Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
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J. M. Barrie >> Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens
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PETER PAN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS
By J. M. BARRIE
CONTENTS
Peter Pan
The Thrush's Nest
The Little House
Lock-Out Time
Peter Pan
If you ask your mother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a
little girl she will say, "Why, of course, I did, child," and if you
ask her whether he rode on a goat in those days she will say, "What a
foolish question to ask, certainly he did." Then if you ask your
grandmother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a girl, she
also says, "Why, of course, I did, child," but if you ask her whether
he rode on a goat in those days, she says she never heard of his
having a goat. Perhaps she has forgotten, just as she sometimes
forgets your name and calls you Mildred, which is your mother's name.
Still, she could hardly forget such an important thing as the goat.
Therefore there was no goat when your grandmother was a little girl.
This shows that, in telling the story of Peter Pan, to begin with the
goat (as most people do) is as silly as to put on your jacket before
your vest.
Of course, it also shows that Peter is ever so old, but he is really
always the same age, so that does not matter in the least. His age is
one week, and though he was born so long ago he has never had a
birthday, nor is there the slightest chance of his ever having one.
The reason is that he escaped from being a human when he was seven
days' old; he escaped by the window and flew back to the Kensington
Gardens.
If you think he was the only baby who ever wanted to escape, it shows
how completely you have forgotten your own young days. When David
heard this story first he was quite certain that he had never tried to
escape, but I told him to think back hard, pressing his hands to his
temples, and when he had done this hard, and even harder, he
distinctly remembered a youthful desire to return to the tree-tops,
and with that memory came others, as that he had lain in bed planning
to escape as soon as his mother was asleep, and how she had once
caught him half-way up the chimney. All children could have such
recollections if they would press their hands hard to their temples,
for, having been birds before they were human, they are naturally a
little wild during the first few weeks, and very itchy at the
shoulders, where their wings used to be. So David tells me.
I ought to mention here that the following is our way with a story:
First, I tell it to him, and then he tells it to me, the understanding
being that it is quite a different story; and then I retell it with
his additions, and so we go on until no one could say whether it is
more his story or mine. In this story of Peter Pan, for instance, the
bald narrative and most of the moral reflections are mine, though not
all, for this boy can be a stern moralist, but the interesting bits
about the ways and customs of babies in the bird-stage are mostly
reminiscences of David's, recalled by pressing his hands to his
temples and thinking hard.
Well, Peter Pan got out by the window, which had no bars. Standing on
the ledge he could see trees far away, which were doubtless the
Kensington Gardens, and the moment he saw them he entirely forgot that
he was now a little boy in a nightgown, and away he flew, right over
the houses to the Gardens. It is wonderful that he could fly without
wings, but the place itched tremendously, and, perhaps we could all
fly if we were as dead-confident-sure of our capacity to do it as was
bold Peter Pan that evening.
He alighted gaily on the open sward, between the Baby's Palace and the
Serpentine, and the first thing he did was to lie on his back and
kick. He was quite unaware already that he had ever been human, and
thought he was a bird, even in appearance, just the same as in his
early days, and when he tried to catch a fly he did not understand
that the reason he missed it was because he had attempted to seize it
with his hand, which, of course, a bird never does. He saw, however,
that it must be past Lock-out Time, for there were a good many fairies
about, all too busy to notice him; they were getting breakfast ready,
milking their cows, drawing water, and so on, and the sight of the
water-pails made him thirsty, so he flew over to the Round Pond to
have a drink. He stooped, and dipped his beak in the pond; he thought
it was his beak, but, of course, it was only his nose, and, therefore,
very little water came up, and that not so refreshing as usual, so
next he tried a puddle, and he fell flop into it. When a real bird
falls in flop, he spreads out his feathers and pecks them dry, but
Peter could not remember what was the thing to do, and he decided,
rather sulkily, to go to sleep on the weeping beech in the Baby Walk.
At first he found some difficulty in balancing himself on a branch,
but presently he remembered the way, and fell asleep. He awoke long
before morning, shivering, and saying to himself, "I never was out in
such a cold night;" he had really been out in colder nights when he
was a bird, but, of course, as everybody knows, what seems a warm
night to a bird is a cold night to a boy in a nightgown. Peter also
felt strangely uncomfortable, as if his head was stuffy, he heard loud
noises that made him look round sharply, though they were really
himself sneezing. There was something he wanted very much, but,
though he knew he wanted it, he could not think what it was. What he
wanted so much was his mother to blow his nose, but that never struck
him, so he decided to appeal to the fairies for enlightenment. They
are reputed to know a good deal.
There were two of them strolling along the Baby Walk, with their arms
round each other's waists, and he hopped down to address them. The
fairies have their tiffs with the birds, but they usually give a civil
answer to a civil question, and he was quite angry when these two ran
away the moment they saw him. Another was lolling on a garden-chair,
reading a postage-stamp which some human had let fall, and when he
heard Peter's voice he popped in alarm behind a tulip.
To Peter's bewilderment he discovered that every fairy he met fled
from him. A band of workmen, who were sawing down a toadstool, rushed
away, leaving their tools behind them. A milkmaid turned her pail
upside down and hid in it. Soon the Gardens were in an uproar.
Crowds of fairies were running this way and that, asking each other
stoutly, who was afraid, lights were extinguished, doors barricaded,
and from the grounds of Queen Mab's palace came the rubadub of drums,
showing that the royal guard had been called out.
A regiment of Lancers came charging down the Broad Walk, armed with
holly-leaves, with which they jog the enemy horribly in passing.
Peter heard the little people crying everywhere that there was a human
in the Gardens after Lock-out Time, but he never thought for a moment
that he was the human. He was feeling stuffier and stuffier, and more
and more wistful to learn what he wanted done to his nose, but he
pursued them with the vital question in vain; the timid creatures ran
from him, and even the Lancers, when he approached them up the Hump,
turned swiftly into a side-walk, on the pretence that they saw him
there.
Despairing of the fairies, he resolved to consult the birds, but now
he remembered, as an odd thing, that all the birds on the weeping
beech had flown away when he alighted on it, and though that had not
troubled him at the time, he saw its meaning now. Every living thing
was shunning him. Poor little Peter Pan, he sat down and cried, and
even then he did not know that, for a bird, he was sitting on his
wrong part. It is a blessing that he did not know, for otherwise he
would have lost faith in his power to fly, and the moment you doubt
whether you can fly, you cease forever to be able to do it. The
reason birds can fly and we can't is simply that they have perfect
faith, for to have faith is to have wings.
Now, except by flying, no one can reach the island in the Serpentine,
for the boats of humans are forbidden to land there, and there are
stakes round it, standing up in the water, on each of which a
bird-sentinel sits by day and night. It was to the island that Peter
now flew to put his strange case before old Solomon Caw, and he
alighted on it with relief, much heartened to find himself at last at
home, as the birds call the island. All of them were asleep,
including the sentinels, except Solomon, who was wide awake on one
side, and he listened quietly to Peter's adventures, and then told him
their true meaning.
"Look at your night-gown, if you don't believe me," Solomon said, and
with staring eyes Peter looked at his nightgown, and then at the
sleeping birds. Not one of them wore anything.
"How many of your toes are thumbs?" said Solomon a little cruelly, and
Peter saw to his consternation, that all his toes were fingers. The
shock was so great that it drove away his cold.
"Ruffle your feathers," said that grim old Solomon, and Peter tried
most desperately hard to ruffle his feathers, but he had none. Then
he rose up, quaking, and for the first time since he stood on the
window-ledge, he remembered a lady who had been very fond of him.
"I think I shall go back to mother," he said timidly.
"Good-bye," replied Solomon Caw with a queer look.
But Peter hesitated. "Why don't you go?" the old one asked politely.
"I suppose," said Peter huskily, "I suppose I can still fly?"
You see, he had lost faith.
"Poor little half-and-half," said Solomon, who was not really
hard-hearted, "you will never be able to fly again, not even on windy
days. You must live here on the island always."
"And never even go to the Kensington Gardens?" Peter asked tragically.
"How could you get across?" said Solomon. He promised very kindly,
however, to teach Peter as many of the bird ways as could be learned
by one of such an awkward shape.
"Then I sha'n't be exactly a human?" Peter asked.
"No."
"Nor exactly a bird?"
"No."
"What shall I be?"
"You will be a Betwixt-and-Between," Solomon said, and certainly he
was a wise old fellow, for that is exactly how it turned out.
The birds on the island never got used to him. His oddities tickled
them every day, as if they were quite new, though it was really the
birds that were new. They came out of the eggs daily, and laughed at
him at once, then off they soon flew to be humans, and other birds
came out of other eggs, and so it went on forever. The crafty
mother-birds, when they tired of sitting on their eggs, used to get
the young one to break their shells a day before the right time by
whispering to them that now was their chance to see Peter washing or
drinking or eating. Thousands gathered round him daily to watch him
do these things, just as you watch the peacocks, and they screamed
with delight when he lifted the crusts they flung him with his hands
instead of in the usual way with the mouth. All his food was brought
to him from the Gardens at Solomon's orders by the birds. He would
not eat worms or insects (which they thought very silly of him), so
they brought him bread in their beaks. Thus, when you cry out,
"Greedy! Greedy!" to the bird that flies away with the big crust, you
know now that you ought not to do this, for he is very likely taking
it to Peter Pan.
Peter wore no night-gown now. You see, the birds were always begging
him for bits of it to line their nests with, and, being very
good-natured, he could not refuse, so by Solomon's advice he had
hidden what was left of it. But, though he was now quite naked, you
must not think that he was cold or unhappy. He was usually very happy
and gay, and the reason was that Solomon had kept his promise and
taught him many of the bird ways. To be easily pleased, for instance,
and always to be really doing something, and to think that whatever he
was doing was a thing of vast importance. Peter became very clever at
helping the birds to build their nests; soon he could build better
than a wood-pigeon, and nearly as well as a blackbird, though never
did he satisfy the finches, and he made nice little water-troughs near
the nests and dug up worms for the young ones with his fingers. He
also became very learned in bird-lore, and knew an east-wind from a
west-wind by its smell, and he could see the grass growing and hear
the insects walking about inside the tree-trunks. But the best thing
Solomon had done was to teach him to have a glad heart. All birds
have glad hearts unless you rob their nests, and so as they were the
only kind of heart Solomon knew about, it was easy to him to teach
Peter how to have one.
Peter's heart was so glad that he felt he must sing all day long, just
as the birds sing for joy, but, being partly human, he needed in
instrument, so he made a pipe of reeds, and he used to sit by the
shore of the island of an evening, practising the sough of the wind
and the ripple of the water, and catching handfuls of the shine of the
moon, and he put them all in his pipe and played them so beautifully
that even the birds were deceived, and they would say to each other,
"Was that a fish leaping in the water or was it Peter playing leaping
fish on his pipe?" and sometimes he played the birth of birds, and
then the mothers would turn round in their nests to see whether they
had laid an egg. If you are a child of the Gardens you must know the
chestnut-tree near the bridge, which comes out in flower first of all
the chestnuts, but perhaps you have not heard why this tree leads the
way. It is because Peter wearies for summer and plays that it has
come, and the chestnut being so near, hears him and is cheated.
But as Peter sat by the shore tootling divinely on his pipe he
sometimes fell into sad thoughts and then the music became sad also,
and the reason of all this sadness was that he could not reach the
Gardens, though he could see them through the arch of the bridge. He
knew he could never be a real human again, and scarcely wanted to be
one, but oh, how he longed to play as other children play, and of
course there is no such lovely place to play in as the Gardens. The
birds brought him news of how boys and girls play, and wistful tears
started in Peter's eyes.
Perhaps you wonder why he did not swim across. The reason was that he
could not swim. He wanted to know how to swim, but no one on the
island knew the way except the ducks, and they are so stupid. They
were quite willing to teach him, but all they could say about it was,
"You sit down on the top of the water in this way, and then you kick
out like that." Peter tried it often, but always before he could kick
out he sank. What he really needed to know was how you sit on the
water without sinking, and they said it was quite impossible to
explain such an easy thing as that. Occasionally swans touched on the
island, and he would give them all his day's food and then ask them
how they sat on the water, but as soon as he had no more to give them
the hateful things hissed at him and sailed away.
Once he really thought he had discovered a way of reaching the
Gardens. A wonderful white thing, like a runaway newspaper, floated
high over the island and then tumbled, rolling over and over after the
manner of a bird that has broken its wing. Peter was so frightened
that he hid, but the birds told him it was only a kite, and what a
kite is, and that it must have tugged its string out of a boy's hand,
and soared away. After that they laughed at Peter for being so fond
of the kite, he loved it so much that he even slept with one hand on
it, and I think this was pathetic and pretty, for the reason he loved
it was because it had belonged to a real boy.
To the birds this was a very poor reason, but the older ones felt
grateful to him at this time because he had nursed a number of
fledglings through the German measles, and they offered to show him
how birds fly a kite. So six of them took the end of the string in
their beaks and flew away with it; and to his amazement it flew after
them and went even higher than they.
Peter screamed out, "Do it again!" and with great good nature they did
it several times, and always instead of thanking them he cried, "Do it
again!" which shows that even now he had not quite forgotten what it
was to be a boy.
At last, with a grand design burning within his brave heart, he begged
them to do it once more with him clinging to the tail, and now a
hundred flew off with the string, and Peter clung to the tail, meaning
to drop off when he was over the Gardens. But the kite broke to
pieces in the air, and he would have drowned in the Serpentine had he
not caught hold of two indignant swans and made them carry him to the
island. After this the birds said that they would help him no more in
his mad enterprise.
Nevertheless, Peter did reach the Gardens at last by the help of
Shelley's boat, as I am now to tell you.
The Thrush's Nest
Shelley was a young gentleman and as grown-up as he need ever expect
to be. He was a poet; and they are never exactly grown-up. They are
people who despise money except what you need for to-day, and he had
all that and five pounds over. So, when he was walking in the
Kensington Gardens, he made a paper boat of his bank-note, and sent it
sailing on the Serpentine.
It reached the island at night: and the look-out brought it to
Solomon Caw, who thought at first that it was the usual thing, a
message from a lady, saying she would be obliged if he could let her
have a good one. They always ask for the best one he has, and if he
likes the letter he sends one from Class A, but if it ruffles him he
sends very funny ones indeed. Sometimes he sends none at all, and at
another time he sends a nestful; it all depends on the mood you catch
him in. He likes you to leave it all to him, and if you mention
particularly that you hope he will see his way to making it a boy this
time, he is almost sure to send another girl. And whether you are a
lady or only a little boy who wants a baby-sister, always take pains
to write your address clearly. You can't think what a lot of babies
Solomon has sent to the wrong house.
Shelley's boat, when opened, completely puzzled Solomon, and he took
counsel of his assistants, who having walked over it twice, first with
their toes pointed out, and then with their toes pointed in, decided
that it came from some greedy person who wanted five. They thought
this because there was a large five printed on it. "Preposterous!"
cried Solomon in a rage, and he presented it to Peter; anything
useless which drifted upon the island was usually given to Peter as a
play-thing.
But he did not play with his precious bank-note, for he knew what it
was at once, having been very observant during the week when he was an
ordinary boy. With so much money, he reflected, he could surely at
last contrive to reach the Gardens, and he considered all the possible
ways, and decided (wisely, I think) to choose the best way. But,
first, he had to tell the birds of the value of Shelley's boat; and
though they were too honest to demand it back, he saw that they were
galled, and they cast such black looks at Solomon, who was rather vain
of his cleverness, that he flew away to the end of the island, and sat
there very depressed with his head buried in his wings. Now Peter
knew that unless Solomon was on your side, you never got anything done
for you in the island, so he followed him and tried to hearten him.
Nor was this all that Peter did to pin the powerful old fellow's good
will. You must know that Solomon had no intention of remaining in
office all his life. He looked forward to retiring by-and-by, and
devoting his green old age to a life of pleasure on a certain
yew-stump in the Figs which had taken his fancy, and for years he had
been quietly filling his stocking. It was a stocking belonging to
some bathing person which had been cast upon the island, and at the
time I speak of it contained a hundred and eighty crumbs, thirty-four
nuts, sixteen crusts, a pen-wiper and a bootlace. When his stocking
was full, Solomon calculated that he would be able to retire on a
competency. Peter now gave him a pound. He cut it off his bank-note
with a sharp stick.
This made Solomon his friend for ever, and after the two had consulted
together they called a meeting of the thrushes. You will see
presently why thrushes only were invited.
The scheme to be put before them was really Peter's, but Solomon did
most of the talking, because he soon became irritable if other people
talked. He began by saying that he had been much impressed by the
superior ingenuity shown by the thrushes in nest-building, and this
put them into good-humour at once, as it was meant to do; for all the
quarrels between birds are about the best way of building nests.
Other birds, said Solomon, omitted to line their nests with mud, and
as a result they did not hold water. Here he cocked his head as if he
had used an unanswerable argument; but, unfortunately, a Mrs. Finch
had come to the meeting uninvited, and she squeaked out, "We don't
build nests to hold water, but to hold eggs," and then the thrushes
stopped cheering, and Solomon was so perplexed that he took several
sips of water.
"Consider," he said at last, "how warm the mud makes the nest."
"Consider," cried Mrs. Finch, "that when water gets into the nest it
remains there and your little ones are drowned."
The thrushes begged Solomon with a look to say something crushing in
reply to this, but again he was perplexed.
"Try another drink," suggested Mrs. Finch pertly. Kate was her name,
and all Kates are saucy.
Solomon did try another drink, and it inspired him. "If," said he, "a
finch's nest is placed on the Serpentine it fills and breaks to
pieces, but a thrush's nest is still as dry as the cup of a swan's
back."
How the thrushes applauded! Now they knew why they lined their nests
with mud, and when Mrs. Finch called out, "We don't place our nests on
the Serpentine," they did what they should have done at first: chased
her from the meeting. After this it was most orderly. What they had
been brought together to hear, said Solomon, was this: their young
friend, Peter Pan, as they well knew, wanted very much to be able to
cross to the Gardens, and he now proposed, with their help, to build a
boat.
At this the thrushes began to fidget, which made Peter tremble for his
scheme.
Solomon explained hastily that what he meant was not one of the
cumbrous boats that humans use; the proposed boat was to be simply a
thrush's nest large enough to hold Peter.
But still, to Peter's agony, the thrushes were sulky. "We are very
busy people," they grumbled, "and this would be a big job."
"Quite so," said Solomon, "and, of course, Peter would not allow you
to work for nothing. You must remember that he is now in comfortable
circumstances, and he will pay you such wages as you have never been
paid before. Peter Pan authorises me to say that you shall all be
paid sixpence a day."
Then all the thrushes hopped for joy, and that very day was begun the
celebrated Building of the Boat. All their ordinary business fell
into arrears. It was the time of year when they should have been
pairing, but not a thrush's nest was built except this big one, and so
Solomon soon ran short of thrushes with which to supply the demand
from the mainland. The stout, rather greedy children, who look so
well in perambulators but get puffed easily when they walk, were all
young thrushes once, and ladies often ask specially for them. What do
you think Solomon did? He sent over to the housetops for a lot of
sparrows and ordered them to lay their eggs in old thrushes' nests and
sent their young to the ladies and swore they were all thrushes! It
was known afterward on the island as the Sparrows' Year, and so, when
you meet, as you doubtless sometimes do, grown-up people who puff and
blow as if they thought themselves bigger than they are, very likely
they belong to that year. You ask them.
Peter was a just master, and paid his work-people every evening. They
stood in rows on the branches, waiting politely while he cut the paper
sixpences out of his bank-note, and presently he called the roll, and
then each bird, as the names were mentioned, flew down and got
sixpence. It must have been a fine sight.
And at last, after months of labor, the boat was finished. Oh, the
deportment of Peter as he saw it growing more and more like a great
thrush's nest! From the very beginning of the building of it he slept
by its side, and often woke up to say sweet things to it, and after it
was lined with mud and the mud had dried he always slept in it. He
sleeps in his nest still, and has a fascinating way of curling round
in it, for it is just large enough to hold him comfortably when he
curls round like a kitten. It is brown inside, of course, but outside
it is mostly green, being woven of grass and twigs, and when these
wither or snap the walls are thatched afresh. There are also a few
feathers here and there, which came off the thrushes while they were
building.