking]. Still, he liked them on the whole, and he told
her about the beginning of fairies.
"You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the
first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they
all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of
fairies."
Tedious talk this, but being a stay-at-home she liked it.
"And so," he went on good-naturedly, "there ought to be
one fairy for every boy and girl."
"Ought to be? Isn't there?"
"No. You see children know such a lot now, they soon
don't believe in fairies, and every time a child says, 'I
don't believe in fairies,' there is a fairy somewhere that
falls down dead."
Really, he thought they had now talked enough about
fairies, and it struck him that Tinker Bell was keeping very
quiet. "I can't think where she has gone to," he said,
rising, and he called Tink by name. Wendy's heart went
flutter with a sudden thrill.
"Peter," she cried, clutching him, "you don't mean to
tell me that there is a fairy in this room!"
"She was here just now," he said a little impatiently.
"You don't hear her, do you?" and they both listened.
"The only sound I hear," said Wendy, "is like a tinkle of
bells."
"Well, that's Tink, that's the fairy language. I think I
hear her too."
The sound come from the chest of drawers, and Peter made
a merry face. No one could ever look quite so merry as
Peter, and the loveliest of gurgles was his laugh. He had
his first laugh still.
"Wendy," he whispered gleefully, "I do believe I shut her
up in the drawer!"
He let poor Tink out of the drawer, and she flew about
the nursery screaming with fury. "You shouldn't say such
things," Peter retorted. "Of course I'm very sorry, but how
could I know you were in the drawer?"
Wendy was not listening to him. "O Peter," she cried, "if
she would only stand still and let me see her!"
"They hardly ever stand still," he said, but for one
moment Wendy saw the romantic figure come to rest on the
cuckoo clock. "O the lovely!" she cried, though Tink's face
was still distorted with passion.
"Tink," said Peter amiably, "this lady says she wishes
you were her fairy."
Tinker Bell answered insolently.
"What does she say, Peter?"
He had to translate. "She is not very polite. She says
you are a great [huge] ugly girl, and that she is my fairy."
He tried to argue with Tink. "You know you can't be my
fairy, Tink, because I am an gentleman and you are a lady."
To this Tink replied in these words, "You silly ass," and
disappeared into the bathroom. "She is quite a common
fairy," Peter explained apologetically, "she is called
Tinker Bell because she mends the pots and kettles [tinker =
tin worker]." [Similar to "cinder" plus "elle" to get
Cinderella]
They were together in the armchair by this time, and
Wendy plied him with more questions.
"If you don't live in Kensington Gardens now—"
"Sometimes I do still."
"But where do you live mostly now?"
"With the lost boys."
"Who are they?"
"They are the children who fall out of their
perambulators when the nurse is looking the other way. If
they are not claimed in seven days they are sent far away to
the Neverland to defray expenses. I'm captain."
"What fun it must be!"
"Yes," said cunning Peter, "but we are rather lonely. You
see we have no female companionship."
"Are none of the others girls?"
"Oh, no; girls, you know, are much too clever to fall out
of their prams."
This flattered Wendy immensely. "I think," she said, "it
is perfectly lovely the way you talk about girls; John there
just despises us."
For reply Peter rose and kicked John out of bed, blankets
and all; one kick. This seemed to Wendy rather forward for a
first meeting, and she told him with spirit that he was not
captain in her house. However, John continued to sleep so
placidly on the floor that she allowed him to remain there.
"And I know you meant to be kind," she said, relenting, "so
you may give me a kiss."
For the moment she had forgotten his ignorance about
kisses. "I thought you would want it back," he said a little
bitterly, and offered to return her the thimble.
"Oh dear," said the nice Wendy, "I don't mean a kiss, I
mean a thimble."
"What's that?"
"It's like this." She kissed him.
"Funny!" said Peter gravely. "Now shall I give you a
thimble?"
"If you wish to," said Wendy, keeping her head erect this
time.
Peter thimbled her, and almost immediately she screeched.
"What is it, Wendy?"
"It was exactly as if someone were pulling my hair."
"That must have been Tink. I never knew her so naughty
before."
And indeed Tink was darting about again, using offensive
language.
"She says she will do that to you, Wendy, every time I
give you a thimble."
"But why?"
"Why, Tink?"
Again Tink replied, "You silly ass." Peter could not
understand why, but Wendy understood, and she was just
slightly disappointed when he admitted that he came to the
nursery window not to see her but to listen to stories.
"You see, I don't know any stories. None of the lost boys
knows any stories."
"How perfectly awful," Wendy said.
"Do you know," Peter asked "why swallows build in the
eaves of houses? It is to listen to the stories. O Wendy,
your mother was telling you such a lovely story."
"Which story was it?"
"About the prince who couldn't find the lady who wore the
glass slipper."
"Peter," said Wendy excitedly, "that was Cinderella, and
he found her, and they lived happily ever after."
Peter was so glad that he rose from the floor, where they
had been sitting, and hurried to the window.
"Where are you going?" she cried with misgiving.
"To tell the other boys."
"Don't go Peter," she entreated, "I know such lots of
stories."
Those were her precise words, so there can be no denying
that it was she who first tempted him.
He came back, and there was a greedy look in his eyes now
which ought to have alarmed her, but did not.
"Oh, the stories I could tell to the boys!" she cried,
and then Peter gripped her and began to draw her toward the
window.
"Let me go!" she ordered him.
"Wendy, do come with me and tell the other boys."
Of course she was very pleased to be asked, but she said,
"Oh dear, I can't. Think of mummy! Besides, I can't fly."
"I'll teach you."
"Oh, how lovely to fly."
"I'll teach you how to jump on the wind's back, and then
away we go."
"Oo!" she exclaimed rapturously.
"Wendy, Wendy, when you are sleeping in your silly bed
you might be flying about with me saying funny things to the
stars."
"Oo!"
"And, Wendy, there are mermaids."
"Mermaids! With tails?"
"Such long tails."
"Oh," cried Wendy, "to see a mermaid!"
He had become frightfully cunning. "Wendy," he said, "how
we should all respect you."
She was wriggling her body in distress. It was quite as
if she were trying to remain on the nursery floor.
But he had no pity for her.
"Wendy," he said, the sly one, "you could tuck us in at
night."
"Oo!"
"None of us has ever been tucked in at night."
"Oo," and her arms went out to him.
"And you could darn our clothes, and make pockets for us.
None of us has any pockets."
How could she resist. "Of course it's awfully
fascinating!" she cried. "Peter, would you teach John and
Michael to fly too?"
"If you like," he said indifferently, and she ran to John
and Michael and shook them. "Wake up," she cried, "Peter Pan
has come and he is to teach us to fly."
John rubbed his eyes. "Then I shall get up," he said. Of
course he was on the floor already. "Hallo," he said, "I am
up!"
Michael was up by this time also, looking as sharp as a
knife with six blades and a saw, but Peter suddenly signed
silence. Their faces assumed the awful craftiness of
children listening for sounds from the grown-up world. All
was as still as salt. Then everything was right. No, stop!
Everything was wrong. Nana, who had been barking
distressfully all the evening, was quiet now. It was her
silence they had heard.
"Out with the light! Hide! Quick!" cried John, taking
command for the only time throughout the whole adventure.
And thus when Liza entered, holding Nana, the nursery seemed
quite its old self, very dark, and you would have sworn you
heard its three wicked inmates breathing angelically as they
slept. They were really doing it artfully from behind the
window curtains.
Liza was in a bad temper, for she was mixing the
Christmas puddings in the kitchen, and had been drawn from
them, with a raisin still on her cheek, by Nana's absurd
suspicions. She thought the best way of getting a little
quiet was to take Nana to the nursery for a moment, but in
custody of course.
"There, you suspicious brute," she said, not sorry that
Nana was in disgrace. "They are perfectly safe, aren't they?
Every one of the little angels sound asleep in bed. Listen
to their gentle breathing."
Here Michael, encouraged by his success, breathed so
loudly that they were nearly detected. Nana knew that kind
of breathing, and she tried to drag herself out of Liza's
clutches.
But Liza was dense. "No more of it, Nana," she said
sternly, pulling her out of the room. "I warn you if bark
again I shall go straight for master and missus and bring
them home from the party, and then, oh, won't master whip
you, just."
She tied the unhappy dog up again, but do you think Nana
ceased to bark? Bring master and missus home from the party!
Why, that was just what she wanted. Do you think she cared
whether she was whipped so long as her charges were safe?
Unfortunately Liza returned to her puddings, and Nana,
seeing that no help would come from her, strained and
strained at the chain until at last she broke it. In another
moment she had burst into the dining-room of 27 and flung up
her paws to heaven, her most expressive way of making a
communication. Mr. and Mrs. Darling knew at once that
something terrible was happening in their nursery, and
without a good-bye to their hostess they rushed into the
street.
But it was now ten minutes since three scoundrels had
been breathing behind the curtains, and Peter Pan can do a
great deal in ten minutes.
We now return to the nursery.
"It's all right," John announced, emerging from his
hiding-place. "I say, Peter, can you really fly?"
Instead of troubling to answer him Peter flew around the
room, taking the mantelpiece on the way.
"How topping!" said John and Michael.
"How sweet!" cried Wendy.
"Yes, I'm sweet, oh, I am sweet!" said Peter, forgetting
his manners again.
It looked delightfully easy, and they tried it first from
the floor and then from the beds, but they always went down
instead of up.
"I say, how do you do it?" asked John, rubbing his knee.
He was quite a practical boy.
"You just think lovely wonderful thoughts," Peter
explained, "and they lift you up in the air."
He showed them again.
"You're so nippy at it," John said, "couldn't you do it
very slowly once?"
Peter did it both slowly and quickly. "I've got it now,
Wendy!" cried John, but soon he found he had not. Not one of
them could fly an inch, though even Michael was in words of
two syllables, and Peter did not know A from Z.
Of course Peter had been trifling with them, for no one
can fly unless the fairy dust has been blown on him.
Fortunately, as we have mentioned, one of his hands was
messy with it, and he blew some on each of them, with the
most superb results.
"Now just wiggle your shoulders this way," he said, "and
let go."
They were all on their beds, and gallant Michael let go
first. He did not quite mean to let go, but he did it, and
immediately he was borne across the room.
"I flewed!" he screamed while still in mid-air.
John let go and met Wendy near the bathroom.
"Oh, lovely!"
"Oh, ripping!"
"Look at me!"
"Look at me!"
"Look at me!"
They were not nearly so elegant as Peter, they could not
help kicking a little, but their heads were bobbing against
the ceiling, and there is almost nothing so delicious as
that. Peter gave Wendy a hand at first, but had to desist,
Tink was so indignant.
Up and down they went, and round and round. Heavenly was
Wendy's word.
"I say," cried John, "why shouldn't we all go out?"
Of course it was to this that Peter had been luring them.
Michael was ready: he wanted to see how long it took him
to do a billion miles. But Wendy hesitated.
"Mermaids!" said Peter again.
"Oo!"
"And there are pirates."
"Pirates," cried John, seizing his Sunday hat, "let us go
at once."
It was just at this moment that Mr. and Mrs. Darling
hurried with Nana out of 27. They ran into the middle of the
street to look up at the nursery window; and, yes, it was
still shut, but the room was ablaze with light, and most
heart-gripping sight of all, they could see in shadow on the
curtain three little figures in night attire circling round
and round, not on the floor but in the air.
Not three figures, four!
In a tremble they opened the street door. Mr. Darling
would have rushed upstairs, but Mrs. Darling signed him to
go softly. She even tried to make her heart go softly.
Will they reach the nursery in time? If so, how
delightful for them, and we shall all breathe a sigh of
relief, but there will be no story. On the other hand, if
they are not in time, I solemnly promise that it will all
come right in the end.
They would have reached the nursery in time had it not
been that the little stars were watching them. Once again
the stars blew the window open, and that smallest star of
all called out:
"Cave, Peter!"
Then Peter knew that there was not a moment to lose.
"Come," he cried imperiously, and soared out at once into
the night, followed by John and Michael and Wendy.
Mr. and Mrs. Darling and Nana rushed into the nursery too
late. The birds were flown.
Chapter 4
THE FLIGHT
"Second to the right, and straight on till morning."
That, Peter had told Wendy, was the way to the Neverland;
but even birds, carrying maps and consulting them at windy
corners, could not have sighted it with these instructions.
Peter, you see, just said anything that came into his head.
At first his companions trusted him implicitly, and so
great were the delights of flying that they wasted time
circling round church spires or any other tall objects on
the way that took their fancy.
John and Michael raced, Michael getting a start.
They recalled with contempt that not so long ago they had
thought themselves fine fellows for being able to fly round
a room.
Not long ago. But how long ago? They were flying over the
sea before this thought began to disturb Wendy seriously.
John thought it was their second sea and their third night.
Sometimes it was dark and sometimes light, and now they
were very cold and again too warm. Did they really feel
hungry at times, or were they merely pretending, because
Peter had such a jolly new way of feeding them? His way was
to pursue birds who had food in their mouths suitable for
humans and snatch it from them; then the birds would follow
and snatch it back; and they would all go chasing each other
gaily for miles, parting at last with mutual expressions of
good-will. But Wendy noticed with gentle concern that Peter
did not seem to know that this was rather an odd way of
getting your bread and butter, nor even that there are other
ways.
Certainly they did not pretend to be sleepy, they were
sleepy; and that was a danger, for the moment they popped
off, down they fell. The awful thing was that Peter thought
this funny.
"There he goes again!" he would cry gleefully, as Michael
suddenly dropped like a stone.
"Save him, save him!" cried Wendy, looking with horror at
the cruel sea far below. Eventually Peter would dive through
the air, and catch Michael just before he could strike the
sea, and it was lovely the way he did it; but he always
waited till the last moment, and you felt it was his
cleverness that interested him and not the saving of human
life. Also he was fond of variety, and the sport that
engrossed him one moment would suddenly cease to engage him,
so there was always the possibility that the next time you
fell he would let you go.
He could sleep in the air without falling, by merely
lying on his back and floating, but this was, partly at
least, because he was so light that if you got behind him
and blew he went faster.
"Do be more polite to him," Wendy whispered to John, when
they were playing "Follow my Leader."
"Then tell him to stop showing off," said John.
When playing Follow my Leader, Peter would fly close to
the water and touch each shark's tail in passing, just as in
the street you may run your finger along an iron railing.
They could not follow him in this with much success, so
perhaps it was rather like showing off, especially as he
kept looking behind to see how many tails they missed.
"You must be nice to him," Wendy impressed on her
brothers. "What could we do if he were to leave us!"
"We could go back," Michael said.
"How could we ever find our way back without him?"
"Well, then, we could go on," said John.
"That is the awful thing, John. We should have to go on,
for we don't know how to stop."
This was true, Peter had forgotten to show them how to
stop.
John said that if the worst came to the worst, all they
had to do was to go straight on, for the world was round,
and so in time they must come back to their own window.
"And who is to get food for us, John?"
"I nipped a bit out of that eagle's mouth pretty neatly,
Wendy."
"After the twentieth try," Wendy reminded him. "And even
though we became good a picking up food, see how we bump
against clouds and things if he is not near to give us a
hand."
Indeed they were constantly bumping. They could now fly
strongly, though they still kicked far too much; but if they
saw a cloud in front of them, the more they tried to avoid
it, the more certainly did they bump into it. If Nana had
been with them, she would have had a bandage round Michael's
forehead by this time.
Peter was not with them for the moment, and they felt
rather lonely up there by themselves. He could go so much
faster than they that he would suddenly shoot out of sight,
to have some adventure in which they had no share. He would
come down laughing over something fearfully funny he had
been saying to a star, but he had already forgotten what it
was, or he would come up with mermaid scales still sticking
to him, and yet not be able to say for certain what had been
happening. It was really rather irritating to children who
had never seen a mermaid.
"And if he forgets them so quickly," Wendy argued, "how
can we expect that he will go on remembering us?"
Indeed, sometimes when he returned he did not remember
them, at least not well. Wendy was sure of it. She saw
recognition come into his eyes as he was about to pass them
the time of day and go on; once even she had to call him by
name.
"I'm Wendy," she said agitatedly.
He was very sorry. "I say, Wendy," he whispered to her,
"always if you see me forgetting you, just keep on saying
'I'm Wendy,' and then I'll remember."
Of course this was rather unsatisfactory. However, to
make amends he showed them how to lie out flat on a strong
wind that was going their way, and this was such a pleasant
change that they tried it several times and found that they
could sleep thus with security. Indeed they would have slept
longer, but Peter tired quickly of sleeping, and soon he
would cry in his captain voice, "We get off here." So with
occasional tiffs, but on the whole rollicking, they drew
near the Neverland; for after many moons they did reach it,
and, what is more, they had been going pretty straight all
the time, not perhaps so much owing to the guidance of Peter
or Tink as because the island was looking for them. It is
only thus that any one may sight those magic shores.
"There it is," said Peter calmly.
"Where, where?"
"Where all the arrows are pointing."
Indeed a million golden arrows were pointing it out to
the children, all directed by their friend the sun, who
wanted them to be sure of their way before leaving them for
the night.
Wendy and John and Michael stood on tip-toe in the air to
get their first sight of the island. Strange to say, they
all recognized it at once, and until fear fell upon them
they hailed it, not as something long dreamt of and seen at
last, but as a familiar friend to whom they were returning
home for the holidays.
"John, there's the lagoon."
"Wendy, look at the turtles burying their eggs in the
sand."
"I say, John, I see your flamingo with the broken leg!"
"Look, Michael, there's your cave!"
"John, what's that in the brushwood?"
"It's a wolf with her whelps. Wendy, I do believe that's
your little whelp!"
"There's my boat, John, with her sides stove in!"
"No, it isn't. Why, we burned your boat."
"That's her, at any rate. I say, John, I see the smoke of
the redskin camp!"
"Where? Show me, and I'll tell you by the way smoke curls
whether they are on the war-path."
"There, just across the Mysterious River."
"I see now. Yes, they are on the war-path right enough."
Peter was a little annoyed with them for knowing so much,
but if he wanted to lord it over them his triumph was at
hand, for have I not told you that anon fear fell upon them?
It came as the arrows went, leaving the island in gloom.
In the old days at home the Neverland had always begun to
look a little dark and threatening by bedtime. Then
unexplored patches arose in it and spread, black shadows
moved about in them, the roar of the beasts of prey was
quite different now, and above all, you lost the certainty
that you would win. You were quite glad that the
night-lights were on. You even liked Nana to say that this
was just the mantelpiece over here, and that the Neverland
was all make-believe.
Of course the Neverland had been make-believe in those
days, but it was real now, and there were no night-lights,
and it was getting darker every moment, and where was Nana?
They had been flying apart, but they huddled close to
Peter now. His careless manner had gone at last, his eyes
were sparkling, and a tingle went through them every time
they touched his body. They were now over the fearsome
island, flying so low that sometimes a tree grazed their
feet. Nothing horrid was visible in the air, yet their
progress had become slow and laboured, exactly as if they
were pushing their way through hostile forces. Sometimes
they hung in the air until Peter had beaten on it with his
fists.
"They don't want us to land," he explained.
"Who are they?" Wendy whispered, shuddering.
But he could not or would not say. Tinker Bell had been
asleep on his shoulder, but now he wakened her and sent her
on in front.
Sometimes he poised himself in the air, listening
intently, with his hand to his ear, and again he would stare
down with eyes so bright that they seemed to bore two holes
to earth. Having done these things, he went on again.
His courage was almost appalling. "Would you like an
adventure now," he said casually to John, "or would you like
to have your tea first?"
Wendy said "tea first" quickly, and Michael pressed her
hand in gratitude, but the braver John hesitated.
"What kind of adventure?" he asked cautiously.
"There's a pirate asleep in the pampas just beneath us,"
Peter told him. "If you like, we'll go down and kill him."
"I don't see him," John said after a long pause.
"I do."
"Suppose," John said, a little huskily, "he were to wake
up."
Peter spoke indignantly. "You don't think I would kill
him while he was sleeping! I would wake him first, and then
kill him. That's the way I always do."
"I say! Do you kill many?"
"Tons."
John said "How ripping," but decided to have tea first.
He asked if there were many pirates on the island just now,
and Peter said he had never known so many.
"Who is captain now?"
"Hook," answered Peter, and his face became very stern as
he said that hated word.
"Jas. Hook?"
"Ay."
Then indeed Michael began to cry, and even John could
speak in gulps only, for they knew Hook's reputation.
"He was Blackbeard's bo'sun," John whispered huskily. "He
is the worst of them all. He is the only man of whom
Barbecue was afraid."
"That's him," said Peter.
"What is he like? Is he big?"
"He is not so big as he was."
"How do you mean?"
"I cut off a bit of him."
"You!"
"Yes, me," said Peter sharply.
"I wasn't meaning to be disrespectful."
"Oh, all right."
"But, I say, what bit?"
"His right hand."
"Then he can't fight now?"
"Oh, can't he just!"
"Left-hander?"
"He has an iron hook instead of a right hand, and he
claws with it."
"Claws!"
"I say, John," said Peter.
"Yes."
"Say, 'Ay, ay, sir.'"
"Ay, ay, sir."
"There is one thing," Peter continued, "that every boy
who serves under me has to promise, and so must you."
John paled.
"It is this, if we meet Hook in open fight, you must
leave him to me."
"I promise," John said loyally.
For the moment they were feeling less eerie, because Tink
was flying with them, and in her light they could
distinguish each other. Unfortunately she could not fly so
slowly as they, and so she had to go round and round them in
a circle in which they moved as in a halo. Wendy quite liked
it, until Peter pointed out the drawbacks.
"She tells me," he said, "that the pirates sighted us
before the darkness came, and got Long Tom out."
"The big gun?"
"Yes. And of course they must see her light, and if they
guess we are near it they are sure to let fly."
"Wendy!"
"John!"
"Michael!"
"Tell her to go away at once, Peter," the three cried
simultaneously, but he refused.
"She thinks we have lost the way," he replied stiffly,
"and she is rather frightened. You don't think I would send
her away all by herself when she is frightened!"
For a moment the circle of light was broken, and
something gave Peter a loving little pinch.
"Then tell her," Wendy begged, "to put out her light."
"She can't put it out. That is about the only thing
fairies can't do. It just goes out of itself when she falls
asleep, same as the stars."
"Then tell her to sleep at once," John almost ordered.
"She can't sleep except when she's sleepy. It is the only
other thing fairies can't do."
"Seems to me," growled John, "these are the only two
things worth doing."
Here he got a pinch, but not a loving one.
"If only one of us had a pocket," Peter said, "we could
carry her in it." However, they had set off in such a hurry
that there was not a pocket between the four of them.
He had a happy idea. John's hat!
Tink agreed to travel by hat if it was carried in the
hand. John carried it, though she had hoped to be carried by
Peter. Presently Wendy took the hat, because John said it
struck against his knee as he flew; and this, as we shall
see, led to mischief, for Tinker Bell hated to be under an
obligation to Wendy.
In the black topper the light was completely hidden, and
they flew on in silence. It was the stillest silence they
had ever known, broken once by a distant lapping, which
Peter explained was the wild beasts drinking at the ford,
and again by a rasping sound that might have been the
branches of trees rubbing together, but he said it was the
redskins sharpening their knives.
Even these noises ceased. To Michael the loneliness was
dreadful. "If only something would make a sound!" he cried.
As if in answer to his request, the air was rent by the
most tremendous crash he had ever heard. The pirates had
fired Long Tom at them.
The roar of it echoed through the mountains, and the
echoes seemed to cry savagely, "Where are they, where are
they, where are they?"
Thus sharply did the terrified three learn the difference
between an island of make-believe and the same island come
true.
When at last the heavens were steady again, John and
Michael found themselves alone in the darkness. John was
treading the air mechanically, and Michael without knowing
how to float was floating.
"Are you shot?" John whispered tremulously.
"I haven't tried [myself out] yet," Michael whispered
back.
We know now that no one had been hit. Peter, however, had
been carried by the wind of the shot far out to sea, while
Wendy was blown upwards with no companion but Tinker Bell.
It would have been well for Wendy if at that moment she
had dropped the hat.
I don't know whether the idea came suddenly to Tink, or
whether she had planned it on the way, but she at once
popped out of the hat and began to lure Wendy to her
destruction.
Tink was not all bad; or, rather, she was all bad just
now, but, on the other hand, sometimes she was all good.
Fairies have to be one thing or the other, because being so
small they unfortunately have room for one feeling only at a
time. They are, however, allowed to change, only it must be
a complete change. At present she was full of jealousy of
Wendy. What she said in her lovely tinkle Wendy could not of
course understand, and I believe some of it was bad words,
but it sounded kind, and she flew back and forward, plainly
meaning "Follow me, and all will be well."
What else could poor Wendy do? She called to Peter and
John and Michael, and got only mocking echoes in reply. She
did not yet know that Tink hated her with the fierce hatred
of a very woman. And so, bewildered, and now staggering in
her flight, she followed Tink to her doom.
Chapter 5
THE ISLAND COME TRUE
Feeling that Peter was on his way back, the Neverland had
again woke into life. We ought to use the pluperfect and say
wakened, but woke is better and was always used by Peter.
In his absence things are usually quiet on the island.
The fairies take an hour longer in the morning, the beasts
attend to their young, the redskins feed heavily for six
days and nights, and when pirates and lost boys meet they
merely bite their thumbs at each other. But with the coming
of Peter, who hates lethargy, they are under way again: if
you put your ear to the ground now, you would hear the whole
island seething with life.
On this evening the chief forces of the island were
disposed as follows. The lost boys were out looking for
Peter, the pirates were out looking for the lost boys, the
redskins were out looking for the pirates, and the beasts
were out looking for the redskins. They were going round and
round the island, but they did not meet because all were
going at the same rate.
All wanted blood except the boys, who liked it as a rule,
but to-night were out to greet their captain. The boys on
the island vary, of course, in numbers, according as they
get killed and so on; and when they seem to be growing up,
which is against the rules, Peter thins them out; but at
this time there were six of them, counting the twins as two.
Let us pretend to lie here among the sugar-cane and watch
them as they steal by in single file, each with his hand on
his dagger.
They are forbidden by Peter to look in the least like
him, and they wear the skins of the bears slain by
themselves, in which they are so round and furry that when
they fall they roll. They have therefore become very
sure-footed.
The first to pass is Tootles, not the least brave but the
most unfortunate of all that gallant band. He had been in
fewer adventures than any of them, because the big things
constantly happened just when he had stepped round the
corner; all would be quiet, he would take the opportunity of
going off to gather a few sticks for firewood, and then when
he returned the others would be sweeping up the blood. This
ill-luck had given a gentle melancholy to his countenance,
but instead of souring his nature had sweetened it, so that
he was quite the humblest of the boys. Poor kind Tootles,
there is danger in the air for you to-night. Take care lest
an adventure is now offered you, which, if accepted, will
plunge you in deepest woe. Tootles, the fairy Tink, who is
bent on mischief this night is looking for a tool [for doing
her mischief], and she thinks you are the most easily
tricked of the boys. 'Ware Tinker Bell.
Would that he could hear us, but we are not really on the
island, and he passes by, biting his knuckles.
Next comes Nibs, the gay and debonair, followed by
Slightly, who cuts whistles out of the trees and dances
ecstatically to his own tunes. Slightly is the most
conceited of the boys. He thinks he remembers the days
before he was lost, with their manners and customs, and this
has given his nose an offensive tilt. Curly is fourth; he is
a pickle, [a person who gets in pickles-predicaments] and so
often has he had to deliver up his person when Peter said
sternly, "Stand forth the one who did this thing," that now
at the command he stands forth automatically whether he has
done it or not. Last come the Twins, who cannot be described
because we should be sure to be describing the wrong one.
Peter never quite knew what twins were, and his band were
not allowed to know anything he did not know, so these two
were always vague about themselves, and did their best to
give satisfaction by keeping close together in an apologetic
sort of way.
The boys vanish in the gloom, and after a pause, but not
a long pause, for things go briskly on the island, come the
pirates on their track. We hear them before they are seen,
and it is always the same dreadful song:
"Avast belay, yo ho, heave to,
A-pirating we go,
And if we're parted by a shot
We're sure to meet below!"
A more villainous-looking lot never hung in a row on
Execution dock. Here, a little in advance, ever and again
with his head to the ground listening, his great arms bare,
pieces of eight in his ears as ornaments, is the handsome
Italian Cecco, who cut his name in letters of blood on the
back of the governor of the prison at Gao. That gigantic
black behind him has had many names since he dropped the one
with which dusky mothers still terrify their children on the
banks of the Guadjo-mo. Here is Bill Jukes, every inch of
him tattooed, the same Bill Jukes who got six dozen on the
WALRUS from Flint before he would drop the bag of moidores
[Portuguese gold pieces]; and Cookson, said to be Black
Murphy's brother (but this was never proved), and Gentleman
Starkey, once an usher in a public school and still dainty
in his ways of killing; and Skylights (Morgan's Skylights);
and the Irish bo'sun Smee, an oddly genial man who stabbed,
so to speak, without offence, and was the only
Non-conformist in Hook's crew; and Noodler, whose hands were
fixed on backwards; and Robt. Mullins and Alf Mason and many
another ruffian long known and feared on the Spanish Main.
In the midst of them, the blackest and largest in that
dark setting, reclined James Hook, or as he wrote himself,
Jas. Hook, of whom it is said he was the only man that the
Sea-Cook feared. He lay at his ease in a rough chariot drawn
and propelled by his men, and instead of a right hand he had
the iron hook with which ever and anon he encouraged them to
increase their pace. As dogs this terrible man treated and
addressed them, and as dogs they obeyed him. In person he
was cadaverous [dead looking] and blackavized [dark faced],
and his hair was dressed in long curls, which at a little
distance looked like black candles, and gave a singularly
threatening expression to his handsome countenance. His eyes
were of the blue of the forget-me-not, and of a profound
melancholy, save when he was plunging his hook into you, at
which time two red spots appeared in them and lit them up
horribly. In manner, something of the grand seigneur still
clung to him, so that he even ripped you up with an air, and
I have been told that he was a RACONTEUR [storyteller] of
repute. He was never more sinister than when he was most
polite, which is probably the truest test of breeding; and
the elegance of his diction, even when he was swearing, no
less than the distinction of his demeanour, showed him one
of a different cast from his crew. A man of indomitable
courage, it was said that the only thing he shied at was the
sight of his own blood, which was thick and of an unusual
colour. In dress he somewhat aped the attire associated with
the name of Charles II, having heard it said in some earlier
period of his career that he bore a strange resemblance to
the ill-fated Stuarts; and in his mouth he had a holder of
his own contrivance which enabled him to smoke two cigars at
once. But undoubtedly the grimmest part of him was his iron
claw.
Let us now kill a pirate, to show Hook's method.
Skylights will do. As they pass, Skylights lurches clumsily
against him, ruffling his lace collar; the hook shoots
forth, there is a tearing sound and one screech, then the
body is kicked aside, and the pirates pass on. He has not
even taken the cigars from his mouth.
Such is the terrible man against whom Peter Pan is
pitted. Which will win?
On the trail of the pirates, stealing noiselessly down
the war-path, which is not visible to inexperienced eyes,
come the redskins, every one of them with his eyes peeled.
They carry tomahawks and knives, and their naked bodies
gleam with paint and oil. Strung around them are scalps, of
boys as well as of pirates, for these are the Piccaninny
tribe, and not to be confused with the softer-hearted
Delawares or the Hurons. In the van, on all fours, is Great
Big Little Panther, a brave of so many scalps that in his
present position they somewhat impede his progress. Bringing
up the rear, the place of greatest danger, comes Tiger Lily,
proudly erect, a princess in her own right. She is the most
beautiful of dusky Dianas [Diana = goddess of the woods] and
the belle of the Piccaninnies, coquettish [flirting], cold
and amorous [loving] by turns; there is not a brave who
would not have the wayward thing to wife, but she staves off
the altar with a hatchet. Observe how they pass over fallen
twigs without making the slightest noise. The only sound to
be heard is their somewhat heavy breathing. The fact is that
they are all a little fat just now after the heavy gorging,
but in time they will work this off. For the moment,
however, it constitutes their chief danger.
The redskins disappear as they have come like shadows,
and soon their place is taken by the beasts, a great and
motley procession: lions, tigers, bears, and the innumerable
smaller savage things that flee from them, for every kind of
beast, and, more particularly, all the man-eaters, live
cheek by jowl on the favoured island. Their tongues are
hanging out, they are hungry to-night.
When they have passed, comes the last figure of all, a
gigantic crocodile. We shall see for whom she is looking
presently.
The crocodile passes, but soon the boys appear again, for
the procession must continue indefinitely until one of the
parties stops or changes its pace. Then quickly they will be
on top of each other.
All are keeping a sharp look-out in front, but none
suspects that the danger may be creeping up from behind.
This shows how real the island was.
The first to fall out of the moving circle was the boys.
They flung themselves down on the sward [turf], close to
their underground home.
"I do wish Peter would come back," every one of them said
nervously, though in height and still more in breadth they
were all larger than their captain.
"I am the only one who is not afraid of the pirates,"
Slightly said, in the tone that prevented his being a
general favourite; but perhaps some distant sound disturbed
him, for he added hastily, "but I wish he would come back,
and tell us whether he has heard anything more about
Cinderella."
They talked of Cinderella, and Tootles was confident that
his mother must have been very like her.
It was only in Peter's absence that they could speak of
mothers, the subject being forbidden by him as silly.
"All I remember about my mother," Nibs told them, "is
that she often said to my father, 'Oh, how I wish I had a
cheque-book of my own!' I don't know what a cheque-book is,
but I should just love to give my mother one."
While they talked they heard a distant sound. You or I,
not being wild things of the woods, would have heard
nothing, but they heard it, and it was the grim song:
"Yo ho, yo ho, the pirate life,
The flag o' skull and bones,
A merry hour, a hempen rope,
And hey for Davy Jones."
At once the lost boys—but where are they? They are no
longer there. Rabbits could not have disappeared more
quickly.
I will tell you where they are. With the exception of
Nibs, who has darted away to reconnoitre [look around], they
are already in their home under the ground, a very
delightful residence of which we shall see a good deal
presently. But how have they reached it? for there is no
entrance to be seen, not so much as a large stone, which if
rolled away, would disclose the mouth of a cave. Look
closely, however, and you may note that there are here seven
large trees, each with a hole in its hollow trunk as large
as a boy. These are the seven entrances to the home under
the ground, for which Hook has been searching in vain these
many moons. Will he find it tonight?
As the pirates advanced, the quick eye of Starkey sighted
Nibs disappearing through the wood, and at once his pistol
flashed out. But an iron claw gripped his shoulder.
"Captain, let go!" he cried, writhing.
Now for the first time we hear the voice of Hook. It was
a black voice. "Put back that pistol first," it said
threateningly.
"It was one of those boys you hate. I could have shot him
dead."
"Ay, and the sound would have brought Tiger Lily's
redskins upon us. Do you want to lose your scalp?"
"Shall I after him, Captain," asked pathetic Smee, "and
tickle him with Johnny Corkscrew?" Smee had pleasant names
for everything, and his cutlass was Johnny Corkscrew,
because he wiggled it in the wound. One could mention many
lovable traits in Smee. For instance, after killing, it was
his spectacles he wiped instead of his weapon.
"Johnny's a silent fellow," he reminded Hook.
"Not now, Smee," Hook said darkly. "He is only one, and I
want to mischief all the seven. Scatter and look for them."
The pirates disappeared among the trees, and in a moment
their Captain and Smee were alone. Hook heaved a heavy sigh,
and I know not why it was, perhaps it was because of the
soft beauty of the evening, but there came over him a desire
to confide to his faithful bo'sun the story of his life. He
spoke long and earnestly, but what it was all about Smee,
who was rather stupid, did not know in the least.
Anon [later] he caught the word Peter.
"Most of all," Hook was saying passionately, "I want
their captain, Peter Pan. 'Twas he cut off my arm." He
brandished the hook threateningly. "I've waited long to
shake his hand with this. Oh, I'll tear him!"
"And yet," said Smee, "I have often heard you say that
hook was worth a score of hands, for combing the hair and
other homely uses."
"Ay," the captain answered, "if I was a mother I would
pray to have my children born with this instead of that,"
and he cast a look of pride upon his iron hand and one of
scorn upon the other. Then again he frowned.
"Peter flung my arm," he said, wincing, "to a crocodile
that happened to be passing by."
"I have often," said Smee, "noticed your strange dread of
crocodiles."
"Not of crocodiles," Hook corrected him, "but of that one
crocodile." He lowered his voice. "It liked my arm so much,
Smee, that it has followed me ever since, from sea to sea
and from land to land, licking its lips for the rest of me."
"In a way," said Smee, "it's sort of a compliment."
"I want no such compliments," Hook barked petulantly. "I
want Peter Pan, who first gave the brute its taste for me."
He sat down on a large mushroom, and now there was a
quiver in his voice. "Smee," he said huskily, "that
crocodile would have had me before this, but by a lucky
chance it swallowed a clock which goes tick tick inside it,
and so before it can reach me I hear the tick and bolt." He
laughed, but in a hollow way.
"Some day," said Smee, "the clock will run down, and then
he'll get you."
Hook wetted his dry lips. "Ay," he said, "that's the fear
that haunts me."
Since sitting down he had felt curiously warm. "Smee," he
said, "this seat is hot." He jumped up. "Odds bobs, hammer
and tongs I'm burning."
They examined the mushroom, which was of a size and
solidity unknown on the mainland; they tried to pull it up,
and it came away at once in their hands, for it had no root.
Stranger still, smoke began at once to ascend. The pirates
looked at each other. "A chimney!" they both exclaimed.
They had indeed discovered the chimney of the home under
the ground. It was the custom of the boys to stop it with a
mushroom when enemies were in the neighbourhood.
Not only smoke came out of it. There came also children's
voices, for so safe did the boys feel in their hiding-place
that they were gaily chattering. The pirates listened
grimly, and then replaced the mushroom. They looked around
them and noted the holes in the seven trees.
"Did you hear them say Peter Pan's from home?" Smee
whispered, fidgeting with Johnny Corkscrew.
Hook nodded. He stood for a long time lost in thought,
and at last a curdling smile lit up his swarthy face. Smee
had been waiting for it. "Unrip your plan, captain," he
cried eagerly.
"To return to the ship," Hook replied slowly through his
teeth, "and cook a large rich cake of a jolly thickness with
green sugar on it. There can be but one room below, for
there is but one chimney. The silly moles had not the sense
to see that they did not need a door apiece. That shows they
have no mother. We will leave the cake on the shore of the
Mermaids' Lagoon. These boys are always swimming about
there, playing with the mermaids. They will find the cake
and they will gobble it up, because, having no mother, they
don't know how dangerous 'tis to eat rich damp cake." He
burst into laughter, not hollow laughter now, but honest
laughter. "Aha, they will die."
Smee had listened with growing admiration.
"It's the wickedest, prettiest policy ever I heard of!"
he cried, and in their exultation they danced and sang:
"Avast, belay, when I appear,
By fear they're overtook;
Nought's left upon your bones when you
Have shaken claws with Hook."
They began the verse, but they never finished it, for
another sound broke in and stilled them. There was at first
such a tiny sound that a leaf might have fallen on it and
smothered it, but as it came nearer it was more distinct.
Tick tick tick tick!
Hook stood shuddering, one foot in the air.
"The crocodile!" he gasped, and bounded away, followed by
his bo'sun.
It was indeed the crocodile. It had passed the redskins,
who were now on the trail of the other pirates. It oozed on
after Hook.
Once more the boys emerged into the open; but the dangers
of the night were not yet over, for presently Nibs rushed
breathless into their midst, pursued by a pack of wolves.
The tongues of the pursuers were hanging out; the baying of
them was horrible.
"Save me, save me!" cried Nibs, falling on the ground.
"But what can we do, what can we do?"
It was a high compliment to Peter that at that dire
moment their thoughts turned to him.
"What would Peter do?" they cried simultaneously.
Almost in the same breath they cried, "Peter would look
at them through his legs."
And then, "Let us do what Peter would do."
It is quite the most successful way of defying wolves,
and as one boy they bent and looked through their legs. The
next moment is the long one, but victory came quickly, for
as the boys advanced upon them in the terrible attitude, the
wolves dropped their tails and fled.
Now Nibs rose from the ground, and the others thought
that his staring eyes still saw the wolves. But it was not
wolves he saw.
"I have seen a wonderfuller thing," he cried, as they
gathered round him eagerly. "A great white bird. It is
flying this way."
"What kind of a bird, do you think?"
"I don't know," Nibs said, awestruck, "but it looks so
weary, and as it flies it moans, 'Poor Wendy,'"
"Poor Wendy?"
"I remember," said Slightly instantly, "there are birds
called Wendies."
"See, it comes!" cried Curly, pointing to Wendy in the
heavens.
Wendy was now almost overhead, and they could hear her
plaintive cry. But more distinct came the shrill voice of
Tinker Bell. The jealous fairy had now cast off all disguise
of friendship, and was darting at her victim from every
direction, pinching savagely each time she touched.
"Hullo, Tink," cried the wondering boys.
Tink's reply rang out: "Peter wants you to shoot the
Wendy."
It was not in their nature to question when Peter
ordered. "Let us do what Peter wishes!" cried the simple
boys. "Quick, bows and arrows!"
All but Tootles popped down their trees. He had a bow and
arrow with him, and Tink noted it, and rubbed her little
hands.
"Quick, Tootles, quick," she screamed. "Peter will be so
pleased."
Tootles excitedly fitted the arrow to his bow. "Out of
the way, Tink," he shouted, and then he fired, and Wendy
fluttered to the ground with an arrow in her breast.
