by C. S. Lewis
“Please, your Majesty,” said Edmund, “I’ve done the best I can. I’ve brought them quite close. They’re in the little house on top of the dam just up the river—with Mr. and Mrs. Beaver.”
A slow cruel smile came over the Witch’s face.
“Is this all your news?” she asked.
“No, your Majesty,” said Edmund, and proceeded to tell her all he had heard before leaving the Beavers’ house.
“What! Aslan?” cried the Queen. “Aslan! Is this true? If I find you have lied to me—”
“Please, I’m only repeating what they said,” stammered Edmund.
But the Queen, who was no longer attending to him, clapped her hands. Instantly the same Dwarf whom Edmund had seen with her before appeared.
“Make ready our sledge,” ordered the Witch, “and use the harness without bells.”
Chapter Ten
The Spell Begins to Break
NOW WE MUST GO BACK TO MR. AND MRS. BEAVER and the three other children. As soon as Mr. Beaver said, “There’s no time to lose,” everyone began bundling themselves into coats, except Mrs. Beaver, who started picking up sacks and laying them on the table and said: “Now, Mr. Beaver, just reach down that ham. And here’s a packet of tea, and there’s sugar, and some matches. And if someone will get two or three loaves out of the crock over there in the corner.”
“What are you doing, Mrs. Beaver?” exclaimed Susan.
“Packing a load for each of us, dearie,” said Mrs. Beaver very coolly. “You didn’t think we’d set out on a journey with nothing to eat, did you?”
“But we haven’t time!” said Susan, buttoning the collar of her coat. “She may be here any minute.”
“That’s what I say,” chimed in Mr. Beaver.
“Get along with you all,” said his wife. “Think it over, Mr. Beaver. She can’t be here for quarter of an hour at least.”
“But don’t we want as big a start as we can possibly get,” said Peter, “if we’re to reach the Stone Table before her?”
“You’ve got to remember that, Mrs. Beaver,” said Susan. “As soon as she has looked in here and finds we’re gone she’ll be off at top speed.”
“That she will,” said Mrs. Beaver. “But we can’t get there before her whatever we do, for she’ll be on a sledge and we’ll be walking.”
“Then—have we no hope?” said Susan.
“Now don’t you get fussing, there’s a dear,” said Mrs. Beaver, “but just get half a dozen clean handkerchiefs out of the drawer. ’Course we’ve got a hope. We can’t get there before her but we can keep under cover and go by ways she won’t expect and perhaps we’ll get through.”
“That’s true enough, Mrs. Beaver,” said her husband. “But it’s time we were out of this.”
“And don’t you start fussing either, Mr. Beaver,” said his wife. “There. That’s better. There’s five loads and the smallest for the smallest of us: that’s you, my dear,” she added, looking at Lucy.
“Oh, do please come on,” said Lucy.
“Well, I’m nearly ready now,” answered Mrs. Beaver at last, allowing her husband to help her into her snow-boots. “I suppose the sewing machine’s too heavy to bring?”
“Yes. It is,” said Mr. Beaver. “A great deal too heavy. And you don’t think you’ll be able to use it while we’re on the run, I suppose?”
“I can’t abide the thought of that Witch fiddling with it,” said Mrs. Beaver, “and breaking it or stealing it, as likely as not.”
“Oh, please, please, please, do hurry!” said the three children. And so at last they all got outside and Mr. Beaver locked the door (“It’ll delay her a bit,” he said) and they set off, all carrying their loads over their shoulders.
The snow had stopped and the moon had come out when they began their journey. They went in single file—first Mr. Beaver, then Lucy, then Peter, then Susan, and Mrs. Beaver last of all. Mr. Beaver led them across the dam and on to the right bank of the river and then along a very rough sort of path among the trees right down by the river-bank. The sides of the valley, shining in the moonlight, towered up far above them on either hand. “Best keep down here as much as possible,” he said. “She’ll have to keep to the top, for you couldn’t bring a sledge down here.”
It would have been a pretty enough scene to look at it through a window from a comfortable armchair; and even as things were, Lucy enjoyed it at first. But as they went on walking and walking—and walking—and as the sack she was carrying felt heavier and heavier, she began to wonder how she was going to keep up at all. And she stopped looking at the dazzling brightness of the frozen river with all its waterfalls of ice and at the white masses of the tree-tops and the great glaring moon and the countless stars and could only watch the little short legs of Mr. Beaver going pad-pad-pad-pad through the snow in front of her as if they were never going to stop. Then the moon disappeared and the snow began to fall once more. And at last Lucy was so tired that she was almost asleep and walking at the same time when suddenly she found that Mr. Beaver had turned away from the river-bank to the right and was leading them steeply uphill into the very thickest bushes. And then as she came fully awake she found that Mr. Beaver was just vanishing into a little hole in the bank which had been almost hidden under the bushes until you were quite on top of it. In fact, by the time she realized what was happening, only his short flat tail was showing.
Lucy immediately stooped down and crawled in after him. Then she heard noises of scrambling and puffing and panting behind her and in a moment all five of them were inside.
“Wherever is this?” said Peter’s voice, sounding tired and pale in the darkness. (I hope you know what I mean by a voice sounding pale.)
“It’s an old hiding-place for beavers in bad times,” said Mr. Beaver, “and a great secret. It’s not much of a place but we must get a few hours’ sleep.”
“If you hadn’t all been in such a plaguey fuss when we were starting, I’d have brought some pillows,” said Mrs. Beaver.
It wasn’t nearly such a nice cave as Mr. Tumnus’s, Lucy thought—just a hole in the ground but dry and earthy. It was very small so that when they all lay down they were all a bundle of clothes together, and what with that and being warmed up by their long walk they were really rather snug. If only the floor of the cave had been a little smoother! Then Mrs. Beaver handed round in the dark a little flask out of which everyone drank something—it made one cough and splutter a little and stung the throat, but it also made you feel deliciously warm after you’d swallowed it—and everyone went straight to sleep.
It seemed to Lucy only the next minute (though really it was hours and hours later) when she woke up feeling a little cold and dreadfully stiff and thinking how she would like a hot bath. Then she felt a set of long whiskers tickling her cheek and saw the cold daylight coming in through the mouth of the cave. But immediately after that she was very wide awake indeed, and so was everyone else. In fact they were all sitting up with their mouths and eyes wide open listening to a sound which was the very sound they’d all been thinking of (and sometimes imagining they heard) during their walk last night. It was a sound of jingling bells.
Mr. Beaver was out of the cave like a flash the moment he heard it. Perhaps you think, as Lucy thought for a moment, that this was a very silly thing to do? But it was really a very sensible one. He knew he could scramble to the top of the bank among bushes and brambles without being seen; and he wanted above all things to see which way the Witch’s sledge went. The others all sat in the cave waiting and wondering. They waited nearly five minutes. Then they heard something that frightened them very much. They heard voices. “Oh,” thought Lucy, “he’s been seen. She’s caught him!” Great was their surprise when a little later, they heard Mr. Beaver’s voice calling to them from just outside the cave.
“It’s all right,” he was shouting. “Come out, Mrs. Beaver. Come out, Sons and Daughters of Adam. It’s all right! It isn’t Her!” This was bad grammar of course, but that is how beavers tal
k when they are excited; I mean, in Narnia—in our world they usually don’t talk at all.
So Mrs. Beaver and the children came bundling out of the cave, all blinking in the daylight, and with earth all over them, and looking very frowsty and unbrushed and uncombed and with the sleep in their eyes.
“Come on!” cried Mr. Beaver, who was almost dancing with delight. “Come and see! This is a nasty knock for the Witch! It looks as if her power is already crumbling.”
“What do you mean, Mr. Beaver?” panted Peter as they all scrambled up the steep bank of the valley together.
“Didn’t I tell you,” answered Mr. Beaver, “that she’d made it always winter and never Christmas? Didn’t I tell you? Well, just come and see!”
And then they were all at the top and did see.
It was a sledge, and it was reindeer with bells on their harness. But they were far bigger than the Witch’s reindeer, and they were not white but brown. And on the sledge sat a person whom everyone knew the moment they set eyes on him. He was a huge man in a bright red robe (bright as hollyberries) with a hood that had fur inside it and a great white beard that fell like a foamy waterfall over his chest. Everyone knew him because, though you see people of his sort only in Narnia, you see pictures of them and hear them talked about even in our world—the world on this side of the wardrobe door. But when you really see them in Narnia it is rather different. Some of the pictures of Father Christmas in our world make him look only funny and jolly. But now that the children actually stood looking at him they didn’t find it quite like that. He was so big, and so glad, and so real, that they all became quite still. They felt very glad, but also solemn.
“I’ve come at last,” said he. “She has kept me out for a long time, but I have got in at last. Aslan is on the move. The Witch’s magic is weakening.”
And Lucy felt running through her that deep shiver of gladness which you only get if you are being solemn and still.
“And now,” said Father Christmas, “for your presents. There is a new and better sewing machine for you, Mrs. Beaver. I will drop it in your house as I pass.”
“If you please, sir,” said Mrs. Beaver, making a curtsey. “It’s locked up.”
“Locks and bolts make no difference to me,” said Father Christmas. “And as for you, Mr. Beaver, when you get home you will find your dam finished and mended and all the leaks stopped and a new sluice-gate fitted.”
Mr. Beaver was so pleased that he opened his mouth very wide and then found he couldn’t say anything at all.
“Peter, Adam’s Son,” said Father Christmas.
“Here, sir,” said Peter.
“These are your presents,” was the answer, “and they are tools not toys. The time to use them is perhaps near at hand. Bear them well.” With these words he handed to Peter a shield and a sword. The shield was the color of silver and across it there ramped a red lion, as bright as a ripe strawberry at the moment when you pick it. The hilt of the sword was of gold and it had a sheath and a sword belt and everything it needed, and it was just the right size and weight for Peter to use. Peter was silent and solemn as he received these gifts, for he felt they were a very serious kind of present.
“Susan, Eve’s Daughter,” said Father Christmas. “These are for you,” and he handed her a bow and a quiver full of arrows and a little ivory horn. “You must use the bow only in great need,” he said, “for I do not mean you to fight in the battle. It does not easily miss. And when you put this horn to your lips and blow it, then, wherever you are, I think help of some kind will come to you.”
Last of all he said, “Lucy, Eve’s Daughter,” and Lucy came forward. He gave her a little bottle of what looked like glass (but people said afterward that it was made of diamond) and a small dagger. “In this bottle,” he said, “there is a cordial made of the juice of one of the fire-flowers that grow in the mountains of the sun. If you or any of your friends is hurt, a few drops of this will restore them. And the dagger is to defend yourself at great need. For you also are not to be in the battle.”
“Why, sir?” said Lucy. “I think—I don’t know—but I think I could be brave enough.”
“That is not the point,” he said. “But battles are ugly when women fight. And now”—here he suddenly looked less grave—“here is something for the moment for you all!” and he brought out (I suppose from the big bag at his back, but nobody quite saw him do it) a large tray containing five cups and saucers, a bowl of lump sugar, a jug of cream, and a great big teapot all sizzling and piping hot. Then he cried out, “Merry Christmas! Long live the true King!” and cracked his whip, and he and the reindeer and the sledge and all were out of sight before anyone realized that they had started.
Peter had just drawn his sword out of its sheath and was showing it to Mr. Beaver, when Mrs. Beaver said:
“Now then, now then! Don’t stand talking there till the tea’s got cold. Just like men. Come and help to carry the tray down and we’ll have breakfast. What a mercy I thought of bringing the bread-knife.”
So down the steep bank they went and back to the cave, and Mr. Beaver cut some of the bread and ham into sandwiches and Mrs. Beaver poured out the tea and everyone enjoyed themselves. But long before they had finished enjoying themselves Mr. Beaver said, “Time to be moving on now.”
Chapter Eleven
Aslan Is Nearer
EDMUND MEANWHILE HAD BEEN HAVING A MOST disappointing time. When the dwarf had gone to get the sledge ready he expected that the Witch would start being nice to him, as she had been at their last meeting. But she said nothing at all. And when at last Edmund plucked up his courage to say, “Please, your Majesty, could I have some Turkish Delight? You—you—said—” she answered, “Silence, fool!” Then she appeared to change her mind and said, as if to herself, “And yet it will not do to have the brat fainting on the way,” and once more clapped her hands. Another dwarf appeared.
“Bring the human creature food and drink,” she said.
The dwarf went away and presently returned bringing an iron bowl with some water in it and an iron plate with a hunk of dry bread on it. He grinned in a repulsive manner as he set them down on the floor beside Edmund and said:
“Turkish Delight for the little Prince. Ha! Ha! Ha!”
“Take it away,” said Edmund sulkily. “I don’t want dry bread.” But the Witch suddenly turned on him with such a terrible expression on her face that he apologized and began to nibble at the bread, though it was so stale he could hardly get it down.
“You may be glad enough of it before you taste bread again,” said the Witch.
While he was still chewing away the first dwarf came back and announced that the sledge was ready. The White Witch rose and went out, ordering Edmund to go with her. The snow was again falling as they came into the courtyard, but she took no notice of that and made Edmund sit beside her on the sledge. But before they drove off she called Maugrim and he came bounding like an enormous dog to the side of the sledge.
“Take with you the swiftest of your wolves and go at once to the house of the Beavers,” said the Witch, “and kill whatever you find there. If they are already gone, then make all speed to the Stone Table, but do not be seen. Wait for me there in hiding. I meanwhile must go many miles to the West before I find a place where I can drive across the river. You may overtake these humans before they reach the Stone Table. You will know what to do if you find them!”
“I hear and obey, O Queen,” growled the Wolf, and immediately he shot away into the snow and darkness, as quickly as a horse can gallop. In a few minutes he had called another wolf and was with him down on the dam and sniffing at the Beavers’ house. But of course they found it empty. It would have been a dreadful thing for the Beavers and the children if the night had remained fine, for the wolves would then have been able to follow their trail—and ten to one would have overtaken them before they had got to the cave. But now that the snow had begun again the scent was cold and even the footprints were covered up.
Meanwhile the dwarf whipped up the reindeer, and the Witch and Edmund drove out under the archway and on and away into the darkness and the cold. This was a terrible journey for Edmund, who had no coat. Before they had been going quarter of an hour all the front of him was covered with snow—he soon stopped trying to shake it off because, as quickly as he did that, a new lot gathered, and he was so tired. Soon he was wet to the skin. And oh, how miserable he was! It didn’t look now as if the Witch intended to make him a King. All the things he had said to make himself believe that she was good and kind and that her side was really the right side sounded to him silly now. He would have given anything to meet the others at this moment—even Peter! The only way to comfort himself now was to try to believe that the whole thing was a dream and that he might wake up at any moment. And as they went on, hour after hour, it did come to seem like a dream.
This lasted longer than I could describe even if I wrote pages and pages about it. But I will skip on to the time when the snow had stopped and the morning had come and they were racing along in the daylight. And still they went on and on, with no sound but the everlasting swish of the snow and the creaking of the reindeer’s harness. And then at last the Witch said, “What have we here? Stop!” and they did.
How Edmund hoped she was going to say something about breakfast! But she had stopped for quite a different reason. A little way off at the foot of a tree sat a merry party, a squirrel and his wife with their children and two satyrs and a dwarf and an old dog-fox, all on stools round a table. Edmund couldn’t quite see what they were eating, but it smelled lovely and there seemed to be decorations of holly and he wasn’t at all sure that he didn’t see something like a plum pudding. At the moment when the sledge stopped, the Fox, who was obviously the oldest person present, had just risen to its feet, holding a glass in its right paw as if it was going to say something. But when the whole party saw the sledge stopping and who was in it, all the gaiety went out of their faces. The father squirrel stopped eating with his fork halfway to his mouth and one of the satyrs stopped with its fork actually in its mouth, and the baby squirrels squeaked with terror.