"PETER PAN\n\n[PETER AND WENDY]\n\nBy J. M. Barrie [James Matthew Barrie]\n\nA Millennium Fulcrum Edition (c)1991 by Duncan Research\n\n\n\n\nContents:\n\nChapter 1 PETER BREAKS THROUGH\n\nChapter 2 THE SHADOW\n\nChapter 3 COME AWAY, COME AWAY!\n\nChapter 4 THE FLIGHT\n\nChapter 5 THE ISLAND COME TRUE\n\nChapter 6 THE LITTLE HOUSE\n\nChapter 7 THE HOME UNDER THE GROUND\n\nChapter 8 THE MERMAID'S LAGOON\n\nChapter 9 THE NEVER BIRD\n\nChapter 10 THE HAPPY HOME\n\nChapter 11 WENDY'S STORY\n\nChapter 12 THE CHILDREN ARE CARRIED OFF\n\nChapter 13 DO YOU BELIEVE IN FAIRIES?\n\nChapter 14 THE PIRATE SHIP\n\nChapter 15 \"HOOK OR ME THIS TIME\"\n\nChapter 16 THE RETURN HOME\n\nChapter 17 WHEN WENDY GREW UP\n\n\n\n\nChapter 1 PETER BREAKS THROUGH\n\nAll children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow\nup, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old\nshe was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with\nit to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for\nMrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, \"Oh, why can't you\nremain like this for ever!\" This was all that passed between them on\nthe subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always\nknow after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.\n\nOf course they lived at 14 [their house number on their street], and\nuntil Wendy came her mother was the chief one. She was a lovely lady,\nwith a romantic mind and such a sweet mocking mouth. Her romantic\nmind was like the tiny boxes, one within the other, that come from the\npuzzling East, however many you discover there is always one more; and\nher sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that Wendy could never get,\nthough there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the right-hand corner.\n\nThe way Mr. Darling won her was this: the many gentlemen who had been\nboys when she was a girl discovered simultaneously that they loved her,\nand they all ran to her house to propose to her except Mr. Darling, who\ntook a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her. He got all of her,\nexcept the innermost box and the kiss. He never knew about the box, and\nin time he gave up trying for the kiss. Wendy thought Napoleon could\nhave got it, but I can picture him trying, and then going off in a\npassion, slamming the door.\n\nMr. Darling used to boast to Wendy that her mother not only loved him\nbut respected him. He was one of those deep ones who know about stocks\nand shares. Of course no one really knows, but he quite seemed to know,\nand he often said stocks were up and shares were down in a way that\nwould have made any woman respect him.\n\nMrs. Darling was married in white, and at first she kept the books\nperfectly, almost gleefully, as if it were a game, not so much as a\nBrussels sprout was missing; but by and by whole cauliflowers dropped\nout, and instead of them there were pictures of babies without faces.\nShe drew them when she should have been totting up. They were Mrs.\nDarling's guesses.\n\nWendy came first, then John, then Michael.\n\nFor a week or two after Wendy came it was doubtful whether they would\nbe able to keep her, as she was another mouth to feed. Mr. Darling was\nfrightfully proud of her, but he was very honourable, and he sat on the\nedge of Mrs. Darling's bed, holding her hand and calculating expenses,\nwhile she looked at him imploringly. She wanted to risk it, come what\nmight, but that was not his way; his way was with a pencil and a piece\nof paper, and if she confused him with suggestions he had to begin at\nthe beginning again.\n\n\"Now don't interrupt,\" he would beg of her.\n\n\"I have one pound seventeen here, and two and six at the office; I can\ncut off my coffee at the office, say ten shillings, making two nine\nand six, with your eighteen and three makes three nine seven, with five\nnaught naught in my cheque-book makes eight nine seven--who is that\nmoving?--eight nine seven, dot and carry seven--don't speak, my own--and\nthe pound you lent to that man who came to the door--quiet, child--dot\nand carry child--there, you've done it!--did I say nine nine seven? yes,\nI said nine nine seven; the question is, can we try it for a year on\nnine nine seven?\"\n\n\"Of course we can, George,\" she cried. But she was prejudiced in Wendy's\nfavour, and he was really the grander character of the two.\n\n\"Remember mumps,\" he warned her almost threateningly, and off he went\nagain. \"Mumps one pound, that is what I have put down, but I daresay\nit will be more like thirty shillings--don't speak--measles one five,\nGerman measles half a guinea, makes two fifteen six--don't waggle your\nfinger--whooping-cough, say fifteen shillings\"--and so on it went, and\nit added up differently each time; but at last Wendy just got through,\nwith mumps reduced to twelve six, and the two kinds of measles treated\nas one.\n\nThere was the same excitement over John, and Michael had even a narrower\nsqueak; but both were kept, and soon, you might have seen the three of\nthem going in a row to Miss Fulsom's Kindergarten school, accompanied by\ntheir nurse.\n\nMrs. Darling loved to have everything just so, and Mr. Darling had a\npassion for being exactly like his neighbours; so, of course, they had\na nurse. As they were poor, owing to the amount of milk the children\ndrank, this nurse was a prim Newfoundland dog, called Nana, who had\nbelonged to no one in particular until the Darlings engaged her. She had\nalways thought children important, however, and the Darlings had become\nacquainted with her in Kensington Gardens, where she spent most of her\nspare time peeping into perambulators, and was much hated by careless\nnursemaids, whom she followed to their homes and complained of to their\nmistresses. She proved to be quite a treasure of a nurse. How thorough\nshe was at bath-time, and up at any moment of the night if one of her\ncharges made the slightest cry. Of course her kennel was in the nursery.\nShe had a genius for knowing when a cough is a thing to have no patience\nwith and when it needs stocking around your throat. She believed to her\nlast day in old-fashioned remedies like rhubarb leaf, and made sounds of\ncontempt over all this new-fangled talk about germs, and so on. It was a\nlesson in propriety to see her escorting the children to school, walking\nsedately by their side when they were well behaved, and butting them\nback into line if they strayed. On John's footer [in England soccer\nwas called football, \"footer\" for short] days she never once forgot his\nsweater, and she usually carried an umbrella in her mouth in case of\nrain. There is a room in the basement of Miss Fulsom's school where the\nnurses wait. They sat on forms, while Nana lay on the floor, but that\nwas the only difference. They affected to ignore her as of an inferior\nsocial status to themselves, and she despised their light talk. She\nresented visits to the nursery from Mrs. Darling's friends, but if they\ndid come she first whipped off Michael's pinafore and put him into the\none with blue braiding, and smoothed out Wendy and made a dash at John's\nhair.\n\nNo nursery could possibly have been conducted more correctly, and\nMr. Darling knew it, yet he sometimes wondered uneasily whether the\nneighbours talked.\n\nHe had his position in the city to consider.\n\nNana also troubled him in another way. He had sometimes a feeling that\nshe did not admire him. \"I know she admires you tremendously, George,\"\nMrs. Darling would assure him, and then she would sign to the children\nto be specially nice to father. Lovely dances followed, in which the\nonly other servant, Liza, was sometimes allowed to join. Such a midget\nshe looked in her long skirt and maid's cap, though she had sworn, when\nengaged, that she would never see ten again. The gaiety of those romps!\nAnd gayest of all was Mrs. Darling, who would pirouette so wildly that\nall you could see of her was the kiss, and then if you had dashed at her\nyou might have got it. There never was a simpler happier family until\nthe coming of Peter Pan.\n\nMrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children's\nminds. It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children\nare asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next\nmorning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have\nwandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you\ncan't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it\nvery interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You\nwould see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of\nyour contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up,\nmaking discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as\nif it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight.\nWhen you wake in the morning, the naughtiness and evil passions with\nwhich you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom\nof your mind and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your\nprettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.\n\nI don't know whether you have ever seen a map of a person's mind.\nDoctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can\nbecome intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a\nchild's mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all\nthe time. There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on a\ncard, and these are probably roads in the island, for the Neverland is\nalways more or less an island, with astonishing splashes of colour here\nand there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and\nsavages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves\nthrough which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers, and a\nhut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked nose.\nIt would be an easy map if that were all, but there is also first day\nat school, religion, fathers, the round pond, needle-work, murders,\nhangings, verbs that take the dative, chocolate pudding day, getting\ninto braces, say ninety-nine, three-pence for pulling out your tooth\nyourself, and so on, and either these are part of the island or they are\nanother map showing through, and it is all rather confusing, especially\nas nothing will stand still.\n\nOf course the Neverlands vary a good deal. John's, for instance, had a\nlagoon with flamingoes flying over it at which John was shooting, while\nMichael, who was very small, had a flamingo with lagoons flying over\nit. John lived in a boat turned upside down on the sands, Michael in\na wigwam, Wendy in a house of leaves deftly sewn together. John had no\nfriends, Michael had friends at night, Wendy had a pet wolf forsaken by\nits parents, but on the whole the Neverlands have a family resemblance,\nand if they stood still in a row you could say of them that they have\neach other's nose, and so forth. On these magic shores children at play\nare for ever beaching their coracles [simple boat]. We too have been\nthere; we can still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no\nmore.\n\nOf all delectable islands the Neverland is the snuggest and most\ncompact, not large and sprawly, you know, with tedious distances between\none adventure and another, but nicely crammed. When you play at it by\nday with the chairs and table-cloth, it is not in the least alarming,\nbut in the two minutes before you go to sleep it becomes very real. That\nis why there are night-lights.\n\nOccasionally in her travels through her children's minds Mrs. Darling\nfound things she could not understand, and of these quite the most\nperplexing was the word Peter. She knew of no Peter, and yet he was\nhere and there in John and Michael's minds, while Wendy's began to be\nscrawled all over with him. The name stood out in bolder letters than\nany of the other words, and as Mrs. Darling gazed she felt that it had\nan oddly cocky appearance.\n\n\"Yes, he is rather cocky,\" Wendy admitted with regret. Her mother had\nbeen questioning her.\n\n\"But who is he, my pet?\"\n\n\"He is Peter Pan, you know, mother.\"\n\nAt first Mrs. Darling did not know, but after thinking back into her\nchildhood she just remembered a Peter Pan who was said to live with the\nfairies. There were odd stories about him, as that when children died he\nwent part of the way with them, so that they should not be frightened.\nShe had believed in him at the time, but now that she was married and\nfull of sense she quite doubted whether there was any such person.\n\n\"Besides,\" she said to Wendy, \"he would be grown up by this time.\"\n\n\"Oh no, he isn't grown up,\" Wendy assured her confidently, \"and he is\njust my size.\" She meant that he was her size in both mind and body; she\ndidn't know how she knew, she just knew it.\n\nMrs. Darling consulted Mr. Darling, but he smiled pooh-pooh. \"Mark my\nwords,\" he said, \"it is some nonsense Nana has been putting into their\nheads; just the sort of idea a dog would have. Leave it alone, and it\nwill blow over.\"\n\nBut it would not blow over and soon the troublesome boy gave Mrs.\nDarling quite a shock.\n\nChildren have the strangest adventures without being troubled by them.\nFor instance, they may remember to mention, a week after the event\nhappened, that when they were in the wood they had met their dead\nfather and had a game with him. It was in this casual way that Wendy one\nmorning made a disquieting revelation. Some leaves of a tree had been\nfound on the nursery floor, which certainly were not there when the\nchildren went to bed, and Mrs. Darling was puzzling over them when Wendy\nsaid with a tolerant smile:\n\n\"I do believe it is that Peter again!\"\n\n\"Whatever do you mean, Wendy?\"\n\n\"It is so naughty of him not to wipe his feet,\" Wendy said, sighing. She\nwas a tidy child.\n\nShe explained in quite a matter-of-fact way that she thought Peter\nsometimes came to the nursery in the night and sat on the foot of her\nbed and played on his pipes to her. Unfortunately she never woke, so she\ndidn't know how she knew, she just knew.\n\n\"What nonsense you talk, precious. No one can get into the house without\nknocking.\"\n\n\"I think he comes in by the window,\" she said.\n\n\"My love, it is three floors up.\"\n\n\"Were not the leaves at the foot of the window, mother?\"\n\nIt was quite true; the leaves had been found very near the window.\n\nMrs. Darling did not know what to think, for it all seemed so natural to\nWendy that you could not dismiss it by saying she had been dreaming.\n\n\"My child,\" the mother cried, \"why did you not tell me of this before?\"\n\n\"I forgot,\" said Wendy lightly. She was in a hurry to get her breakfast.\n\nOh, surely she must have been dreaming.\n\nBut, on the other hand, there were the leaves. Mrs. Darling examined\nthem very carefully; they were skeleton leaves, but she was sure they\ndid not come from any tree that grew in England. She crawled about the\nfloor, peering at it with a candle for marks of a strange foot. She\nrattled the poker up the chimney and tapped the walls. She let down a\ntape from the window to the pavement, and it was a sheer drop of thirty\nfeet, without so much as a spout to climb up by.\n\nCertainly Wendy had been dreaming.\n\nBut Wendy had not been dreaming, as the very next night showed, the\nnight on which the extraordinary adventures of these children may be\nsaid to have begun.\n\nOn the night we speak of all the children were once more in bed. It\nhappened to be Nana's evening off, and Mrs. Darling had bathed them and\nsung to them till one by one they had let go her hand and slid away into\nthe land of sleep.\n\nAll were looking so safe and cosy that she smiled at her fears now and\nsat down tranquilly by the fire to sew.\n\nIt was something for Michael, who on his birthday was getting into\nshirts. The fire was warm, however, and the nursery dimly lit by three\nnight-lights, and presently the sewing lay on Mrs. Darling's lap. Then\nher head nodded, oh, so gracefully. She was asleep. Look at the four of\nthem, Wendy and Michael over there, John here, and Mrs. Darling by the\nfire. There should have been a fourth night-light.\n\nWhile she slept she had a dream. She dreamt that the Neverland had come\ntoo near and that a strange boy had broken through from it. He did not\nalarm her, for she thought she had seen him before in the faces of many\nwomen who have no children. Perhaps he is to be found in the faces of\nsome mothers also. But in her dream he had rent the film that obscures\nthe Neverland, and she saw Wendy and John and Michael peeping through\nthe gap.\n\nThe dream by itself would have been a trifle, but while she was dreaming\nthe window of the nursery blew open, and a boy did drop on the floor.\nHe was accompanied by a strange light, no bigger than your fist, which\ndarted about the room like a living thing and I think it must have been\nthis light that wakened Mrs. Darling.\n\nShe started up with a cry, and saw the boy, and somehow she knew at once\nthat he was Peter Pan. If you or I or Wendy had been there we should\nhave seen that he was very like Mrs. Darling's kiss. He was a lovely\nboy, clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that ooze out of trees but\nthe most entrancing thing about him was that he had all his first teeth.\nWhen he saw she was a grown-up, he gnashed the little pearls at her.\n\n\n\n\nChapter 2 THE SHADOW\n\nMrs. Darling screamed, and, as if in answer to a bell, the door opened,\nand Nana entered, returned from her evening out. She growled and sprang\nat the boy, who leapt lightly through the window. Again Mrs. Darling\nscreamed, this time in distress for him, for she thought he was killed,\nand she ran down into the street to look for his little body, but it\nwas not there; and she looked up, and in the black night she could see\nnothing but what she thought was a shooting star.\n\nShe returned to the nursery, and found Nana with something in her mouth,\nwhich proved to be the boy's shadow. As he leapt at the window Nana had\nclosed it quickly, too late to catch him, but his shadow had not had\ntime to get out; slam went the window and snapped it off.\n\nYou may be sure Mrs. Darling examined the shadow carefully, but it was\nquite the ordinary kind.\n\nNana had no doubt of what was the best thing to do with this shadow. She\nhung it out at the window, meaning \"He is sure to come back for it; let\nus put it where he can get it easily without disturbing the children.\"\n\nBut unfortunately Mrs. Darling could not leave it hanging out at the\nwindow, it looked so like the washing and lowered the whole tone of the\nhouse. She thought of showing it to Mr. Darling, but he was totting up\nwinter great-coats for John and Michael, with a wet towel around his\nhead to keep his brain clear, and it seemed a shame to trouble him;\nbesides, she knew exactly what he would say: \"It all comes of having a\ndog for a nurse.\"\n\nShe decided to roll the shadow up and put it away carefully in a drawer,\nuntil a fitting opportunity came for telling her husband. Ah me!\n\nThe opportunity came a week later, on that never-to-be-forgotten Friday.\nOf course it was a Friday.\n\n\"I ought to have been specially careful on a Friday,\" she used to say\nafterwards to her husband, while perhaps Nana was on the other side of\nher, holding her hand.\n\n\"No, no,\" Mr. Darling always said, \"I am responsible for it all. I,\nGeorge Darling, did it. MEA CULPA, MEA CULPA.\" He had had a classical\neducation.\n\nThey sat thus night after night recalling that fatal Friday, till every\ndetail of it was stamped on their brains and came through on the other\nside like the faces on a bad coinage.\n\n\"If only I had not accepted that invitation to dine at 27,\" Mrs. Darling\nsaid.\n\n\"If only I had not poured my medicine into Nana's bowl,\" said Mr.\nDarling.\n\n\"If only I had pretended to like the medicine,\" was what Nana's wet eyes\nsaid.\n\n\"My liking for parties, George.\"\n\n\"My fatal gift of humour, dearest.\"\n\n\"My touchiness about trifles, dear master and mistress.\"\n\nThen one or more of them would break down altogether; Nana at the\nthought, \"It's true, it's true, they ought not to have had a dog for\na nurse.\" Many a time it was Mr. Darling who put the handkerchief to\nNana's eyes.\n\n\"That fiend!\" Mr. Darling would cry, and Nana's bark was the echo of\nit, but Mrs. Darling never upbraided Peter; there was something in the\nright-hand corner of her mouth that wanted her not to call Peter names.\n\nThey would sit there in the empty nursery, recalling fondly every\nsmallest detail of that dreadful evening. It had begun so uneventfully,\nso precisely like a hundred other evenings, with Nana putting on the\nwater for Michael's bath and carrying him to it on her back.\n\n\"I won't go to bed,\" he had shouted, like one who still believed that he\nhad the last word on the subject, \"I won't, I won't. Nana, it isn't six\no'clock yet. Oh dear, oh dear, I shan't love you any more, Nana. I tell\nyou I won't be bathed, I won't, I won't!\"\n\nThen Mrs. Darling had come in, wearing her white evening-gown. She had\ndressed early because Wendy so loved to see her in her evening-gown,\nwith the necklace George had given her. She was wearing Wendy's bracelet\non her arm; she had asked for the loan of it. Wendy loved to lend her\nbracelet to her mother.\n\nShe had found her two older children playing at being herself and father\non the occasion of Wendy's birth, and John was saying:\n\n\"I am happy to inform you, Mrs. Darling, that you are now a mother,\"\nin just such a tone as Mr. Darling himself may have used on the real\noccasion.\n\nWendy had danced with joy, just as the real Mrs. Darling must have done.\n\nThen John was born, with the extra pomp that he conceived due to the\nbirth of a male, and Michael came from his bath to ask to be born also,\nbut John said brutally that they did not want any more.\n\nMichael had nearly cried. \"Nobody wants me,\" he said, and of course the\nlady in the evening-dress could not stand that.\n\n\"I do,\" she said, \"I so want a third child.\"\n\n\"Boy or girl?\" asked Michael, not too hopefully.\n\n\"Boy.\"\n\nThen he had leapt into her arms. Such a little thing for Mr. and Mrs.\nDarling and Nana to recall now, but not so little if that was to be\nMichael's last night in the nursery.\n\nThey go on with their recollections.\n\n\"It was then that I rushed in like a tornado, wasn't it?\" Mr. Darling\nwould say, scorning himself; and indeed he had been like a tornado.\n\nPerhaps there was some excuse for him. He, too, had been dressing for\nthe party, and all had gone well with him until he came to his tie. It\nis an astounding thing to have to tell, but this man, though he knew\nabout stocks and shares, had no real mastery of his tie. Sometimes the\nthing yielded to him without a contest, but there were occasions when it\nwould have been better for the house if he had swallowed his pride and\nused a made-up tie.\n\nThis was such an occasion. He came rushing into the nursery with the\ncrumpled little brute of a tie in his hand.\n\n\"Why, what is the matter, father dear?\"\n\n\"Matter!\" he yelled; he really yelled. \"This tie, it will not tie.\" He\nbecame dangerously sarcastic. \"Not round my neck! Round the bed-post!\nOh yes, twenty times have I made it up round the bed-post, but round my\nneck, no! Oh dear no! begs to be excused!\"\n\nHe thought Mrs. Darling was not sufficiently impressed, and he went on\nsternly, \"I warn you of this, mother, that unless this tie is round my\nneck we don't go out to dinner to-night, and if I don't go out to dinner\nto-night, I never go to the office again, and if I don't go to the\noffice again, you and I starve, and our children will be flung into the\nstreets.\"\n\nEven then Mrs. Darling was placid. \"Let me try, dear,\" she said, and\nindeed that was what he had come to ask her to do, and with her nice\ncool hands she tied his tie for him, while the children stood around to\nsee their fate decided. Some men would have resented her being able to\ndo it so easily, but Mr. Darling had far too fine a nature for that; he\nthanked her carelessly, at once forgot his rage, and in another moment\nwas dancing round the room with Michael on his back.\n\n\"How wildly we romped!\" says Mrs. Darling now, recalling it.\n\n\"Our last romp!\" Mr. Darling groaned.\n\n\"O George, do you remember Michael suddenly said to me, 'How did you get\nto know me, mother?'\"\n\n\"I remember!\"\n\n\"They were rather sweet, don't you think, George?\"\n\n\"And they were ours, ours! and now they are gone.\"\n\nThe romp had ended with the appearance of Nana, and most unluckily Mr.\nDarling collided against her, covering his trousers with hairs. They\nwere not only new trousers, but they were the first he had ever had\nwith braid on them, and he had had to bite his lip to prevent the tears\ncoming. Of course Mrs. Darling brushed him, but he began to talk again\nabout its being a mistake to have a dog for a nurse.\n\n\"George, Nana is a treasure.\"\n\n\"No doubt, but I have an uneasy feeling at times that she looks upon the\nchildren as puppies.\"\n\n\"Oh no, dear one, I feel sure she knows they have souls.\"\n\n\"I wonder,\" Mr. Darling said thoughtfully, \"I wonder.\" It was an\nopportunity, his wife felt, for telling him about the boy. At first he\npooh-poohed the story, but he became thoughtful when she showed him the\nshadow.\n\n\"It is nobody I know,\" he said, examining it carefully, \"but it does\nlook a scoundrel.\"\n\n\"We were still discussing it, you remember,\" says Mr. Darling, \"when\nNana came in with Michael's medicine. You will never carry the bottle in\nyour mouth again, Nana, and it is all my fault.\"\n\nStrong man though he was, there is no doubt that he had behaved rather\nfoolishly over the medicine. If he had a weakness, it was for thinking\nthat all his life he had taken medicine boldly, and so now, when Michael\ndodged the spoon in Nana's mouth, he had said reprovingly, \"Be a man,\nMichael.\"\n\n\"Won't; won't!\" Michael cried naughtily. Mrs. Darling left the room to\nget a chocolate for him, and Mr. Darling thought this showed want of\nfirmness.\n\n\"Mother, don't pamper him,\" he called after her. \"Michael, when I was\nyour age I took medicine without a murmur. I said, 'Thank you, kind\nparents, for giving me bottles to make me well.'\"\n\nHe really thought this was true, and Wendy, who was now in her\nnight-gown, believed it also, and she said, to encourage Michael, \"That\nmedicine you sometimes take, father, is much nastier, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Ever so much nastier,\" Mr. Darling said bravely, \"and I would take it\nnow as an example to you, Michael, if I hadn't lost the bottle.\"\n\nHe had not exactly lost it; he had climbed in the dead of night to the\ntop of the wardrobe and hidden it there. What he did not know was that\nthe faithful Liza had found it, and put it back on his wash-stand.\n\n\"I know where it is, father,\" Wendy cried, always glad to be of service.\n\"I'll bring it,\" and she was off before he could stop her. Immediately\nhis spirits sank in the strangest way.\n\n\"John,\" he said, shuddering, \"it's most beastly stuff. It's that nasty,\nsticky, sweet kind.\"\n\n\"It will soon be over, father,\" John said cheerily, and then in rushed\nWendy with the medicine in a glass.\n\n\"I have been as quick as I could,\" she panted.\n\n\"You have been wonderfully quick,\" her father retorted, with a\nvindictive politeness that was quite thrown away upon her. \"Michael\nfirst,\" he said doggedly.\n\n\"Father first,\" said Michael, who was of a suspicious nature.\n\n\"I shall be sick, you know,\" Mr. Darling said threateningly.\n\n\"Come on, father,\" said John.\n\n\"Hold your tongue, John,\" his father rapped out.\n\nWendy was quite puzzled. \"I thought you took it quite easily, father.\"\n\n\"That is not the point,\" he retorted. \"The point is, that there is\nmore in my glass than in Michael's spoon.\" His proud heart was nearly\nbursting. \"And it isn't fair: I would say it though it were with my last\nbreath; it isn't fair.\"\n\n\"Father, I am waiting,\" said Michael coldly.\n\n\"It's all very well to say you are waiting; so am I waiting.\"\n\n\"Father's a cowardly custard.\"\n\n\"So are you a cowardly custard.\"\n\n\"I'm not frightened.\"\n\n\"Neither am I frightened.\"\n\n\"Well, then, take it.\"\n\n\"Well, then, you take it.\"\n\nWendy had a splendid idea. \"Why not both take it at the same time?\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" said Mr. Darling. \"Are you ready, Michael?\"\n\nWendy gave the words, one, two, three, and Michael took his medicine,\nbut Mr. Darling slipped his behind his back.\n\nThere was a yell of rage from Michael, and \"O father!\" Wendy exclaimed.\n\n\"What do you mean by 'O father'?\" Mr. Darling demanded. \"Stop that row,\nMichael. I meant to take mine, but I--I missed it.\"\n\nIt was dreadful the way all the three were looking at him, just as if\nthey did not admire him. \"Look here, all of you,\" he said entreatingly,\nas soon as Nana had gone into the bathroom. \"I have just thought of a\nsplendid joke. I shall pour my medicine into Nana's bowl, and she will\ndrink it, thinking it is milk!\"\n\nIt was the colour of milk; but the children did not have their father's\nsense of humour, and they looked at him reproachfully as he poured the\nmedicine into Nana's bowl. \"What fun!\" he said doubtfully, and they did\nnot dare expose him when Mrs. Darling and Nana returned.\n\n\"Nana, good dog,\" he said, patting her, \"I have put a little milk into\nyour bowl, Nana.\"\n\nNana wagged her tail, ran to the medicine, and began lapping it. Then\nshe gave Mr. Darling such a look, not an angry look: she showed him the\ngreat red tear that makes us so sorry for noble dogs, and crept into her\nkennel.\n\nMr. Darling was frightfully ashamed of himself, but he would not give\nin. In a horrid silence Mrs. Darling smelt the bowl. \"O George,\" she\nsaid, \"it's your medicine!\"\n\n\"It was only a joke,\" he roared, while she comforted her boys, and Wendy\nhugged Nana. \"Much good,\" he said bitterly, \"my wearing myself to the\nbone trying to be funny in this house.\"\n\nAnd still Wendy hugged Nana. \"That's right,\" he shouted. \"Coddle her!\nNobody coddles me. Oh dear no! I am only the breadwinner, why should I\nbe coddled--why, why, why!\"\n\n\"George,\" Mrs. Darling entreated him, \"not so loud; the servants\nwill hear you.\" Somehow they had got into the way of calling Liza the\nservants.\n\n\"Let them!\" he answered recklessly. \"Bring in the whole world. But I\nrefuse to allow that dog to lord it in my nursery for an hour longer.\"\n\nThe children wept, and Nana ran to him beseechingly, but he waved her\nback. He felt he was a strong man again. \"In vain, in vain,\" he cried;\n\"the proper place for you is the yard, and there you go to be tied up\nthis instant.\"\n\n\"George, George,\" Mrs. Darling whispered, \"remember what I told you\nabout that boy.\"\n\nAlas, he would not listen. He was determined to show who was master in\nthat house, and when commands would not draw Nana from the kennel, he\nlured her out of it with honeyed words, and seizing her roughly, dragged\nher from the nursery. He was ashamed of himself, and yet he did it.\nIt was all owing to his too affectionate nature, which craved for\nadmiration. When he had tied her up in the back-yard, the wretched\nfather went and sat in the passage, with his knuckles to his eyes.\n\nIn the meantime Mrs. Darling had put the children to bed in unwonted\nsilence and lit their night-lights. They could hear Nana barking, and\nJohn whimpered, \"It is because he is chaining her up in the yard,\" but\nWendy was wiser.\n\n\"That is not Nana's unhappy bark,\" she said, little guessing what was\nabout to happen; \"that is her bark when she smells danger.\"\n\nDanger!\n\n\"Are you sure, Wendy?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes.\"\n\nMrs. Darling quivered and went to the window. It was securely fastened.\nShe looked out, and the night was peppered with stars. They were\ncrowding round the house, as if curious to see what was to take place\nthere, but she did not notice this, nor that one or two of the smaller\nones winked at her. Yet a nameless fear clutched at her heart and made\nher cry, \"Oh, how I wish that I wasn't going to a party to-night!\"\n\nEven Michael, already half asleep, knew that she was perturbed, and he\nasked, \"Can anything harm us, mother, after the night-lights are lit?\"\n\n\"Nothing, precious,\" she said; \"they are the eyes a mother leaves behind\nher to guard her children.\"\n\nShe went from bed to bed singing enchantments over them, and little\nMichael flung his arms round her. \"Mother,\" he cried, \"I'm glad of you.\"\nThey were the last words she was to hear from him for a long time.\n\nNo. 27 was only a few yards distant, but there had been a slight fall of\nsnow, and Father and Mother Darling picked their way over it deftly not\nto soil their shoes. They were already the only persons in the street,\nand all the stars were watching them. Stars are beautiful, but they may\nnot take an active part in anything, they must just look on for ever. It\nis a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no\nstar now knows what it was. So the older ones have become glassy-eyed\nand seldom speak (winking is the star language), but the little\nones still wonder. They are not really friendly to Peter, who had a\nmischievous way of stealing up behind them and trying to blow them out;\nbut they are so fond of fun that they were on his side to-night, and\nanxious to get the grown-ups out of the way. So as soon as the door\nof 27 closed on Mr. and Mrs. Darling there was a commotion in the\nfirmament, and the smallest of all the stars in the Milky Way screamed\nout:\n\n\"Now, Peter!\"\n\n\n\n\nChapter 3 COME AWAY, COME AWAY!\n\nFor a moment after Mr. and Mrs. Darling left the house the night-lights\nby the beds of the three children continued to burn clearly. They were\nawfully nice little night-lights, and one cannot help wishing that they\ncould have kept awake to see Peter; but Wendy's light blinked and gave\nsuch a yawn that the other two yawned also, and before they could close\ntheir mouths all the three went out.\n\nThere was another light in the room now, a thousand times brighter than\nthe night-lights, and in the time we have taken to say this, it had been\nin all the drawers in the nursery, looking for Peter's shadow, rummaged\nthe wardrobe and turned every pocket inside out. It was not really a\nlight; it made this light by flashing about so quickly, but when it came\nto rest for a second you saw it was a fairy, no longer than your hand,\nbut still growing. It was a girl called Tinker Bell exquisitely gowned\nin a skeleton leaf, cut low and square, through which her figure could\nbe seen to the best advantage. She was slightly inclined to EMBONPOINT.\n[plump hourglass figure]\n\nA moment after the fairy's entrance the window was blown open by the\nbreathing of the little stars, and Peter dropped in. He had carried\nTinker Bell part of the way, and his hand was still messy with the fairy\ndust.\n\n\"Tinker Bell,\" he called softly, after making sure that the children\nwere asleep, \"Tink, where are you?\" She was in a jug for the moment, and\nliking it extremely; she had never been in a jug before.\n\n\"Oh, do come out of that jug, and tell me, do you know where they put my\nshadow?\"\n\nThe loveliest tinkle as of golden bells answered him. It is the fairy\nlanguage. You ordinary children can never hear it, but if you were to\nhear it you would know that you had heard it once before.\n\nTink said that the shadow was in the big box. She meant the chest of\ndrawers, and Peter jumped at the drawers, scattering their contents to\nthe floor with both hands, as kings toss ha'pence to the crowd. In a\nmoment he had recovered his shadow, and in his delight he forgot that he\nhad shut Tinker Bell up in the drawer.\n\nIf he thought at all, but I don't believe he ever thought, it was that\nhe and his shadow, when brought near each other, would join like drops\nof water, and when they did not he was appalled. He tried to stick it\non with soap from the bathroom, but that also failed. A shudder passed\nthrough Peter, and he sat on the floor and cried.\n\nHis sobs woke Wendy, and she sat up in bed. She was not alarmed to see\na stranger crying on the nursery floor; she was only pleasantly\ninterested.\n\n\"Boy,\" she said courteously, \"why are you crying?\"\n\nPeter could be exceeding polite also, having learned the grand manner at\nfairy ceremonies, and he rose and bowed to her beautifully. She was much\npleased, and bowed beautifully to him from the bed.\n\n\"What's your name?\" he asked.\n\n\"Wendy Moira Angela Darling,\" she replied with some satisfaction. \"What\nis your name?\"\n\n\"Peter Pan.\"\n\nShe was already sure that he must be Peter, but it did seem a\ncomparatively short name.\n\n\"Is that all?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" he said rather sharply. He felt for the first time that it was a\nshortish name.\n\n\"I'm so sorry,\" said Wendy Moira Angela.\n\n\"It doesn't matter,\" Peter gulped.\n\nShe asked where he lived.\n\n\"Second to the right,\" said Peter, \"and then straight on till morning.\"\n\n\"What a funny address!\"\n\nPeter had a sinking. For the first time he felt that perhaps it was a\nfunny address.\n\n\"No, it isn't,\" he said.\n\n\"I mean,\" Wendy said nicely, remembering that she was hostess, \"is that\nwhat they put on the letters?\"\n\nHe wished she had not mentioned letters.\n\n\"Don't get any letters,\" he said contemptuously.\n\n\"But your mother gets letters?\"\n\n\"Don't have a mother,\" he said. Not only had he no mother, but he had\nnot the slightest desire to have one. He thought them very over-rated\npersons. Wendy, however, felt at once that she was in the presence of a\ntragedy.\n\n\"O Peter, no wonder you were crying,\" she said, and got out of bed and\nran to him.\n\n\"I wasn't crying about mothers,\" he said rather indignantly. \"I was\ncrying because I can't get my shadow to stick on. Besides, I wasn't\ncrying.\"\n\n\"It has come off?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nThen Wendy saw the shadow on the floor, looking so draggled, and she was\nfrightfully sorry for Peter. \"How awful!\" she said, but she could not\nhelp smiling when she saw that he had been trying to stick it on with\nsoap. How exactly like a boy!\n\nFortunately she knew at once what to do. \"It must be sewn on,\" she said,\njust a little patronisingly.\n\n\"What's sewn?\" he asked.\n\n\"You're dreadfully ignorant.\"\n\n\"No, I'm not.\"\n\nBut she was exulting in his ignorance. \"I shall sew it on for you, my\nlittle man,\" she said, though he was tall as herself, and she got out\nher housewife [sewing bag], and sewed the shadow on to Peter's foot.\n\n\"I daresay it will hurt a little,\" she warned him.\n\n\"Oh, I shan't cry,\" said Peter, who was already of the opinion that he\nhad never cried in his life. And he clenched his teeth and did not\ncry, and soon his shadow was behaving properly, though still a little\ncreased.\n\n\"Perhaps I should have ironed it,\" Wendy said thoughtfully, but Peter,\nboylike, was indifferent to appearances, and he was now jumping about in\nthe wildest glee. Alas, he had already forgotten that he owed his bliss\nto Wendy. He thought he had attached the shadow himself. \"How clever I\nam!\" he crowed rapturously, \"oh, the cleverness of me!\"\n\nIt is humiliating to have to confess that this conceit of Peter was\none of his most fascinating qualities. To put it with brutal frankness,\nthere never was a cockier boy.\n\nBut for the moment Wendy was shocked. \"You conceit [braggart],\" she\nexclaimed, with frightful sarcasm; \"of course I did nothing!\"\n\n\"You did a little,\" Peter said carelessly, and continued to dance.\n\n\"A little!\" she replied with hauteur [pride]; \"if I am no use I can at\nleast withdraw,\" and she sprang in the most dignified way into bed and\ncovered her face with the blankets.\n\nTo induce her to look up he pretended to be going away, and when this\nfailed he sat on the end of the bed and tapped her gently with his foot.\n\"Wendy,\" he said, \"don't withdraw. I can't help crowing, Wendy, when\nI'm pleased with myself.\" Still she would not look up, though she was\nlistening eagerly. \"Wendy,\" he continued, in a voice that no woman has\never yet been able to resist, \"Wendy, one girl is more use than twenty\nboys.\"\n\nNow Wendy was every inch a woman, though there were not very many\ninches, and she peeped out of the bed-clothes.\n\n\"Do you really think so, Peter?\"\n\n\"Yes, I do.\"\n\n\"I think it's perfectly sweet of you,\" she declared, \"and I'll get up\nagain,\" and she sat with him on the side of the bed. She also said\nshe would give him a kiss if he liked, but Peter did not know what she\nmeant, and he held out his hand expectantly.\n\n\"Surely you know what a kiss is?\" she asked, aghast.\n\n\"I shall know when you give it to me,\" he replied stiffly, and not to\nhurt his feeling she gave him a thimble.\n\n\"Now,\" said he, \"shall I give you a kiss?\" and she replied with a slight\nprimness, \"If you please.\" She made herself rather cheap by inclining\nher face toward him, but he merely dropped an acorn button into her\nhand, so she slowly returned her face to where it had been before, and\nsaid nicely that she would wear his kiss on the chain around her neck.\nIt was lucky that she did put it on that chain, for it was afterwards to\nsave her life.\n\nWhen people in our set are introduced, it is customary for them to\nask each other's age, and so Wendy, who always liked to do the correct\nthing, asked Peter how old he was. It was not really a happy question to\nask him; it was like an examination paper that asks grammar, when what\nyou want to be asked is Kings of England.\n\n\"I don't know,\" he replied uneasily, \"but I am quite young.\" He really\nknew nothing about it, he had merely suspicions, but he said at a\nventure, \"Wendy, I ran away the day I was born.\"\n\nWendy was quite surprised, but interested; and she indicated in the\ncharming drawing-room manner, by a touch on her night-gown, that he\ncould sit nearer her.\n\n\"It was because I heard father and mother,\" he explained in a low\nvoice, \"talking about what I was to be when I became a man.\" He was\nextraordinarily agitated now. \"I don't want ever to be a man,\" he said\nwith passion. \"I want always to be a little boy and to have fun. So\nI ran away to Kensington Gardens and lived a long long time among the\nfairies.\"\n\nShe gave him a look of the most intense admiration, and he thought it\nwas because he had run away, but it was really because he knew fairies.\nWendy had lived such a home life that to know fairies struck her as\nquite delightful. She poured out questions about them, to his surprise,\nfor they were rather a nuisance to him, getting in his way and so on,\nand indeed he sometimes had to give them a hiding [spanking]. Still, he\nliked them on the whole, and he told her about the beginning of fairies.\n\n\"You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the first time, its\nlaugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about,\nand that was the beginning of fairies.\"\n\nTedious talk this, but being a stay-at-home she liked it.\n\n\"And so,\" he went on good-naturedly, \"there ought to be one fairy for\nevery boy and girl.\"\n\n\"Ought to be? Isn't there?\"\n\n\"No. You see children know such a lot now, they soon don't believe in\nfairies, and every time a child says, 'I don't believe in fairies,'\nthere is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.\"\n\nReally, he thought they had now talked enough about fairies, and it\nstruck him that Tinker Bell was keeping very quiet. \"I can't think where\nshe has gone to,\" he said, rising, and he called Tink by name. Wendy's\nheart went flutter with a sudden thrill.\n\n\"Peter,\" she cried, clutching him, \"you don't mean to tell me that there\nis a fairy in this room!\"\n\n\"She was here just now,\" he said a little impatiently. \"You don't hear\nher, do you?\" and they both listened.\n\n\"The only sound I hear,\" said Wendy, \"is like a tinkle of bells.\"\n\n\"Well, that's Tink, that's the fairy language. I think I hear her too.\"\n\nThe sound came from the chest of drawers, and Peter made a merry face.\nNo one could ever look quite so merry as Peter, and the loveliest of\ngurgles was his laugh. He had his first laugh still.\n\n\"Wendy,\" he whispered gleefully, \"I do believe I shut her up in the\ndrawer!\"\n\nHe let poor Tink out of the drawer, and she flew about the nursery\nscreaming with fury. \"You shouldn't say such things,\" Peter retorted.\n\"Of course I'm very sorry, but how could I know you were in the drawer?\"\n\nWendy was not listening to him. \"O Peter,\" she cried, \"if she would only\nstand still and let me see her!\"\n\n\"They hardly ever stand still,\" he said, but for one moment Wendy saw\nthe romantic figure come to rest on the cuckoo clock. \"O the lovely!\"\nshe cried, though Tink's face was still distorted with passion.\n\n\"Tink,\" said Peter amiably, \"this lady says she wishes you were her\nfairy.\"\n\nTinker Bell answered insolently.\n\n\"What does she say, Peter?\"\n\nHe had to translate. \"She is not very polite. She says you are a great\n[huge] ugly girl, and that she is my fairy.\"\n\nHe tried to argue with Tink. \"You know you can't be my fairy, Tink,\nbecause I am an gentleman and you are a lady.\"\n\nTo this Tink replied in these words, \"You silly ass,\" and disappeared\ninto the bathroom. \"She is quite a common fairy,\" Peter explained\napologetically, \"she is called Tinker Bell because she mends the pots\nand kettles [tinker = tin worker].\" [Similar to \"cinder\" plus \"elle\" to\nget Cinderella]\n\nThey were together in the armchair by this time, and Wendy plied him\nwith more questions.\n\n\"If you don't live in Kensington Gardens now--\"\n\n\"Sometimes I do still.\"\n\n\"But where do you live mostly now?\"\n\n\"With the lost boys.\"\n\n\"Who are they?\"\n\n\"They are the children who fall out of their perambulators when the\nnurse is looking the other way. If they are not claimed in seven\ndays they are sent far away to the Neverland to defray expenses. I'm\ncaptain.\"\n\n\"What fun it must be!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said cunning Peter, \"but we are rather lonely. You see we have no\nfemale companionship.\"\n\n\"Are none of the others girls?\"\n\n\"Oh, no; girls, you know, are much too clever to fall out of their\nprams.\"\n\nThis flattered Wendy immensely. \"I think,\" she said, \"it is perfectly\nlovely the way you talk about girls; John there just despises us.\"\n\nFor reply Peter rose and kicked John out of bed, blankets and all; one\nkick. This seemed to Wendy rather forward for a first meeting, and she\ntold him with spirit that he was not captain in her house. However,\nJohn continued to sleep so placidly on the floor that she allowed him\nto remain there. \"And I know you meant to be kind,\" she said, relenting,\n\"so you may give me a kiss.\"\n\nFor the moment she had forgotten his ignorance about kisses. \"I thought\nyou would want it back,\" he said a little bitterly, and offered to\nreturn her the thimble.\n\n\"Oh dear,\" said the nice Wendy, \"I don't mean a kiss, I mean a thimble.\"\n\n\"What's that?\"\n\n\"It's like this.\" She kissed him.\n\n\"Funny!\" said Peter gravely. \"Now shall I give you a thimble?\"\n\n\"If you wish to,\" said Wendy, keeping her head erect this time.\n\nPeter thimbled her, and almost immediately she screeched. \"What is it,\nWendy?\"\n\n\"It was exactly as if someone were pulling my hair.\"\n\n\"That must have been Tink. I never knew her so naughty before.\"\n\nAnd indeed Tink was darting about again, using offensive language.\n\n\"She says she will do that to you, Wendy, every time I give you a\nthimble.\"\n\n\"But why?\"\n\n\"Why, Tink?\"\n\nAgain Tink replied, \"You silly ass.\" Peter could not understand why,\nbut Wendy understood, and she was just slightly disappointed when he\nadmitted that he came to the nursery window not to see her but to listen\nto stories.\n\n\"You see, I don't know any stories. None of the lost boys knows any\nstories.\"\n\n\"How perfectly awful,\" Wendy said.\n\n\"Do you know,\" Peter asked \"why swallows build in the eaves of houses?\nIt is to listen to the stories. O Wendy, your mother was telling you\nsuch a lovely story.\"\n\n\"Which story was it?\"\n\n\"About the prince who couldn't find the lady who wore the glass\nslipper.\"\n\n\"Peter,\" said Wendy excitedly, \"that was Cinderella, and he found her,\nand they lived happily ever after.\"\n\nPeter was so glad that he rose from the floor, where they had been\nsitting, and hurried to the window.\n\n\"Where are you going?\" she cried with misgiving.\n\n\"To tell the other boys.\"\n\n\"Don't go Peter,\" she entreated, \"I know such lots of stories.\"\n\nThose were her precise words, so there can be no denying that it was she\nwho first tempted him.\n\nHe came back, and there was a greedy look in his eyes now which ought to\nhave alarmed her, but did not.\n\n\"Oh, the stories I could tell to the boys!\" she cried, and then Peter\ngripped her and began to draw her toward the window.\n\n\"Let me go!\" she ordered him.\n\n\"Wendy, do come with me and tell the other boys.\"\n\nOf course she was very pleased to be asked, but she said, \"Oh dear, I\ncan't. Think of mummy! Besides, I can't fly.\"\n\n\"I'll teach you.\"\n\n\"Oh, how lovely to fly.\"\n\n\"I'll teach you how to jump on the wind's back, and then away we go.\"\n\n\"Oo!\" she exclaimed rapturously.\n\n\"Wendy, Wendy, when you are sleeping in your silly bed you might be\nflying about with me saying funny things to the stars.\"\n\n\"Oo!\"\n\n\"And, Wendy, there are mermaids.\"\n\n\"Mermaids! With tails?\"\n\n\"Such long tails.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" cried Wendy, \"to see a mermaid!\"\n\nHe had become frightfully cunning. \"Wendy,\" he said, \"how we should all\nrespect you.\"\n\nShe was wriggling her body in distress. It was quite as if she were\ntrying to remain on the nursery floor.\n\nBut he had no pity for her.\n\n\"Wendy,\" he said, the sly one, \"you could tuck us in at night.\"\n\n\"Oo!\"\n\n\"None of us has ever been tucked in at night.\"\n\n\"Oo,\" and her arms went out to him.\n\n\"And you could darn our clothes, and make pockets for us. None of us has\nany pockets.\"\n\nHow could she resist. \"Of course it's awfully fascinating!\" she cried.\n\"Peter, would you teach John and Michael to fly too?\"\n\n\"If you like,\" he said indifferently, and she ran to John and Michael\nand shook them. \"Wake up,\" she cried, \"Peter Pan has come and he is to\nteach us to fly.\"\n\nJohn rubbed his eyes. \"Then I shall get up,\" he said. Of course he was\non the floor already. \"Hallo,\" he said, \"I am up!\"\n\nMichael was up by this time also, looking as sharp as a knife with six\nblades and a saw, but Peter suddenly signed silence. Their faces assumed\nthe awful craftiness of children listening for sounds from the grown-up\nworld. All was as still as salt. Then everything was right. No, stop!\nEverything was wrong. Nana, who had been barking distressfully all the\nevening, was quiet now. It was her silence they had heard.\n\n\"Out with the light! Hide! Quick!\" cried John, taking command for the\nonly time throughout the whole adventure. And thus when Liza entered,\nholding Nana, the nursery seemed quite its old self, very dark, and\nyou would have sworn you heard its three wicked inmates breathing\nangelically as they slept. They were really doing it artfully from\nbehind the window curtains.\n\nLiza was in a bad temper, for she was mixing the Christmas puddings in\nthe kitchen, and had been drawn from them, with a raisin still on her\ncheek, by Nana's absurd suspicions. She thought the best way of getting\na little quiet was to take Nana to the nursery for a moment, but in\ncustody of course.\n\n\"There, you suspicious brute,\" she said, not sorry that Nana was in\ndisgrace. \"They are perfectly safe, aren't they? Every one of the little\nangels sound asleep in bed. Listen to their gentle breathing.\"\n\nHere Michael, encouraged by his success, breathed so loudly that they\nwere nearly detected. Nana knew that kind of breathing, and she tried to\ndrag herself out of Liza's clutches.\n\nBut Liza was dense. \"No more of it, Nana,\" she said sternly, pulling\nher out of the room. \"I warn you if you bark again I shall go straight\nfor master and missus and bring them home from the party, and then, oh,\nwon't master whip you, just.\"\n\nShe tied the unhappy dog up again, but do you think Nana ceased to bark?\nBring master and missus home from the party! Why, that was just what she\nwanted. Do you think she cared whether she was whipped so long as her\ncharges were safe? Unfortunately Liza returned to her puddings, and\nNana, seeing that no help would come from her, strained and strained at\nthe chain until at last she broke it. In another moment she had burst\ninto the dining-room of 27 and flung up her paws to heaven, her most\nexpressive way of making a communication. Mr. and Mrs. Darling knew at\nonce that something terrible was happening in their nursery, and without\na good-bye to their hostess they rushed into the street.\n\nBut it was now ten minutes since three scoundrels had been breathing\nbehind the curtains, and Peter Pan can do a great deal in ten minutes.\n\nWe now return to the nursery.\n\n\"It's all right,\" John announced, emerging from his hiding-place. \"I\nsay, Peter, can you really fly?\"\n\nInstead of troubling to answer him Peter flew around the room, taking\nthe mantelpiece on the way.\n\n\"How topping!\" said John and Michael.\n\n\"How sweet!\" cried Wendy.\n\n\"Yes, I'm sweet, oh, I am sweet!\" said Peter, forgetting his manners\nagain.\n\nIt looked delightfully easy, and they tried it first from the floor and\nthen from the beds, but they always went down instead of up.\n\n\"I say, how do you do it?\" asked John, rubbing his knee. He was quite a\npractical boy.\n\n\"You just think lovely wonderful thoughts,\" Peter explained, \"and they\nlift you up in the air.\"\n\nHe showed them again.\n\n\"You're so nippy at it,\" John said, \"couldn't you do it very slowly\nonce?\"\n\nPeter did it both slowly and quickly. \"I've got it now, Wendy!\" cried\nJohn, but soon he found he had not. Not one of them could fly an inch,\nthough even Michael was in words of two syllables, and Peter did not\nknow A from Z.\n\nOf course Peter had been trifling with them, for no one can fly unless\nthe fairy dust has been blown on him. Fortunately, as we have mentioned,\none of his hands was messy with it, and he blew some on each of them,\nwith the most superb results.\n\n\"Now just wiggle your shoulders this way,\" he said, \"and let go.\"\n\nThey were all on their beds, and gallant Michael let go first. He did\nnot quite mean to let go, but he did it, and immediately he was borne\nacross the room.\n\n\"I flewed!\" he screamed while still in mid-air.\n\nJohn let go and met Wendy near the bathroom.\n\n\"Oh, lovely!\"\n\n\"Oh, ripping!\"\n\n\"Look at me!\"\n\n\"Look at me!\"\n\n\"Look at me!\"\n\nThey were not nearly so elegant as Peter, they could not help kicking a\nlittle, but their heads were bobbing against the ceiling, and there is\nalmost nothing so delicious as that. Peter gave Wendy a hand at first,\nbut had to desist, Tink was so indignant.\n\nUp and down they went, and round and round. Heavenly was Wendy's word.\n\n\"I say,\" cried John, \"why shouldn't we all go out?\"\n\nOf course it was to this that Peter had been luring them.\n\nMichael was ready: he wanted to see how long it took him to do a billion\nmiles. But Wendy hesitated.\n\n\"Mermaids!\" said Peter again.\n\n\"Oo!\"\n\n\"And there are pirates.\"\n\n\"Pirates,\" cried John, seizing his Sunday hat, \"let us go at once.\"\n\nIt was just at this moment that Mr. and Mrs. Darling hurried with Nana\nout of 27. They ran into the middle of the street to look up at the\nnursery window; and, yes, it was still shut, but the room was ablaze\nwith light, and most heart-gripping sight of all, they could see in\nshadow on the curtain three little figures in night attire circling\nround and round, not on the floor but in the air.\n\nNot three figures, four!\n\nIn a tremble they opened the street door. Mr. Darling would have rushed\nupstairs, but Mrs. Darling signed him to go softly. She even tried to\nmake her heart go softly.\n\nWill they reach the nursery in time? If so, how delightful for them, and\nwe shall all breathe a sigh of relief, but there will be no story. On\nthe other hand, if they are not in time, I solemnly promise that it will\nall come right in the end.\n\nThey would have reached the nursery in time had it not been that the\nlittle stars were watching them. Once again the stars blew the window\nopen, and that smallest star of all called out:\n\n\"Cave, Peter!\"\n\nThen Peter knew that there was not a moment to lose. \"Come,\" he cried\nimperiously, and soared out at once into the night, followed by John and\nMichael and Wendy.\n\nMr. and Mrs. Darling and Nana rushed into the nursery too late. The\nbirds were flown.\n\n\n\n\nChapter 4 THE FLIGHT\n\n\"Second to the right, and straight on till morning.\"\n\nThat, Peter had told Wendy, was the way to the Neverland; but even\nbirds, carrying maps and consulting them at windy corners, could not\nhave sighted it with these instructions. Peter, you see, just said\nanything that came into his head.\n\nAt first his companions trusted him implicitly, and so great were the\ndelights of flying that they wasted time circling round church spires or\nany other tall objects on the way that took their fancy.\n\nJohn and Michael raced, Michael getting a start.\n\nThey recalled with contempt that not so long ago they had thought\nthemselves fine fellows for being able to fly round a room.\n\nNot long ago. But how long ago? They were flying over the sea before\nthis thought began to disturb Wendy seriously. John thought it was their\nsecond sea and their third night.\n\nSometimes it was dark and sometimes light, and now they were very cold\nand again too warm. Did they really feel hungry at times, or were they\nmerely pretending, because Peter had such a jolly new way of feeding\nthem? His way was to pursue birds who had food in their mouths suitable\nfor humans and snatch it from them; then the birds would follow and\nsnatch it back; and they would all go chasing each other gaily for\nmiles, parting at last with mutual expressions of good-will. But Wendy\nnoticed with gentle concern that Peter did not seem to know that this\nwas rather an odd way of getting your bread and butter, nor even that\nthere are other ways.\n\nCertainly they did not pretend to be sleepy, they were sleepy; and that\nwas a danger, for the moment they popped off, down they fell. The awful\nthing was that Peter thought this funny.\n\n\"There he goes again!\" he would cry gleefully, as Michael suddenly\ndropped like a stone.\n\n\"Save him, save him!\" cried Wendy, looking with horror at the cruel\nsea far below. Eventually Peter would dive through the air, and catch\nMichael just before he could strike the sea, and it was lovely the way\nhe did it; but he always waited till the last moment, and you felt it\nwas his cleverness that interested him and not the saving of human life.\nAlso he was fond of variety, and the sport that engrossed him one moment\nwould suddenly cease to engage him, so there was always the possibility\nthat the next time you fell he would let you go.\n\nHe could sleep in the air without falling, by merely lying on his back\nand floating, but this was, partly at least, because he was so light\nthat if you got behind him and blew he went faster.\n\n\"Do be more polite to him,\" Wendy whispered to John, when they were\nplaying \"Follow my Leader.\"\n\n\"Then tell him to stop showing off,\" said John.\n\nWhen playing Follow my Leader, Peter would fly close to the water and\ntouch each shark's tail in passing, just as in the street you may run\nyour finger along an iron railing. They could not follow him in this\nwith much success, so perhaps it was rather like showing off, especially\nas he kept looking behind to see how many tails they missed.\n\n\"You must be nice to him,\" Wendy impressed on her brothers. \"What could\nwe do if he were to leave us!\"\n\n\"We could go back,\" Michael said.\n\n\"How could we ever find our way back without him?\"\n\n\"Well, then, we could go on,\" said John.\n\n\"That is the awful thing, John. We should have to go on, for we don't\nknow how to stop.\"\n\nThis was true, Peter had forgotten to show them how to stop.\n\nJohn said that if the worst came to the worst, all they had to do was to\ngo straight on, for the world was round, and so in time they must come\nback to their own window.\n\n\"And who is to get food for us, John?\"\n\n\"I nipped a bit out of that eagle's mouth pretty neatly, Wendy.\"\n\n\"After the twentieth try,\" Wendy reminded him. \"And even though we\nbecame good at picking up food, see how we bump against clouds and things\nif he is not near to give us a hand.\"\n\nIndeed they were constantly bumping. They could now fly strongly, though\nthey still kicked far too much; but if they saw a cloud in front of\nthem, the more they tried to avoid it, the more certainly did they bump\ninto it. If Nana had been with them, she would have had a bandage round\nMichael's forehead by this time.\n\nPeter was not with them for the moment, and they felt rather lonely up\nthere by themselves. He could go so much faster than they that he would\nsuddenly shoot out of sight, to have some adventure in which they had no\nshare. He would come down laughing over something fearfully funny he had\nbeen saying to a star, but he had already forgotten what it was, or he\nwould come up with mermaid scales still sticking to him, and yet not be\nable to say for certain what had been happening. It was really rather\nirritating to children who had never seen a mermaid.\n\n\"And if he forgets them so quickly,\" Wendy argued, \"how can we expect\nthat he will go on remembering us?\"\n\nIndeed, sometimes when he returned he did not remember them, at least\nnot well. Wendy was sure of it. She saw recognition come into his eyes\nas he was about to pass them the time of day and go on; once even she\nhad to call him by name.\n\n\"I'm Wendy,\" she said agitatedly.\n\nHe was very sorry. \"I say, Wendy,\" he whispered to her, \"always if you\nsee me forgetting you, just keep on saying 'I'm Wendy,' and then I'll\nremember.\"\n\nOf course this was rather unsatisfactory. However, to make amends he\nshowed them how to lie out flat on a strong wind that was going their\nway, and this was such a pleasant change that they tried it several\ntimes and found that they could sleep thus with security. Indeed they\nwould have slept longer, but Peter tired quickly of sleeping, and soon\nhe would cry in his captain voice, \"We get off here.\" So with occasional\ntiffs, but on the whole rollicking, they drew near the Neverland; for\nafter many moons they did reach it, and, what is more, they had been\ngoing pretty straight all the time, not perhaps so much owing to the\nguidance of Peter or Tink as because the island was looking for them. It\nis only thus that any one may sight those magic shores.\n\n\"There it is,\" said Peter calmly.\n\n\"Where, where?\"\n\n\"Where all the arrows are pointing.\"\n\nIndeed a million golden arrows were pointing it out to the children, all\ndirected by their friend the sun, who wanted them to be sure of their\nway before leaving them for the night.\n\nWendy and John and Michael stood on tip-toe in the air to get their\nfirst sight of the island. Strange to say, they all recognized it at\nonce, and until fear fell upon them they hailed it, not as something\nlong dreamt of and seen at last, but as a familiar friend to whom they\nwere returning home for the holidays.\n\n\"John, there's the lagoon.\"\n\n\"Wendy, look at the turtles burying their eggs in the sand.\"\n\n\"I say, John, I see your flamingo with the broken leg!\"\n\n\"Look, Michael, there's your cave!\"\n\n\"John, what's that in the brushwood?\"\n\n\"It's a wolf with her whelps. Wendy, I do believe that's your little\nwhelp!\"\n\n\"There's my boat, John, with her sides stove in!\"\n\n\"No, it isn't. Why, we burned your boat.\"\n\n\"That's her, at any rate. I say, John, I see the smoke of the redskin\ncamp!\"\n\n\"Where? Show me, and I'll tell you by the way smoke curls whether they\nare on the war-path.\"\n\n\"There, just across the Mysterious River.\"\n\n\"I see now. Yes, they are on the war-path right enough.\"\n\nPeter was a little annoyed with them for knowing so much, but if he\nwanted to lord it over them his triumph was at hand, for have I not told\nyou that anon fear fell upon them?\n\nIt came as the arrows went, leaving the island in gloom.\n\nIn the old days at home the Neverland had always begun to look a little\ndark and threatening by bedtime. Then unexplored patches arose in it\nand spread, black shadows moved about in them, the roar of the beasts of\nprey was quite different now, and above all, you lost the certainty that\nyou would win. You were quite glad that the night-lights were on. You\neven liked Nana to say that this was just the mantelpiece over here, and\nthat the Neverland was all make-believe.\n\nOf course the Neverland had been make-believe in those days, but it\nwas real now, and there were no night-lights, and it was getting darker\nevery moment, and where was Nana?\n\nThey had been flying apart, but they huddled close to Peter now. His\ncareless manner had gone at last, his eyes were sparkling, and a tingle\nwent through them every time they touched his body. They were now over\nthe fearsome island, flying so low that sometimes a tree grazed their\nfeet. Nothing horrid was visible in the air, yet their progress had\nbecome slow and laboured, exactly as if they were pushing their way\nthrough hostile forces. Sometimes they hung in the air until Peter had\nbeaten on it with his fists.\n\n\"They don't want us to land,\" he explained.\n\n\"Who are they?\" Wendy whispered, shuddering.\n\nBut he could not or would not say. Tinker Bell had been asleep on his\nshoulder, but now he wakened her and sent her on in front.\n\nSometimes he poised himself in the air, listening intently, with his\nhand to his ear, and again he would stare down with eyes so bright that\nthey seemed to bore two holes to earth. Having done these things, he\nwent on again.\n\nHis courage was almost appalling. \"Would you like an adventure now,\" he\nsaid casually to John, \"or would you like to have your tea first?\"\n\nWendy said \"tea first\" quickly, and Michael pressed her hand in\ngratitude, but the braver John hesitated.\n\n\"What kind of adventure?\" he asked cautiously.\n\n\"There's a pirate asleep in the pampas just beneath us,\" Peter told him.\n\"If you like, we'll go down and kill him.\"\n\n\"I don't see him,\" John said after a long pause.\n\n\"I do.\"\n\n\"Suppose,\" John said, a little huskily, \"he were to wake up.\"\n\nPeter spoke indignantly. \"You don't think I would kill him while he was\nsleeping! I would wake him first, and then kill him. That's the way I\nalways do.\"\n\n\"I say! Do you kill many?\"\n\n\"Tons.\"\n\nJohn said \"How ripping,\" but decided to have tea first. He asked if\nthere were many pirates on the island just now, and Peter said he had\nnever known so many.\n\n\"Who is captain now?\"\n\n\"Hook,\" answered Peter, and his face became very stern as he said that\nhated word.\n\n\"Jas. Hook?\"\n\n\"Ay.\"\n\nThen indeed Michael began to cry, and even John could speak in gulps\nonly, for they knew Hook's reputation.\n\n\"He was Blackbeard's bo'sun,\" John whispered huskily. \"He is the worst\nof them all. He is the only man of whom Barbecue was afraid.\"\n\n\"That's him,\" said Peter.\n\n\"What is he like? Is he big?\"\n\n\"He is not so big as he was.\"\n\n\"How do you mean?\"\n\n\"I cut off a bit of him.\"\n\n\"You!\"\n\n\"Yes, me,\" said Peter sharply.\n\n\"I wasn't meaning to be disrespectful.\"\n\n\"Oh, all right.\"\n\n\"But, I say, what bit?\"\n\n\"His right hand.\"\n\n\"Then he can't fight now?\"\n\n\"Oh, can't he just!\"\n\n\"Left-hander?\"\n\n\"He has an iron hook instead of a right hand, and he claws with it.\"\n\n\"Claws!\"\n\n\"I say, John,\" said Peter.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Say, 'Ay, ay, sir.'\"\n\n\"Ay, ay, sir.\"\n\n\"There is one thing,\" Peter continued, \"that every boy who serves under\nme has to promise, and so must you.\"\n\nJohn paled.\n\n\"It is this, if we meet Hook in open fight, you must leave him to me.\"\n\n\"I promise,\" John said loyally.\n\nFor the moment they were feeling less eerie, because Tink was flying\nwith them, and in her light they could distinguish each other.\nUnfortunately she could not fly so slowly as they, and so she had to go\nround and round them in a circle in which they moved as in a halo. Wendy\nquite liked it, until Peter pointed out the drawbacks.\n\n\"She tells me,\" he said, \"that the pirates sighted us before the\ndarkness came, and got Long Tom out.\"\n\n\"The big gun?\"\n\n\"Yes. And of course they must see her light, and if they guess we are\nnear it they are sure to let fly.\"\n\n\"Wendy!\"\n\n\"John!\"\n\n\"Michael!\"\n\n\"Tell her to go away at once, Peter,\" the three cried simultaneously,\nbut he refused.\n\n\"She thinks we have lost the way,\" he replied stiffly, \"and she is\nrather frightened. You don't think I would send her away all by herself\nwhen she is frightened!\"\n\nFor a moment the circle of light was broken, and something gave Peter a\nloving little pinch.\n\n\"Then tell her,\" Wendy begged, \"to put out her light.\"\n\n\"She can't put it out. That is about the only thing fairies can't do. It\njust goes out of itself when she falls asleep, same as the stars.\"\n\n\"Then tell her to sleep at once,\" John almost ordered.\n\n\"She can't sleep except when she's sleepy. It is the only other thing\nfairies can't do.\"\n\n\"Seems to me,\" growled John, \"these are the only two things worth\ndoing.\"\n\nHere he got a pinch, but not a loving one.\n\n\"If only one of us had a pocket,\" Peter said, \"we could carry her in\nit.\" However, they had set off in such a hurry that there was not a\npocket between the four of them.\n\nHe had a happy idea. John's hat!\n\nTink agreed to travel by hat if it was carried in the hand. John carried\nit, though she had hoped to be carried by Peter. Presently Wendy took\nthe hat, because John said it struck against his knee as he flew; and\nthis, as we shall see, led to mischief, for Tinker Bell hated to be\nunder an obligation to Wendy.\n\nIn the black topper the light was completely hidden, and they flew on in\nsilence. It was the stillest silence they had ever known, broken once by\na distant lapping, which Peter explained was the wild beasts drinking at\nthe ford, and again by a rasping sound that might have been the branches\nof trees rubbing together, but he said it was the redskins sharpening\ntheir knives.\n\nEven these noises ceased. To Michael the loneliness was dreadful. \"If\nonly something would make a sound!\" he cried.\n\nAs if in answer to his request, the air was rent by the most tremendous\ncrash he had ever heard. The pirates had fired Long Tom at them.\n\nThe roar of it echoed through the mountains, and the echoes seemed to\ncry savagely, \"Where are they, where are they, where are they?\"\n\nThus sharply did the terrified three learn the difference between an\nisland of make-believe and the same island come true.\n\nWhen at last the heavens were steady again, John and Michael\nfound themselves alone in the darkness. John was treading the air\nmechanically, and Michael without knowing how to float was floating.\n\n\"Are you shot?\" John whispered tremulously.\n\n\"I haven't tried [myself out] yet,\" Michael whispered back.\n\nWe know now that no one had been hit. Peter, however, had been carried\nby the wind of the shot far out to sea, while Wendy was blown upwards\nwith no companion but Tinker Bell.\n\nIt would have been well for Wendy if at that moment she had dropped the\nhat.\n\nI don't know whether the idea came suddenly to Tink, or whether she had\nplanned it on the way, but she at once popped out of the hat and began\nto lure Wendy to her destruction.\n\nTink was not all bad; or, rather, she was all bad just now, but, on the\nother hand, sometimes she was all good. Fairies have to be one thing or\nthe other, because being so small they unfortunately have room for one\nfeeling only at a time. They are, however, allowed to change, only it\nmust be a complete change. At present she was full of jealousy of Wendy.\nWhat she said in her lovely tinkle Wendy could not of course understand,\nand I believe some of it was bad words, but it sounded kind, and she\nflew back and forward, plainly meaning \"Follow me, and all will be\nwell.\"\n\nWhat else could poor Wendy do? She called to Peter and John and Michael,\nand got only mocking echoes in reply. She did not yet know that Tink\nhated her with the fierce hatred of a very woman. And so, bewildered,\nand now staggering in her flight, she followed Tink to her doom.\n\n\n\n\nChapter 5 THE ISLAND COME TRUE\n\nFeeling that Peter was on his way back, the Neverland had again woke\ninto life. We ought to use the pluperfect and say wakened, but woke is\nbetter and was always used by Peter.\n\nIn his absence things are usually quiet on the island. The fairies take\nan hour longer in the morning, the beasts attend to their young, the\nredskins feed heavily for six days and nights, and when pirates and\nlost boys meet they merely bite their thumbs at each other. But with the\ncoming of Peter, who hates lethargy, they are under way again: if you\nput your ear to the ground now, you would hear the whole island seething\nwith life.\n\nOn this evening the chief forces of the island were disposed as follows.\nThe lost boys were out looking for Peter, the pirates were out looking\nfor the lost boys, the redskins were out looking for the pirates, and\nthe beasts were out looking for the redskins. They were going round and\nround the island, but they did not meet because all were going at the\nsame rate.\n\nAll wanted blood except the boys, who liked it as a rule, but to-night\nwere out to greet their captain. The boys on the island vary, of course,\nin numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem\nto be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out; but\nat this time there were six of them, counting the twins as two. Let us\npretend to lie here among the sugar-cane and watch them as they steal by\nin single file, each with his hand on his dagger.\n\nThey are forbidden by Peter to look in the least like him, and they wear\nthe skins of the bears slain by themselves, in which they are so round\nand furry that when they fall they roll. They have therefore become very\nsure-footed.\n\nThe first to pass is Tootles, not the least brave but the most\nunfortunate of all that gallant band. He had been in fewer adventures\nthan any of them, because the big things constantly happened just when\nhe had stepped round the corner; all would be quiet, he would take the\nopportunity of going off to gather a few sticks for firewood, and\nthen when he returned the others would be sweeping up the blood. This\nill-luck had given a gentle melancholy to his countenance, but instead\nof souring his nature had sweetened it, so that he was quite the\nhumblest of the boys. Poor kind Tootles, there is danger in the air for\nyou to-night. Take care lest an adventure is now offered you, which, if\naccepted, will plunge you in deepest woe. Tootles, the fairy Tink, who\nis bent on mischief this night is looking for a tool [for doing her\nmischief], and she thinks you are the most easily tricked of the boys.\n'Ware Tinker Bell.\n\nWould that he could hear us, but we are not really on the island, and he\npasses by, biting his knuckles.\n\nNext comes Nibs, the gay and debonair, followed by Slightly, who cuts\nwhistles out of the trees and dances ecstatically to his own tunes.\nSlightly is the most conceited of the boys. He thinks he remembers the\ndays before he was lost, with their manners and customs, and this has\ngiven his nose an offensive tilt. Curly is fourth; he is a pickle, [a\nperson who gets in pickles-predicaments] and so often has he had to\ndeliver up his person when Peter said sternly, \"Stand forth the one who\ndid this thing,\" that now at the command he stands forth automatically\nwhether he has done it or not. Last come the Twins, who cannot be\ndescribed because we should be sure to be describing the wrong one.\nPeter never quite knew what twins were, and his band were not allowed\nto know anything he did not know, so these two were always vague about\nthemselves, and did their best to give satisfaction by keeping close\ntogether in an apologetic sort of way.\n\nThe boys vanish in the gloom, and after a pause, but not a long pause,\nfor things go briskly on the island, come the pirates on their track. We\nhear them before they are seen, and it is always the same dreadful song:\n\n     \"Avast belay, yo ho, heave to,\n     A-pirating we go,\n     And if we're parted by a shot\n     We're sure to meet below!\"\n\nA more villainous-looking lot never hung in a row on Execution dock.\nHere, a little in advance, ever and again with his head to the\nground listening, his great arms bare, pieces of eight in his ears as\nornaments, is the handsome Italian Cecco, who cut his name in letters\nof blood on the back of the governor of the prison at Gao. That gigantic\nblack behind him has had many names since he dropped the one with\nwhich dusky mothers still terrify their children on the banks of the\nGuadjo-mo. Here is Bill Jukes, every inch of him tattooed, the same Bill\nJukes who got six dozen on the WALRUS from Flint before he would drop\nthe bag of moidores [Portuguese gold pieces]; and Cookson, said to\nbe Black Murphy's brother (but this was never proved), and Gentleman\nStarkey, once an usher in a public school and still dainty in his ways\nof killing; and Skylights (Morgan's Skylights); and the Irish bo'sun\nSmee, an oddly genial man who stabbed, so to speak, without offence,\nand was the only Non-conformist in Hook's crew; and Noodler, whose\nhands were fixed on backwards; and Robt. Mullins and Alf Mason and many\nanother ruffian long known and feared on the Spanish Main.\n\nIn the midst of them, the blackest and largest in that dark setting,\nreclined James Hook, or as he wrote himself, Jas. Hook, of whom it is\nsaid he was the only man that the Sea-Cook feared. He lay at his ease in\na rough chariot drawn and propelled by his men, and instead of a right\nhand he had the iron hook with which ever and anon he encouraged them\nto increase their pace. As dogs this terrible man treated and addressed\nthem, and as dogs they obeyed him. In person he was cadaverous [dead\nlooking] and blackavized [dark faced], and his hair was dressed in long\ncurls, which at a little distance looked like black candles, and gave a\nsingularly threatening expression to his handsome countenance. His eyes\nwere of the blue of the forget-me-not, and of a profound melancholy,\nsave when he was plunging his hook into you, at which time two red spots\nappeared in them and lit them up horribly. In manner, something of the\ngrand seigneur still clung to him, so that he even ripped you up with\nan air, and I have been told that he was a RACONTEUR [storyteller] of\nrepute. He was never more sinister than when he was most polite,\nwhich is probably the truest test of breeding; and the elegance of his\ndiction, even when he was swearing, no less than the distinction of his\ndemeanour, showed him one of a different cast from his crew. A man of\nindomitable courage, it was said that the only thing he shied at was\nthe sight of his own blood, which was thick and of an unusual colour.\nIn dress he somewhat aped the attire associated with the name of Charles\nII, having heard it said in some earlier period of his career that he\nbore a strange resemblance to the ill-fated Stuarts; and in his mouth\nhe had a holder of his own contrivance which enabled him to smoke two\ncigars at once. But undoubtedly the grimmest part of him was his iron\nclaw.\n\nLet us now kill a pirate, to show Hook's method. Skylights will do. As\nthey pass, Skylights lurches clumsily against him, ruffling his lace\ncollar; the hook shoots forth, there is a tearing sound and one screech,\nthen the body is kicked aside, and the pirates pass on. He has not even\ntaken the cigars from his mouth.\n\nSuch is the terrible man against whom Peter Pan is pitted. Which will\nwin?\n\nOn the trail of the pirates, stealing noiselessly down the war-path,\nwhich is not visible to inexperienced eyes, come the redskins, every one\nof them with his eyes peeled. They carry tomahawks and knives, and their\nnaked bodies gleam with paint and oil. Strung around them are scalps, of\nboys as well as of pirates, for these are the Piccaninny tribe, and not\nto be confused with the softer-hearted Delawares or the Hurons. In\nthe van, on all fours, is Great Big Little Panther, a brave of so many\nscalps that in his present position they somewhat impede his progress.\nBringing up the rear, the place of greatest danger, comes Tiger Lily,\nproudly erect, a princess in her own right. She is the most beautiful\nof dusky Dianas [Diana = goddess of the woods] and the belle of the\nPiccaninnies, coquettish [flirting], cold and amorous [loving] by turns;\nthere is not a brave who would not have the wayward thing to wife, but\nshe staves off the altar with a hatchet. Observe how they pass over\nfallen twigs without making the slightest noise. The only sound to be\nheard is their somewhat heavy breathing. The fact is that they are all a\nlittle fat just now after the heavy gorging, but in time they will work\nthis off. For the moment, however, it constitutes their chief danger.\n\nThe redskins disappear as they have come like shadows, and soon their\nplace is taken by the beasts, a great and motley procession: lions,\ntigers, bears, and the innumerable smaller savage things that flee\nfrom them, for every kind of beast, and, more particularly, all the\nman-eaters, live cheek by jowl on the favoured island. Their tongues are\nhanging out, they are hungry to-night.\n\nWhen they have passed, comes the last figure of all, a gigantic\ncrocodile. We shall see for whom she is looking presently.\n\nThe crocodile passes, but soon the boys appear again, for the procession\nmust continue indefinitely until one of the parties stops or changes its\npace. Then quickly they will be on top of each other.\n\nAll are keeping a sharp look-out in front, but none suspects that the\ndanger may be creeping up from behind. This shows how real the island\nwas.\n\nThe first to fall out of the moving circle was the boys. They flung\nthemselves down on the sward [turf], close to their underground home.\n\n\"I do wish Peter would come back,\" every one of them said nervously,\nthough in height and still more in breadth they were all larger than\ntheir captain.\n\n\"I am the only one who is not afraid of the pirates,\" Slightly said, in\nthe tone that prevented his being a general favourite; but perhaps some\ndistant sound disturbed him, for he added hastily, \"but I wish he\nwould come back, and tell us whether he has heard anything more about\nCinderella.\"\n\nThey talked of Cinderella, and Tootles was confident that his mother\nmust have been very like her.\n\nIt was only in Peter's absence that they could speak of mothers, the\nsubject being forbidden by him as silly.\n\n\"All I remember about my mother,\" Nibs told them, \"is that she often\nsaid to my father, 'Oh, how I wish I had a cheque-book of my own!' I\ndon't know what a cheque-book is, but I should just love to give my\nmother one.\"\n\nWhile they talked they heard a distant sound. You or I, not being wild\nthings of the woods, would have heard nothing, but they heard it, and it\nwas the grim song:\n\n     \"Yo ho, yo ho, the pirate life,\n     The flag o' skull and bones,\n     A merry hour, a hempen rope,\n     And hey for Davy Jones.\"\n\nAt once the lost boys--but where are they? They are no longer there.\nRabbits could not have disappeared more quickly.\n\nI will tell you where they are. With the exception of Nibs, who has\ndarted away to reconnoitre [look around], they are already in their home\nunder the ground, a very delightful residence of which we shall see\na good deal presently. But how have they reached it? for there is no\nentrance to be seen, not so much as a large stone, which if rolled away,\nwould disclose the mouth of a cave. Look closely, however, and you may\nnote that there are here seven large trees, each with a hole in its\nhollow trunk as large as a boy. These are the seven entrances to the\nhome under the ground, for which Hook has been searching in vain these\nmany moons. Will he find it tonight?\n\nAs the pirates advanced, the quick eye of Starkey sighted Nibs\ndisappearing through the wood, and at once his pistol flashed out. But\nan iron claw gripped his shoulder.\n\n\"Captain, let go!\" he cried, writhing.\n\nNow for the first time we hear the voice of Hook. It was a black voice.\n\"Put back that pistol first,\" it said threateningly.\n\n\"It was one of those boys you hate. I could have shot him dead.\"\n\n\"Ay, and the sound would have brought Tiger Lily's redskins upon us. Do\nyou want to lose your scalp?\"\n\n\"Shall I after him, Captain,\" asked pathetic Smee, \"and tickle him\nwith Johnny Corkscrew?\" Smee had pleasant names for everything, and his\ncutlass was Johnny Corkscrew, because he wiggled it in the wound. One\ncould mention many lovable traits in Smee. For instance, after killing,\nit was his spectacles he wiped instead of his weapon.\n\n\"Johnny's a silent fellow,\" he reminded Hook.\n\n\"Not now, Smee,\" Hook said darkly. \"He is only one, and I want to\nmischief all the seven. Scatter and look for them.\"\n\nThe pirates disappeared among the trees, and in a moment their Captain\nand Smee were alone. Hook heaved a heavy sigh, and I know not why it\nwas, perhaps it was because of the soft beauty of the evening, but there\ncame over him a desire to confide to his faithful bo'sun the story of\nhis life. He spoke long and earnestly, but what it was all about Smee,\nwho was rather stupid, did not know in the least.\n\nAnon [later] he caught the word Peter.\n\n\"Most of all,\" Hook was saying passionately, \"I want their captain,\nPeter Pan. 'Twas he cut off my arm.\" He brandished the hook\nthreateningly. \"I've waited long to shake his hand with this. Oh, I'll\ntear him!\"\n\n\"And yet,\" said Smee, \"I have often heard you say that hook was worth a\nscore of hands, for combing the hair and other homely uses.\"\n\n\"Ay,\" the captain answered, \"if I was a mother I would pray to have my\nchildren born with this instead of that,\" and he cast a look of pride\nupon his iron hand and one of scorn upon the other. Then again he\nfrowned.\n\n\"Peter flung my arm,\" he said, wincing, \"to a crocodile that happened to\nbe passing by.\"\n\n\"I have often,\" said Smee, \"noticed your strange dread of crocodiles.\"\n\n\"Not of crocodiles,\" Hook corrected him, \"but of that one crocodile.\" He\nlowered his voice. \"It liked my arm so much, Smee, that it has followed\nme ever since, from sea to sea and from land to land, licking its lips\nfor the rest of me.\"\n\n\"In a way,\" said Smee, \"it's sort of a compliment.\"\n\n\"I want no such compliments,\" Hook barked petulantly. \"I want Peter Pan,\nwho first gave the brute its taste for me.\"\n\nHe sat down on a large mushroom, and now there was a quiver in his\nvoice. \"Smee,\" he said huskily, \"that crocodile would have had me before\nthis, but by a lucky chance it swallowed a clock which goes tick tick\ninside it, and so before it can reach me I hear the tick and bolt.\" He\nlaughed, but in a hollow way.\n\n\"Some day,\" said Smee, \"the clock will run down, and then he'll get\nyou.\"\n\nHook wetted his dry lips. \"Ay,\" he said, \"that's the fear that haunts\nme.\"\n\nSince sitting down he had felt curiously warm. \"Smee,\" he said, \"this\nseat is hot.\" He jumped up. \"Odds bobs, hammer and tongs I'm burning.\"\n\nThey examined the mushroom, which was of a size and solidity unknown\non the mainland; they tried to pull it up, and it came away at once in\ntheir hands, for it had no root. Stranger still, smoke began at once\nto ascend. The pirates looked at each other. \"A chimney!\" they both\nexclaimed.\n\nThey had indeed discovered the chimney of the home under the ground. It\nwas the custom of the boys to stop it with a mushroom when enemies were\nin the neighbourhood.\n\nNot only smoke came out of it. There came also children's voices, for\nso safe did the boys feel in their hiding-place that they were gaily\nchattering. The pirates listened grimly, and then replaced the mushroom.\nThey looked around them and noted the holes in the seven trees.\n\n\"Did you hear them say Peter Pan's from home?\" Smee whispered, fidgeting\nwith Johnny Corkscrew.\n\nHook nodded. He stood for a long time lost in thought, and at last a\ncurdling smile lit up his swarthy face. Smee had been waiting for it.\n\"Unrip your plan, captain,\" he cried eagerly.\n\n\"To return to the ship,\" Hook replied slowly through his teeth, \"and\ncook a large rich cake of a jolly thickness with green sugar on it.\nThere can be but one room below, for there is but one chimney. The silly\nmoles had not the sense to see that they did not need a door apiece.\nThat shows they have no mother. We will leave the cake on the shore\nof the Mermaids' Lagoon. These boys are always swimming about there,\nplaying with the mermaids. They will find the cake and they will gobble\nit up, because, having no mother, they don't know how dangerous 'tis to\neat rich damp cake.\" He burst into laughter, not hollow laughter now,\nbut honest laughter. \"Aha, they will die.\"\n\nSmee had listened with growing admiration.\n\n\"It's the wickedest, prettiest policy ever I heard of!\" he cried, and in\ntheir exultation they danced and sang:\n\n     \"Avast, belay, when I appear,\n     By fear they're overtook;\n     Nought's left upon your bones when you\n     Have shaken claws with Hook.\"\n\nThey began the verse, but they never finished it, for another sound\nbroke in and stilled them. There was at first such a tiny sound that a\nleaf might have fallen on it and smothered it, but as it came nearer it\nwas more distinct.\n\nTick tick tick tick!\n\nHook stood shuddering, one foot in the air.\n\n\"The crocodile!\" he gasped, and bounded away, followed by his bo'sun.\n\nIt was indeed the crocodile. It had passed the redskins, who were now on\nthe trail of the other pirates. It oozed on after Hook.\n\nOnce more the boys emerged into the open; but the dangers of the night\nwere not yet over, for presently Nibs rushed breathless into their\nmidst, pursued by a pack of wolves. The tongues of the pursuers were\nhanging out; the baying of them was horrible.\n\n\"Save me, save me!\" cried Nibs, falling on the ground.\n\n\"But what can we do, what can we do?\"\n\nIt was a high compliment to Peter that at that dire moment their\nthoughts turned to him.\n\n\"What would Peter do?\" they cried simultaneously.\n\nAlmost in the same breath they cried, \"Peter would look at them through\nhis legs.\"\n\nAnd then, \"Let us do what Peter would do.\"\n\nIt is quite the most successful way of defying wolves, and as one boy\nthey bent and looked through their legs. The next moment is the long\none, but victory came quickly, for as the boys advanced upon them in the\nterrible attitude, the wolves dropped their tails and fled.\n\nNow Nibs rose from the ground, and the others thought that his staring\neyes still saw the wolves. But it was not wolves he saw.\n\n\"I have seen a wonderfuller thing,\" he cried, as they gathered round him\neagerly. \"A great white bird. It is flying this way.\"\n\n\"What kind of a bird, do you think?\"\n\n\"I don't know,\" Nibs said, awestruck, \"but it looks so weary, and as it\nflies it moans, 'Poor Wendy.'\"\n\n\"Poor Wendy?\"\n\n\"I remember,\" said Slightly instantly, \"there are birds called Wendies.\"\n\n\"See, it comes!\" cried Curly, pointing to Wendy in the heavens.\n\nWendy was now almost overhead, and they could hear her plaintive cry.\nBut more distinct came the shrill voice of Tinker Bell. The jealous\nfairy had now cast off all disguise of friendship, and was darting\nat her victim from every direction, pinching savagely each time she\ntouched.\n\n\"Hullo, Tink,\" cried the wondering boys.\n\nTink's reply rang out: \"Peter wants you to shoot the Wendy.\"\n\nIt was not in their nature to question when Peter ordered. \"Let us do\nwhat Peter wishes!\" cried the simple boys. \"Quick, bows and arrows!\"\n\nAll but Tootles popped down their trees. He had a bow and arrow with\nhim, and Tink noted it, and rubbed her little hands.\n\n\"Quick, Tootles, quick,\" she screamed. \"Peter will be so pleased.\"\n\nTootles excitedly fitted the arrow to his bow. \"Out of the way, Tink,\"\nhe shouted, and then he fired, and Wendy fluttered to the ground with an\narrow in her breast.\n\n\n\n\nChapter 6 THE LITTLE HOUSE\n\nFoolish Tootles was standing like a conqueror over Wendy's body when the\nother boys sprang, armed, from their trees.\n\n\"You are too late,\" he cried proudly, \"I have shot the Wendy. Peter will\nbe so pleased with me.\"\n\nOverhead Tinker Bell shouted \"Silly ass!\" and darted into hiding. The\nothers did not hear her. They had crowded round Wendy, and as they\nlooked a terrible silence fell upon the wood. If Wendy's heart had been\nbeating they would all have heard it.\n\nSlightly was the first to speak. \"This is no bird,\" he said in a scared\nvoice. \"I think this must be a lady.\"\n\n\"A lady?\" said Tootles, and fell a-trembling.\n\n\"And we have killed her,\" Nibs said hoarsely.\n\nThey all whipped off their caps.\n\n\"Now I see,\" Curly said: \"Peter was bringing her to us.\" He threw\nhimself sorrowfully on the ground.\n\n\"A lady to take care of us at last,\" said one of the twins, \"and you\nhave killed her!\"\n\nThey were sorry for him, but sorrier for themselves, and when he took a\nstep nearer them they turned from him.\n\nTootles' face was very white, but there was a dignity about him now that\nhad never been there before.\n\n\"I did it,\" he said, reflecting. \"When ladies used to come to me in\ndreams, I said, 'Pretty mother, pretty mother.' But when at last she\nreally came, I shot her.\"\n\nHe moved slowly away.\n\n\"Don't go,\" they called in pity.\n\n\"I must,\" he answered, shaking; \"I am so afraid of Peter.\"\n\nIt was at this tragic moment that they heard a sound which made the\nheart of every one of them rise to his mouth. They heard Peter crow.\n\n\"Peter!\" they cried, for it was always thus that he signalled his\nreturn.\n\n\"Hide her,\" they whispered, and gathered hastily around Wendy. But\nTootles stood aloof.\n\nAgain came that ringing crow, and Peter dropped in front of them.\n\"Greetings, boys,\" he cried, and mechanically they saluted, and then\nagain was silence.\n\nHe frowned.\n\n\"I am back,\" he said hotly, \"why do you not cheer?\"\n\nThey opened their mouths, but the cheers would not come. He overlooked\nit in his haste to tell the glorious tidings.\n\n\"Great news, boys,\" he cried, \"I have brought at last a mother for you\nall.\"\n\nStill no sound, except a little thud from Tootles as he dropped on his\nknees.\n\n\"Have you not seen her?\" asked Peter, becoming troubled. \"She flew this\nway.\"\n\n\"Ah me!\" one voice said, and another said, \"Oh, mournful day.\"\n\nTootles rose. \"Peter,\" he said quietly, \"I will show her to you,\" and\nwhen the others would still have hidden her he said, \"Back, twins, let\nPeter see.\"\n\nSo they all stood back, and let him see, and after he had looked for a\nlittle time he did not know what to do next.\n\n\"She is dead,\" he said uncomfortably. \"Perhaps she is frightened at\nbeing dead.\"\n\nHe thought of hopping off in a comic sort of way till he was out of\nsight of her, and then never going near the spot any more. They would\nall have been glad to follow if he had done this.\n\nBut there was the arrow. He took it from her heart and faced his band.\n\n\"Whose arrow?\" he demanded sternly.\n\n\"Mine, Peter,\" said Tootles on his knees.\n\n\"Oh, dastard hand,\" Peter said, and he raised the arrow to use it as a\ndagger.\n\nTootles did not flinch. He bared his breast. \"Strike, Peter,\" he said\nfirmly, \"strike true.\"\n\nTwice did Peter raise the arrow, and twice did his hand fall. \"I cannot\nstrike,\" he said with awe, \"there is something stays my hand.\"\n\nAll looked at him in wonder, save Nibs, who fortunately looked at Wendy.\n\n\"It is she,\" he cried, \"the Wendy lady, see, her arm!\"\n\nWonderful to relate [tell], Wendy had raised her arm. Nibs bent over\nher and listened reverently. \"I think she said, 'Poor Tootles,'\" he\nwhispered.\n\n\"She lives,\" Peter said briefly.\n\nSlightly cried instantly, \"The Wendy lady lives.\"\n\nThen Peter knelt beside her and found his button. You remember she had\nput it on a chain that she wore round her neck.\n\n\"See,\" he said, \"the arrow struck against this. It is the kiss I gave\nher. It has saved her life.\"\n\n\"I remember kisses,\" Slightly interposed quickly, \"let me see it. Ay,\nthat's a kiss.\"\n\nPeter did not hear him. He was begging Wendy to get better quickly, so\nthat he could show her the mermaids. Of course she could not answer yet,\nbeing still in a frightful faint; but from overhead came a wailing note.\n\n\"Listen to Tink,\" said Curly, \"she is crying because the Wendy lives.\"\n\nThen they had to tell Peter of Tink's crime, and almost never had they\nseen him look so stern.\n\n\"Listen, Tinker Bell,\" he cried, \"I am your friend no more. Begone from\nme for ever.\"\n\nShe flew on to his shoulder and pleaded, but he brushed her off. Not\nuntil Wendy again raised her arm did he relent sufficiently to say,\n\"Well, not for ever, but for a whole week.\"\n\nDo you think Tinker Bell was grateful to Wendy for raising her arm? Oh\ndear no, never wanted to pinch her so much. Fairies indeed are strange,\nand Peter, who understood them best, often cuffed [slapped] them.\n\nBut what to do with Wendy in her present delicate state of health?\n\n\"Let us carry her down into the house,\" Curly suggested.\n\n\"Ay,\" said Slightly, \"that is what one does with ladies.\"\n\n\"No, no,\" Peter said, \"you must not touch her. It would not be\nsufficiently respectful.\"\n\n\"That,\" said Slightly, \"is what I was thinking.\"\n\n\"But if she lies there,\" Tootles said, \"she will die.\"\n\n\"Ay, she will die,\" Slightly admitted, \"but there is no way out.\"\n\n\"Yes, there is,\" cried Peter. \"Let us build a little house round her.\"\n\nThey were all delighted. \"Quick,\" he ordered them, \"bring me each of you\nthe best of what we have. Gut our house. Be sharp.\"\n\nIn a moment they were as busy as tailors the night before a wedding.\nThey skurried this way and that, down for bedding, up for firewood, and\nwhile they were at it, who should appear but John and Michael. As they\ndragged along the ground they fell asleep standing, stopped, woke up,\nmoved another step and slept again.\n\n\"John, John,\" Michael would cry, \"wake up! Where is Nana, John, and\nmother?\"\n\nAnd then John would rub his eyes and mutter, \"It is true, we did fly.\"\n\nYou may be sure they were very relieved to find Peter.\n\n\"Hullo, Peter,\" they said.\n\n\"Hullo,\" replied Peter amicably, though he had quite forgotten them.\nHe was very busy at the moment measuring Wendy with his feet to see\nhow large a house she would need. Of course he meant to leave room for\nchairs and a table. John and Michael watched him.\n\n\"Is Wendy asleep?\" they asked.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"John,\" Michael proposed, \"let us wake her and get her to make supper\nfor us,\" but as he said it some of the other boys rushed on carrying\nbranches for the building of the house. \"Look at them!\" he cried.\n\n\"Curly,\" said Peter in his most captainy voice, \"see that these boys\nhelp in the building of the house.\"\n\n\"Ay, ay, sir.\"\n\n\"Build a house?\" exclaimed John.\n\n\"For the Wendy,\" said Curly.\n\n\"For Wendy?\" John said, aghast. \"Why, she is only a girl!\"\n\n\"That,\" explained Curly, \"is why we are her servants.\"\n\n\"You? Wendy's servants!\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Peter, \"and you also. Away with them.\"\n\nThe astounded brothers were dragged away to hack and hew and carry.\n\"Chairs and a fender [fireplace] first,\" Peter ordered. \"Then we shall\nbuild a house round them.\"\n\n\"Ay,\" said Slightly, \"that is how a house is built; it all comes back to\nme.\"\n\nPeter thought of everything. \"Slightly,\" he cried, \"fetch a doctor.\"\n\n\"Ay, ay,\" said Slightly at once, and disappeared, scratching his head.\nBut he knew Peter must be obeyed, and he returned in a moment, wearing\nJohn's hat and looking solemn.\n\n\"Please, sir,\" said Peter, going to him, \"are you a doctor?\"\n\nThe difference between him and the other boys at such a time was that\nthey knew it was make-believe, while to him make-believe and true were\nexactly the same thing. This sometimes troubled them, as when they had\nto make-believe that they had had their dinners.\n\nIf they broke down in their make-believe he rapped them on the knuckles.\n\n\"Yes, my little man,\" Slightly anxiously replied, who had chapped\nknuckles.\n\n\"Please, sir,\" Peter explained, \"a lady lies very ill.\"\n\nShe was lying at their feet, but Slightly had the sense not to see her.\n\n\"Tut, tut, tut,\" he said, \"where does she lie?\"\n\n\"In yonder glade.\"\n\n\"I will put a glass thing in her mouth,\" said Slightly, and he\nmade-believe to do it, while Peter waited. It was an anxious moment when\nthe glass thing was withdrawn.\n\n\"How is she?\" inquired Peter.\n\n\"Tut, tut, tut,\" said Slightly, \"this has cured her.\"\n\n\"I am glad!\" Peter cried.\n\n\"I will call again in the evening,\" Slightly said; \"give her beef tea\nout of a cup with a spout to it;\" but after he had returned the hat\nto John he blew big breaths, which was his habit on escaping from a\ndifficulty.\n\nIn the meantime the wood had been alive with the sound of axes; almost\neverything needed for a cosy dwelling already lay at Wendy's feet.\n\n\"If only we knew,\" said one, \"the kind of house she likes best.\"\n\n\"Peter,\" shouted another, \"she is moving in her sleep.\"\n\n\"Her mouth opens,\" cried a third, looking respectfully into it. \"Oh,\nlovely!\"\n\n\"Perhaps she is going to sing in her sleep,\" said Peter. \"Wendy, sing\nthe kind of house you would like to have.\"\n\nImmediately, without opening her eyes, Wendy began to sing:\n\n     \"I wish I had a pretty house,\n     The littlest ever seen,\n     With funny little red walls\n     And roof of mossy green.\"\n\nThey gurgled with joy at this, for by the greatest good luck the\nbranches they had brought were sticky with red sap, and all the ground\nwas carpeted with moss. As they rattled up the little house they broke\ninto song themselves:\n\n     \"We've built the little walls and roof\n     And made a lovely door,\n     So tell us, mother Wendy,\n     What are you wanting more?\"\n\nTo this she answered greedily:\n\n     \"Oh, really next I think I'll have\n     Gay windows all about,\n     With roses peeping in, you know,\n     And babies peeping out.\"\n\nWith a blow of their fists they made windows, and large yellow leaves\nwere the blinds. But roses--?\n\n\"Roses,\" cried Peter sternly.\n\nQuickly they made-believe to grow the loveliest roses up the walls.\n\nBabies?\n\nTo prevent Peter ordering babies they hurried into song again:\n\n     \"We've made the roses peeping out,\n     The babes are at the door,\n     We cannot make ourselves, you know,\n     'cos we've been made before.\"\n\nPeter, seeing this to be a good idea, at once pretended that it was his\nown. The house was quite beautiful, and no doubt Wendy was very cosy\nwithin, though, of course, they could no longer see her. Peter strode\nup and down, ordering finishing touches. Nothing escaped his eagle eyes.\nJust when it seemed absolutely finished:\n\n\"There's no knocker on the door,\" he said.\n\nThey were very ashamed, but Tootles gave the sole of his shoe, and it\nmade an excellent knocker.\n\nAbsolutely finished now, they thought.\n\nNot of bit of it. \"There's no chimney,\" Peter said; \"we must have a\nchimney.\"\n\n\"It certainly does need a chimney,\" said John importantly. This gave\nPeter an idea. He snatched the hat off John's head, knocked out the\nbottom [top], and put the hat on the roof. The little house was so\npleased to have such a capital chimney that, as if to say thank you,\nsmoke immediately began to come out of the hat.\n\nNow really and truly it was finished. Nothing remained to do but to\nknock.\n\n\"All look your best,\" Peter warned them; \"first impressions are awfully\nimportant.\"\n\nHe was glad no one asked him what first impressions are; they were all\ntoo busy looking their best.\n\nHe knocked politely, and now the wood was as still as the children, not\na sound to be heard except from Tinker Bell, who was watching from a\nbranch and openly sneering.\n\nWhat the boys were wondering was, would any one answer the knock? If a\nlady, what would she be like?\n\nThe door opened and a lady came out. It was Wendy. They all whipped off\ntheir hats.\n\nShe looked properly surprised, and this was just how they had hoped she\nwould look.\n\n\"Where am I?\" she said.\n\nOf course Slightly was the first to get his word in. \"Wendy lady,\" he\nsaid rapidly, \"for you we built this house.\"\n\n\"Oh, say you're pleased,\" cried Nibs.\n\n\"Lovely, darling house,\" Wendy said, and they were the very words they\nhad hoped she would say.\n\n\"And we are your children,\" cried the twins.\n\nThen all went on their knees, and holding out their arms cried, \"O Wendy\nlady, be our mother.\"\n\n\"Ought I?\" Wendy said, all shining. \"Of course it's frightfully\nfascinating, but you see I am only a little girl. I have no real\nexperience.\"\n\n\"That doesn't matter,\" said Peter, as if he were the only person present\nwho knew all about it, though he was really the one who knew least.\n\"What we need is just a nice motherly person.\"\n\n\"Oh dear!\" Wendy said, \"you see, I feel that is exactly what I am.\"\n\n\"It is, it is,\" they all cried; \"we saw it at once.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" she said, \"I will do my best. Come inside at once, you\nnaughty children; I am sure your feet are damp. And before I put you to\nbed I have just time to finish the story of Cinderella.\"\n\nIn they went; I don't know how there was room for them, but you can\nsqueeze very tight in the Neverland. And that was the first of the many\njoyous evenings they had with Wendy. By and by she tucked them up in the\ngreat bed in the home under the trees, but she herself slept that night\nin the little house, and Peter kept watch outside with drawn sword, for\nthe pirates could be heard carousing far away and the wolves were on the\nprowl. The little house looked so cosy and safe in the darkness, with\na bright light showing through its blinds, and the chimney smoking\nbeautifully, and Peter standing on guard. After a time he fell asleep,\nand some unsteady fairies had to climb over him on their way home from\nan orgy. Any of the other boys obstructing the fairy path at night they\nwould have mischiefed, but they just tweaked Peter's nose and passed on.\n\n\n\n\nChapter 7 THE HOME UNDER THE GROUND\n\nOne of the first things Peter did next day was to measure Wendy and John\nand Michael for hollow trees. Hook, you remember, had sneered at the\nboys for thinking they needed a tree apiece, but this was ignorance, for\nunless your tree fitted you it was difficult to go up and down, and no\ntwo of the boys were quite the same size. Once you fitted, you drew in\n[let out] your breath at the top, and down you went at exactly the\nright speed, while to ascend you drew in and let out alternately, and so\nwriggled up. Of course, when you have mastered the action you are able\nto do these things without thinking of them, and nothing can be more\ngraceful.\n\nBut you simply must fit, and Peter measures you for your tree as\ncarefully as for a suit of clothes: the only difference being that the\nclothes are made to fit you, while you have to be made to fit the tree.\nUsually it is done quite easily, as by your wearing too many garments\nor too few, but if you are bumpy in awkward places or the only available\ntree is an odd shape, Peter does some things to you, and after that you\nfit. Once you fit, great care must be taken to go on fitting, and this,\nas Wendy was to discover to her delight, keeps a whole family in perfect\ncondition.\n\nWendy and Michael fitted their trees at the first try, but John had to\nbe altered a little.\n\nAfter a few days' practice they could go up and down as gaily as buckets\nin a well. And how ardently they grew to love their home under the\nground; especially Wendy. It consisted of one large room, as all houses\nshould do, with a floor in which you could dig [for worms] if you wanted\nto go fishing, and in this floor grew stout mushrooms of a charming\ncolour, which were used as stools. A Never tree tried hard to grow in\nthe centre of the room, but every morning they sawed the trunk through,\nlevel with the floor. By tea-time it was always about two feet high, and\nthen they put a door on top of it, the whole thus becoming a table;\nas soon as they cleared away, they sawed off the trunk again, and thus\nthere was more room to play. There was an enormous fireplace which was\nin almost any part of the room where you cared to light it, and across\nthis Wendy stretched strings, made of fibre, from which she suspended\nher washing. The bed was tilted against the wall by day, and let down at\n6:30, when it filled nearly half the room; and all the boys slept in it,\nexcept Michael, lying like sardines in a tin. There was a strict rule\nagainst turning round until one gave the signal, when all turned at\nonce. Michael should have used it also, but Wendy would have [desired]\na baby, and he was the littlest, and you know what women are, and the\nshort and long of it is that he was hung up in a basket.\n\nIt was rough and simple, and not unlike what baby bears would have made\nof an underground house in the same circumstances. But there was one\nrecess in the wall, no larger than a bird-cage, which was the private\napartment of Tinker Bell. It could be shut off from the rest of\nthe house by a tiny curtain, which Tink, who was most fastidious\n[particular], always kept drawn when dressing or undressing. No woman,\nhowever large, could have had a more exquisite boudoir [dressing room]\nand bed-chamber combined. The couch, as she always called it, was\na genuine Queen Mab, with club legs; and she varied the bedspreads\naccording to what fruit-blossom was in season. Her mirror was a\nPuss-in-Boots, of which there are now only three, unchipped, known to\nfairy dealers; the washstand was Pie-crust and reversible, the chest\nof drawers an authentic Charming the Sixth, and the carpet and rugs the\nbest (the early) period of Margery and Robin. There was a chandelier\nfrom Tiddlywinks for the look of the thing, but of course she lit the\nresidence herself. Tink was very contemptuous of the rest of the house,\nas indeed was perhaps inevitable, and her chamber, though beautiful,\nlooked rather conceited, having the appearance of a nose permanently\nturned up.\n\nI suppose it was all especially entrancing to Wendy, because those\nrampagious boys of hers gave her so much to do. Really there were whole\nweeks when, except perhaps with a stocking in the evening, she was never\nabove ground. The cooking, I can tell you, kept her nose to the pot, and\neven if there was nothing in it, even if there was no pot, she had to\nkeep watching that it came aboil just the same. You never exactly\nknew whether there would be a real meal or just a make-believe, it all\ndepended upon Peter's whim: he could eat, really eat, if it was part of\na game, but he could not stodge [cram down the food] just to feel\nstodgy [stuffed with food], which is what most children like better than\nanything else; the next best thing being to talk about it. Make-believe\nwas so real to him that during a meal of it you could see him getting\nrounder. Of course it was trying, but you simply had to follow his lead,\nand if you could prove to him that you were getting loose for your tree\nhe let you stodge.\n\nWendy's favourite time for sewing and darning was after they had all\ngone to bed. Then, as she expressed it, she had a breathing time for\nherself; and she occupied it in making new things for them, and putting\ndouble pieces on the knees, for they were all most frightfully hard on\ntheir knees.\n\nWhen she sat down to a basketful of their stockings, every heel with a\nhole in it, she would fling up her arms and exclaim, \"Oh dear, I am sure\nI sometimes think spinsters are to be envied!\"\n\nHer face beamed when she exclaimed this.\n\nYou remember about her pet wolf. Well, it very soon discovered that she\nhad come to the island and it found her out, and they just ran into each\nother's arms. After that it followed her about everywhere.\n\nAs time wore on did she think much about the beloved parents she had\nleft behind her? This is a difficult question, because it is quite\nimpossible to say how time does wear on in the Neverland, where it is\ncalculated by moons and suns, and there are ever so many more of them\nthan on the mainland. But I am afraid that Wendy did not really worry\nabout her father and mother; she was absolutely confident that they\nwould always keep the window open for her to fly back by, and this gave\nher complete ease of mind. What did disturb her at times was that John\nremembered his parents vaguely only, as people he had once known, while\nMichael was quite willing to believe that she was really his mother.\nThese things scared her a little, and nobly anxious to do her duty, she\ntried to fix the old life in their minds by setting them examination\npapers on it, as like as possible to the ones she used to do at school.\nThe other boys thought this awfully interesting, and insisted on\njoining, and they made slates for themselves, and sat round the table,\nwriting and thinking hard about the questions she had written on another\nslate and passed round. They were the most ordinary questions--\"What\nwas the colour of Mother's eyes? Which was taller, Father or Mother? Was\nMother blonde or brunette? Answer all three questions if possible.\"\n\"(A) Write an essay of not less than 40 words on How I spent my last\nHolidays, or The Characters of Father and Mother compared. Only one of\nthese to be attempted.\" Or \"(1) Describe Mother's laugh; (2) Describe\nFather's laugh; (3) Describe Mother's Party Dress; (4) Describe the\nKennel and its Inmate.\"\n\nThey were just everyday questions like these, and when you could not\nanswer them you were told to make a cross; and it was really dreadful\nwhat a number of crosses even John made. Of course the only boy who\nreplied to every question was Slightly, and no one could have been more\nhopeful of coming out first, but his answers were perfectly ridiculous,\nand he really came out last: a melancholy thing.\n\nPeter did not compete. For one thing he despised all mothers except\nWendy, and for another he was the only boy on the island who could\nneither write nor spell; not the smallest word. He was above all that\nsort of thing.\n\nBy the way, the questions were all written in the past tense. What\nwas the colour of Mother's eyes, and so on. Wendy, you see, had been\nforgetting, too.\n\nAdventures, of course, as we shall see, were of daily occurrence; but\nabout this time Peter invented, with Wendy's help, a new game that\nfascinated him enormously, until he suddenly had no more interest in it,\nwhich, as you have been told, was what always happened with his games.\nIt consisted in pretending not to have adventures, in doing the sort of\nthing John and Michael had been doing all their lives, sitting on stools\nflinging balls in the air, pushing each other, going out for walks and\ncoming back without having killed so much as a grizzly. To see Peter\ndoing nothing on a stool was a great sight; he could not help looking\nsolemn at such times, to sit still seemed to him such a comic thing to\ndo. He boasted that he had gone walking for the good of his health. For\nseveral suns these were the most novel of all adventures to him; and\nJohn and Michael had to pretend to be delighted also; otherwise he would\nhave treated them severely.\n\nHe often went out alone, and when he came back you were never absolutely\ncertain whether he had had an adventure or not. He might have forgotten\nit so completely that he said nothing about it; and then when you went\nout you found the body; and, on the other hand, he might say a great\ndeal about it, and yet you could not find the body. Sometimes he came\nhome with his head bandaged, and then Wendy cooed over him and bathed\nit in lukewarm water, while he told a dazzling tale. But she was never\nquite sure, you know. There were, however, many adventures which she\nknew to be true because she was in them herself, and there were still\nmore that were at least partly true, for the other boys were in them and\nsaid they were wholly true. To describe them all would require a book as\nlarge as an English-Latin, Latin-English Dictionary, and the most we can\ndo is to give one as a specimen of an average hour on the island. The\ndifficulty is which one to choose. Should we take the brush with the\nredskins at Slightly Gulch? It was a sanguinary affair, and\nespecially interesting as showing one of Peter's peculiarities, which\nwas that in the middle of a fight he would suddenly change sides. At the\nGulch, when victory was still in the balance, sometimes leaning this way\nand sometimes that, he called out, \"I'm redskin to-day; what are you,\nTootles?\" And Tootles answered, \"Redskin; what are you, Nibs?\" and\nNibs said, \"Redskin; what are you Twin?\" and so on; and they were all\nredskins; and of course this would have ended the fight had not the real\nredskins fascinated by Peter's methods, agreed to be lost boys for that\nonce, and so at it they all went again, more fiercely than ever.\n\nThe extraordinary upshot of this adventure was--but we have not decided\nyet that this is the adventure we are to narrate. Perhaps a better one\nwould be the night attack by the redskins on the house under the ground,\nwhen several of them stuck in the hollow trees and had to be pulled out\nlike corks. Or we might tell how Peter saved Tiger Lily's life in the\nMermaids' Lagoon, and so made her his ally.\n\nOr we could tell of that cake the pirates cooked so that the boys might\neat it and perish; and how they placed it in one cunning spot after\nanother; but always Wendy snatched it from the hands of her children, so\nthat in time it lost its succulence, and became as hard as a stone, and\nwas used as a missile, and Hook fell over it in the dark.\n\nOr suppose we tell of the birds that were Peter's friends, particularly\nof the Never bird that built in a tree overhanging the lagoon, and how\nthe nest fell into the water, and still the bird sat on her eggs, and\nPeter gave orders that she was not to be disturbed. That is a pretty\nstory, and the end shows how grateful a bird can be; but if we tell\nit we must also tell the whole adventure of the lagoon, which would\nof course be telling two adventures rather than just one. A shorter\nadventure, and quite as exciting, was Tinker Bell's attempt, with the\nhelp of some street fairies, to have the sleeping Wendy conveyed on a\ngreat floating leaf to the mainland. Fortunately the leaf gave way and\nWendy woke, thinking it was bath-time, and swam back. Or again, we might\nchoose Peter's defiance of the lions, when he drew a circle round him\non the ground with an arrow and dared them to cross it; and though he\nwaited for hours, with the other boys and Wendy looking on breathlessly\nfrom trees, not one of them dared to accept his challenge.\n\nWhich of these adventures shall we choose? The best way will be to toss\nfor it.\n\nI have tossed, and the lagoon has won. This almost makes one wish that\nthe gulch or the cake or Tink's leaf had won. Of course I could do it\nagain, and make it best out of three; however, perhaps fairest to stick\nto the lagoon.\n\n\n\n\nChapter 8 THE MERMAIDS' LAGOON\n\nIf you shut your eyes and are a lucky one, you may see at times a\nshapeless pool of lovely pale colours suspended in the darkness; then\nif you squeeze your eyes tighter, the pool begins to take shape, and the\ncolours become so vivid that with another squeeze they must go on fire.\nBut just before they go on fire you see the lagoon. This is the nearest\nyou ever get to it on the mainland, just one heavenly moment; if there\ncould be two moments you might see the surf and hear the mermaids\nsinging.\n\nThe children often spent long summer days on this lagoon, swimming or\nfloating most of the time, playing the mermaid games in the water,\nand so forth. You must not think from this that the mermaids were on\nfriendly terms with them: on the contrary, it was among Wendy's lasting\nregrets that all the time she was on the island she never had a civil\nword from one of them. When she stole softly to the edge of the lagoon\nshe might see them by the score, especially on Marooners' Rock, where\nthey loved to bask, combing out their hair in a lazy way that quite\nirritated her; or she might even swim, on tiptoe as it were, to within\na yard of them, but then they saw her and dived, probably splashing her\nwith their tails, not by accident, but intentionally.\n\nThey treated all the boys in the same way, except of course Peter, who\nchatted with them on Marooners' Rock by the hour, and sat on their tails\nwhen they got cheeky. He gave Wendy one of their combs.\n\nThe most haunting time at which to see them is at the turn of the moon,\nwhen they utter strange wailing cries; but the lagoon is dangerous for\nmortals then, and until the evening of which we have now to tell, Wendy\nhad never seen the lagoon by moonlight, less from fear, for of course\nPeter would have accompanied her, than because she had strict rules\nabout every one being in bed by seven. She was often at the lagoon,\nhowever, on sunny days after rain, when the mermaids come up in\nextraordinary numbers to play with their bubbles. The bubbles of many\ncolours made in rainbow water they treat as balls, hitting them gaily\nfrom one to another with their tails, and trying to keep them in the\nrainbow till they burst. The goals are at each end of the rainbow, and\nthe keepers only are allowed to use their hands. Sometimes a dozen of\nthese games will be going on in the lagoon at a time, and it is quite a\npretty sight.\n\nBut the moment the children tried to join in they had to play by\nthemselves, for the mermaids immediately disappeared. Nevertheless we\nhave proof that they secretly watched the interlopers, and were not\nabove taking an idea from them; for John introduced a new way of hitting\nthe bubble, with the head instead of the hand, and the mermaids adopted\nit. This is the one mark that John has left on the Neverland.\n\nIt must also have been rather pretty to see the children resting on a\nrock for half an hour after their mid-day meal. Wendy insisted on\ntheir doing this, and it had to be a real rest even though the meal was\nmake-believe. So they lay there in the sun, and their bodies glistened\nin it, while she sat beside them and looked important.\n\nIt was one such day, and they were all on Marooners' Rock. The rock was\nnot much larger than their great bed, but of course they all knew how\nnot to take up much room, and they were dozing, or at least lying with\ntheir eyes shut, and pinching occasionally when they thought Wendy was\nnot looking. She was very busy, stitching.\n\nWhile she stitched a change came to the lagoon. Little shivers ran over\nit, and the sun went away and shadows stole across the water, turning\nit cold. Wendy could no longer see to thread her needle, and when she\nlooked up, the lagoon that had always hitherto been such a laughing\nplace seemed formidable and unfriendly.\n\nIt was not, she knew, that night had come, but something as dark as\nnight had come. No, worse than that. It had not come, but it had sent\nthat shiver through the sea to say that it was coming. What was it?\n\nThere crowded upon her all the stories she had been told of Marooners'\nRock, so called because evil captains put sailors on it and leave\nthem there to drown. They drown when the tide rises, for then it is\nsubmerged.\n\nOf course she should have roused the children at once; not merely\nbecause of the unknown that was stalking toward them, but because it was\nno longer good for them to sleep on a rock grown chilly. But she was\na young mother and she did not know this; she thought you simply must\nstick to your rule about half an hour after the mid-day meal. So, though\nfear was upon her, and she longed to hear male voices, she would not\nwaken them. Even when she heard the sound of muffled oars, though her\nheart was in her mouth, she did not waken them. She stood over them to\nlet them have their sleep out. Was it not brave of Wendy?\n\nIt was well for those boys then that there was one among them who could\nsniff danger even in his sleep. Peter sprang erect, as wide awake at\nonce as a dog, and with one warning cry he roused the others.\n\nHe stood motionless, one hand to his ear.\n\n\"Pirates!\" he cried. The others came closer to him. A strange smile was\nplaying about his face, and Wendy saw it and shuddered. While that smile\nwas on his face no one dared address him; all they could do was to stand\nready to obey. The order came sharp and incisive.\n\n\"Dive!\"\n\nThere was a gleam of legs, and instantly the lagoon seemed deserted.\nMarooners' Rock stood alone in the forbidding waters as if it were\nitself marooned.\n\nThe boat drew nearer. It was the pirate dinghy, with three figures in\nher, Smee and Starkey, and the third a captive, no other than Tiger\nLily. Her hands and ankles were tied, and she knew what was to be her\nfate. She was to be left on the rock to perish, an end to one of her\nrace more terrible than death by fire or torture, for is it not written\nin the book of the tribe that there is no path through water to the\nhappy hunting-ground? Yet her face was impassive; she was the daughter\nof a chief, she must die as a chief's daughter, it is enough.\n\nThey had caught her boarding the pirate ship with a knife in her mouth.\nNo watch was kept on the ship, it being Hook's boast that the wind of\nhis name guarded the ship for a mile around. Now her fate would help to\nguard it also. One more wail would go the round in that wind by night.\n\nIn the gloom that they brought with them the two pirates did not see the\nrock till they crashed into it.\n\n\"Luff, you lubber,\" cried an Irish voice that was Smee's; \"here's the\nrock. Now, then, what we have to do is to hoist the redskin on to it and\nleave her here to drown.\"\n\nIt was the work of one brutal moment to land the beautiful girl on the\nrock; she was too proud to offer a vain resistance.\n\nQuite near the rock, but out of sight, two heads were bobbing up and\ndown, Peter's and Wendy's. Wendy was crying, for it was the first\ntragedy she had seen. Peter had seen many tragedies, but he had\nforgotten them all. He was less sorry than Wendy for Tiger Lily: it was\ntwo against one that angered him, and he meant to save her. An easy way\nwould have been to wait until the pirates had gone, but he was never one\nto choose the easy way.\n\nThere was almost nothing he could not do, and he now imitated the voice\nof Hook.\n\n\"Ahoy there, you lubbers!\" he called. It was a marvellous imitation.\n\n\"The captain!\" said the pirates, staring at each other in surprise.\n\n\"He must be swimming out to us,\" Starkey said, when they had looked for\nhim in vain.\n\n\"We are putting the redskin on the rock,\" Smee called out.\n\n\"Set her free,\" came the astonishing answer.\n\n\"Free!\"\n\n\"Yes, cut her bonds and let her go.\"\n\n\"But, captain--\"\n\n\"At once, d'ye hear,\" cried Peter, \"or I'll plunge my hook in you.\"\n\n\"This is queer!\" Smee gasped.\n\n\"Better do what the captain orders,\" said Starkey nervously.\n\n\"Ay, ay,\" Smee said, and he cut Tiger Lily's cords. At once like an eel\nshe slid between Starkey's legs into the water.\n\nOf course Wendy was very elated over Peter's cleverness; but she knew\nthat he would be elated also and very likely crow and thus betray\nhimself, so at once her hand went out to cover his mouth. But it was\nstayed even in the act, for \"Boat ahoy!\" rang over the lagoon in Hook's\nvoice, and this time it was not Peter who had spoken.\n\nPeter may have been about to crow, but his face puckered in a whistle of\nsurprise instead.\n\n\"Boat ahoy!\" again came the voice.\n\nNow Wendy understood. The real Hook was also in the water.\n\nHe was swimming to the boat, and as his men showed a light to guide him\nhe had soon reached them. In the light of the lantern Wendy saw his hook\ngrip the boat's side; she saw his evil swarthy face as he rose dripping\nfrom the water, and, quaking, she would have liked to swim away, but\nPeter would not budge. He was tingling with life and also top-heavy with\nconceit. \"Am I not a wonder, oh, I am a wonder!\" he whispered to her,\nand though she thought so also, she was really glad for the sake of his\nreputation that no one heard him except herself.\n\nHe signed to her to listen.\n\nThe two pirates were very curious to know what had brought their captain\nto them, but he sat with his head on his hook in a position of profound\nmelancholy.\n\n\"Captain, is all well?\" they asked timidly, but he answered with a\nhollow moan.\n\n\"He sighs,\" said Smee.\n\n\"He sighs again,\" said Starkey.\n\n\"And yet a third time he sighs,\" said Smee.\n\nThen at last he spoke passionately.\n\n\"The game's up,\" he cried, \"those boys have found a mother.\"\n\nAffrighted though she was, Wendy swelled with pride.\n\n\"O evil day!\" cried Starkey.\n\n\"What's a mother?\" asked the ignorant Smee.\n\nWendy was so shocked that she exclaimed. \"He doesn't know!\" and always\nafter this she felt that if you could have a pet pirate Smee would be\nher one.\n\nPeter pulled her beneath the water, for Hook had started up, crying,\n\"What was that?\"\n\n\"I heard nothing,\" said Starkey, raising the lantern over the waters,\nand as the pirates looked they saw a strange sight. It was the nest I\nhave told you of, floating on the lagoon, and the Never bird was sitting\non it.\n\n\"See,\" said Hook in answer to Smee's question, \"that is a mother. What\na lesson! The nest must have fallen into the water, but would the mother\ndesert her eggs? No.\"\n\nThere was a break in his voice, as if for a moment he recalled innocent\ndays when--but he brushed away this weakness with his hook.\n\nSmee, much impressed, gazed at the bird as the nest was borne past, but\nthe more suspicious Starkey said, \"If she is a mother, perhaps she is\nhanging about here to help Peter.\"\n\nHook winced. \"Ay,\" he said, \"that is the fear that haunts me.\"\n\nHe was roused from this dejection by Smee's eager voice.\n\n\"Captain,\" said Smee, \"could we not kidnap these boys' mother and make\nher our mother?\"\n\n\"It is a princely scheme,\" cried Hook, and at once it took practical\nshape in his great brain. \"We will seize the children and carry them to\nthe boat: the boys we will make walk the plank, and Wendy shall be our\nmother.\"\n\nAgain Wendy forgot herself.\n\n\"Never!\" she cried, and bobbed.\n\n\"What was that?\"\n\nBut they could see nothing. They thought it must have been a leaf in the\nwind. \"Do you agree, my bullies?\" asked Hook.\n\n\"There is my hand on it,\" they both said.\n\n\"And there is my hook. Swear.\"\n\nThey all swore. By this time they were on the rock, and suddenly Hook\nremembered Tiger Lily.\n\n\"Where is the redskin?\" he demanded abruptly.\n\nHe had a playful humour at moments, and they thought this was one of the\nmoments.\n\n\"That is all right, captain,\" Smee answered complacently; \"we let her\ngo.\"\n\n\"Let her go!\" cried Hook.\n\n\"'Twas your own orders,\" the bo'sun faltered.\n\n\"You called over the water to us to let her go,\" said Starkey.\n\n\"Brimstone and gall,\" thundered Hook, \"what cozening [cheating] is\ngoing on here!\" His face had gone black with rage, but he saw that they\nbelieved their words, and he was startled. \"Lads,\" he said, shaking a\nlittle, \"I gave no such order.\"\n\n\"It is passing queer,\" Smee said, and they all fidgeted uncomfortably.\nHook raised his voice, but there was a quiver in it.\n\n\"Spirit that haunts this dark lagoon to-night,\" he cried, \"dost hear\nme?\"\n\nOf course Peter should have kept quiet, but of course he did not. He\nimmediately answered in Hook's voice:\n\n\"Odds, bobs, hammer and tongs, I hear you.\"\n\nIn that supreme moment Hook did not blanch, even at the gills, but Smee\nand Starkey clung to each other in terror.\n\n\"Who are you, stranger? Speak!\" Hook demanded.\n\n\"I am James Hook,\" replied the voice, \"captain of the JOLLY ROGER.\"\n\n\"You are not; you are not,\" Hook cried hoarsely.\n\n\"Brimstone and gall,\" the voice retorted, \"say that again, and I'll cast\nanchor in you.\"\n\nHook tried a more ingratiating manner. \"If you are Hook,\" he said almost\nhumbly, \"come tell me, who am I?\"\n\n\"A codfish,\" replied the voice, \"only a codfish.\"\n\n\"A codfish!\" Hook echoed blankly, and it was then, but not till then,\nthat his proud spirit broke. He saw his men draw back from him.\n\n\"Have we been captained all this time by a codfish!\" they muttered. \"It\nis lowering to our pride.\"\n\nThey were his dogs snapping at him, but, tragic figure though he had\nbecome, he scarcely heeded them. Against such fearful evidence it was\nnot their belief in him that he needed, it was his own. He felt his ego\nslipping from him. \"Don't desert me, bully,\" he whispered hoarsely to\nit.\n\nIn his dark nature there was a touch of the feminine, as in all the\ngreat pirates, and it sometimes gave him intuitions. Suddenly he tried\nthe guessing game.\n\n\"Hook,\" he called, \"have you another voice?\"\n\nNow Peter could never resist a game, and he answered blithely in his own\nvoice, \"I have.\"\n\n\"And another name?\"\n\n\"Ay, ay.\"\n\n\"Vegetable?\" asked Hook.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Mineral?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Animal?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Man?\"\n\n\"No!\" This answer rang out scornfully.\n\n\"Boy?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Ordinary boy?\"\n\n\"No!\"\n\n\"Wonderful boy?\"\n\nTo Wendy's pain the answer that rang out this time was \"Yes.\"\n\n\"Are you in England?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Are you here?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nHook was completely puzzled. \"You ask him some questions,\" he said to\nthe others, wiping his damp brow.\n\nSmee reflected. \"I can't think of a thing,\" he said regretfully.\n\n\"Can't guess, can't guess!\" crowed Peter. \"Do you give it up?\"\n\nOf course in his pride he was carrying the game too far, and the\nmiscreants [villains] saw their chance.\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" they answered eagerly.\n\n\"Well, then,\" he cried, \"I am Peter Pan.\"\n\nPan!\n\nIn a moment Hook was himself again, and Smee and Starkey were his\nfaithful henchmen.\n\n\"Now we have him,\" Hook shouted. \"Into the water, Smee. Starkey, mind\nthe boat. Take him dead or alive!\"\n\nHe leaped as he spoke, and simultaneously came the gay voice of Peter.\n\n\"Are you ready, boys?\"\n\n\"Ay, ay,\" from various parts of the lagoon.\n\n\"Then lam into the pirates.\"\n\nThe fight was short and sharp. First to draw blood was John, who\ngallantly climbed into the boat and held Starkey. There was fierce\nstruggle, in which the cutlass was torn from the pirate's grasp. He\nwriggled overboard and John leapt after him. The dinghy drifted away.\n\nHere and there a head bobbed up in the water, and there was a flash\nof steel followed by a cry or a whoop. In the confusion some struck at\ntheir own side. The corkscrew of Smee got Tootles in the fourth rib, but\nhe was himself pinked [nicked] in turn by Curly. Farther from the rock\nStarkey was pressing Slightly and the twins hard.\n\nWhere all this time was Peter? He was seeking bigger game.\n\nThe others were all brave boys, and they must not be blamed for backing\nfrom the pirate captain. His iron claw made a circle of dead water round\nhim, from which they fled like affrighted fishes.\n\nBut there was one who did not fear him: there was one prepared to enter\nthat circle.\n\nStrangely, it was not in the water that they met. Hook rose to the rock\nto breathe, and at the same moment Peter scaled it on the opposite\nside. The rock was slippery as a ball, and they had to crawl rather than\nclimb. Neither knew that the other was coming. Each feeling for a grip\nmet the other's arm: in surprise they raised their heads; their faces\nwere almost touching; so they met.\n\nSome of the greatest heroes have confessed that just before they fell to\n[began combat] they had a sinking [feeling in the stomach]. Had it been\nso with Peter at that moment I would admit it. After all, he was the\nonly man that the Sea-Cook had feared. But Peter had no sinking, he had\none feeling only, gladness; and he gnashed his pretty teeth with joy.\nQuick as thought he snatched a knife from Hook's belt and was about to\ndrive it home, when he saw that he was higher up the rock than his foe.\nIt would not have been fighting fair. He gave the pirate a hand to help\nhim up.\n\nIt was then that Hook bit him.\n\nNot the pain of this but its unfairness was what dazed Peter. It made\nhim quite helpless. He could only stare, horrified. Every child is\naffected thus the first time he is treated unfairly. All he thinks he\nhas a right to when he comes to you to be yours is fairness. After\nyou have been unfair to him he will love you again, but will never\nafterwards be quite the same boy. No one ever gets over the first\nunfairness; no one except Peter. He often met it, but he always forgot\nit. I suppose that was the real difference between him and all the rest.\n\nSo when he met it now it was like the first time; and he could just\nstare, helpless. Twice the iron hand clawed him.\n\nA few moments afterwards the other boys saw Hook in the water striking\nwildly for the ship; no elation on the pestilent face now, only white\nfear, for the crocodile was in dogged pursuit of him. On ordinary\noccasions the boys would have swum alongside cheering; but now they were\nuneasy, for they had lost both Peter and Wendy, and were scouring the\nlagoon for them, calling them by name. They found the dinghy and went\nhome in it, shouting \"Peter, Wendy\" as they went, but no answer came\nsave mocking laughter from the mermaids. \"They must be swimming back or\nflying,\" the boys concluded. They were not very anxious, because they\nhad such faith in Peter. They chuckled, boylike, because they would be\nlate for bed; and it was all mother Wendy's fault!\n\nWhen their voices died away there came cold silence over the lagoon, and\nthen a feeble cry.\n\n\"Help, help!\"\n\nTwo small figures were beating against the rock; the girl had fainted\nand lay on the boy's arm. With a last effort Peter pulled her up the\nrock and then lay down beside her. Even as he also fainted he saw that\nthe water was rising. He knew that they would soon be drowned, but he\ncould do no more.\n\nAs they lay side by side a mermaid caught Wendy by the feet, and began\npulling her softly into the water. Peter, feeling her slip from him,\nwoke with a start, and was just in time to draw her back. But he had to\ntell her the truth.\n\n\"We are on the rock, Wendy,\" he said, \"but it is growing smaller. Soon\nthe water will be over it.\"\n\nShe did not understand even now.\n\n\"We must go,\" she said, almost brightly.\n\n\"Yes,\" he answered faintly.\n\n\"Shall we swim or fly, Peter?\"\n\nHe had to tell her.\n\n\"Do you think you could swim or fly as far as the island, Wendy, without\nmy help?\"\n\nShe had to admit that she was too tired.\n\nHe moaned.\n\n\"What is it?\" she asked, anxious about him at once.\n\n\"I can't help you, Wendy. Hook wounded me. I can neither fly nor swim.\"\n\n\"Do you mean we shall both be drowned?\"\n\n\"Look how the water is rising.\"\n\nThey put their hands over their eyes to shut out the sight. They thought\nthey would soon be no more. As they sat thus something brushed against\nPeter as light as a kiss, and stayed there, as if saying timidly, \"Can I\nbe of any use?\"\n\nIt was the tail of a kite, which Michael had made some days before. It\nhad torn itself out of his hand and floated away.\n\n\"Michael's kite,\" Peter said without interest, but next moment he had\nseized the tail, and was pulling the kite toward him.\n\n\"It lifted Michael off the ground,\" he cried; \"why should it not carry\nyou?\"\n\n\"Both of us!\"\n\n\"It can't lift two; Michael and Curly tried.\"\n\n\"Let us draw lots,\" Wendy said bravely.\n\n\"And you a lady; never.\" Already he had tied the tail round her. She\nclung to him; she refused to go without him; but with a \"Good-bye,\nWendy,\" he pushed her from the rock; and in a few minutes she was borne\nout of his sight. Peter was alone on the lagoon.\n\nThe rock was very small now; soon it would be submerged. Pale rays of\nlight tiptoed across the waters; and by and by there was to be heard a\nsound at once the most musical and the most melancholy in the world: the\nmermaids calling to the moon.\n\nPeter was not quite like other boys; but he was afraid at last. A\ntremour ran through him, like a shudder passing over the sea; but on\nthe sea one shudder follows another till there are hundreds of them, and\nPeter felt just the one. Next moment he was standing erect on the rock\nagain, with that smile on his face and a drum beating within him. It was\nsaying, \"To die will be an awfully big adventure.\"\n\n\n\n\nChapter 9 THE NEVER BIRD\n\nThe last sound Peter heard before he was quite alone were the mermaids\nretiring one by one to their bedchambers under the sea. He was too far\naway to hear their doors shut; but every door in the coral caves where\nthey live rings a tiny bell when it opens or closes (as in all the\nnicest houses on the mainland), and he heard the bells.\n\nSteadily the waters rose till they were nibbling at his feet; and to\npass the time until they made their final gulp, he watched the only\nthing on the lagoon. He thought it was a piece of floating paper,\nperhaps part of the kite, and wondered idly how long it would take to\ndrift ashore.\n\nPresently he noticed as an odd thing that it was undoubtedly out upon\nthe lagoon with some definite purpose, for it was fighting the tide,\nand sometimes winning; and when it won, Peter, always sympathetic to\nthe weaker side, could not help clapping; it was such a gallant piece of\npaper.\n\nIt was not really a piece of paper; it was the Never bird, making\ndesperate efforts to reach Peter on the nest. By working her wings, in a\nway she had learned since the nest fell into the water, she was able to\nsome extent to guide her strange craft, but by the time Peter recognised\nher she was very exhausted. She had come to save him, to give him her\nnest, though there were eggs in it. I rather wonder at the bird, for\nthough he had been nice to her, he had also sometimes tormented her. I\ncan suppose only that, like Mrs. Darling and the rest of them, she was\nmelted because he had all his first teeth.\n\nShe called out to him what she had come for, and he called out to her\nwhat she was doing there; but of course neither of them understood\nthe other's language. In fanciful stories people can talk to the birds\nfreely, and I wish for the moment I could pretend that this were such a\nstory, and say that Peter replied intelligently to the Never bird; but\ntruth is best, and I want to tell you only what really happened. Well,\nnot only could they not understand each other, but they forgot their\nmanners.\n\n\"I--want--you--to--get--into--the--nest,\" the bird called, speaking as\nslowly and distinctly as possible, \"and--then--you--can--drift--ashore,\nbut--I--am--too--tired--to--bring--it--any--nearer--so--you--must--try\nto--swim--to--it.\"\n\n\"What are you quacking about?\" Peter answered. \"Why don't you let the\nnest drift as usual?\"\n\n\"I--want--you--\" the bird said, and repeated it all over.\n\nThen Peter tried slow and distinct.\n\n\"What--are--you--quacking--about?\" and so on.\n\nThe Never bird became irritated; they have very short tempers.\n\n\"You dunderheaded little jay!\" she screamed, \"Why don't you do as I tell\nyou?\"\n\nPeter felt that she was calling him names, and at a venture he retorted\nhotly:\n\n\"So are you!\"\n\nThen rather curiously they both snapped out the same remark:\n\n\"Shut up!\"\n\n\"Shut up!\"\n\nNevertheless the bird was determined to save him if she could, and by\none last mighty effort she propelled the nest against the rock. Then up\nshe flew; deserting her eggs, so as to make her meaning clear.\n\nThen at last he understood, and clutched the nest and waved his thanks\nto the bird as she fluttered overhead. It was not to receive his thanks,\nhowever, that she hung there in the sky; it was not even to watch him\nget into the nest; it was to see what he did with her eggs.\n\nThere were two large white eggs, and Peter lifted them up and reflected.\nThe bird covered her face with her wings, so as not to see the last of\nthem; but she could not help peeping between the feathers.\n\nI forget whether I have told you that there was a stave on the rock,\ndriven into it by some buccaneers of long ago to mark the site of buried\ntreasure. The children had discovered the glittering hoard, and when in\na mischievous mood used to fling showers of moidores, diamonds, pearls\nand pieces of eight to the gulls, who pounced upon them for food, and\nthen flew away, raging at the scurvy trick that had been played upon\nthem. The stave was still there, and on it Starkey had hung his hat, a\ndeep tarpaulin, watertight, with a broad brim. Peter put the eggs into\nthis hat and set it on the lagoon. It floated beautifully.\n\nThe Never bird saw at once what he was up to, and screamed her\nadmiration of him; and, alas, Peter crowed his agreement with her. Then\nhe got into the nest, reared the stave in it as a mast, and hung up his\nshirt for a sail. At the same moment the bird fluttered down upon the\nhat and once more sat snugly on her eggs. She drifted in one direction,\nand he was borne off in another, both cheering.\n\nOf course when Peter landed he beached his barque [small ship, actually\nthe Never Bird's nest in this particular case in point] in a place where\nthe bird would easily find it; but the hat was such a great success that\nshe abandoned the nest. It drifted about till it went to pieces, and\noften Starkey came to the shore of the lagoon, and with many bitter\nfeelings watched the bird sitting on his hat. As we shall not see her\nagain, it may be worth mentioning here that all Never birds now build\nin that shape of nest, with a broad brim on which the youngsters take an\nairing.\n\nGreat were the rejoicings when Peter reached the home under the ground\nalmost as soon as Wendy, who had been carried hither and thither by\nthe kite. Every boy had adventures to tell; but perhaps the biggest\nadventure of all was that they were several hours late for bed. This so\ninflated them that they did various dodgy things to get staying up still\nlonger, such as demanding bandages; but Wendy, though glorying in having\nthem all home again safe and sound, was scandalised by the lateness of\nthe hour, and cried, \"To bed, to bed,\" in a voice that had to be obeyed.\nNext day, however, she was awfully tender, and gave out bandages to\nevery one, and they played till bed-time at limping about and carrying\ntheir arms in slings.\n\n\n\n\nChapter 10 THE HAPPY HOME\n\nOne important result of the brush [with the pirates] on the lagoon was\nthat it made the redskins their friends. Peter had saved Tiger Lily from\na dreadful fate, and now there was nothing she and her braves would not\ndo for him. All night they sat above, keeping watch over the home under\nthe ground and awaiting the big attack by the pirates which obviously\ncould not be much longer delayed. Even by day they hung about, smoking\nthe pipe of peace, and looking almost as if they wanted tit-bits to eat.\n\nThey called Peter the Great White Father, prostrating themselves [lying\ndown] before him; and he liked this tremendously, so that it was not\nreally good for him.\n\n\"The great white father,\" he would say to them in a very lordly manner,\nas they grovelled at his feet, \"is glad to see the Piccaninny warriors\nprotecting his wigwam from the pirates.\"\n\n\"Me Tiger Lily,\" that lovely creature would reply. \"Peter Pan save me,\nme his velly nice friend. Me no let pirates hurt him.\"\n\nShe was far too pretty to cringe in this way, but Peter thought it his\ndue, and he would answer condescendingly, \"It is good. Peter Pan has\nspoken.\"\n\nAlways when he said, \"Peter Pan has spoken,\" it meant that they must now\nshut up, and they accepted it humbly in that spirit; but they were by\nno means so respectful to the other boys, whom they looked upon as just\nordinary braves. They said \"How-do?\" to them, and things like that; and\nwhat annoyed the boys was that Peter seemed to think this all right.\n\nSecretly Wendy sympathised with them a little, but she was far too loyal\na housewife to listen to any complaints against father. \"Father knows\nbest,\" she always said, whatever her private opinion must be. Her\nprivate opinion was that the redskins should not call her a squaw.\n\nWe have now reached the evening that was to be known among them as the\nNight of Nights, because of its adventures and their upshot. The day, as\nif quietly gathering its forces, had been almost uneventful, and now the\nredskins in their blankets were at their posts above, while, below, the\nchildren were having their evening meal; all except Peter, who had gone\nout to get the time. The way you got the time on the island was to find\nthe crocodile, and then stay near him till the clock struck.\n\nThe meal happened to be a make-believe tea, and they sat around the\nboard, guzzling in their greed; and really, what with their chatter and\nrecriminations, the noise, as Wendy said, was positively deafening.\nTo be sure, she did not mind noise, but she simply would not have them\ngrabbing things, and then excusing themselves by saying that Tootles had\npushed their elbow. There was a fixed rule that they must never hit back\nat meals, but should refer the matter of dispute to Wendy by raising\nthe right arm politely and saying, \"I complain of so-and-so;\" but what\nusually happened was that they forgot to do this or did it too much.\n\n\"Silence,\" cried Wendy when for the twentieth time she had told them\nthat they were not all to speak at once. \"Is your mug empty, Slightly\ndarling?\"\n\n\"Not quite empty, mummy,\" Slightly said, after looking into an imaginary\nmug.\n\n\"He hasn't even begun to drink his milk,\" Nibs interposed.\n\nThis was telling, and Slightly seized his chance.\n\n\"I complain of Nibs,\" he cried promptly.\n\nJohn, however, had held up his hand first.\n\n\"Well, John?\"\n\n\"May I sit in Peter's chair, as he is not here?\"\n\n\"Sit in father's chair, John!\" Wendy was scandalised. \"Certainly not.\"\n\n\"He is not really our father,\" John answered. \"He didn't even know how a\nfather does till I showed him.\"\n\nThis was grumbling. \"We complain of John,\" cried the twins.\n\nTootles held up his hand. He was so much the humblest of them, indeed he\nwas the only humble one, that Wendy was specially gentle with him.\n\n\"I don't suppose,\" Tootles said diffidently [bashfully or timidly],\n\"that I could be father.\"\n\n\"No, Tootles.\"\n\nOnce Tootles began, which was not very often, he had a silly way of\ngoing on.\n\n\"As I can't be father,\" he said heavily, \"I don't suppose, Michael, you\nwould let me be baby?\"\n\n\"No, I won't,\" Michael rapped out. He was already in his basket.\n\n\"As I can't be baby,\" Tootles said, getting heavier and heavier and\nheavier, \"do you think I could be a twin?\"\n\n\"No, indeed,\" replied the twins; \"it's awfully difficult to be a twin.\"\n\n\"As I can't be anything important,\" said Tootles, \"would any of you like\nto see me do a trick?\"\n\n\"No,\" they all replied.\n\nThen at last he stopped. \"I hadn't really any hope,\" he said.\n\nThe hateful telling broke out again.\n\n\"Slightly is coughing on the table.\"\n\n\"The twins began with cheese-cakes.\"\n\n\"Curly is taking both butter and honey.\"\n\n\"Nibs is speaking with his mouth full.\"\n\n\"I complain of the twins.\"\n\n\"I complain of Curly.\"\n\n\"I complain of Nibs.\"\n\n\"Oh dear, oh dear,\" cried Wendy, \"I'm sure I sometimes think that\nspinsters are to be envied.\"\n\nShe told them to clear away, and sat down to her work-basket, a heavy\nload of stockings and every knee with a hole in it as usual.\n\n\"Wendy,\" remonstrated [scolded] Michael, \"I'm too big for a cradle.\"\n\n\"I must have somebody in a cradle,\" she said almost tartly, \"and you\nare the littlest. A cradle is such a nice homely thing to have about a\nhouse.\"\n\nWhile she sewed they played around her; such a group of happy faces\nand dancing limbs lit up by that romantic fire. It had become a very\nfamiliar scene, this, in the home under the ground, but we are looking\non it for the last time.\n\nThere was a step above, and Wendy, you may be sure, was the first to\nrecognize it.\n\n\"Children, I hear your father's step. He likes you to meet him at the\ndoor.\"\n\nAbove, the redskins crouched before Peter.\n\n\"Watch well, braves. I have spoken.\"\n\nAnd then, as so often before, the gay children dragged him from his\ntree. As so often before, but never again.\n\nHe had brought nuts for the boys as well as the correct time for Wendy.\n\n\"Peter, you just spoil them, you know,\" Wendy simpered [exaggerated a\nsmile].\n\n\"Ah, old lady,\" said Peter, hanging up his gun.\n\n\"It was me told him mothers are called old lady,\" Michael whispered to\nCurly.\n\n\"I complain of Michael,\" said Curly instantly.\n\nThe first twin came to Peter. \"Father, we want to dance.\"\n\n\"Dance away, my little man,\" said Peter, who was in high good humour.\n\n\"But we want you to dance.\"\n\nPeter was really the best dancer among them, but he pretended to be\nscandalised.\n\n\"Me! My old bones would rattle!\"\n\n\"And mummy too.\"\n\n\"What,\" cried Wendy, \"the mother of such an armful, dance!\"\n\n\"But on a Saturday night,\" Slightly insinuated.\n\nIt was not really Saturday night, at least it may have been, for\nthey had long lost count of the days; but always if they wanted to do\nanything special they said this was Saturday night, and then they did\nit.\n\n\"Of course it is Saturday night, Peter,\" Wendy said, relenting.\n\n\"People of our figure, Wendy!\"\n\n\"But it is only among our own progeny [children].\"\n\n\"True, true.\"\n\nSo they were told they could dance, but they must put on their nighties\nfirst.\n\n\"Ah, old lady,\" Peter said aside to Wendy, warming himself by the fire\nand looking down at her as she sat turning a heel, \"there is nothing\nmore pleasant of an evening for you and me when the day's toil is over\nthan to rest by the fire with the little ones near by.\"\n\n\"It is sweet, Peter, isn't it?\" Wendy said, frightfully gratified.\n\"Peter, I think Curly has your nose.\"\n\n\"Michael takes after you.\"\n\nShe went to him and put her hand on his shoulder.\n\n\"Dear Peter,\" she said, \"with such a large family, of course, I have now\npassed my best, but you don't want to [ex]change me, do you?\"\n\n\"No, Wendy.\"\n\nCertainly he did not want a change, but he looked at her uncomfortably,\nblinking, you know, like one not sure whether he was awake or asleep.\n\n\"Peter, what is it?\"\n\n\"I was just thinking,\" he said, a little scared. \"It is only\nmake-believe, isn't it, that I am their father?\"\n\n\"Oh yes,\" Wendy said primly [formally and properly].\n\n\"You see,\" he continued apologetically, \"it would make me seem so old to\nbe their real father.\"\n\n\"But they are ours, Peter, yours and mine.\"\n\n\"But not really, Wendy?\" he asked anxiously.\n\n\"Not if you don't wish it,\" she replied; and she distinctly heard his\nsigh of relief. \"Peter,\" she asked, trying to speak firmly, \"what are\nyour exact feelings to [about] me?\"\n\n\"Those of a devoted son, Wendy.\"\n\n\"I thought so,\" she said, and went and sat by herself at the extreme end\nof the room.\n\n\"You are so queer,\" he said, frankly puzzled, \"and Tiger Lily is just\nthe same. There is something she wants to be to me, but she says it is\nnot my mother.\"\n\n\"No, indeed, it is not,\" Wendy replied with frightful emphasis. Now we\nknow why she was prejudiced against the redskins.\n\n\"Then what is it?\"\n\n\"It isn't for a lady to tell.\"\n\n\"Oh, very well,\" Peter said, a little nettled. \"Perhaps Tinker Bell will\ntell me.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, Tinker Bell will tell you,\" Wendy retorted scornfully. \"She is\nan abandoned little creature.\"\n\nHere Tink, who was in her bedroom, eavesdropping, squeaked out something\nimpudent.\n\n\"She says she glories in being abandoned,\" Peter interpreted.\n\nHe had a sudden idea. \"Perhaps Tink wants to be my mother?\"\n\n\"You silly ass!\" cried Tinker Bell in a passion.\n\nShe had said it so often that Wendy needed no translation.\n\n\"I almost agree with her,\" Wendy snapped. Fancy Wendy snapping! But she\nhad been much tried, and she little knew what was to happen before the\nnight was out. If she had known she would not have snapped.\n\nNone of them knew. Perhaps it was best not to know. Their ignorance\ngave them one more glad hour; and as it was to be their last hour on the\nisland, let us rejoice that there were sixty glad minutes in it. They\nsang and danced in their night-gowns. Such a deliciously creepy song\nit was, in which they pretended to be frightened at their own shadows,\nlittle witting that so soon shadows would close in upon them, from whom\nthey would shrink in real fear. So uproariously gay was the dance, and\nhow they buffeted each other on the bed and out of it! It was a pillow\nfight rather than a dance, and when it was finished, the pillows\ninsisted on one bout more, like partners who know that they may never\nmeet again. The stories they told, before it was time for Wendy's\ngood-night story! Even Slightly tried to tell a story that night, but\nthe beginning was so fearfully dull that it appalled not only the others\nbut himself, and he said happily:\n\n\"Yes, it is a dull beginning. I say, let us pretend that it is the end.\"\n\nAnd then at last they all got into bed for Wendy's story, the story they\nloved best, the story Peter hated. Usually when she began to tell this\nstory he left the room or put his hands over his ears; and possibly if\nhe had done either of those things this time they might all still be on\nthe island. But to-night he remained on his stool; and we shall see what\nhappened.\n\n\n\n\nChapter 11 WENDY'S STORY\n\n\"Listen, then,\" said Wendy, settling down to her story, with Michael at\nher feet and seven boys in the bed. \"There was once a gentleman--\"\n\n\"I had rather he had been a lady,\" Curly said.\n\n\"I wish he had been a white rat,\" said Nibs.\n\n\"Quiet,\" their mother admonished [cautioned] them. \"There was a lady\nalso, and--\"\n\n\"Oh, mummy,\" cried the first twin, \"you mean that there is a lady also,\ndon't you? She is not dead, is she?\"\n\n\"Oh, no.\"\n\n\"I am awfully glad she isn't dead,\" said Tootles. \"Are you glad, John?\"\n\n\"Of course I am.\"\n\n\"Are you glad, Nibs?\"\n\n\"Rather.\"\n\n\"Are you glad, Twins?\"\n\n\"We are glad.\"\n\n\"Oh dear,\" sighed Wendy.\n\n\"Little less noise there,\" Peter called out, determined that she should\nhave fair play, however beastly a story it might be in his opinion.\n\n\"The gentleman's name,\" Wendy continued, \"was Mr. Darling, and her name\nwas Mrs. Darling.\"\n\n\"I knew them,\" John said, to annoy the others.\n\n\"I think I knew them,\" said Michael rather doubtfully.\n\n\"They were married, you know,\" explained Wendy, \"and what do you think\nthey had?\"\n\n\"White rats,\" cried Nibs, inspired.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"It's awfully puzzling,\" said Tootles, who knew the story by heart.\n\n\"Quiet, Tootles. They had three descendants.\"\n\n\"What is descendants?\"\n\n\"Well, you are one, Twin.\"\n\n\"Did you hear that, John? I am a descendant.\"\n\n\"Descendants are only children,\" said John.\n\n\"Oh dear, oh dear,\" sighed Wendy. \"Now these three children had a\nfaithful nurse called Nana; but Mr. Darling was angry with her and\nchained her up in the yard, and so all the children flew away.\"\n\n\"It's an awfully good story,\" said Nibs.\n\n\"They flew away,\" Wendy continued, \"to the Neverland, where the lost\nchildren are.\"\n\n\"I just thought they did,\" Curly broke in excitedly. \"I don't know how\nit is, but I just thought they did!\"\n\n\"O Wendy,\" cried Tootles, \"was one of the lost children called Tootles?\"\n\n\"Yes, he was.\"\n\n\"I am in a story. Hurrah, I am in a story, Nibs.\"\n\n\"Hush. Now I want you to consider the feelings of the unhappy parents\nwith all their children flown away.\"\n\n\"Oo!\" they all moaned, though they were not really considering the\nfeelings of the unhappy parents one jot.\n\n\"Think of the empty beds!\"\n\n\"Oo!\"\n\n\"It's awfully sad,\" the first twin said cheerfully.\n\n\"I don't see how it can have a happy ending,\" said the second twin. \"Do\nyou, Nibs?\"\n\n\"I'm frightfully anxious.\"\n\n\"If you knew how great is a mother's love,\" Wendy told them\ntriumphantly, \"you would have no fear.\" She had now come to the part\nthat Peter hated.\n\n\"I do like a mother's love,\" said Tootles, hitting Nibs with a pillow.\n\"Do you like a mother's love, Nibs?\"\n\n\"I do just,\" said Nibs, hitting back.\n\n\"You see,\" Wendy said complacently, \"our heroine knew that the mother\nwould always leave the window open for her children to fly back by; so\nthey stayed away for years and had a lovely time.\"\n\n\"Did they ever go back?\"\n\n\"Let us now,\" said Wendy, bracing herself up for her finest effort,\n\"take a peep into the future;\" and they all gave themselves the twist\nthat makes peeps into the future easier. \"Years have rolled by, and who\nis this elegant lady of uncertain age alighting at London Station?\"\n\n\"O Wendy, who is she?\" cried Nibs, every bit as excited as if he didn't\nknow.\n\n\"Can it be--yes--no--it is--the fair Wendy!\"\n\n\"Oh!\"\n\n\"And who are the two noble portly figures accompanying her, now grown to\nman's estate? Can they be John and Michael? They are!\"\n\n\"Oh!\"\n\n\"'See, dear brothers,' says Wendy pointing upwards, 'there is the window\nstill standing open. Ah, now we are rewarded for our sublime faith in a\nmother's love.' So up they flew to their mummy and daddy, and pen cannot\ndescribe the happy scene, over which we draw a veil.\"\n\nThat was the story, and they were as pleased with it as the fair\nnarrator herself. Everything just as it should be, you see. Off we skip\nlike the most heartless things in the world, which is what children are,\nbut so attractive; and we have an entirely selfish time, and then when\nwe have need of special attention we nobly return for it, confident that\nwe shall be rewarded instead of smacked.\n\nSo great indeed was their faith in a mother's love that they felt they\ncould afford to be callous for a bit longer.\n\nBut there was one there who knew better, and when Wendy finished he\nuttered a hollow groan.\n\n\"What is it, Peter?\" she cried, running to him, thinking he was ill. She\nfelt him solicitously, lower down than his chest. \"Where is it, Peter?\"\n\n\"It isn't that kind of pain,\" Peter replied darkly.\n\n\"Then what kind is it?\"\n\n\"Wendy, you are wrong about mothers.\"\n\nThey all gathered round him in affright, so alarming was his agitation;\nand with a fine candour he told them what he had hitherto concealed.\n\n\"Long ago,\" he said, \"I thought like you that my mother would always\nkeep the window open for me, so I stayed away for moons and moons and\nmoons, and then flew back; but the window was barred, for mother had\nforgotten all about me, and there was another little boy sleeping in my\nbed.\"\n\nI am not sure that this was true, but Peter thought it was true; and it\nscared them.\n\n\"Are you sure mothers are like that?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nSo this was the truth about mothers. The toads!\n\nStill it is best to be careful; and no one knows so quickly as a child\nwhen he should give in. \"Wendy, let us [let's] go home,\" cried John and\nMichael together.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, clutching them.\n\n\"Not to-night?\" asked the lost boys bewildered. They knew in what they\ncalled their hearts that one can get on quite well without a mother, and\nthat it is only the mothers who think you can't.\n\n\"At once,\" Wendy replied resolutely, for the horrible thought had come\nto her: \"Perhaps mother is in half mourning by this time.\"\n\nThis dread made her forgetful of what must be Peter's feelings, and\nshe said to him rather sharply, \"Peter, will you make the necessary\narrangements?\"\n\n\"If you wish it,\" he replied, as coolly as if she had asked him to pass\nthe nuts.\n\nNot so much as a sorry-to-lose-you between them! If she did not mind the\nparting, he was going to show her, was Peter, that neither did he.\n\nBut of course he cared very much; and he was so full of wrath against\ngrown-ups, who, as usual, were spoiling everything, that as soon as he\ngot inside his tree he breathed intentionally quick short breaths at the\nrate of about five to a second. He did this because there is a saying in\nthe Neverland that, every time you breathe, a grown-up dies; and Peter\nwas killing them off vindictively as fast as possible.\n\nThen having given the necessary instructions to the redskins he returned\nto the home, where an unworthy scene had been enacted in his absence.\nPanic-stricken at the thought of losing Wendy the lost boys had advanced\nupon her threateningly.\n\n\"It will be worse than before she came,\" they cried.\n\n\"We shan't let her go.\"\n\n\"Let's keep her prisoner.\"\n\n\"Ay, chain her up.\"\n\nIn her extremity an instinct told her to which of them to turn.\n\n\"Tootles,\" she cried, \"I appeal to you.\"\n\nWas it not strange? She appealed to Tootles, quite the silliest one.\n\nGrandly, however, did Tootles respond. For that one moment he dropped\nhis silliness and spoke with dignity.\n\n\"I am just Tootles,\" he said, \"and nobody minds me. But the first who\ndoes not behave to Wendy like an English gentleman I will blood him\nseverely.\"\n\nHe drew back his hanger; and for that instant his sun was at noon. The\nothers held back uneasily. Then Peter returned, and they saw at once\nthat they would get no support from him. He would keep no girl in the\nNeverland against her will.\n\n\"Wendy,\" he said, striding up and down, \"I have asked the redskins to\nguide you through the wood, as flying tires you so.\"\n\n\"Thank you, Peter.\"\n\n\"Then,\" he continued, in the short sharp voice of one accustomed to be\nobeyed, \"Tinker Bell will take you across the sea. Wake her, Nibs.\"\n\nNibs had to knock twice before he got an answer, though Tink had really\nbeen sitting up in bed listening for some time.\n\n\"Who are you? How dare you? Go away,\" she cried.\n\n\"You are to get up, Tink,\" Nibs called, \"and take Wendy on a journey.\"\n\nOf course Tink had been delighted to hear that Wendy was going; but\nshe was jolly well determined not to be her courier, and she said so in\nstill more offensive language. Then she pretended to be asleep again.\n\n\"She says she won't!\" Nibs exclaimed, aghast at such insubordination,\nwhereupon Peter went sternly toward the young lady's chamber.\n\n\"Tink,\" he rapped out, \"if you don't get up and dress at once I will\nopen the curtains, and then we shall all see you in your negligee\n[nightgown].\"\n\nThis made her leap to the floor. \"Who said I wasn't getting up?\" she\ncried.\n\nIn the meantime the boys were gazing very forlornly at Wendy, now\nequipped with John and Michael for the journey. By this time they were\ndejected, not merely because they were about to lose her, but also\nbecause they felt that she was going off to something nice to which they\nhad not been invited. Novelty was beckoning to them as usual.\n\nCrediting them with a nobler feeling Wendy melted.\n\n\"Dear ones,\" she said, \"if you will all come with me I feel almost sure\nI can get my father and mother to adopt you.\"\n\nThe invitation was meant specially for Peter, but each of the boys was\nthinking exclusively of himself, and at once they jumped with joy.\n\n\"But won't they think us rather a handful?\" Nibs asked in the middle of\nhis jump.\n\n\"Oh no,\" said Wendy, rapidly thinking it out, \"it will only mean having\na few beds in the drawing-room; they can be hidden behind the screens on\nfirst Thursdays.\"\n\n\"Peter, can we go?\" they all cried imploringly. They took it for granted\nthat if they went he would go also, but really they scarcely cared. Thus\nchildren are ever ready, when novelty knocks, to desert their dearest\nones.\n\n\"All right,\" Peter replied with a bitter smile, and immediately they\nrushed to get their things.\n\n\"And now, Peter,\" Wendy said, thinking she had put everything right,\n\"I am going to give you your medicine before you go.\" She loved to give\nthem medicine, and undoubtedly gave them too much. Of course it was only\nwater, but it was out of a bottle, and she always shook the bottle and\ncounted the drops, which gave it a certain medicinal quality. On this\noccasion, however, she did not give Peter his draught [portion], for\njust as she had prepared it, she saw a look on his face that made her\nheart sink.\n\n\"Get your things, Peter,\" she cried, shaking.\n\n\"No,\" he answered, pretending indifference, \"I am not going with you,\nWendy.\"\n\n\"Yes, Peter.\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nTo show that her departure would leave him unmoved, he skipped up and\ndown the room, playing gaily on his heartless pipes. She had to run\nabout after him, though it was rather undignified.\n\n\"To find your mother,\" she coaxed.\n\nNow, if Peter had ever quite had a mother, he no longer missed her. He\ncould do very well without one. He had thought them out, and remembered\nonly their bad points.\n\n\"No, no,\" he told Wendy decisively; \"perhaps she would say I was old,\nand I just want always to be a little boy and to have fun.\"\n\n\"But, Peter--\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nAnd so the others had to be told.\n\n\"Peter isn't coming.\"\n\nPeter not coming! They gazed blankly at him, their sticks over their\nbacks, and on each stick a bundle. Their first thought was that if Peter\nwas not going he had probably changed his mind about letting them go.\n\nBut he was far too proud for that. \"If you find your mothers,\" he said\ndarkly, \"I hope you will like them.\"\n\nThe awful cynicism of this made an uncomfortable impression, and most\nof them began to look rather doubtful. After all, their faces said, were\nthey not noodles to want to go?\n\n\"Now then,\" cried Peter, \"no fuss, no blubbering; good-bye, Wendy;\" and\nhe held out his hand cheerily, quite as if they must really go now, for\nhe had something important to do.\n\nShe had to take his hand, and there was no indication that he would\nprefer a thimble.\n\n\"You will remember about changing your flannels, Peter?\" she said,\nlingering over him. She was always so particular about their flannels.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And you will take your medicine?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nThat seemed to be everything, and an awkward pause followed. Peter,\nhowever, was not the kind that breaks down before other people. \"Are you\nready, Tinker Bell?\" he called out.\n\n\"Ay, ay.\"\n\n\"Then lead the way.\"\n\nTink darted up the nearest tree; but no one followed her, for it was\nat this moment that the pirates made their dreadful attack upon the\nredskins. Above, where all had been so still, the air was rent with\nshrieks and the clash of steel. Below, there was dead silence. Mouths\nopened and remained open. Wendy fell on her knees, but her arms were\nextended toward Peter. All arms were extended to him, as if suddenly\nblown in his direction; they were beseeching him mutely not to desert\nthem. As for Peter, he seized his sword, the same he thought he had\nslain Barbecue with, and the lust of battle was in his eye.\n\n\n\n\nChapter 12 THE CHILDREN ARE CARRIED OFF\n\nThe pirate attack had been a complete surprise: a sure proof that the\nunscrupulous Hook had conducted it improperly, for to surprise redskins\nfairly is beyond the wit of the white man.\n\nBy all the unwritten laws of savage warfare it is always the redskin who\nattacks, and with the wiliness of his race he does it just before the\ndawn, at which time he knows the courage of the whites to be at its\nlowest ebb. The white men have in the meantime made a rude stockade on\nthe summit of yonder undulating ground, at the foot of which a stream\nruns, for it is destruction to be too far from water. There they await\nthe onslaught, the inexperienced ones clutching their revolvers and\ntreading on twigs, but the old hands sleeping tranquilly until just\nbefore the dawn. Through the long black night the savage scouts wriggle,\nsnake-like, among the grass without stirring a blade. The brushwood\ncloses behind them, as silently as sand into which a mole has dived.\nNot a sound is to be heard, save when they give vent to a wonderful\nimitation of the lonely call of the coyote. The cry is answered by other\nbraves; and some of them do it even better than the coyotes, who are not\nvery good at it. So the chill hours wear on, and the long suspense is\nhorribly trying to the paleface who has to live through it for the first\ntime; but to the trained hand those ghastly calls and still ghastlier\nsilences are but an intimation of how the night is marching.\n\nThat this was the usual procedure was so well known to Hook that in\ndisregarding it he cannot be excused on the plea of ignorance.\n\nThe Piccaninnies, on their part, trusted implicitly to his honour, and\ntheir whole action of the night stands out in marked contrast to his.\nThey left nothing undone that was consistent with the reputation of\ntheir tribe. With that alertness of the senses which is at once the\nmarvel and despair of civilised peoples, they knew that the pirates were\non the island from the moment one of them trod on a dry stick; and in\nan incredibly short space of time the coyote cries began. Every foot of\nground between the spot where Hook had landed his forces and the\nhome under the trees was stealthily examined by braves wearing their\nmocassins with the heels in front. They found only one hillock with a\nstream at its base, so that Hook had no choice; here he must establish\nhimself and wait for just before the dawn. Everything being thus mapped\nout with almost diabolical cunning, the main body of the redskins folded\ntheir blankets around them, and in the phlegmatic manner that is to\nthem, the pearl of manhood squatted above the children's home, awaiting\nthe cold moment when they should deal pale death.\n\nHere dreaming, though wide-awake, of the exquisite tortures to which\nthey were to put him at break of day, those confiding savages were found\nby the treacherous Hook. From the accounts afterwards supplied by such\nof the scouts as escaped the carnage, he does not seem even to have\npaused at the rising ground, though it is certain that in that grey\nlight he must have seen it: no thought of waiting to be attacked appears\nfrom first to last to have visited his subtle mind; he would not even\nhold off till the night was nearly spent; on he pounded with no policy\nbut to fall to [get into combat]. What could the bewildered scouts do,\nmasters as they were of every war-like artifice save this one, but trot\nhelplessly after him, exposing themselves fatally to view, while they\ngave pathetic utterance to the coyote cry.\n\nAround the brave Tiger Lily were a dozen of her stoutest warriors, and\nthey suddenly saw the perfidious pirates bearing down upon them. Fell\nfrom their eyes then the film through which they had looked at\nvictory. No more would they torture at the stake. For them the happy\nhunting-grounds was now. They knew it; but as their father's sons they\nacquitted themselves. Even then they had time to gather in a phalanx\n[dense formation] that would have been hard to break had they risen\nquickly, but this they were forbidden to do by the traditions of their\nrace. It is written that the noble savage must never express surprise in\nthe presence of the white. Thus terrible as the sudden appearance of the\npirates must have been to them, they remained stationary for a moment,\nnot a muscle moving; as if the foe had come by invitation. Then, indeed,\nthe tradition gallantly upheld, they seized their weapons, and the air\nwas torn with the war-cry; but it was now too late.\n\nIt is no part of ours to describe what was a massacre rather than a\nfight. Thus perished many of the flower of the Piccaninny tribe. Not all\nunavenged did they die, for with Lean Wolf fell Alf Mason, to disturb\nthe Spanish Main no more, and among others who bit the dust were Geo.\nScourie, Chas. Turley, and the Alsatian Foggerty. Turley fell to the\ntomahawk of the terrible Panther, who ultimately cut a way through the\npirates with Tiger Lily and a small remnant of the tribe.\n\nTo what extent Hook is to blame for his tactics on this occasion is for\nthe historian to decide. Had he waited on the rising ground till the\nproper hour he and his men would probably have been butchered; and in\njudging him it is only fair to take this into account. What he should\nperhaps have done was to acquaint his opponents that he proposed to\nfollow a new method. On the other hand, this, as destroying the element\nof surprise, would have made his strategy of no avail, so that the whole\nquestion is beset with difficulties. One cannot at least withhold a\nreluctant admiration for the wit that had conceived so bold a scheme,\nand the fell [deadly] genius with which it was carried out.\n\nWhat were his own feelings about himself at that triumphant moment?\nFain [gladly] would his dogs have known, as breathing heavily and wiping\ntheir cutlasses, they gathered at a discreet distance from his hook, and\nsquinted through their ferret eyes at this extraordinary man. Elation\nmust have been in his heart, but his face did not reflect it: ever a\ndark and solitary enigma, he stood aloof from his followers in spirit as\nin substance.\n\nThe night's work was not yet over, for it was not the redskins he had\ncome out to destroy; they were but the bees to be smoked, so that he\nshould get at the honey. It was Pan he wanted, Pan and Wendy and their\nband, but chiefly Pan.\n\nPeter was such a small boy that one tends to wonder at the man's hatred\nof him. True he had flung Hook's arm to the crocodile, but even this\nand the increased insecurity of life to which it led, owing to\nthe crocodile's pertinacity [persistance], hardly account for a\nvindictiveness so relentless and malignant. The truth is that there was\na something about Peter which goaded the pirate captain to frenzy. It\nwas not his courage, it was not his engaging appearance, it was not--.\nThere is no beating about the bush, for we know quite well what it was,\nand have got to tell. It was Peter's cockiness.\n\nThis had got on Hook's nerves; it made his iron claw twitch, and at\nnight it disturbed him like an insect. While Peter lived, the tortured\nman felt that he was a lion in a cage into which a sparrow had come.\n\nThe question now was how to get down the trees, or how to get his dogs\ndown? He ran his greedy eyes over them, searching for the thinnest\nones. They wriggled uncomfortably, for they knew he would not scruple\n[hesitate] to ram them down with poles.\n\nIn the meantime, what of the boys? We have seen them at the first clang\nof the weapons, turned as it were into stone figures, open-mouthed,\nall appealing with outstretched arms to Peter; and we return to them as\ntheir mouths close, and their arms fall to their sides. The pandemonium\nabove has ceased almost as suddenly as it arose, passed like a fierce\ngust of wind; but they know that in the passing it has determined their\nfate.\n\nWhich side had won?\n\nThe pirates, listening avidly at the mouths of the trees, heard the\nquestion put by every boy, and alas, they also heard Peter's answer.\n\n\"If the redskins have won,\" he said, \"they will beat the tom-tom; it is\nalways their sign of victory.\"\n\nNow Smee had found the tom-tom, and was at that moment sitting on it.\n\"You will never hear the tom-tom again,\" he muttered, but inaudibly of\ncourse, for strict silence had been enjoined [urged]. To his amazement\nHook signed him to beat the tom-tom, and slowly there came to Smee an\nunderstanding of the dreadful wickedness of the order. Never, probably,\nhad this simple man admired Hook so much.\n\nTwice Smee beat upon the instrument, and then stopped to listen\ngleefully.\n\n\"The tom-tom,\" the miscreants heard Peter cry; \"an Indian victory!\"\n\nThe doomed children answered with a cheer that was music to the black\nhearts above, and almost immediately they repeated their good-byes\nto Peter. This puzzled the pirates, but all their other feelings were\nswallowed by a base delight that the enemy were about to come up the\ntrees. They smirked at each other and rubbed their hands. Rapidly and\nsilently Hook gave his orders: one man to each tree, and the others to\narrange themselves in a line two yards apart.\n\n\n\n\nChapter 13 DO YOU BELIEVE IN FAIRIES?\n\nThe more quickly this horror is disposed of the better. The first to\nemerge from his tree was Curly. He rose out of it into the arms of\nCecco, who flung him to Smee, who flung him to Starkey, who flung him to\nBill Jukes, who flung him to Noodler, and so he was tossed from one to\nanother till he fell at the feet of the black pirate. All the boys were\nplucked from their trees in this ruthless manner; and several of them\nwere in the air at a time, like bales of goods flung from hand to hand.\n\nA different treatment was accorded to Wendy, who came last. With\nironical politeness Hook raised his hat to her, and, offering her his\narm, escorted her to the spot where the others were being gagged. He\ndid it with such an air, he was so frightfully DISTINGUE [imposingly\ndistinguished], that she was too fascinated to cry out. She was only a\nlittle girl.\n\nPerhaps it is tell-tale to divulge that for a moment Hook entranced her,\nand we tell on her only because her slip led to strange results. Had she\nhaughtily unhanded him (and we should have loved to write it of her),\nshe would have been hurled through the air like the others, and then\nHook would probably not have been present at the tying of the children;\nand had he not been at the tying he would not have discovered Slightly's\nsecret, and without the secret he could not presently have made his foul\nattempt on Peter's life.\n\nThey were tied to prevent their flying away, doubled up with their knees\nclose to their ears; and for the trussing of them the black pirate had\ncut a rope into nine equal pieces. All went well until Slightly's turn\ncame, when he was found to be like those irritating parcels that use up\nall the string in going round and leave no tags [ends] with which to\ntie a knot. The pirates kicked him in their rage, just as you kick the\nparcel (though in fairness you should kick the string); and strange\nto say it was Hook who told them to belay their violence. His lip was\ncurled with malicious triumph. While his dogs were merely sweating\nbecause every time they tried to pack the unhappy lad tight in one\npart he bulged out in another, Hook's master mind had gone far beneath\nSlightly's surface, probing not for effects but for causes; and his\nexultation showed that he had found them. Slightly, white to the gills,\nknew that Hook had surprised [discovered] his secret, which was this,\nthat no boy so blown out could use a tree wherein an average man need\nstick. Poor Slightly, most wretched of all the children now, for he\nwas in a panic about Peter, bitterly regretted what he had done. Madly\naddicted to the drinking of water when he was hot, he had swelled in\nconsequence to his present girth, and instead of reducing himself to fit\nhis tree he had, unknown to the others, whittled his tree to make it fit\nhim.\n\nSufficient of this Hook guessed to persuade him that Peter at last lay\nat his mercy, but no word of the dark design that now formed in the\nsubterranean caverns of his mind crossed his lips; he merely signed\nthat the captives were to be conveyed to the ship, and that he would be\nalone.\n\nHow to convey them? Hunched up in their ropes they might indeed be\nrolled down hill like barrels, but most of the way lay through a morass.\nAgain Hook's genius surmounted difficulties. He indicated that the\nlittle house must be used as a conveyance. The children were flung into\nit, four stout pirates raised it on their shoulders, the others fell in\nbehind, and singing the hateful pirate chorus the strange procession\nset off through the wood. I don't know whether any of the children were\ncrying; if so, the singing drowned the sound; but as the little house\ndisappeared in the forest, a brave though tiny jet of smoke issued from\nits chimney as if defying Hook.\n\nHook saw it, and it did Peter a bad service. It dried up any trickle of\npity for him that may have remained in the pirate's infuriated breast.\n\nThe first thing he did on finding himself alone in the fast falling\nnight was to tiptoe to Slightly's tree, and make sure that it provided\nhim with a passage. Then for long he remained brooding; his hat of ill\nomen on the sward, so that any gentle breeze which had arisen might play\nrefreshingly through his hair. Dark as were his thoughts his blue eyes\nwere as soft as the periwinkle. Intently he listened for any sound from\nthe nether world, but all was as silent below as above; the house under\nthe ground seemed to be but one more empty tenement in the void. Was\nthat boy asleep, or did he stand waiting at the foot of Slightly's tree,\nwith his dagger in his hand?\n\nThere was no way of knowing, save by going down. Hook let his cloak slip\nsoftly to the ground, and then biting his lips till a lewd blood stood\non them, he stepped into the tree. He was a brave man, but for a moment\nhe had to stop there and wipe his brow, which was dripping like a\ncandle. Then, silently, he let himself go into the unknown.\n\nHe arrived unmolested at the foot of the shaft, and stood still again,\nbiting at his breath, which had almost left him. As his eyes became\naccustomed to the dim light various objects in the home under the trees\ntook shape; but the only one on which his greedy gaze rested, long\nsought for and found at last, was the great bed. On the bed lay Peter\nfast asleep.\n\nUnaware of the tragedy being enacted above, Peter had continued, for\na little time after the children left, to play gaily on his pipes: no\ndoubt rather a forlorn attempt to prove to himself that he did not care.\nThen he decided not to take his medicine, so as to grieve Wendy. Then he\nlay down on the bed outside the coverlet, to vex her still more; for she\nhad always tucked them inside it, because you never know that you may\nnot grow chilly at the turn of the night. Then he nearly cried; but\nit struck him how indignant she would be if he laughed instead; so he\nlaughed a haughty laugh and fell asleep in the middle of it.\n\nSometimes, though not often, he had dreams, and they were more painful\nthan the dreams of other boys. For hours he could not be separated from\nthese dreams, though he wailed piteously in them. They had to do, I\nthink, with the riddle of his existence. At such times it had been\nWendy's custom to take him out of bed and sit with him on her lap,\nsoothing him in dear ways of her own invention, and when he grew calmer\nto put him back to bed before he quite woke up, so that he should\nnot know of the indignity to which she had subjected him. But on this\noccasion he had fallen at once into a dreamless sleep. One arm dropped\nover the edge of the bed, one leg was arched, and the unfinished part of\nhis laugh was stranded on his mouth, which was open, showing the little\npearls.\n\nThus defenceless Hook found him. He stood silent at the foot of the tree\nlooking across the chamber at his enemy. Did no feeling of compassion\ndisturb his sombre breast? The man was not wholly evil; he loved flowers\n(I have been told) and sweet music (he was himself no mean performer on\nthe harpsichord); and, let it be frankly admitted, the idyllic nature of\nthe scene stirred him profoundly. Mastered by his better self he would\nhave returned reluctantly up the tree, but for one thing.\n\nWhat stayed him was Peter's impertinent appearance as he slept. The\nopen mouth, the drooping arm, the arched knee: they were such a\npersonification of cockiness as, taken together, will never again, one\nmay hope, be presented to eyes so sensitive to their offensiveness. They\nsteeled Hook's heart. If his rage had broken him into a hundred pieces\nevery one of them would have disregarded the incident, and leapt at the\nsleeper.\n\nThough a light from the one lamp shone dimly on the bed, Hook stood in\ndarkness himself, and at the first stealthy step forward he discovered\nan obstacle, the door of Slightly's tree. It did not entirely fill the\naperture, and he had been looking over it. Feeling for the catch,\nhe found to his fury that it was low down, beyond his reach. To his\ndisordered brain it seemed then that the irritating quality in Peter's\nface and figure visibly increased, and he rattled the door and flung\nhimself against it. Was his enemy to escape him after all?\n\nBut what was that? The red in his eye had caught sight of Peter's\nmedicine standing on a ledge within easy reach. He fathomed what it was\nstraightaway, and immediately knew that the sleeper was in his power.\n\nLest he should be taken alive, Hook always carried about his person a\ndreadful drug, blended by himself of all the death-dealing rings that\nhad come into his possession. These he had boiled down into a yellow\nliquid quite unknown to science, which was probably the most virulent\npoison in existence.\n\nFive drops of this he now added to Peter's cup. His hand shook, but it\nwas in exultation rather than in shame. As he did it he avoided glancing\nat the sleeper, but not lest pity should unnerve him; merely to avoid\nspilling. Then one long gloating look he cast upon his victim, and\nturning, wormed his way with difficulty up the tree. As he emerged\nat the top he looked the very spirit of evil breaking from its hole.\nDonning his hat at its most rakish angle, he wound his cloak around him,\nholding one end in front as if to conceal his person from the night,\nof which it was the blackest part, and muttering strangely to himself,\nstole away through the trees.\n\nPeter slept on. The light guttered [burned to edges] and went out,\nleaving the tenement in darkness; but still he slept. It must have been\nnot less than ten o'clock by the crocodile, when he suddenly sat up in\nhis bed, wakened by he knew not what. It was a soft cautious tapping on\nthe door of his tree.\n\nSoft and cautious, but in that stillness it was sinister. Peter felt for\nhis dagger till his hand gripped it. Then he spoke.\n\n\"Who is that?\"\n\nFor long there was no answer: then again the knock.\n\n\"Who are you?\"\n\nNo answer.\n\nHe was thrilled, and he loved being thrilled. In two strides he reached\nthe door. Unlike Slightly's door, it filled the aperture [opening], so\nthat he could not see beyond it, nor could the one knocking see him.\n\n\"I won't open unless you speak,\" Peter cried.\n\nThen at last the visitor spoke, in a lovely bell-like voice.\n\n\"Let me in, Peter.\"\n\nIt was Tink, and quickly he unbarred to her. She flew in excitedly, her\nface flushed and her dress stained with mud.\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"Oh, you could never guess!\" she cried, and offered him three guesses.\n\"Out with it!\" he shouted, and in one ungrammatical sentence, as long as\nthe ribbons that conjurers [magicians] pull from their mouths, she told\nof the capture of Wendy and the boys.\n\nPeter's heart bobbed up and down as he listened. Wendy bound, and on the\npirate ship; she who loved everything to be just so!\n\n\"I'll rescue her!\" he cried, leaping at his weapons. As he leapt he\nthought of something he could do to please her. He could take his\nmedicine.\n\nHis hand closed on the fatal draught.\n\n\"No!\" shrieked Tinker Bell, who had heard Hook mutter about his deed as\nhe sped through the forest.\n\n\"Why not?\"\n\n\"It is poisoned.\"\n\n\"Poisoned? Who could have poisoned it?\"\n\n\"Hook.\"\n\n\"Don't be silly. How could Hook have got down here?\"\n\nAlas, Tinker Bell could not explain this, for even she did not know the\ndark secret of Slightly's tree. Nevertheless Hook's words had left no\nroom for doubt. The cup was poisoned.\n\n\"Besides,\" said Peter, quite believing himself, \"I never fell asleep.\"\n\nHe raised the cup. No time for words now; time for deeds; and with one\nof her lightning movements Tink got between his lips and the draught,\nand drained it to the dregs.\n\n\"Why, Tink, how dare you drink my medicine?\"\n\nBut she did not answer. Already she was reeling in the air.\n\n\"What is the matter with you?\" cried Peter, suddenly afraid.\n\n\"It was poisoned, Peter,\" she told him softly; \"and now I am going to be\ndead.\"\n\n\"O Tink, did you drink it to save me?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"But why, Tink?\"\n\nHer wings would scarcely carry her now, but in reply she alighted on his\nshoulder and gave his nose a loving bite. She whispered in his ear \"You\nsilly ass,\" and then, tottering to her chamber, lay down on the bed.\n\nHis head almost filled the fourth wall of her little room as he knelt\nnear her in distress. Every moment her light was growing fainter; and\nhe knew that if it went out she would be no more. She liked his tears so\nmuch that she put out her beautiful finger and let them run over it.\n\nHer voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said.\nThen he made it out. She was saying that she thought she could get well\nagain if children believed in fairies.\n\nPeter flung out his arms. There were no children there, and it was night\ntime; but he addressed all who might be dreaming of the Neverland, and\nwho were therefore nearer to him than you think: boys and girls in their\nnighties, and naked papooses in their baskets hung from trees.\n\n\"Do you believe?\" he cried.\n\nTink sat up in bed almost briskly to listen to her fate.\n\nShe fancied she heard answers in the affirmative, and then again she\nwasn't sure.\n\n\"What do you think?\" she asked Peter.\n\n\"If you believe,\" he shouted to them, \"clap your hands; don't let Tink\ndie.\"\n\nMany clapped.\n\nSome didn't.\n\nA few beasts hissed.\n\nThe clapping stopped suddenly; as if countless mothers had rushed to\ntheir nurseries to see what on earth was happening; but already Tink was\nsaved. First her voice grew strong, then she popped out of bed, then\nshe was flashing through the room more merry and impudent than ever. She\nnever thought of thanking those who believed, but she would have liked to\nget at the ones who had hissed.\n\n\"And now to rescue Wendy!\"\n\nThe moon was riding in a cloudy heaven when Peter rose from his tree,\nbegirt [belted] with weapons and wearing little else, to set out upon\nhis perilous quest. It was not such a night as he would have chosen.\nHe had hoped to fly, keeping not far from the ground so that nothing\nunwonted should escape his eyes; but in that fitful light to have\nflown low would have meant trailing his shadow through the trees, thus\ndisturbing birds and acquainting a watchful foe that he was astir.\n\nHe regretted now that he had given the birds of the island such strange\nnames that they are very wild and difficult of approach.\n\nThere was no other course but to press forward in redskin fashion, at\nwhich happily he was an adept [expert]. But in what direction, for he\ncould not be sure that the children had been taken to the ship? A\nlight fall of snow had obliterated all footmarks; and a deathly silence\npervaded the island, as if for a space Nature stood still in horror of\nthe recent carnage. He had taught the children something of the forest\nlore that he had himself learned from Tiger Lily and Tinker Bell,\nand knew that in their dire hour they were not likely to forget it.\nSlightly, if he had an opportunity, would blaze [cut a mark in] the\ntrees, for instance, Curly would drop seeds, and Wendy would leave her\nhandkerchief at some important place. The morning was needed to search\nfor such guidance, and he could not wait. The upper world had called\nhim, but would give no help.\n\nThe crocodile passed him, but not another living thing, not a sound, not\na movement; and yet he knew well that sudden death might be at the next\ntree, or stalking him from behind.\n\nHe swore this terrible oath: \"Hook or me this time.\"\n\nNow he crawled forward like a snake, and again erect, he darted across\na space on which the moonlight played, one finger on his lip and his\ndagger at the ready. He was frightfully happy.\n\n\n\n\nChapter 14 THE PIRATE SHIP\n\nOne green light squinting over Kidd's Creek, which is near the mouth of\nthe pirate river, marked where the brig, the JOLLY ROGER, lay, low in\nthe water; a rakish-looking [speedy-looking] craft foul to the hull,\nevery beam in her detestable, like ground strewn with mangled feathers.\nShe was the cannibal of the seas, and scarce needed that watchful eye,\nfor she floated immune in the horror of her name.\n\nShe was wrapped in the blanket of night, through which no sound from her\ncould have reached the shore. There was little sound, and none agreeable\nsave the whir of the ship's sewing machine at which Smee sat, ever\nindustrious and obliging, the essence of the commonplace, pathetic Smee.\nI know not why he was so infinitely pathetic, unless it were because\nhe was so pathetically unaware of it; but even strong men had to turn\nhastily from looking at him, and more than once on summer evenings he\nhad touched the fount of Hook's tears and made it flow. Of this, as of\nalmost everything else, Smee was quite unconscious.\n\nA few of the pirates leant over the bulwarks, drinking in the miasma\n[putrid mist] of the night; others sprawled by barrels over games of\ndice and cards; and the exhausted four who had carried the little house\nlay prone on the deck, where even in their sleep they rolled skillfully\nto this side or that out of Hook's reach, lest he should claw them\nmechanically in passing.\n\nHook trod the deck in thought. O man unfathomable. It was his hour of\ntriumph. Peter had been removed for ever from his path, and all the\nother boys were in the brig, about to walk the plank. It was his\ngrimmest deed since the days when he had brought Barbecue to heel; and\nknowing as we do how vain a tabernacle is man, could we be surprised\nhad he now paced the deck unsteadily, bellied out by the winds of his\nsuccess?\n\nBut there was no elation in his gait, which kept pace with the action of\nhis sombre mind. Hook was profoundly dejected.\n\nHe was often thus when communing with himself on board ship in the\nquietude of the night. It was because he was so terribly alone. This\ninscrutable man never felt more alone than when surrounded by his dogs.\nThey were socially inferior to him.\n\nHook was not his true name. To reveal who he really was would even at\nthis date set the country in a blaze; but as those who read between the\nlines must already have guessed, he had been at a famous public school;\nand its traditions still clung to him like garments, with which indeed\nthey are largely concerned. Thus it was offensive to him even now to\nboard a ship in the same dress in which he grappled [attacked] her, and\nhe still adhered in his walk to the school's distinguished slouch. But\nabove all he retained the passion for good form.\n\nGood form! However much he may have degenerated, he still knew that this\nis all that really matters.\n\nFrom far within him he heard a creaking as of rusty portals, and through\nthem came a stern tap-tap-tap, like hammering in the night when one\ncannot sleep. \"Have you been good form to-day?\" was their eternal\nquestion.\n\n\"Fame, fame, that glittering bauble, it is mine,\" he cried.\n\n\"Is it quite good form to be distinguished at anything?\" the tap-tap\nfrom his school replied.\n\n\"I am the only man whom Barbecue feared,\" he urged, \"and Flint feared\nBarbecue.\"\n\n\"Barbecue, Flint--what house?\" came the cutting retort.\n\nMost disquieting reflection of all, was it not bad form to think about\ngood form?\n\nHis vitals were tortured by this problem. It was a claw within him\nsharper than the iron one; and as it tore him, the perspiration dripped\ndown his tallow [waxy] countenance and streaked his doublet. Ofttimes he\ndrew his sleeve across his face, but there was no damming that trickle.\n\nAh, envy not Hook.\n\nThere came to him a presentiment of his early dissolution [death]. It\nwas as if Peter's terrible oath had boarded the ship. Hook felt a gloomy\ndesire to make his dying speech, lest presently there should be no time\nfor it.\n\n\"Better for Hook,\" he cried, \"if he had had less ambition!\" It was in\nhis darkest hours only that he referred to himself in the third person.\n\n\"No little children to love me!\"\n\nStrange that he should think of this, which had never troubled him\nbefore; perhaps the sewing machine brought it to his mind. For long he\nmuttered to himself, staring at Smee, who was hemming placidly, under\nthe conviction that all children feared him.\n\nFeared him! Feared Smee! There was not a child on board the brig that\nnight who did not already love him. He had said horrid things to them\nand hit them with the palm of his hand, because he could not hit with\nhis fist, but they had only clung to him the more. Michael had tried on\nhis spectacles.\n\nTo tell poor Smee that they thought him lovable! Hook itched to do it,\nbut it seemed too brutal. Instead, he revolved this mystery in his\nmind: why do they find Smee lovable? He pursued the problem like the\nsleuth-hound that he was. If Smee was lovable, what was it that made him\nso? A terrible answer suddenly presented itself--\"Good form?\"\n\nHad the bo'sun good form without knowing it, which is the best form of\nall?\n\nHe remembered that you have to prove you don't know you have it before\nyou are eligible for Pop [an elite social club at Eton].\n\nWith a cry of rage he raised his iron hand over Smee's head; but he did\nnot tear. What arrested him was this reflection:\n\n\"To claw a man because he is good form, what would that be?\"\n\n\"Bad form!\"\n\nThe unhappy Hook was as impotent [powerless] as he was damp, and he fell\nforward like a cut flower.\n\nHis dogs thinking him out of the way for a time, discipline instantly\nrelaxed; and they broke into a bacchanalian [drunken] dance, which\nbrought him to his feet at once, all traces of human weakness gone, as\nif a bucket of water had passed over him.\n\n\"Quiet, you scugs,\" he cried, \"or I'll cast anchor in you;\" and at once\nthe din was hushed. \"Are all the children chained, so that they cannot\nfly away?\"\n\n\"Ay, ay.\"\n\n\"Then hoist them up.\"\n\nThe wretched prisoners were dragged from the hold, all except Wendy,\nand ranged in line in front of him. For a time he seemed unconscious\nof their presence. He lolled at his ease, humming, not unmelodiously,\nsnatches of a rude song, and fingering a pack of cards. Ever and anon\nthe light from his cigar gave a touch of colour to his face.\n\n\"Now then, bullies,\" he said briskly, \"six of you walk the plank\nto-night, but I have room for two cabin boys. Which of you is it to be?\"\n\n\"Don't irritate him unnecessarily,\" had been Wendy's instructions in\nthe hold; so Tootles stepped forward politely. Tootles hated the idea\nof signing under such a man, but an instinct told him that it would\nbe prudent to lay the responsibility on an absent person; and though a\nsomewhat silly boy, he knew that mothers alone are always willing to be\nthe buffer. All children know this about mothers, and despise them for\nit, but make constant use of it.\n\nSo Tootles explained prudently, \"You see, sir, I don't think my mother\nwould like me to be a pirate. Would your mother like you to be a pirate,\nSlightly?\"\n\nHe winked at Slightly, who said mournfully, \"I don't think so,\" as if\nhe wished things had been otherwise. \"Would your mother like you to be a\npirate, Twin?\"\n\n\"I don't think so,\" said the first twin, as clever as the others. \"Nibs,\nwould--\"\n\n\"Stow this gab,\" roared Hook, and the spokesmen were dragged back. \"You,\nboy,\" he said, addressing John, \"you look as if you had a little pluck\nin you. Didst never want to be a pirate, my hearty?\"\n\nNow John had sometimes experienced this hankering at maths. prep.; and\nhe was struck by Hook's picking him out.\n\n\"I once thought of calling myself Red-handed Jack,\" he said diffidently.\n\n\"And a good name too. We'll call you that here, bully, if you join.\"\n\n\"What do you think, Michael?\" asked John.\n\n\"What would you call me if I join?\" Michael demanded.\n\n\"Blackbeard Joe.\"\n\nMichael was naturally impressed. \"What do you think, John?\" He wanted\nJohn to decide, and John wanted him to decide.\n\n\"Shall we still be respectful subjects of the King?\" John inquired.\n\nThrough Hook's teeth came the answer: \"You would have to swear, 'Down\nwith the King.'\"\n\nPerhaps John had not behaved very well so far, but he shone out now.\n\n\"Then I refuse,\" he cried, banging the barrel in front of Hook.\n\n\"And I refuse,\" cried Michael.\n\n\"Rule Britannia!\" squeaked Curly.\n\nThe infuriated pirates buffeted them in the mouth; and Hook roared out,\n\"That seals your doom. Bring up their mother. Get the plank ready.\"\n\nThey were only boys, and they went white as they saw Jukes and Cecco\npreparing the fatal plank. But they tried to look brave when Wendy was\nbrought up.\n\nNo words of mine can tell you how Wendy despised those pirates. To the\nboys there was at least some glamour in the pirate calling; but all that\nshe saw was that the ship had not been tidied for years. There was not\na porthole on the grimy glass of which you might not have written with\nyour finger \"Dirty pig\"; and she had already written it on several. But\nas the boys gathered round her she had no thought, of course, save for\nthem.\n\n\"So, my beauty,\" said Hook, as if he spoke in syrup, \"you are to see\nyour children walk the plank.\"\n\nFine gentlemen though he was, the intensity of his communings had soiled\nhis ruff, and suddenly he knew that she was gazing at it. With a hasty\ngesture he tried to hide it, but he was too late.\n\n\"Are they to die?\" asked Wendy, with a look of such frightful contempt\nthat he nearly fainted.\n\n\"They are,\" he snarled. \"Silence all,\" he called gloatingly, \"for a\nmother's last words to her children.\"\n\nAt this moment Wendy was grand. \"These are my last words, dear boys,\"\nshe said firmly. \"I feel that I have a message to you from your real\nmothers, and it is this: 'We hope our sons will die like English\ngentlemen.'\"\n\nEven the pirates were awed, and Tootles cried out hysterically, \"I am\ngoing to do what my mother hopes. What are you to do, Nibs?\"\n\n\"What my mother hopes. What are you to do, Twin?\"\n\n\"What my mother hopes. John, what are--\"\n\nBut Hook had found his voice again.\n\n\"Tie her up!\" he shouted.\n\nIt was Smee who tied her to the mast. \"See here, honey,\" he whispered,\n\"I'll save you if you promise to be my mother.\"\n\nBut not even for Smee would she make such a promise. \"I would almost\nrather have no children at all,\" she said disdainfully [scornfully].\n\nIt is sad to know that not a boy was looking at her as Smee tied her to\nthe mast; the eyes of all were on the plank: that last little walk they\nwere about to take. They were no longer able to hope that they would\nwalk it manfully, for the capacity to think had gone from them; they\ncould stare and shiver only.\n\nHook smiled on them with his teeth closed, and took a step toward Wendy.\nHis intention was to turn her face so that she should see the boys\nwalking the plank one by one. But he never reached her, he never heard\nthe cry of anguish he hoped to wring from her. He heard something else\ninstead.\n\nIt was the terrible tick-tick of the crocodile.\n\nThey all heard it--pirates, boys, Wendy; and immediately every head was\nblown in one direction; not to the water whence the sound proceeded, but\ntoward Hook. All knew that what was about to happen concerned him alone,\nand that from being actors they were suddenly become spectators.\n\nVery frightful was it to see the change that came over him. It was as if\nhe had been clipped at every joint. He fell in a little heap.\n\nThe sound came steadily nearer; and in advance of it came this ghastly\nthought, \"The crocodile is about to board the ship!\"\n\nEven the iron claw hung inactive; as if knowing that it was no intrinsic\npart of what the attacking force wanted. Left so fearfully alone, any\nother man would have lain with his eyes shut where he fell: but the\ngigantic brain of Hook was still working, and under its guidance he\ncrawled on the knees along the deck as far from the sound as he could\ngo. The pirates respectfully cleared a passage for him, and it was only\nwhen he brought up against the bulwarks that he spoke.\n\n\"Hide me!\" he cried hoarsely.\n\nThey gathered round him, all eyes averted from the thing that was coming\naboard. They had no thought of fighting it. It was Fate.\n\nOnly when Hook was hidden from them did curiosity loosen the limbs of\nthe boys so that they could rush to the ship's side to see the crocodile\nclimbing it. Then they got the strangest surprise of the Night of\nNights; for it was no crocodile that was coming to their aid. It was\nPeter.\n\nHe signed to them not to give vent to any cry of admiration that might\nrouse suspicion. Then he went on ticking.\n\n\n\n\nChapter 15 \"HOOK OR ME THIS TIME\"\n\nOdd things happen to all of us on our way through life without our\nnoticing for a time that they have happened. Thus, to take an instance,\nwe suddenly discover that we have been deaf in one ear for we don't know\nhow long, but, say, half an hour. Now such an experience had come that\nnight to Peter. When last we saw him he was stealing across the island\nwith one finger to his lips and his dagger at the ready. He had seen the\ncrocodile pass by without noticing anything peculiar about it, but by\nand by he remembered that it had not been ticking. At first he thought\nthis eerie, but soon concluded rightly that the clock had run down.\n\nWithout giving a thought to what might be the feelings of a\nfellow-creature thus abruptly deprived of its closest companion, Peter\nbegan to consider how he could turn the catastrophe to his own use;\nand he decided to tick, so that wild beasts should believe he was the\ncrocodile and let him pass unmolested. He ticked superbly, but with one\nunforeseen result. The crocodile was among those who heard the sound,\nand it followed him, though whether with the purpose of regaining what\nit had lost, or merely as a friend under the belief that it was again\nticking itself, will never be certainly known, for, like slaves to a\nfixed idea, it was a stupid beast.\n\nPeter reached the shore without mishap, and went straight on, his legs\nencountering the water as if quite unaware that they had entered a new\nelement. Thus many animals pass from land to water, but no other human\nof whom I know. As he swam he had but one thought: \"Hook or me this\ntime.\" He had ticked so long that he now went on ticking without knowing\nthat he was doing it. Had he known he would have stopped, for to board\nthe brig by help of the tick, though an ingenious idea, had not occurred\nto him.\n\nOn the contrary, he thought he had scaled her side as noiseless as a\nmouse; and he was amazed to see the pirates cowering from him, with Hook\nin their midst as abject as if he had heard the crocodile.\n\nThe crocodile! No sooner did Peter remember it than he heard the\nticking. At first he thought the sound did come from the crocodile,\nand he looked behind him swiftly. Then he realised that he was doing it\nhimself, and in a flash he understood the situation. \"How clever of me!\"\nhe thought at once, and signed to the boys not to burst into applause.\n\nIt was at this moment that Ed Teynte the quartermaster emerged from the\nforecastle and came along the deck. Now, reader, time what happened by\nyour watch. Peter struck true and deep. John clapped his hands on the\nill-fated pirate's mouth to stifle the dying groan. He fell forward.\nFour boys caught him to prevent the thud. Peter gave the signal, and the\ncarrion was cast overboard. There was a splash, and then silence. How\nlong has it taken?\n\n\"One!\" (Slightly had begun to count.)\n\nNone too soon, Peter, every inch of him on tiptoe, vanished into the\ncabin; for more than one pirate was screwing up his courage to look\nround. They could hear each other's distressed breathing now, which\nshowed them that the more terrible sound had passed.\n\n\"It's gone, captain,\" Smee said, wiping off his spectacles. \"All's still\nagain.\"\n\nSlowly Hook let his head emerge from his ruff, and listened so intently\nthat he could have caught the echo of the tick. There was not a sound,\nand he drew himself up firmly to his full height.\n\n\"Then here's to Johnny Plank!\" he cried brazenly, hating the boys more\nthan ever because they had seen him unbend. He broke into the villainous\nditty:\n\n     \"Yo ho, yo ho, the frisky plank,\n     You walks along it so,\n     Till it goes down and you goes down\n     To Davy Jones below!\"\n\nTo terrorize the prisoners the more, though with a certain loss of\ndignity, he danced along an imaginary plank, grimacing at them as he\nsang; and when he finished he cried, \"Do you want a touch of the cat [o'\nnine tails] before you walk the plank?\"\n\nAt that they fell on their knees. \"No, no!\" they cried so piteously that\nevery pirate smiled.\n\n\"Fetch the cat, Jukes,\" said Hook; \"it's in the cabin.\"\n\nThe cabin! Peter was in the cabin! The children gazed at each other.\n\n\"Ay, ay,\" said Jukes blithely, and he strode into the cabin. They\nfollowed him with their eyes; they scarce knew that Hook had resumed his\nsong, his dogs joining in with him:\n\n     \"Yo ho, yo ho, the scratching cat,\n     Its tails are nine, you know,\n     And when they're writ upon your back--\"\n\nWhat was the last line will never be known, for of a sudden the song was\nstayed by a dreadful screech from the cabin. It wailed through the ship,\nand died away. Then was heard a crowing sound which was well understood\nby the boys, but to the pirates was almost more eerie than the screech.\n\n\"What was that?\" cried Hook.\n\n\"Two,\" said Slightly solemnly.\n\nThe Italian Cecco hesitated for a moment and then swung into the cabin.\nHe tottered out, haggard.\n\n\"What's the matter with Bill Jukes, you dog?\" hissed Hook, towering over\nhim.\n\n\"The matter wi' him is he's dead, stabbed,\" replied Cecco in a hollow\nvoice.\n\n\"Bill Jukes dead!\" cried the startled pirates.\n\n\"The cabin's as black as a pit,\" Cecco said, almost gibbering, \"but\nthere is something terrible in there: the thing you heard crowing.\"\n\nThe exultation of the boys, the lowering looks of the pirates, both were\nseen by Hook.\n\n\"Cecco,\" he said in his most steely voice, \"go back and fetch me out\nthat doodle-doo.\"\n\nCecco, bravest of the brave, cowered before his captain, crying \"No,\nno\"; but Hook was purring to his claw.\n\n\"Did you say you would go, Cecco?\" he said musingly.\n\nCecco went, first flinging his arms despairingly. There was no more\nsinging, all listened now; and again came a death-screech and again a\ncrow.\n\nNo one spoke except Slightly. \"Three,\" he said.\n\nHook rallied his dogs with a gesture. \"'S'death and odds fish,\" he\nthundered, \"who is to bring me that doodle-doo?\"\n\n\"Wait till Cecco comes out,\" growled Starkey, and the others took up the\ncry.\n\n\"I think I heard you volunteer, Starkey,\" said Hook, purring again.\n\n\"No, by thunder!\" Starkey cried.\n\n\"My hook thinks you did,\" said Hook, crossing to him. \"I wonder if it\nwould not be advisable, Starkey, to humour the hook?\"\n\n\"I'll swing before I go in there,\" replied Starkey doggedly, and again\nhe had the support of the crew.\n\n\"Is this mutiny?\" asked Hook more pleasantly than ever. \"Starkey's\nringleader!\"\n\n\"Captain, mercy!\" Starkey whimpered, all of a tremble now.\n\n\"Shake hands, Starkey,\" said Hook, proffering his claw.\n\nStarkey looked round for help, but all deserted him. As he backed up\nHook advanced, and now the red spark was in his eye. With a despairing\nscream the pirate leapt upon Long Tom and precipitated himself into the\nsea.\n\n\"Four,\" said Slightly.\n\n\"And now,\" Hook said courteously, \"did any other gentlemen say mutiny?\"\nSeizing a lantern and raising his claw with a menacing gesture, \"I'll\nbring out that doodle-doo myself,\" he said, and sped into the cabin.\n\n\"Five.\" How Slightly longed to say it. He wetted his lips to be ready,\nbut Hook came staggering out, without his lantern.\n\n\"Something blew out the light,\" he said a little unsteadily.\n\n\"Something!\" echoed Mullins.\n\n\"What of Cecco?\" demanded Noodler.\n\n\"He's as dead as Jukes,\" said Hook shortly.\n\nHis reluctance to return to the cabin impressed them all unfavourably,\nand the mutinous sounds again broke forth. All pirates are\nsuperstitious, and Cookson cried, \"They do say the surest sign a ship's\naccurst is when there's one on board more than can be accounted for.\"\n\n\"I've heard,\" muttered Mullins, \"he always boards the pirate craft last.\nHad he a tail, captain?\"\n\n\"They say,\" said another, looking viciously at Hook, \"that when he comes\nit's in the likeness of the wickedest man aboard.\"\n\n\"Had he a hook, captain?\" asked Cookson insolently; and one after\nanother took up the cry, \"The ship's doomed!\" At this the children could\nnot resist raising a cheer. Hook had well-nigh forgotten his prisoners,\nbut as he swung round on them now his face lit up again.\n\n\"Lads,\" he cried to his crew, \"now here's a notion. Open the cabin door\nand drive them in. Let them fight the doodle-doo for their lives. If\nthey kill him, we're so much the better; if he kills them, we're none\nthe worse.\"\n\nFor the last time his dogs admired Hook, and devotedly they did his\nbidding. The boys, pretending to struggle, were pushed into the cabin\nand the door was closed on them.\n\n\"Now, listen!\" cried Hook, and all listened. But not one dared to face\nthe door. Yes, one, Wendy, who all this time had been bound to the mast.\nIt was for neither a scream nor a crow that she was watching, it was for\nthe reappearance of Peter.\n\nShe had not long to wait. In the cabin he had found the thing for which\nhe had gone in search: the key that would free the children of their\nmanacles, and now they all stole forth, armed with such weapons as they\ncould find. First signing them to hide, Peter cut Wendy's bonds,\nand then nothing could have been easier than for them all to fly off\ntogether; but one thing barred the way, an oath, \"Hook or me this time.\"\nSo when he had freed Wendy, he whispered for her to conceal herself with\nthe others, and himself took her place by the mast, her cloak around him\nso that he should pass for her. Then he took a great breath and crowed.\n\nTo the pirates it was a voice crying that all the boys lay slain in the\ncabin; and they were panic-stricken. Hook tried to hearten them; but\nlike the dogs he had made them they showed him their fangs, and he knew\nthat if he took his eyes off them now they would leap at him.\n\n\"Lads,\" he said, ready to cajole or strike as need be, but never\nquailing for an instant, \"I've thought it out. There's a Jonah aboard.\"\n\n\"Ay,\" they snarled, \"a man wi' a hook.\"\n\n\"No, lads, no, it's the girl. Never was luck on a pirate ship wi' a\nwoman on board. We'll right the ship when she's gone.\"\n\nSome of them remembered that this had been a saying of Flint's. \"It's\nworth trying,\" they said doubtfully.\n\n\"Fling the girl overboard,\" cried Hook; and they made a rush at the\nfigure in the cloak.\n\n\"There's none can save you now, missy,\" Mullins hissed jeeringly.\n\n\"There's one,\" replied the figure.\n\n\"Who's that?\"\n\n\"Peter Pan the avenger!\" came the terrible answer; and as he spoke Peter\nflung off his cloak. Then they all knew who 'twas that had been undoing\nthem in the cabin, and twice Hook essayed to speak and twice he failed.\nIn that frightful moment I think his fierce heart broke.\n\nAt last he cried, \"Cleave him to the brisket!\" but without conviction.\n\n\"Down, boys, and at them!\" Peter's voice rang out; and in another moment\nthe clash of arms was resounding through the ship. Had the pirates kept\ntogether it is certain that they would have won; but the onset came\nwhen they were still unstrung, and they ran hither and thither, striking\nwildly, each thinking himself the last survivor of the crew. Man to man\nthey were the stronger; but they fought on the defensive only, which\nenabled the boys to hunt in pairs and choose their quarry. Some of the\nmiscreants leapt into the sea; others hid in dark recesses, where they\nwere found by Slightly, who did not fight, but ran about with a lantern\nwhich he flashed in their faces, so that they were half blinded and\nfell as an easy prey to the reeking swords of the other boys. There was\nlittle sound to be heard but the clang of weapons, an occasional\nscreech or splash, and Slightly monotonously counting--five--six--seven\neight--nine--ten--eleven.\n\nI think all were gone when a group of savage boys surrounded Hook, who\nseemed to have a charmed life, as he kept them at bay in that circle\nof fire. They had done for his dogs, but this man alone seemed to be a\nmatch for them all. Again and again they closed upon him, and again and\nagain he hewed a clear space. He had lifted up one boy with his hook,\nand was using him as a buckler [shield], when another, who had just\npassed his sword through Mullins, sprang into the fray.\n\n\"Put up your swords, boys,\" cried the newcomer, \"this man is mine.\"\n\nThus suddenly Hook found himself face to face with Peter. The others\ndrew back and formed a ring around them.\n\nFor long the two enemies looked at one another, Hook shuddering\nslightly, and Peter with the strange smile upon his face.\n\n\"So, Pan,\" said Hook at last, \"this is all your doing.\"\n\n\"Ay, James Hook,\" came the stern answer, \"it is all my doing.\"\n\n\"Proud and insolent youth,\" said Hook, \"prepare to meet thy doom.\"\n\n\"Dark and sinister man,\" Peter answered, \"have at thee.\"\n\nWithout more words they fell to, and for a space there was no advantage\nto either blade. Peter was a superb swordsman, and parried with dazzling\nrapidity; ever and anon he followed up a feint with a lunge that got\npast his foe's defence, but his shorter reach stood him in ill stead,\nand he could not drive the steel home. Hook, scarcely his inferior in\nbrilliancy, but not quite so nimble in wrist play, forced him back by\nthe weight of his onset, hoping suddenly to end all with a favourite\nthrust, taught him long ago by Barbecue at Rio; but to his astonishment\nhe found this thrust turned aside again and again. Then he sought to\nclose and give the quietus with his iron hook, which all this time had\nbeen pawing the air; but Peter doubled under it and, lunging fiercely,\npierced him in the ribs. At the sight of his own blood, whose peculiar\ncolour, you remember, was offensive to him, the sword fell from Hook's\nhand, and he was at Peter's mercy.\n\n\"Now!\" cried all the boys, but with a magnificent gesture Peter invited\nhis opponent to pick up his sword. Hook did so instantly, but with a\ntragic feeling that Peter was showing good form.\n\nHitherto he had thought it was some fiend fighting him, but darker\nsuspicions assailed him now.\n\n\"Pan, who and what art thou?\" he cried huskily.\n\n\"I'm youth, I'm joy,\" Peter answered at a venture, \"I'm a little bird\nthat has broken out of the egg.\"\n\nThis, of course, was nonsense; but it was proof to the unhappy Hook that\nPeter did not know in the least who or what he was, which is the very\npinnacle of good form.\n\n\"To't again,\" he cried despairingly.\n\nHe fought now like a human flail, and every sweep of that terrible sword\nwould have severed in twain any man or boy who obstructed it; but Peter\nfluttered round him as if the very wind it made blew him out of the\ndanger zone. And again and again he darted in and pricked.\n\nHook was fighting now without hope. That passionate breast no longer\nasked for life; but for one boon it craved: to see Peter show bad form\nbefore it was cold forever.\n\nAbandoning the fight he rushed into the powder magazine and fired it.\n\n\"In two minutes,\" he cried, \"the ship will be blown to pieces.\"\n\nNow, now, he thought, true form will show.\n\nBut Peter issued from the powder magazine with the shell in his hands,\nand calmly flung it overboard.\n\nWhat sort of form was Hook himself showing? Misguided man though he was,\nwe may be glad, without sympathising with him, that in the end he was\ntrue to the traditions of his race. The other boys were flying around\nhim now, flouting, scornful; and he staggered about the deck striking up\nat them impotently, his mind was no longer with them; it was slouching\nin the playing fields of long ago, or being sent up [to the headmaster]\nfor good, or watching the wall-game from a famous wall. And his shoes\nwere right, and his waistcoat was right, and his tie was right, and his\nsocks were right.\n\nJames Hook, thou not wholly unheroic figure, farewell.\n\nFor we have come to his last moment.\n\nSeeing Peter slowly advancing upon him through the air with dagger\npoised, he sprang upon the bulwarks to cast himself into the sea. He\ndid not know that the crocodile was waiting for him; for we purposely\nstopped the clock that this knowledge might be spared him: a little mark\nof respect from us at the end.\n\nHe had one last triumph, which I think we need not grudge him. As he\nstood on the bulwark looking over his shoulder at Peter gliding through\nthe air, he invited him with a gesture to use his foot. It made Peter\nkick instead of stab.\n\nAt last Hook had got the boon for which he craved.\n\n\"Bad form,\" he cried jeeringly, and went content to the crocodile.\n\nThus perished James Hook.\n\n\"Seventeen,\" Slightly sang out; but he was not quite correct in his\nfigures. Fifteen paid the penalty for their crimes that night; but two\nreached the shore: Starkey to be captured by the redskins, who made him\nnurse for all their papooses, a melancholy come-down for a pirate; and\nSmee, who henceforth wandered about the world in his spectacles, making\na precarious living by saying he was the only man that Jas. Hook had\nfeared.\n\nWendy, of course, had stood by taking no part in the fight, though\nwatching Peter with glistening eyes; but now that all was over she\nbecame prominent again. She praised them equally, and shuddered\ndelightfully when Michael showed her the place where he had killed one;\nand then she took them into Hook's cabin and pointed to his watch which\nwas hanging on a nail. It said \"half-past one!\"\n\nThe lateness of the hour was almost the biggest thing of all. She got\nthem to bed in the pirates' bunks pretty quickly, you may be sure; all\nbut Peter, who strutted up and down on the deck, until at last he fell\nasleep by the side of Long Tom. He had one of his dreams that night, and\ncried in his sleep for a long time, and Wendy held him tightly.\n\n\n\n\nChapter 16 THE RETURN HOME\n\nBy three bells that morning they were all stirring their stumps [legs];\nfor there was a big sea running; and Tootles, the bo'sun, was among\nthem, with a rope's end in his hand and chewing tobacco. They all donned\npirate clothes cut off at the knee, shaved smartly, and tumbled up, with\nthe true nautical roll and hitching their trousers.\n\nIt need not be said who was the captain. Nibs and John were first and\nsecond mate. There was a woman aboard. The rest were tars [sailors]\nbefore the mast, and lived in the fo'c'sle. Peter had already lashed\nhimself to the wheel; but he piped all hands and delivered a short\naddress to them; said he hoped they would do their duty like gallant\nhearties, but that he knew they were the scum of Rio and the Gold Coast,\nand if they snapped at him he would tear them. The bluff strident words\nstruck the note sailors understood, and they cheered him lustily. Then\na few sharp orders were given, and they turned the ship round, and nosed\nher for the mainland.\n\nCaptain Pan calculated, after consulting the ship's chart, that if this\nweather lasted they should strike the Azores about the 21st of June,\nafter which it would save time to fly.\n\nSome of them wanted it to be an honest ship and others were in favour\nof keeping it a pirate; but the captain treated them as dogs, and they\ndared not express their wishes to him even in a round robin [one person\nafter another, as they had to Cpt. Hook]. Instant obedience was the only\nsafe thing. Slightly got a dozen for looking perplexed when told to take\nsoundings. The general feeling was that Peter was honest just now to\nlull Wendy's suspicions, but that there might be a change when the new\nsuit was ready, which, against her will, she was making for him out of\nsome of Hook's wickedest garments. It was afterwards whispered among\nthem that on the first night he wore this suit he sat long in the cabin\nwith Hook's cigar-holder in his mouth and one hand clenched, all but for\nthe forefinger, which he bent and held threateningly aloft like a hook.\n\nInstead of watching the ship, however, we must now return to that\ndesolate home from which three of our characters had taken heartless\nflight so long ago. It seems a shame to have neglected No. 14 all this\ntime; and yet we may be sure that Mrs. Darling does not blame us. If we\nhad returned sooner to look with sorrowful sympathy at her, she would\nprobably have cried, \"Don't be silly; what do I matter? Do go back and\nkeep an eye on the children.\" So long as mothers are like this their\nchildren will take advantage of them; and they may lay to [bet on] that.\n\nEven now we venture into that familiar nursery only because its lawful\noccupants are on their way home; we are merely hurrying on in advance\nof them to see that their beds are properly aired and that Mr. and Mrs.\nDarling do not go out for the evening. We are no more than servants. Why\non earth should their beds be properly aired, seeing that they left them\nin such a thankless hurry? Would it not serve them jolly well right if\nthey came back and found that their parents were spending the week-end\nin the country? It would be the moral lesson they have been in need\nof ever since we met them; but if we contrived things in this way Mrs.\nDarling would never forgive us.\n\nOne thing I should like to do immensely, and that is to tell her, in the\nway authors have, that the children are coming back, that indeed they\nwill be here on Thursday week. This would spoil so completely the\nsurprise to which Wendy and John and Michael are looking forward. They\nhave been planning it out on the ship: mother's rapture, father's shout\nof joy, Nana's leap through the air to embrace them first, when what\nthey ought to be prepared for is a good hiding. How delicious to spoil\nit all by breaking the news in advance; so that when they enter grandly\nMrs. Darling may not even offer Wendy her mouth, and Mr. Darling may\nexclaim pettishly, \"Dash it all, here are those boys again.\" However,\nwe should get no thanks even for this. We are beginning to know Mrs.\nDarling by this time, and may be sure that she would upbraid us for\ndepriving the children of their little pleasure.\n\n\"But, my dear madam, it is ten days till Thursday week; so that by\ntelling you what's what, we can save you ten days of unhappiness.\"\n\n\"Yes, but at what a cost! By depriving the children of ten minutes of\ndelight.\"\n\n\"Oh, if you look at it in that way!\"\n\n\"What other way is there in which to look at it?\"\n\nYou see, the woman had no proper spirit. I had meant to say\nextraordinarily nice things about her; but I despise her, and not one of\nthem will I say now. She does not really need to be told to have things\nready, for they are ready. All the beds are aired, and she never leaves\nthe house, and observe, the window is open. For all the use we are to\nher, we might well go back to the ship. However, as we are here we may\nas well stay and look on. That is all we are, lookers-on. Nobody really\nwants us. So let us watch and say jaggy things, in the hope that some of\nthem will hurt.\n\nThe only change to be seen in the night-nursery is that between nine\nand six the kennel is no longer there. When the children flew away, Mr.\nDarling felt in his bones that all the blame was his for having chained\nNana up, and that from first to last she had been wiser than he. Of\ncourse, as we have seen, he was quite a simple man; indeed he might have\npassed for a boy again if he had been able to take his baldness off;\nbut he had also a noble sense of justice and a lion's courage to do what\nseemed right to him; and having thought the matter out with anxious care\nafter the flight of the children, he went down on all fours and crawled\ninto the kennel. To all Mrs. Darling's dear invitations to him to come\nout he replied sadly but firmly:\n\n\"No, my own one, this is the place for me.\"\n\nIn the bitterness of his remorse he swore that he would never leave\nthe kennel until his children came back. Of course this was a pity; but\nwhatever Mr. Darling did he had to do in excess, otherwise he soon gave\nup doing it. And there never was a more humble man than the once proud\nGeorge Darling, as he sat in the kennel of an evening talking with his\nwife of their children and all their pretty ways.\n\nVery touching was his deference to Nana. He would not let her come into\nthe kennel, but on all other matters he followed her wishes implicitly.\n\nEvery morning the kennel was carried with Mr. Darling in it to a cab,\nwhich conveyed him to his office, and he returned home in the same way\nat six. Something of the strength of character of the man will be seen\nif we remember how sensitive he was to the opinion of neighbours: this\nman whose every movement now attracted surprised attention. Inwardly he\nmust have suffered torture; but he preserved a calm exterior even when\nthe young criticised his little home, and he always lifted his hat\ncourteously to any lady who looked inside.\n\nIt may have been Quixotic, but it was magnificent. Soon the inward\nmeaning of it leaked out, and the great heart of the public was touched.\nCrowds followed the cab, cheering it lustily; charming girls scaled it\nto get his autograph; interviews appeared in the better class of papers,\nand society invited him to dinner and added, \"Do come in the kennel.\"\n\nOn that eventful Thursday week, Mrs. Darling was in the night-nursery\nawaiting George's return home; a very sad-eyed woman. Now that we look\nat her closely and remember the gaiety of her in the old days, all gone\nnow just because she has lost her babes, I find I won't be able to say\nnasty things about her after all. If she was too fond of her rubbishy\nchildren, she couldn't help it. Look at her in her chair, where she has\nfallen asleep. The corner of her mouth, where one looks first, is almost\nwithered up. Her hand moves restlessly on her breast as if she had a\npain there. Some like Peter best, and some like Wendy best, but I like\nher best. Suppose, to make her happy, we whisper to her in her sleep\nthat the brats are coming back. They are really within two miles of the\nwindow now, and flying strong, but all we need whisper is that they are\non the way. Let's.\n\nIt is a pity we did it, for she has started up, calling their names; and\nthere is no one in the room but Nana.\n\n\"O Nana, I dreamt my dear ones had come back.\"\n\nNana had filmy eyes, but all she could do was put her paw gently on her\nmistress's lap; and they were sitting together thus when the kennel was\nbrought back. As Mr. Darling puts his head out to kiss his wife, we see\nthat his face is more worn than of yore, but has a softer expression.\n\nHe gave his hat to Liza, who took it scornfully; for she had no\nimagination, and was quite incapable of understanding the motives of\nsuch a man. Outside, the crowd who had accompanied the cab home were\nstill cheering, and he was naturally not unmoved.\n\n\"Listen to them,\" he said; \"it is very gratifying.\"\n\n\"Lots of little boys,\" sneered Liza.\n\n\"There were several adults to-day,\" he assured her with a faint flush;\nbut when she tossed her head he had not a word of reproof for her.\nSocial success had not spoilt him; it had made him sweeter. For some\ntime he sat with his head out of the kennel, talking with Mrs. Darling\nof this success, and pressing her hand reassuringly when she said she\nhoped his head would not be turned by it.\n\n\"But if I had been a weak man,\" he said. \"Good heavens, if I had been a\nweak man!\"\n\n\"And, George,\" she said timidly, \"you are as full of remorse as ever,\naren't you?\"\n\n\"Full of remorse as ever, dearest! See my punishment: living in a\nkennel.\"\n\n\"But it is punishment, isn't it, George? You are sure you are not\nenjoying it?\"\n\n\"My love!\"\n\nYou may be sure she begged his pardon; and then, feeling drowsy, he\ncurled round in the kennel.\n\n\"Won't you play me to sleep,\" he asked, \"on the nursery piano?\" and as\nshe was crossing to the day-nursery he added thoughtlessly, \"And shut\nthat window. I feel a draught.\"\n\n\"O George, never ask me to do that. The window must always be left open\nfor them, always, always.\"\n\nNow it was his turn to beg her pardon; and she went into the day-nursery\nand played, and soon he was asleep; and while he slept, Wendy and John\nand Michael flew into the room.\n\nOh no. We have written it so, because that was the charming arrangement\nplanned by them before we left the ship; but something must have\nhappened since then, for it is not they who have flown in, it is Peter\nand Tinker Bell.\n\nPeter's first words tell all.\n\n\"Quick Tink,\" he whispered, \"close the window; bar it! That's right. Now\nyou and I must get away by the door; and when Wendy comes she will think\nher mother has barred her out; and she will have to go back with me.\"\n\nNow I understand what had hitherto puzzled me, why when Peter had\nexterminated the pirates he did not return to the island and leave Tink\nto escort the children to the mainland. This trick had been in his head\nall the time.\n\nInstead of feeling that he was behaving badly he danced with glee; then\nhe peeped into the day-nursery to see who was playing. He whispered to\nTink, \"It's Wendy's mother! She is a pretty lady, but not so pretty as\nmy mother. Her mouth is full of thimbles, but not so full as my mother's\nwas.\"\n\nOf course he knew nothing whatever about his mother; but he sometimes\nbragged about her.\n\nHe did not know the tune, which was \"Home, Sweet Home,\" but he knew it\nwas saying, \"Come back, Wendy, Wendy, Wendy\"; and he cried exultantly,\n\"You will never see Wendy again, lady, for the window is barred!\"\n\nHe peeped in again to see why the music had stopped, and now he saw\nthat Mrs. Darling had laid her head on the box, and that two tears were\nsitting on her eyes.\n\n\"She wants me to unbar the window,\" thought Peter, \"but I won't, not I!\"\n\nHe peeped again, and the tears were still there, or another two had\ntaken their place.\n\n\"She's awfully fond of Wendy,\" he said to himself. He was angry with her\nnow for not seeing why she could not have Wendy.\n\nThe reason was so simple: \"I'm fond of her too. We can't both have her,\nlady.\"\n\nBut the lady would not make the best of it, and he was unhappy. He\nceased to look at her, but even then she would not let go of him. He\nskipped about and made funny faces, but when he stopped it was just as\nif she were inside him, knocking.\n\n\"Oh, all right,\" he said at last, and gulped. Then he unbarred the\nwindow. \"Come on, Tink,\" he cried, with a frightful sneer at the laws of\nnature; \"we don't want any silly mothers;\" and he flew away.\n\nThus Wendy and John and Michael found the window open for them after\nall, which of course was more than they deserved. They alighted on the\nfloor, quite unashamed of themselves, and the youngest one had already\nforgotten his home.\n\n\"John,\" he said, looking around him doubtfully, \"I think I have been\nhere before.\"\n\n\"Of course you have, you silly. There is your old bed.\"\n\n\"So it is,\" Michael said, but not with much conviction.\n\n\"I say,\" cried John, \"the kennel!\" and he dashed across to look into it.\n\n\"Perhaps Nana is inside it,\" Wendy said.\n\nBut John whistled. \"Hullo,\" he said, \"there's a man inside it.\"\n\n\"It's father!\" exclaimed Wendy.\n\n\"Let me see father,\" Michael begged eagerly, and he took a good look.\n\"He is not so big as the pirate I killed,\" he said with such frank\ndisappointment that I am glad Mr. Darling was asleep; it would have been\nsad if those had been the first words he heard his little Michael say.\n\nWendy and John had been taken aback somewhat at finding their father in\nthe kennel.\n\n\"Surely,\" said John, like one who had lost faith in his memory, \"he used\nnot to sleep in the kennel?\"\n\n\"John,\" Wendy said falteringly, \"perhaps we don't remember the old life\nas well as we thought we did.\"\n\nA chill fell upon them; and serve them right.\n\n\"It is very careless of mother,\" said that young scoundrel John, \"not to\nbe here when we come back.\"\n\nIt was then that Mrs. Darling began playing again.\n\n\"It's mother!\" cried Wendy, peeping.\n\n\"So it is!\" said John.\n\n\"Then are you not really our mother, Wendy?\" asked Michael, who was\nsurely sleepy.\n\n\"Oh dear!\" exclaimed Wendy, with her first real twinge of remorse [for\nhaving gone], \"it was quite time we came back.\"\n\n\"Let us creep in,\" John suggested, \"and put our hands over her eyes.\"\n\nBut Wendy, who saw that they must break the joyous news more gently, had\na better plan.\n\n\"Let us all slip into our beds, and be there when she comes in, just as\nif we had never been away.\"\n\nAnd so when Mrs. Darling went back to the night-nursery to see if her\nhusband was asleep, all the beds were occupied. The children waited\nfor her cry of joy, but it did not come. She saw them, but she did not\nbelieve they were there. You see, she saw them in their beds so often in\nher dreams that she thought this was just the dream hanging around her\nstill.\n\nShe sat down in the chair by the fire, where in the old days she had\nnursed them.\n\nThey could not understand this, and a cold fear fell upon all the three\nof them.\n\n\"Mother!\" Wendy cried.\n\n\"That's Wendy,\" she said, but still she was sure it was the dream.\n\n\"Mother!\"\n\n\"That's John,\" she said.\n\n\"Mother!\" cried Michael. He knew her now.\n\n\"That's Michael,\" she said, and she stretched out her arms for the three\nlittle selfish children they would never envelop again. Yes, they did,\nthey went round Wendy and John and Michael, who had slipped out of bed\nand run to her.\n\n\"George, George!\" she cried when she could speak; and Mr. Darling woke\nto share her bliss, and Nana came rushing in. There could not have been\na lovelier sight; but there was none to see it except a little boy who\nwas staring in at the window. He had had ecstasies innumerable that\nother children can never know; but he was looking through the window at\nthe one joy from which he must be for ever barred.\n\n\n\n\nChapter 17 WHEN WENDY GREW UP\n\nI hope you want to know what became of the other boys. They were waiting\nbelow to give Wendy time to explain about them; and when they had\ncounted five hundred they went up. They went up by the stair, because\nthey thought this would make a better impression. They stood in a row\nin front of Mrs. Darling, with their hats off, and wishing they were not\nwearing their pirate clothes. They said nothing, but their eyes asked\nher to have them. They ought to have looked at Mr. Darling also, but\nthey forgot about him.\n\nOf course Mrs. Darling said at once that she would have them; but Mr.\nDarling was curiously depressed, and they saw that he considered six a\nrather large number.\n\n\"I must say,\" he said to Wendy, \"that you don't do things by halves,\" a\ngrudging remark which the twins thought was pointed at them.\n\nThe first twin was the proud one, and he asked, flushing, \"Do you think\nwe should be too much of a handful, sir? Because, if so, we can go\naway.\"\n\n\"Father!\" Wendy cried, shocked; but still the cloud was on him. He knew\nhe was behaving unworthily, but he could not help it.\n\n\"We could lie doubled up,\" said Nibs.\n\n\"I always cut their hair myself,\" said Wendy.\n\n\"George!\" Mrs. Darling exclaimed, pained to see her dear one showing\nhimself in such an unfavourable light.\n\nThen he burst into tears, and the truth came out. He was as glad to\nhave them as she was, he said, but he thought they should have asked his\nconsent as well as hers, instead of treating him as a cypher [zero] in\nhis own house.\n\n\"I don't think he is a cypher,\" Tootles cried instantly. \"Do you think\nhe is a cypher, Curly?\"\n\n\"No, I don't. Do you think he is a cypher, Slightly?\"\n\n\"Rather not. Twin, what do you think?\"\n\nIt turned out that not one of them thought him a cypher; and he was\nabsurdly gratified, and said he would find space for them all in the\ndrawing-room if they fitted in.\n\n\"We'll fit in, sir,\" they assured him.\n\n\"Then follow the leader,\" he cried gaily. \"Mind you, I am not sure that\nwe have a drawing-room, but we pretend we have, and it's all the same.\nHoop la!\"\n\nHe went off dancing through the house, and they all cried \"Hoop la!\" and\ndanced after him, searching for the drawing-room; and I forget whether\nthey found it, but at any rate they found corners, and they all fitted\nin.\n\nAs for Peter, he saw Wendy once again before he flew away. He did not\nexactly come to the window, but he brushed against it in passing so that\nshe could open it if she liked and call to him. That is what she did.\n\n\"Hullo, Wendy, good-bye,\" he said.\n\n\"Oh dear, are you going away?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"You don't feel, Peter,\" she said falteringly, \"that you would like to\nsay anything to my parents about a very sweet subject?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"About me, Peter?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\nMrs. Darling came to the window, for at present she was keeping a sharp\neye on Wendy. She told Peter that she had adopted all the other boys,\nand would like to adopt him also.\n\n\"Would you send me to school?\" he inquired craftily.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And then to an office?\"\n\n\"I suppose so.\"\n\n\"Soon I would be a man?\"\n\n\"Very soon.\"\n\n\"I don't want to go to school and learn solemn things,\" he told her\npassionately. \"I don't want to be a man. O Wendy's mother, if I was to\nwake up and feel there was a beard!\"\n\n\"Peter,\" said Wendy the comforter, \"I should love you in a beard;\" and\nMrs. Darling stretched out her arms to him, but he repulsed her.\n\n\"Keep back, lady, no one is going to catch me and make me a man.\"\n\n\"But where are you going to live?\"\n\n\"With Tink in the house we built for Wendy. The fairies are to put it\nhigh up among the tree tops where they sleep at nights.\"\n\n\"How lovely,\" cried Wendy so longingly that Mrs. Darling tightened her\ngrip.\n\n\"I thought all the fairies were dead,\" Mrs. Darling said.\n\n\"There are always a lot of young ones,\" explained Wendy, who was now\nquite an authority, \"because you see when a new baby laughs for the\nfirst time a new fairy is born, and as there are always new babies there\nare always new fairies. They live in nests on the tops of trees; and the\nmauve ones are boys and the white ones are girls, and the blue ones are\njust little sillies who are not sure what they are.\"\n\n\"I shall have such fun,\" said Peter, with eye on Wendy.\n\n\"It will be rather lonely in the evening,\" she said, \"sitting by the\nfire.\"\n\n\"I shall have Tink.\"\n\n\"Tink can't go a twentieth part of the way round,\" she reminded him a\nlittle tartly.\n\n\"Sneaky tell-tale!\" Tink called out from somewhere round the corner.\n\n\"It doesn't matter,\" Peter said.\n\n\"O Peter, you know it matters.\"\n\n\"Well, then, come with me to the little house.\"\n\n\"May I, mummy?\"\n\n\"Certainly not. I have got you home again, and I mean to keep you.\"\n\n\"But he does so need a mother.\"\n\n\"So do you, my love.\"\n\n\"Oh, all right,\" Peter said, as if he had asked her from politeness\nmerely; but Mrs. Darling saw his mouth twitch, and she made this\nhandsome offer: to let Wendy go to him for a week every year to do\nhis spring cleaning. Wendy would have preferred a more permanent\narrangement; and it seemed to her that spring would be long in coming;\nbut this promise sent Peter away quite gay again. He had no sense of\ntime, and was so full of adventures that all I have told you about him\nis only a halfpenny-worth of them. I suppose it was because Wendy knew\nthis that her last words to him were these rather plaintive ones:\n\n\"You won't forget me, Peter, will you, before spring cleaning time\ncomes?\"\n\nOf course Peter promised; and then he flew away. He took Mrs. Darling's\nkiss with him. The kiss that had been for no one else, Peter took quite\neasily. Funny. But she seemed satisfied.\n\nOf course all the boys went to school; and most of them got into Class\nIII, but Slightly was put first into Class IV and then into Class V.\nClass I is the top class. Before they had attended school a week they\nsaw what goats they had been not to remain on the island; but it was too\nlate now, and soon they settled down to being as ordinary as you or me\nor Jenkins minor [the younger Jenkins]. It is sad to have to say that\nthe power to fly gradually left them. At first Nana tied their feet to\nthe bed-posts so that they should not fly away in the night; and one of\ntheir diversions by day was to pretend to fall off buses [the English\ndouble-deckers]; but by and by they ceased to tug at their bonds in bed,\nand found that they hurt themselves when they let go of the bus. In time\nthey could not even fly after their hats. Want of practice, they called\nit; but what it really meant was that they no longer believed.\n\nMichael believed longer than the other boys, though they jeered at him;\nso he was with Wendy when Peter came for her at the end of the first\nyear. She flew away with Peter in the frock she had woven from leaves\nand berries in the Neverland, and her one fear was that he might notice\nhow short it had become; but he never noticed, he had so much to say\nabout himself.\n\nShe had looked forward to thrilling talks with him about old times, but\nnew adventures had crowded the old ones from his mind.\n\n\"Who is Captain Hook?\" he asked with interest when she spoke of the arch\nenemy.\n\n\"Don't you remember,\" she asked, amazed, \"how you killed him and saved\nall our lives?\"\n\n\"I forget them after I kill them,\" he replied carelessly.\n\nWhen she expressed a doubtful hope that Tinker Bell would be glad to see\nher he said, \"Who is Tinker Bell?\"\n\n\"O Peter,\" she said, shocked; but even when she explained he could not\nremember.\n\n\"There are such a lot of them,\" he said. \"I expect she is no more.\"\n\nI expect he was right, for fairies don't live long, but they are so\nlittle that a short time seems a good while to them.\n\nWendy was pained too to find that the past year was but as yesterday\nto Peter; it had seemed such a long year of waiting to her. But he was\nexactly as fascinating as ever, and they had a lovely spring cleaning in\nthe little house on the tree tops.\n\nNext year he did not come for her. She waited in a new frock because the\nold one simply would not meet; but he never came.\n\n\"Perhaps he is ill,\" Michael said.\n\n\"You know he is never ill.\"\n\nMichael came close to her and whispered, with a shiver, \"Perhaps there\nis no such person, Wendy!\" and then Wendy would have cried if Michael\nhad not been crying.\n\nPeter came next spring cleaning; and the strange thing was that he never\nknew he had missed a year.\n\nThat was the last time the girl Wendy ever saw him. For a little longer\nshe tried for his sake not to have growing pains; and she felt she was\nuntrue to him when she got a prize for general knowledge. But the years\ncame and went without bringing the careless boy; and when they met again\nWendy was a married woman, and Peter was no more to her than a little\ndust in the box in which she had kept her toys. Wendy was grown up. You\nneed not be sorry for her. She was one of the kind that likes to grow\nup. In the end she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than other\ngirls.\n\nAll the boys were grown up and done for by this time; so it is scarcely\nworth while saying anything more about them. You may see the twins and\nNibs and Curly any day going to an office, each carrying a little bag\nand an umbrella. Michael is an engine-driver [train engineer]. Slightly\nmarried a lady of title, and so he became a lord. You see that judge in\na wig coming out at the iron door? That used to be Tootles. The bearded\nman who doesn't know any story to tell his children was once John.\n\nWendy was married in white with a pink sash. It is strange to think\nthat Peter did not alight in the church and forbid the banns [formal\nannouncement of a marriage].\n\nYears rolled on again, and Wendy had a daughter. This ought not to be\nwritten in ink but in a golden splash.\n\nShe was called Jane, and always had an odd inquiring look, as if from\nthe moment she arrived on the mainland she wanted to ask questions. When\nshe was old enough to ask them they were mostly about Peter Pan. She\nloved to hear of Peter, and Wendy told her all she could remember in the\nvery nursery from which the famous flight had taken place. It was\nJane's nursery now, for her father had bought it at the three per cents\n[mortgage rate] from Wendy's father, who was no longer fond of stairs.\nMrs. Darling was now dead and forgotten.\n\nThere were only two beds in the nursery now, Jane's and her nurse's; and\nthere was no kennel, for Nana also had passed away. She died of old age,\nand at the end she had been rather difficult to get on with; being very\nfirmly convinced that no one knew how to look after children except\nherself.\n\nOnce a week Jane's nurse had her evening off; and then it was Wendy's\npart to put Jane to bed. That was the time for stories. It was Jane's\ninvention to raise the sheet over her mother's head and her own, thus\nmaking a tent, and in the awful darkness to whisper:\n\n\"What do we see now?\"\n\n\"I don't think I see anything to-night,\" says Wendy, with a feeling that\nif Nana were here she would object to further conversation.\n\n\"Yes, you do,\" says Jane, \"you see when you were a little girl.\"\n\n\"That is a long time ago, sweetheart,\" says Wendy. \"Ah me, how time\nflies!\"\n\n\"Does it fly,\" asks the artful child, \"the way you flew when you were a\nlittle girl?\"\n\n\"The way I flew? Do you know, Jane, I sometimes wonder whether I ever\ndid really fly.\"\n\n\"Yes, you did.\"\n\n\"The dear old days when I could fly!\"\n\n\"Why can't you fly now, mother?\"\n\n\"Because I am grown up, dearest. When people grow up they forget the\nway.\"\n\n\"Why do they forget the way?\"\n\n\"Because they are no longer gay and innocent and heartless. It is only\nthe gay and innocent and heartless who can fly.\"\n\n\"What is gay and innocent and heartless? I do wish I were gay and\ninnocent and heartless.\"\n\nOr perhaps Wendy admits she does see something.\n\n\"I do believe,\" she says, \"that it is this nursery.\"\n\n\"I do believe it is,\" says Jane. \"Go on.\"\n\nThey are now embarked on the great adventure of the night when Peter\nflew in looking for his shadow.\n\n\"The foolish fellow,\" says Wendy, \"tried to stick it on with soap, and\nwhen he could not he cried, and that woke me, and I sewed it on for\nhim.\"\n\n\"You have missed a bit,\" interrupts Jane, who now knows the story better\nthan her mother. \"When you saw him sitting on the floor crying, what did\nyou say?\"\n\n\"I sat up in bed and I said, 'Boy, why are you crying?'\"\n\n\"Yes, that was it,\" says Jane, with a big breath.\n\n\"And then he flew us all away to the Neverland and the fairies and the\npirates and the redskins and the mermaids' lagoon, and the home under\nthe ground, and the little house.\"\n\n\"Yes! which did you like best of all?\"\n\n\"I think I liked the home under the ground best of all.\"\n\n\"Yes, so do I. What was the last thing Peter ever said to you?\"\n\n\"The last thing he ever said to me was, 'Just always be waiting for me,\nand then some night you will hear me crowing.'\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"But, alas, he forgot all about me,\" Wendy said it with a smile. She was\nas grown up as that.\n\n\"What did his crow sound like?\" Jane asked one evening.\n\n\"It was like this,\" Wendy said, trying to imitate Peter's crow.\n\n\"No, it wasn't,\" Jane said gravely, \"it was like this;\" and she did it\never so much better than her mother.\n\nWendy was a little startled. \"My darling, how can you know?\"\n\n\"I often hear it when I am sleeping,\" Jane said.\n\n\"Ah yes, many girls hear it when they are sleeping, but I was the only\none who heard it awake.\"\n\n\"Lucky you,\" said Jane.\n\nAnd then one night came the tragedy. It was the spring of the year, and\nthe story had been told for the night, and Jane was now asleep in her\nbed. Wendy was sitting on the floor, very close to the fire, so as to\nsee to darn, for there was no other light in the nursery; and while she\nsat darning she heard a crow. Then the window blew open as of old, and\nPeter dropped in on the floor.\n\nHe was exactly the same as ever, and Wendy saw at once that he still had\nall his first teeth.\n\nHe was a little boy, and she was grown up. She huddled by the fire not\ndaring to move, helpless and guilty, a big woman.\n\n\"Hullo, Wendy,\" he said, not noticing any difference, for he was\nthinking chiefly of himself; and in the dim light her white dress might\nhave been the nightgown in which he had seen her first.\n\n\"Hullo, Peter,\" she replied faintly, squeezing herself as small as\npossible. Something inside her was crying \"Woman, Woman, let go of me.\"\n\n\"Hullo, where is John?\" he asked, suddenly missing the third bed.\n\n\"John is not here now,\" she gasped.\n\n\"Is Michael asleep?\" he asked, with a careless glance at Jane.\n\n\"Yes,\" she answered; and now she felt that she was untrue to Jane as\nwell as to Peter.\n\n\"That is not Michael,\" she said quickly, lest a judgment should fall on\nher.\n\nPeter looked. \"Hullo, is it a new one?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Boy or girl?\"\n\n\"Girl.\"\n\nNow surely he would understand; but not a bit of it.\n\n\"Peter,\" she said, faltering, \"are you expecting me to fly away with\nyou?\"\n\n\"Of course; that is why I have come.\" He added a little sternly, \"Have\nyou forgotten that this is spring cleaning time?\"\n\nShe knew it was useless to say that he had let many spring cleaning\ntimes pass.\n\n\"I can't come,\" she said apologetically, \"I have forgotten how to fly.\"\n\n\"I'll soon teach you again.\"\n\n\"O Peter, don't waste the fairy dust on me.\"\n\nShe had risen; and now at last a fear assailed him. \"What is it?\" he\ncried, shrinking.\n\n\"I will turn up the light,\" she said, \"and then you can see for\nyourself.\"\n\nFor almost the only time in his life that I know of, Peter was afraid.\n\"Don't turn up the light,\" he cried.\n\nShe let her hands play in the hair of the tragic boy. She was not a\nlittle girl heart-broken about him; she was a grown woman smiling at it\nall, but they were wet-eyed smiles.\n\nThen she turned up the light, and Peter saw. He gave a cry of pain; and\nwhen the tall beautiful creature stooped to lift him in her arms he drew\nback sharply.\n\n\"What is it?\" he cried again.\n\nShe had to tell him.\n\n\"I am old, Peter. I am ever so much more than twenty. I grew up long\nago.\"\n\n\"You promised not to!\"\n\n\"I couldn't help it. I am a married woman, Peter.\"\n\n\"No, you're not.\"\n\n\"Yes, and the little girl in the bed is my baby.\"\n\n\"No, she's not.\"\n\nBut he supposed she was; and he took a step towards the sleeping child\nwith his dagger upraised. Of course he did not strike. He sat down on\nthe floor instead and sobbed; and Wendy did not know how to comfort him,\nthough she could have done it so easily once. She was only a woman now,\nand she ran out of the room to try to think.\n\nPeter continued to cry, and soon his sobs woke Jane. She sat up in bed,\nand was interested at once.\n\n\"Boy,\" she said, \"why are you crying?\"\n\nPeter rose and bowed to her, and she bowed to him from the bed.\n\n\"Hullo,\" he said.\n\n\"Hullo,\" said Jane.\n\n\"My name is Peter Pan,\" he told her.\n\n\"Yes, I know.\"\n\n\"I came back for my mother,\" he explained, \"to take her to the\nNeverland.\"\n\n\"Yes, I know,\" Jane said, \"I have been waiting for you.\"\n\nWhen Wendy returned diffidently she found Peter sitting on the bed-post\ncrowing gloriously, while Jane in her nighty was flying round the room\nin solemn ecstasy.\n\n\"She is my mother,\" Peter explained; and Jane descended and stood by his\nside, with the look in her face that he liked to see on ladies when they\ngazed at him.\n\n\"He does so need a mother,\" Jane said.\n\n\"Yes, I know,\" Wendy admitted rather forlornly; \"no one knows it so well\nas I.\"\n\n\"Good-bye,\" said Peter to Wendy; and he rose in the air, and the\nshameless Jane rose with him; it was already her easiest way of moving\nabout.\n\nWendy rushed to the window.\n\n\"No, no,\" she cried.\n\n\"It is just for spring cleaning time,\" Jane said, \"he wants me always to\ndo his spring cleaning.\"\n\n\"If only I could go with you,\" Wendy sighed.\n\n\"You see you can't fly,\" said Jane.\n\nOf course in the end Wendy let them fly away together. Our last glimpse\nof her shows her at the window, watching them receding into the sky\nuntil they were as small as stars.\n\nAs you look at Wendy, you may see her hair becoming white, and her\nfigure little again, for all this happened long ago. Jane is now a\ncommon grown-up, with a daughter called Margaret; and every spring\ncleaning time, except when he forgets, Peter comes for Margaret and\ntakes her to the Neverland, where she tells him stories about himself,\nto which he listens eagerly. When Margaret grows up she will have a\ndaughter, who is to be Peter's mother in turn; and thus it will go on,\nso long as children are gay and innocent and heartless.\n\n\nTHE END"