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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Peter and Wendy, by James Matthew Barrie
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Peter and Wendy
+
+Author: James Matthew Barrie
+
+Illustrator: F. D. Bedford
+
+Release Date: September 18, 2008 [EBook #26654]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PETER AND WENDY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chris Curnow, Lindy Walsh, Martin Pettit The
+Internet Archive for help with the illustrations and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PETER AND WENDY
+
+[Illustration: THE NEVER NEVER LAND]
+
+[Illustration: PETER AND WENDY
+
+BY J. M. BARRIE
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY F. D. BEDFORD
+
+NEW YORK
+
+CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                 PAGE
+CHAPTER I
+
+PETER BREAKS THROUGH                1
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE SHADOW                         17
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+COME AWAY, COME AWAY!              34
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE FLIGHT                         58
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE ISLAND COME TRUE               75
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE LITTLE HOUSE                   94
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE HOME UNDER THE GROUND         110
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE MERMAIDS' LAGOON              122
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE NEVER BIRD                    144
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE HAPPY HOME                    150
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+WENDY'S STORY                     162
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE CHILDREN ARE CARRIED OFF      176
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+DO YOU BELIEVE IN FAIRIES?        185
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE PIRATE SHIP                   201
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+'HOOK OR ME THIS TIME'            214
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE RETURN HOME                   232
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+WHEN WENDY GREW UP                248
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+PETER BREAKS THROUGH
+
+
+All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow
+up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old
+she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with
+it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for
+Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, 'Oh, why can't you
+remain like this for ever!' This was all that passed between them on the
+subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always
+know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.
+
+Of course they lived at 14, and until Wendy came her mother was the
+chief one. She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet
+mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the
+other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there
+is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that
+Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the
+right-hand corner.
+
+The way Mr. Darling won her was this: the many gentlemen who had been
+boys when she was a girl discovered simultaneously that they loved her,
+and they all ran to her house to propose to her except Mr. Darling, who
+took a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her. He got all of her,
+except the innermost box and the kiss. He never knew about the box, and
+in time he gave up trying for the kiss. Wendy thought Napoleon could
+have got it, but I can picture him trying, and then going off in a
+passion, slamming the door.
+
+Mr. Darling used to boast to Wendy that her mother not only loved him
+but respected him. He was one of those deep ones who know about stocks
+and shares. Of course no one really knows, but he quite seemed to know,
+and he often said stocks were up and shares were down in a way that
+would have made any woman respect him.
+
+Mrs. Darling was married in white, and at first she kept the books
+perfectly, almost gleefully, as if it were a game, not so much as a
+brussels sprout was missing; but by and by whole cauliflowers dropped
+out, and instead of them there were pictures of babies without faces.
+She drew them when she should have been totting up. They were Mrs.
+Darling's guesses.
+
+Wendy came first, then John, then Michael.
+
+For a week or two after Wendy came it was doubtful whether they would be
+able to keep her, as she was another mouth to feed. Mr. Darling was
+frightfully proud of her, but he was very honourable, and he sat on the
+edge of Mrs. Darling's bed, holding her hand and calculating expenses,
+while she looked at him imploringly. She wanted to risk it, come what
+might, but that was not his way; his way was with a pencil and a piece
+of paper, and if she confused him with suggestions he had to begin at
+the beginning again.
+
+'Now don't interrupt,' he would beg of her. 'I have one pound seventeen
+here, and two and six at the office; I can cut off my coffee at the
+office, say ten shillings, making two nine and six, with your eighteen
+and three makes three nine seven, with five naught naught in my
+cheque-book makes eight nine seven,--who is that moving?--eight nine
+seven, dot and carry seven--don't speak, my own--and the pound you lent
+to that man who came to the door--quiet, child--dot and carry
+child--there, you've done it!--did I say nine nine seven? yes, I said
+nine nine seven; the question is, can we try it for a year on nine nine
+seven?'
+
+'Of course we can, George,' she cried. But she was prejudiced in Wendy's
+favour, and he was really the grander character of the two.
+
+'Remember mumps,' he warned her almost threateningly, and off he went
+again. 'Mumps one pound, that is what I have put down, but I daresay it
+will be more like thirty shillings--don't speak--measles one five,
+German measles half a guinea, makes two fifteen six--don't waggle your
+finger--whooping-cough, say fifteen shillings'--and so on it went, and
+it added up differently each time; but at last Wendy just got through,
+with mumps reduced to twelve six, and the two kinds of measles treated
+as one.
+
+There was the same excitement over John, and Michael had even a narrower
+squeak; but both were kept, and soon you might have seen the three of
+them going in a row to Miss Fulsom's Kindergarten school, accompanied by
+their nurse.
+
+Mrs. Darling loved to have everything just so, and Mr. Darling had a
+passion for being exactly like his neighbours; so, of course, they had a
+nurse. As they were poor, owing to the amount of milk the children
+drank, this nurse was a prim Newfoundland dog, called Nana, who had
+belonged to no one in particular until the Darlings engaged her. She had
+always thought children important, however, and the Darlings had become
+acquainted with her in Kensington Gardens, where she spent most of her
+spare time peeping into perambulators, and was much hated by careless
+nursemaids, whom she followed to their homes and complained of to their
+mistresses. She proved to be quite a treasure of a nurse. How thorough
+she was at bath-time; and up at any moment of the night if one of her
+charges made the slightest cry. Of course her kennel was in the nursery.
+She had a genius for knowing when a cough is a thing to have no patience
+with and when it needs stocking round your throat. She believed to her
+last day in old-fashioned remedies like rhubarb leaf, and made sounds of
+contempt over all this new-fangled talk about germs, and so on. It was a
+lesson in propriety to see her escorting the children to school, walking
+sedately by their side when they were well behaved, and butting them
+back into line if they strayed. On John's footer days she never once
+forgot his sweater, and she usually carried an umbrella in her mouth in
+case of rain. There is a room in the basement of Miss Fulsom's school
+where the nurses wait. They sat on forms, while Nana lay on the floor,
+but that was the only difference. They affected to ignore her as of an
+inferior social status to themselves, and she despised their light talk.
+She resented visits to the nursery from Mrs. Darling's friends, but if
+they did come she first whipped off Michael's pinafore and put him into
+the one with blue braiding, and smoothed out Wendy and made a dash at
+John's hair.
+
+No nursery could possibly have been conducted more correctly, and Mr.
+Darling knew it, yet he sometimes wondered uneasily whether the
+neighbours talked.
+
+He had his position in the city to consider.
+
+Nana also troubled him in another way. He had sometimes a feeling that
+she did not admire him. 'I know she admires you tremendously, George,'
+Mrs. Darling would assure him, and then she would sign to the children
+to be specially nice to father. Lovely dances followed, in which the
+only other servant, Liza, was sometimes allowed to join. Such a midget
+she looked in her long skirt and maid's cap, though she had sworn, when
+engaged, that she would never see ten again. The gaiety of those romps!
+And gayest of all was Mrs. Darling, who would pirouette so wildly that
+all you could see of her was the kiss, and then if you had dashed at her
+you might have got it. There never was a simpler happier family until
+the coming of Peter Pan.
+
+Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children's
+minds. It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children
+are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next
+morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have
+wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you
+can't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it
+very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You
+would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of
+your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up,
+making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as
+if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight.
+When you wake in the morning, the naughtinesses and evil passions with
+which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom
+of your mind; and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your
+prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.
+
+I don't know whether you have ever seen a map of a person's mind.
+Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can
+become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a
+child's mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the
+time. There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on a
+card, and these are probably roads in the island; for the Neverland is
+always more or less an island, with astonishing splashes of colour here
+and there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and
+savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves
+through which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers, and a
+hut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked nose.
+It would be an easy map if that were all; but there is also first day at
+school, religion, fathers, the round pond, needlework, murders,
+hangings, verbs that take the dative, chocolate pudding day, getting
+into braces, say ninety-nine, three-pence for pulling out your tooth
+yourself, and so on; and either these are part of the island or they are
+another map showing through, and it is all rather confusing, especially
+as nothing will stand still.
+
+Of course the Neverlands vary a good deal. John's, for instance, had a
+lagoon with flamingoes flying over it at which John was shooting, while
+Michael, who was very small, had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it.
+John lived in a boat turned upside down on the sands, Michael in a
+wigwam, Wendy in a house of leaves deftly sewn together. John had no
+friends, Michael had friends at night, Wendy had a pet wolf forsaken by
+its parents; but on the whole the Neverlands have a family resemblance,
+and if they stood still in a row you could say of them that they have
+each other's nose, and so forth. On these magic shores children at play
+are for ever beaching their coracles. We too have been there; we can
+still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more.
+
+Of all delectable islands the Neverland is the snuggest and most
+compact; not large and sprawly, you know, with tedious distances between
+one adventure and another, but nicely crammed. When you play at it by
+day with the chairs and table-cloth, it is not in the least alarming,
+but in the two minutes before you go to sleep it becomes very nearly
+real. That is why there are night-lights.
+
+Occasionally in her travels through her children's minds Mrs. Darling
+found things she could not understand, and of these quite the most
+perplexing was the word Peter. She knew of no Peter, and yet he was here
+and there in John and Michael's minds, while Wendy's began to be
+scrawled all over with him. The name stood out in bolder letters than
+any of the other words, and as Mrs. Darling gazed she felt that it had
+an oddly cocky appearance.
+
+'Yes, he is rather cocky,' Wendy admitted with regret. Her mother had
+been questioning her.
+
+'But who is he, my pet?'
+
+'He is Peter Pan, you know, mother.'
+
+At first Mrs. Darling did not know, but after thinking back into her
+childhood she just remembered a Peter Pan who was said to live with the
+fairies. There were odd stories about him; as that when children died he
+went part of the way with them, so that they should not be frightened.
+She had believed in him at the time, but now that she was married and
+full of sense she quite doubted whether there was any such person.
+
+'Besides,' she said to Wendy, 'he would be grown up by this time.'
+
+'Oh no, he isn't grown up,' Wendy assured her confidently, 'and he is
+just my size.' She meant that he was her size in both mind and body; she
+didn't know how she knew it, she just knew it.
+
+Mrs. Darling consulted Mr. Darling, but he smiled pooh-pooh. 'Mark my
+words,' he said, 'it is some nonsense Nana has been putting into their
+heads; just the sort of idea a dog would have. Leave it alone, and it
+will blow over.'
+
+But it would not blow over; and soon the troublesome boy gave Mrs.
+Darling quite a shock.
+
+Children have the strangest adventures without being troubled by them.
+For instance, they may remember to mention, a week after the event
+happened, that when they were in the wood they met their dead father and
+had a game with him. It was in this casual way that Wendy one morning
+made a disquieting revelation. Some leaves of a tree had been found on
+the nursery floor, which certainly were not there when the children
+went to bed, and Mrs. Darling was puzzling over them when Wendy said
+with a tolerant smile:
+
+'I do believe it is that Peter again!'
+
+'Whatever do you mean, Wendy?'
+
+'It is so naughty of him not to wipe,' Wendy said, sighing. She was a
+tidy child.
+
+She explained in quite a matter-of-fact way that she thought Peter
+sometimes came to the nursery in the night and sat on the foot of her
+bed and played on his pipes to her. Unfortunately she never woke, so she
+didn't know how she knew, she just knew.
+
+'What nonsense you talk, precious. No one can get into the house without
+knocking.'
+
+'I think he comes in by the window,' she said.
+
+'My love, it is three floors up.'
+
+'Were not the leaves at the foot of the window, mother?'
+
+It was quite true; the leaves had been found very near the window.
+
+Mrs. Darling did not know what to think, for it all seemed so natural to
+Wendy that you could not dismiss it by saying she had been dreaming.
+
+'My child,' the mother cried, 'why did you not tell me of this before?'
+
+'I forgot,' said Wendy lightly. She was in a hurry to get her breakfast.
+
+Oh, surely she must have been dreaming.
+
+But, on the other hand, there were the leaves. Mrs. Darling examined
+them carefully; they were skeleton leaves, but she was sure they did not
+come from any tree that grew in England. She crawled about the floor,
+peering at it with a candle for marks of a strange foot. She rattled the
+poker up the chimney and tapped the walls. She let down a tape from the
+window to the pavement, and it was a sheer drop of thirty feet, without
+so much as a spout to climb up by.
+
+Certainly Wendy had been dreaming.
+
+But Wendy had not been dreaming, as the very next night showed, the
+night on which the extraordinary adventures of these children may be
+said to have begun.
+
+On the night we speak of all the children were once more in bed. It
+happened to be Nana's evening off, and Mrs. Darling had bathed them and
+sung to them till one by one they had let go her hand and slid away
+into the land of sleep.
+
+All were looking so safe and cosy that she smiled at her fears now and
+sat down tranquilly by the fire to sew.
+
+It was something for Michael, who on his birthday was getting into
+shirts. The fire was warm, however, and the nursery dimly lit by three
+night-lights, and presently the sewing lay on Mrs. Darling's lap. Then
+her head nodded, oh, so gracefully. She was asleep. Look at the four of
+them, Wendy and Michael over there, John here, and Mrs. Darling by the
+fire. There should have been a fourth night-light.
+
+While she slept she had a dream. She dreamt that the Neverland had come
+too near and that a strange boy had broken through from it. He did not
+alarm her, for she thought she had seen him before in the faces of many
+women who have no children. Perhaps he is to be found in the faces of
+some mothers also. But in her dream he had rent the film that obscures
+the Neverland, and she saw Wendy and John and Michael peeping through
+the gap.
+
+The dream by itself would have been a trifle, but while she was
+dreaming the window of the nursery blew open, and a boy did drop on the
+floor. He was accompanied by a strange light, no bigger than your fist,
+which darted about the room like a living thing; and I think it must
+have been this light that wakened Mrs. Darling.
+
+She started up with a cry, and saw the boy, and somehow she knew at once
+that he was Peter Pan. If you or I or Wendy had been there we should
+have seen that he was very like Mrs. Darling's kiss. He was a lovely
+boy, clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that ooze out of trees; but
+the most entrancing thing about him was that he had all his first teeth.
+When he saw she was a grown-up, he gnashed the little pearls at her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE SHADOW
+
+
+Mrs. Darling screamed, and, as if in answer to a bell, the door opened,
+and Nana entered, returned from her evening out. She growled and sprang
+at the boy, who leapt lightly through the window. Again Mrs. Darling
+screamed, this time in distress for him, for she thought he was killed,
+and she ran down into the street to look for his little body, but it was
+not there; and she looked up, and in the black night she could see
+nothing but what she thought was a shooting star.
+
+She returned to the nursery, and found Nana with something in her mouth,
+which proved to be the boy's shadow. As he leapt at the window Nana had
+closed it quickly, too late to catch him, but his shadow had not had
+time to get out; slam went the window and snapped it off.
+
+You may be sure Mrs. Darling examined the shadow carefully, but it was
+quite the ordinary kind.
+
+Nana had no doubt of what was the best thing to do with this shadow. She
+hung it out at the window, meaning 'He is sure to come back for it; let
+us put it where he can get it easily without disturbing the children.'
+
+But unfortunately Mrs. Darling could not leave it hanging out at the
+window; it looked so like the washing and lowered the whole tone of the
+house. She thought of showing it to Mr. Darling, but he was totting up
+winter greatcoats for John and Michael, with a wet towel round his head
+to keep his brain clear, and it seemed a shame to trouble him; besides,
+she knew exactly what he would say: 'It all comes of having a dog for a
+nurse.'
+
+She decided to roll the shadow up and put it away carefully in a drawer,
+until a fitting opportunity came for telling her husband. Ah me!
+
+The opportunity came a week later, on that never-to-be-forgotten
+Friday. Of course it was a Friday.
+
+'I ought to have been specially careful on a Friday,' she used to say
+afterwards to her husband, while perhaps Nana was on the other side of
+her, holding her hand.
+
+'No, no,' Mr. Darling always said, 'I am responsible for it all. I,
+George Darling, did it. _Mea culpa, mea culpa._' He had had a classical
+education.
+
+They sat thus night after night recalling that fatal Friday, till every
+detail of it was stamped on their brains and came through on the other
+side like the faces on a bad coinage.
+
+'If only I had not accepted that invitation to dine at 27,' Mrs. Darling
+said.
+
+'If only I had not poured my medicine into Nana's bowl,' said Mr.
+Darling.
+
+'If only I had pretended to like the medicine,' was what Nana's wet eyes
+said.
+
+'My liking for parties, George.'
+
+'My fatal gift of humour, dearest.'
+
+'My touchiness about trifles, dear master and mistress.'
+
+Then one or more of them would break down altogether; Nana at the
+thought, 'It's true, it's true, they ought not to have had a dog for a
+nurse.' Many a time it was Mr. Darling who put the handkerchief to
+Nana's eyes.
+
+'That fiend!' Mr. Darling would cry, and Nana's bark was the echo of it,
+but Mrs. Darling never upbraided Peter; there was something in the
+right-hand corner of her mouth that wanted her not to call Peter names.
+
+They would sit there in the empty nursery, recalling fondly every
+smallest detail of that dreadful evening. It had begun so uneventfully,
+so precisely like a hundred other evenings, with Nana putting on the
+water for Michael's bath and carrying him to it on her back.
+
+'I won't go to bed,' he had shouted, like one who still believed that he
+had the last word on the subject, 'I won't, I won't. Nana, it isn't six
+o'clock yet. Oh dear, oh dear, I shan't love you any more, Nana. I tell
+you I won't be bathed, I won't, I won't!'
+
+Then Mrs. Darling had come in, wearing her white evening-gown. She had
+dressed early because Wendy so loved to see her in her evening-gown,
+with the necklace George had given her. She was wearing Wendy's
+bracelet on her arm; she had asked for the loan of it. Wendy so loved to
+lend her bracelet to her mother.
+
+She had found her two older children playing at being herself and father
+on the occasion of Wendy's birth, and John was saying:
+
+'I am happy to inform you, Mrs. Darling, that you are now a mother,' in
+just such a tone as Mr. Darling himself may have used on the real
+occasion.
+
+Wendy had danced with joy, just as the real Mrs. Darling must have done.
+
+Then John was born, with the extra pomp that he conceived due to the
+birth of a male, and Michael came from his bath to ask to be born also,
+but John said brutally that they did not want any more.
+
+Michael had nearly cried. 'Nobody wants me,' he said, and of course the
+lady in evening-dress could not stand that.
+
+'I do,' she said, 'I so want a third child.'
+
+'Boy or girl?' asked Michael, not too hopefully.
+
+'Boy.'
+
+Then he had leapt into her arms. Such a little thing for Mr. and Mrs.
+Darling and Nana to recall now, but not so little if that was to be
+Michael's last night in the nursery.
+
+They go on with their recollections.
+
+'It was then that I rushed in like a tornado, wasn't it?' Mr. Darling
+would say, scorning himself; and indeed he had been like a tornado.
+
+Perhaps there was some excuse for him. He, too, had been dressing for
+the party, and all had gone well with him until he came to his tie. It
+is an astounding thing to have to tell, but this man, though he knew
+about stocks and shares, had no real mastery of his tie. Sometimes the
+thing yielded to him without a contest, but there were occasions when it
+would have been better for the house if he had swallowed his pride and
+used a made-up tie.
+
+This was such an occasion. He came rushing into the nursery with the
+crumpled little brute of a tie in his hand.
+
+'Why, what is the matter, father dear?'
+
+'Matter!' he yelled; he really yelled. 'This tie, it will not tie.' He
+became dangerously sarcastic. 'Not round my neck! Round the bed-post! Oh
+yes, twenty times have I made it up round the bed-post, but round my
+neck, no! Oh dear no! begs to be excused!'
+
+He thought Mrs. Darling was not sufficiently impressed, and he went on
+sternly, 'I warn you of this, mother, that unless this tie is round my
+neck we don't go out to dinner to-night, and if I don't go out to dinner
+to-night, I never go to the office again, and if I don't go to the
+office again, you and I starve, and our children will be flung into the
+streets.'
+
+Even then Mrs. Darling was placid. 'Let me try, dear,' she said, and
+indeed that was what he had come to ask her to do; and with her nice
+cool hands she tied his tie for him, while the children stood around to
+see their fate decided. Some men would have resented her being able to
+do it so easily, but Mr. Darling was far too fine a nature for that; he
+thanked her carelessly, at once forgot his rage, and in another moment
+was dancing round the room with Michael on his back.
+
+'How wildly we romped!' says Mrs. Darling now, recalling it.
+
+'Our last romp!' Mr. Darling groaned.
+
+'O George, do you remember Michael suddenly said to me, "How did you
+get to know me, mother?"'
+
+'I remember!'
+
+'They were rather sweet, don't you think, George?'
+
+'And they were ours, ours, and now they are gone.'
+
+The romp had ended with the appearance of Nana, and most unluckily Mr.
+Darling collided against her, covering his trousers with hairs. They
+were not only new trousers, but they were the first he had ever had with
+braid on them, and he had to bite his lip to prevent the tears coming.
+Of course Mrs. Darling brushed him, but he began to talk again about its
+being a mistake to have a dog for a nurse.
+
+'George, Nana is a treasure.'
+
+'No doubt, but I have an uneasy feeling at times that she looks upon the
+children as puppies.'
+
+'Oh no, dear one, I feel sure she knows they have souls.'
+
+'I wonder,' Mr. Darling said thoughtfully, 'I wonder.' It was an
+opportunity, his wife felt, for telling him about the boy. At first he
+pooh-poohed the story, but he became thoughtful when she showed him the
+shadow.
+
+'It is nobody I know,' he said, examining it carefully, 'but he does
+look a scoundrel.'
+
+'We were still discussing it, you remember,' says Mr. Darling, 'when
+Nana came in with Michael's medicine. You will never carry the bottle in
+your mouth again, Nana, and it is all my fault.
+
+Strong man though he was, there is no doubt that he had behaved rather
+foolishly over the medicine. If he had a weakness, it was for thinking
+that all his life he had taken medicine boldly; and so now, when Michael
+dodged the spoon in Nana's mouth, he had said reprovingly, 'Be a man,
+Michael.'
+
+'Won't; won't,' Michael cried naughtily. Mrs. Darling left the room to
+get a chocolate for him, and Mr. Darling thought this showed want of
+firmness.
+
+'Mother, don't pamper him,' he called after her. 'Michael, when I was
+your age I took medicine without a murmur. I said "Thank you, kind
+parents, for giving me bottles to make me well."'
+
+He really thought this was true, and Wendy, who was now in her
+night-gown, believed it also, and she said, to encourage Michael, 'That
+medicine you sometimes take, father, is much nastier, isn't it?'
+
+'Ever so much nastier,' Mr. Darling said bravely, 'and I would take it
+now as an example to you, Michael, if I hadn't lost the bottle.'
+
+He had not exactly lost it; he had climbed in the dead of night to the
+top of the wardrobe and hidden it there. What he did not know was that
+the faithful Liza had found it, and put it back on his wash-stand.
+
+'I know where it is, father,' Wendy cried, always glad to be of service.
+'I'll bring it,' and she was off before he could stop her. Immediately
+his spirits sank in the strangest way.
+
+'John,' he said, shuddering, 'it's most beastly stuff. It's that nasty,
+sticky, sweet kind.'
+
+'It will soon be over, father,' John said cheerily, and then in rushed
+Wendy with the medicine in a glass.
+
+'I have been as quick as I could,' she panted.
+
+'You have been wonderfully quick,' her father retorted, with a
+vindictive politeness that was quite thrown away upon her. 'Michael
+first,' he said doggedly.
+
+'Father first,' said Michael, who was of a suspicious nature.
+
+'I shall be sick, you know,' Mr. Darling said threateningly.
+
+'Come on, father,' said John.
+
+'Hold your tongue, John,' his father rapped out.
+
+Wendy was quite puzzled. 'I thought you took it quite easily, father.'
+
+'That is not the point,' he retorted. 'The point is, that there is more
+in my glass than in Michael's spoon.' His proud heart was nearly
+bursting. 'And it isn't fair; I would say it though it were with my last
+breath; it isn't fair.'
+
+'Father, I am waiting,' said Michael coldly.
+
+'It's all very well to say you are waiting; so am I waiting.'
+
+'Father's a cowardy custard.'
+
+'So are you a cowardy custard.'
+
+'I'm not frightened.'
+
+'Neither am I frightened.'
+
+'Well, then, take it.'
+
+'Well, then, you take it.'
+
+Wendy had a splendid idea. 'Why not both take it at the same time?'
+
+'Certainly,' said Mr. Darling. 'Are you ready, Michael?'
+
+Wendy gave the words, one, two, three, and Michael took his medicine,
+but Mr. Darling slipped his behind his back.
+
+There was a yell of rage from Michael, and 'O father!' Wendy exclaimed.
+
+'What do you mean by "O father"?' Mr. Darling demanded. 'Stop that row,
+Michael. I meant to take mine, but I--I missed it.'
+
+It was dreadful the way all the three were looking at him, just as if
+they did not admire him. 'Look here, all of you,' he said entreatingly,
+as soon as Nana had gone into the bathroom, 'I have just thought of a
+splendid joke. I shall pour my medicine into Nana's bowl, and she will
+drink it, thinking it is milk!'
+
+It was the colour of milk; but the children did not have their father's
+sense of humour, and they looked at him reproachfully as he poured the
+medicine into Nana's bowl. 'What fun,' he said doubtfully, and they did
+not dare expose him when Mrs. Darling and Nana returned.
+
+'Nana, good dog,' he said, patting her, 'I have put a little milk into
+your bowl, Nana.'
+
+Nana wagged her tail, ran to the medicine, and began lapping it. Then
+she gave Mr. Darling such a look, not an angry look: she showed him the
+great red tear that makes us so sorry for noble dogs, and crept into her
+kennel.
+
+Mr. Darling was frightfully ashamed of himself, but he would not give
+in. In a horrid silence Mrs. Darling smelt the bowl. 'O George,' she
+said, 'it's your medicine!'
+
+'It was only a joke,' he roared, while she comforted her boys, and Wendy
+hugged Nana. 'Much good,' he said bitterly, 'my wearing myself to the
+bone trying to be funny in this house.'
+
+And still Wendy hugged Nana. 'That's right,' he shouted. 'Coddle her!
+Nobody coddles me. Oh dear no! I am only the breadwinner, why should I
+be coddled, why, why, why!'
+
+'George,' Mrs. Darling entreated him, 'not so loud; the servants will
+hear you.' Somehow they had got into the way of calling Liza the
+servants.
+
+'Let them,' he answered recklessly. 'Bring in the whole world. But I
+refuse to allow that dog to lord it in my nursery for an hour longer.'
+
+The children wept, and Nana ran to him beseechingly, but he waved her
+back. He felt he was a strong man again. 'In vain, in vain,' he cried;
+'the proper place for you is the yard, and there you go to be tied up
+this instant.'
+
+'George, George,' Mrs. Darling whispered, 'remember what I told you
+about that boy.'
+
+Alas, he would not listen. He was determined to show who was master in
+that house, and when commands would not draw Nana from the kennel, he
+lured her out of it with honeyed words, and seizing her roughly, dragged
+her from the nursery. He was ashamed of himself, and yet he did it. It
+was all owing to his too affectionate nature, which craved for
+admiration. When he had tied her up in the back-yard, the wretched
+father went and sat in the passage, with his knuckles to his eyes.
+
+In the meantime Mrs. Darling had put the children to bed in unwonted
+silence and lit their night-lights. They could hear Nana barking, and
+John whimpered, 'It is because he is chaining her up in the yard,' but
+Wendy was wiser.
+
+'That is not Nana's unhappy bark,' she said, little guessing what was
+about to happen; 'that is her bark when she smells danger.'
+
+Danger!
+
+'Are you sure, Wendy?'
+
+'Oh yes.'
+
+Mrs. Darling quivered and went to the window. It was securely fastened.
+She looked out, and the night was peppered with stars. They were
+crowding round the house, as if curious to see what was to take place
+there, but she did not notice this, nor that one or two of the smaller
+ones winked at her. Yet a nameless fear clutched at her heart and made
+her cry, 'Oh, how I wish that I wasn't going to a party to-night!'
+
+Even Michael, already half asleep, knew that she was perturbed, and he
+asked, 'Can anything harm us, mother, after the night-lights are lit?'
+
+'Nothing, precious,' she said; 'they are the eyes a mother leaves behind
+her to guard her children.'
+
+She went from bed to bed singing enchantments over them, and little
+Michael flung his arms round her. 'Mother,' he cried, 'I'm glad of you.'
+They were the last words she was to hear from him for a long time.
+
+[Illustration: PETER FLEW IN]
+
+No. 27 was only a few yards distant, but there had been a slight fall of
+snow, and Father and Mother Darling picked their way over it deftly not
+to soil their shoes. They were already the only persons in the street,
+and all the stars were watching them. Stars are beautiful, but they may
+not take an active part in anything, they must just look on for ever. It
+is a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no
+star now knows what it was. So the older ones have become glassy-eyed
+and seldom speak (winking is the star language), but the little ones
+still wonder. They are not really friendly to Peter, who has a
+mischievous way of stealing up behind them and trying to blow them out;
+but they are so fond of fun that they were on his side to-night, and
+anxious to get the grown-ups out of the way. So as soon as the door of
+27 closed on Mr. and Mrs. Darling there was a commotion in the
+firmament, and the smallest of all the stars in the Milky Way screamed
+out:
+
+'Now, Peter!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+COME AWAY, COME AWAY!
+
+
+For a moment after Mr. and Mrs. Darling left the house the night-lights
+by the beds of the three children continued to burn clearly. They were
+awfully nice little night-lights, and one cannot help wishing that they
+could have kept awake to see Peter; but Wendy's light blinked and gave
+such a yawn that the other two yawned also, and before they could close
+their mouths all the three went out.
+
+There was another light in the room now, a thousand times brighter than
+the night-lights, and in the time we have taken to say this, it has been
+in all the drawers in the nursery, looking for Peter's shadow, rummaged
+the wardrobe and turned every pocket inside out. It was not really a
+light; it made this light by flashing about so quickly, but when it came
+to rest for a second you saw it was a fairy, no longer than your hand,
+but still growing. It was a girl called Tinker Bell exquisitely gowned
+in a skeleton leaf, cut low and square, through which her figure could
+be seen to the best advantage. She was slightly inclined to
+_embonpoint_.
+
+A moment after the fairy's entrance the window was blown open by the
+breathing of the little stars, and Peter dropped in. He had carried
+Tinker Bell part of the way, and his hand was still messy with the fairy
+dust.
+
+'Tinker Bell,' he called softly, after making sure that the children
+were asleep, 'Tink, where are you?' She was in a jug for the moment, and
+liking it extremely; she had never been in a jug before.
+
+'Oh, do come out of that jug, and tell me, do you know where they put my
+shadow?'
+
+The loveliest tinkle as of golden bells answered him. It is the fairy
+language. You ordinary children can never hear it, but if you were to
+hear it you would know that you had heard it once before.
+
+Tink said that the shadow was in the big box. She meant the chest of
+drawers, and Peter jumped at the drawers, scattering their contents to
+the floor with both hands, as kings toss ha'pence to the crowd. In a
+moment he had recovered his shadow, and in his delight he forgot that he
+had shut Tinker Bell up in the drawer.
+
+If he thought at all, but I don't believe he ever thought, it was that
+he and his shadow, when brought near each other, would join like drops
+of water; and when they did not he was appalled. He tried to stick it on
+with soap from the bathroom, but that also failed. A shudder passed
+through Peter, and he sat on the floor and cried.
+
+His sobs woke Wendy, and she sat up in bed. She was not alarmed to see a
+stranger crying on the nursery floor; she was only pleasantly
+interested.
+
+'Boy,' she said courteously, 'why are you crying?'
+
+Peter could be exceedingly polite also, having learned the grand manner
+at fairy ceremonies, and he rose and bowed to her beautifully. She was
+much pleased, and bowed beautifully to him from the bed.
+
+'What's your name?' he asked.
+
+'Wendy Moira Angela Darling,' she replied with some satisfaction. 'What
+is your name?'
+
+'Peter Pan.'
+
+She was already sure that he must be Peter, but it did seem a
+comparatively short name.
+
+'Is that all?'
+
+'Yes,' he said rather sharply. He felt for the first time that it was a
+shortish name.
+
+'I'm so sorry,' said Wendy Moira Angela.
+
+'It doesn't matter,' Peter gulped.
+
+She asked where he lived.
+
+'Second to the right,' said Peter, 'and then straight on till morning.'
+
+'What a funny address!'
+
+Peter had a sinking. For the first time he felt that perhaps it was a
+funny address.
+
+'No, it isn't,' he said.
+
+'I mean,' Wendy said nicely, remembering that she was hostess, 'is that
+what they put on the letters?'
+
+He wished she had not mentioned letters.
+
+'Don't get any letters,' he said contemptuously.
+
+'But your mother gets letters?'
+
+'Don't have a mother,' he said. Not only had he no mother, but he had
+not the slightest desire to have one. He thought them very overrated
+persons. Wendy, however, felt at once that she was in the presence of a
+tragedy.
+
+'O Peter, no wonder you were crying,' she said, and got out of bed and
+ran to him.
+
+'I wasn't crying about mothers,' he said rather indignantly. 'I was
+crying because I can't get my shadow to stick on. Besides, I wasn't
+crying.'
+
+'It has come off?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+Then Wendy saw the shadow on the floor, looking so draggled, and she was
+frightfully sorry for Peter. 'How awful!' she said, but she could not
+help smiling when she saw that he had been trying to stick it on with
+soap. How exactly like a boy!
+
+Fortunately she knew at once what to do 'It must be sewn on,' she said,
+just a little patronisingly.
+
+'What's sewn?' he asked.
+
+'You're dreadfully ignorant.'
+
+'No, I'm not.'
+
+But she was exulting in his ignorance. 'I shall sew it on for you, my
+little man,' she said, though he was as tall as herself; and she got out
+her housewife, and sewed the shadow on to Peter's foot.
+
+'I daresay it will hurt a little,' she warned him.
+
+'Oh, I shan't cry,' said Peter, who was already of opinion that he had
+never cried in his life. And he clenched his teeth and did not cry; and
+soon his shadow was behaving properly, though still a little creased.
+
+'Perhaps I should have ironed it,' Wendy said thoughtfully; but Peter,
+boylike, was indifferent to appearances, and he was now jumping about in
+the wildest glee. Alas, he had already forgotten that he owed his bliss
+to Wendy. He thought he had attached the shadow himself. 'How clever I
+am,' he crowed rapturously, 'oh, the cleverness of me!'
+
+It is humiliating to have to confess that this conceit of Peter was one
+of his most fascinating qualities. To put it with brutal frankness,
+there never was a cockier boy.
+
+But for the moment Wendy was shocked. 'You conceit,' she exclaimed, with
+frightful sarcasm; 'of course I did nothing!'
+
+'You did a little,' Peter said carelessly, and continued to dance.
+
+'A little!' she replied with hauteur; 'if I am no use I can at least
+withdraw'; and she sprang in the most dignified way into bed and covered
+her face with the blankets.
+
+To induce her to look up he pretended to be going away, and when this
+failed he sat on the end of the bed and tapped her gently with his foot.
+'Wendy,' he said, 'don't withdraw. I can't help crowing, Wendy, when I'm
+pleased with myself.' Still she would not look up, though she was
+listening eagerly. 'Wendy,' he continued, in a voice that no woman has
+ever yet been able to resist, 'Wendy, one girl is more use than twenty
+boys.'
+
+Now Wendy was every inch a woman, though there were not very many
+inches, and she peeped out of the bedclothes.
+
+'Do you really think so, Peter?'
+
+'Yes, I do.'
+
+'I think it's perfectly sweet of you,' she declared, 'and I'll get up
+again'; and she sat with him on the side of the bed. She also said she
+would give him a kiss if he liked, but Peter did not know what she
+meant, and he held out his hand expectantly.
+
+'Surely you know what a kiss is?' she asked, aghast.
+
+'I shall know when you give it to me,' he replied stiffly; and not to
+hurt his feelings she gave him a thimble.
+
+'Now,' said he, 'shall I give you a kiss?' and she replied with a slight
+primness, 'If you please.' She made herself rather cheap by inclining
+her face toward him, but he merely dropped an acorn button into her
+hand; so she slowly returned her face to where it had been before, and
+said nicely that she would wear his kiss on the chain round her neck. It
+was lucky that she did put it on that chain, for it was afterwards to
+save her life.
+
+When people in our set are introduced, it is customary for them to ask
+each other's age, and so Wendy, who always liked to do the correct
+thing, asked Peter how old he was. It was not really a happy question to
+ask him; it was like an examination paper that asks grammar, when what
+you want to be asked is Kings of England.
+
+'I don't know,' he replied uneasily, 'but I am quite young.' He really
+knew nothing about it; he had merely suspicions, but he said at a
+venture, 'Wendy, I ran away the day I was born.'
+
+Wendy was quite surprised, but interested; and she indicated in the
+charming drawing-room manner, by a touch on her night-gown, that he
+could sit nearer her.
+
+'It was because I heard father and mother,' he explained in a low voice,
+'talking about what I was to be when I became a man.' He was
+extraordinarily agitated now. 'I don't want ever to be a man,' he said
+with passion. 'I want always to be a little boy and to have fun. So I
+ran away to Kensington Gardens and lived a long long time among the
+fairies.'
+
+She gave him a look of the most intense admiration, and he thought it
+was because he had run away, but it was really because he knew fairies.
+Wendy had lived such a home life that to know fairies struck her as
+quite delightful. She poured out questions about them, to his surprise,
+for they were rather a nuisance to him, getting in his way and so on,
+and indeed he sometimes had to give them a hiding. Still, he liked them
+on the whole, and he told her about the beginning of fairies.
+
+'You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the first time, its
+laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about,
+and that was the beginning of fairies.'
+
+Tedious talk this, but being a stay-at-home she liked it.
+
+'And so,' he went on good-naturedly, 'there ought to be one fairy for
+every boy and girl.'
+
+'Ought to be? Isn't there?'
+
+'No. You see children know such a lot now, they soon don't believe in
+fairies, and every time a child says, 'I don't believe in fairies,'
+there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.
+
+Really, he thought they had now talked enough about fairies, and it
+struck him that Tinker Bell was keeping very quiet. 'I can't think where
+she has gone to,' he said, rising, and he called Tink by name. Wendy's
+heart went flutter with a sudden thrill.
+
+'Peter,' she cried, clutching him, 'you don't mean to tell me that there
+is a fairy in this room!'
+
+'She was here just now,' he said a little impatiently. 'You don't hear
+her, do you?' and they both listened.
+
+'The only sound I hear,' said Wendy, 'is like a tinkle of bells.'
+
+'Well, that's Tink, that's the fairy language. I think I hear her too.'
+
+The sound came from the chest of drawers, and Peter made a merry face.
+No one could ever look quite so merry as Peter, and the loveliest of
+gurgles was his laugh. He had his first laugh still.
+
+'Wendy,' he whispered gleefully, 'I do believe I shut her up in the
+drawer!'
+
+He let poor Tink out of the drawer, and she flew about the nursery
+screaming with fury. 'You shouldn't say such things,' Peter retorted.
+'Of course I'm very sorry, but how could I know you were in the drawer?'
+
+Wendy was not listening to him. 'O Peter,' she cried, 'if she would
+only stand still and let me see her!'
+
+'They hardly ever stand still,' he said, but for one moment Wendy saw
+the romantic figure come to rest on the cuckoo clock. 'O the lovely!'
+she cried, though Tink's face was still distorted with passion.
+
+'Tink,' said Peter amiably, 'this lady says she wishes you were her
+fairy.'
+
+Tinker Bell answered insolently.
+
+'What does she say, Peter?'
+
+He had to translate. 'She is not very polite. She says you are a great
+ugly girl, and that she is my fairy.'
+
+He tried to argue with Tink. 'You know you can't be my fairy, Tink,
+because I am a gentleman and you are a lady.'
+
+To this Tink replied in these words, 'You silly ass,' and disappeared
+into the bathroom. 'She is quite a common fairy,' Peter explained
+apologetically; 'she is called Tinker Bell because she mends the pots
+and kettles.'
+
+They were together in the armchair by this time, and Wendy plied him
+with more questions.
+
+'If you don't live in Kensington Gardens now----'
+
+'Sometimes I do still.'
+
+'But where do you live mostly now?'
+
+'With the lost boys.'
+
+'Who are they?'
+
+'They are the children who fall out of their perambulators when the
+nurse is looking the other way. If they are not claimed in seven days
+they are sent far away to the Neverland to defray expenses. I'm
+captain.'
+
+'What fun it must be!'
+
+'Yes,' said cunning Peter, 'but we are rather lonely. You see we have no
+female companionship.'
+
+'Are none of the others girls?'
+
+'Oh no; girls, you know, are much too clever to fall out of their
+prams.'
+
+This flattered Wendy immensely. 'I think,' she said, 'it is perfectly
+lovely the way you talk about girls; John there just despises us.'
+
+For reply Peter rose and kicked John out of bed, blankets and all; one
+kick. This seemed to Wendy rather forward for a first meeting, and she
+told him with spirit that he was not captain in her house. However,
+John continued to sleep so placidly on the floor that she allowed him to
+remain there. 'And I know you meant to be kind,' she said, relenting,
+'so you may give me a kiss.'
+
+For the moment she had forgotten his ignorance about kisses. 'I thought
+you would want it back,' he said a little bitterly, and offered to
+return her the thimble.
+
+'Oh dear,' said the nice Wendy, 'I don't mean a kiss, I mean a thimble.'
+
+'What's that?'
+
+'It's like this.' She kissed him.
+
+'Funny!' said Peter gravely. 'Now shall I give you a thimble?'
+
+'If you wish to,' said Wendy, keeping her head erect this time.
+
+Peter thimbled her, and almost immediately she screeched. 'What is it,
+Wendy?'
+
+'It was exactly as if some one were pulling my hair.'
+
+'That must have been Tink. I never knew her so naughty before.'
+
+And indeed Tink was darting about again, using offensive language.
+
+'She says she will do that to you, Wendy, every time I give you a
+thimble.'
+
+'But why?'
+
+'Why, Tink?'
+
+Again Tink replied, 'You silly ass.' Peter could not understand why, but
+Wendy understood; and she was just slightly disappointed when he
+admitted that he came to the nursery window not to see her but to listen
+to stories.
+
+'You see I don't know any stories. None of the lost boys know any
+stories.'
+
+'How perfectly awful,' Wendy said.
+
+'Do you know,' Peter asked, 'why swallows build in the eaves of houses?
+It is to listen to the stories. O Wendy, your mother was telling you
+such a lovely story.'
+
+'Which story was it?'
+
+'About the prince who couldn't find the lady who wore the glass
+slipper.'
+
+'Peter,' said Wendy excitedly, 'that was Cinderella, and he found her,
+and they lived happy ever after.'
+
+Peter was so glad that he rose from the floor, where they had been
+sitting, and hurried to the window. 'Where are you going?' she cried
+with misgiving.
+
+'To tell the other boys.'
+
+'Don't go, Peter,' she entreated, 'I know such lots of stories.'
+
+Those were her precise words, so there can be no denying that it was she
+who first tempted him.
+
+He came back, and there was a greedy look in his eyes now which ought to
+have alarmed her, but did not.
+
+'Oh, the stories I could tell to the boys!' she cried, and then Peter
+gripped her and began to draw her toward the window.
+
+'Let me go!' she ordered him.
+
+'Wendy, do come with me and tell the other boys.'
+
+Of course she was very pleased to be asked, but she said, 'Oh dear, I
+can't. Think of mummy! Besides, I can't fly.'
+
+'I'll teach you.'
+
+'Oh, how lovely to fly.'
+
+'I'll teach you how to jump on the wind's back, and then away we go.'
+
+'Oo!' she exclaimed rapturously.
+
+'Wendy, Wendy, when you are sleeping in your silly bed you might be
+flying about with me saying funny things to the stars.'
+
+'Oo!'
+
+'And, Wendy, there are mermaids.'
+
+'Mermaids! With tails?'
+
+'Such long tails.'
+
+'Oh,' cried Wendy, 'to see a mermaid!'
+
+He had become frightfully cunning. 'Wendy,' he said, 'how we should all
+respect you.'
+
+She was wriggling her body in distress. It was quite as if she were
+trying to remain on the nursery floor.
+
+But he had no pity for her.
+
+'Wendy,' he said, the sly one, 'you could tuck us in at night.'
+
+'Oo!'
+
+'None of us has ever been tucked in at night.'
+
+'Oo,' and her arms went out to him.
+
+'And you could darn our clothes, and make pockets for us. None of us has
+any pockets.'
+
+How could she resist. 'Of course it's awfully fascinating!' she cried.
+'Peter, would you teach John and Michael to fly too?'
+
+'If you like,' he said indifferently; and she ran to John and Michael
+and shook them. 'Wake up,' she cried, 'Peter Pan has come and he is to
+teach us to fly.'
+
+John rubbed his eyes. 'Then I shall get up,' he said. Of course he was
+on the floor already. 'Hallo,' he said, 'I am up!'
+
+Michael was up by this time also, looking as sharp as a knife with six
+blades and a saw, but Peter suddenly signed silence. Their faces assumed
+the awful craftiness of children listening for sounds from the grown-up
+world. All was as still as salt. Then everything was right. No, stop!
+Everything was wrong. Nana, who had been barking distressfully all the
+evening, was quiet now. It was her silence they had heard.
+
+'Out with the light! Hide! Quick!' cried John, taking command for the
+only time throughout the whole adventure. And thus when Liza entered,
+holding Nana, the nursery seemed quite its old self, very dark; and you
+could have sworn you heard its three wicked inmates breathing
+angelically as they slept. They were really doing it artfully from
+behind the window curtains.
+
+Liza was in a bad temper, for she was mixing the Christmas puddings in
+the kitchen, and had been drawn away from them, with a raisin still on
+her cheek, by Nana's absurd suspicions. She thought the best way of
+getting a little quiet was to take Nana to the nursery for a moment, but
+in custody of course.
+
+'There, you suspicious brute,' she said, not sorry that Nana was in
+disgrace, 'they are perfectly safe, aren't they? Every one of the little
+angels sound asleep in bed. Listen to their gentle breathing.'
+
+Here Michael, encouraged by his success, breathed so loudly that they
+were nearly detected. Nana knew that kind of breathing, and she tried to
+drag herself out of Liza's clutches.
+
+But Liza was dense. 'No more of it, Nana,' she said sternly, pulling her
+out of the room. 'I warn you if you bark again I shall go straight for
+master and missus and bring them home from the party, and then, oh,
+won't master whip you, just.'
+
+She tied the unhappy dog up again, but do you think Nana ceased to bark?
+Bring master and missus home from the party! Why, that was just what
+she wanted. Do you think she cared whether she was whipped so long as
+her charges were safe? Unfortunately Liza returned to her puddings, and
+Nana, seeing that no help would come from her, strained and strained at
+the chain until at last she broke it. In another moment she had burst
+into the dining-room of 27 and flung up her paws to heaven, her most
+expressive way of making a communication. Mr. and Mrs. Darling knew at
+once that something terrible was happening in their nursery, and without
+a good-bye to their hostess they rushed into the street.
+
+But it was now ten minutes since three scoundrels had been breathing
+behind the curtains; and Peter Pan can do a great deal in ten minutes.
+
+We now return to the nursery.
+
+'It's all right,' John announced, emerging from his hiding-place. 'I
+say, Peter, can you really fly?'
+
+Instead of troubling to answer him Peter flew round the room, taking the
+mantelpiece on the way.
+
+'How topping!' said John and Michael.
+
+'How sweet!' cried Wendy.
+
+'Yes, I'm sweet, oh, I am sweet!' said Peter, forgetting his manners
+again.
+
+It looked delightfully easy, and they tried it first from the floor and
+then from the beds, but they always went down instead of up.
+
+'I say, how do you do it?' asked John, rubbing his knee. He was quite a
+practical boy.
+
+'You just think lovely wonderful thoughts,' Peter explained, 'and they
+lift you up in the air.'
+
+He showed them again.
+
+'You're so nippy at it,' John said; 'couldn't you do it very slowly
+once?'
+
+Peter did it both slowly and quickly. 'I've got it now, Wendy!' cried
+John, but soon he found he had not. Not one of them could fly an inch,
+though even Michael was in words of two syllables, and Peter did not
+know A from Z.
+
+Of course Peter had been trifling with them, for no one can fly unless
+the fairy dust has been blown on him. Fortunately, as we have mentioned,
+one of his hands was messy with it, and he blew some on each of them,
+with the most superb results.
+
+'Now just wriggle your shoulders this way,' he said, 'and let go.'
+
+They were all on their beds, and gallant Michael let go first. He did
+not quite mean to let go, but he did it, and immediately he was borne
+across the room.
+
+'I flewed!' he screamed while still in mid-air.
+
+John let go and met Wendy near the bathroom.
+
+'Oh, lovely!'
+
+'Oh, ripping!'
+
+'Look at me!'
+
+'Look at me!'
+
+'Look at me!'
+
+They were not nearly so elegant as Peter, they could not help kicking a
+little, but their heads were bobbing against the ceiling, and there is
+almost nothing so delicious as that. Peter gave Wendy a hand at first,
+but had to desist, Tink was so indignant.
+
+Up and down they went, and round and round. Heavenly was Wendy's word.
+
+'I say,' cried John, 'why shouldn't we all go out!'
+
+Of course it was to this that Peter had been luring them.
+
+Michael was ready: he wanted to see how long it took him to do a billion
+miles. But Wendy hesitated.
+
+'Mermaids!' said Peter again.
+
+'Oo!'
+
+'And there are pirates.'
+
+'Pirates,' cried John, seizing his Sunday hat, 'let us go at once.'
+
+It was just at this moment that Mr. and Mrs. Darling hurried with Nana
+out of 27. They ran into the middle of the street to look up at the
+nursery window; and, yes, it was still shut, but the room was ablaze
+with light, and most heart-gripping sight of all, they could see in
+shadow on the curtain three little figures in night attire circling
+round and round, not on the floor but in the air.
+
+Not three figures, four!
+
+In a tremble they opened the street door. Mr. Darling would have rushed
+upstairs, but Mrs. Darling signed to him to go softly. She even tried to
+make her heart go softly.
+
+Will they reach the nursery in time? If so, how delightful for them,
+and we shall all breathe a sigh of relief, but there will be no story.
+On the other hand, if they are not in time, I solemnly promise that it
+will all come right in the end.
+
+They would have reached the nursery in time had it not been that the
+little stars were watching them. Once again the stars blew the window
+open, and that smallest star of all called out:
+
+'Cave, Peter!'
+
+Then Peter knew that there was not a moment to lose. 'Come,' he cried
+imperiously, and soared out at once into the night, followed by John and
+Michael and Wendy.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Darling and Nana rushed into the nursery too late. The
+birds were flown.
+
+[Illustration: THE BIRDS WERE FLOWN]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE FLIGHT
+
+
+'Second to the right, and straight on till morning.'
+
+That, Peter had told Wendy, was the way to the Neverland; but even
+birds, carrying maps and consulting them at windy corners, could not
+have sighted it with these instructions. Peter, you see, just said
+anything that came into his head.
+
+At first his companions trusted him implicitly, and so great were the
+delights of flying that they wasted time circling round church spires or
+any other tall objects on the way that took their fancy.
+
+John and Michael raced, Michael getting a start.
+
+They recalled with contempt that not so long ago they had thought
+themselves fine fellows for being able to fly round a room.
+
+Not so long ago. But how long ago? They were flying over the sea before
+this thought began to disturb Wendy seriously. John thought it was their
+second sea and their third night.
+
+Sometimes it was dark and sometimes light, and now they were very cold
+and again too warm. Did they really feel hungry at times, or were they
+merely pretending, because Peter had such a jolly new way of feeding
+them? His way was to pursue birds who had food in their mouths suitable
+for humans and snatch it from them; then the birds would follow and
+snatch it back; and they would all go chasing each other gaily for
+miles, parting at last with mutual expressions of good-will. But Wendy
+noticed with gentle concern that Peter did not seem to know that this
+was rather an odd way of getting your bread and butter, nor even that
+there are other ways.
+
+Certainly they did not pretend to be sleepy, they were sleepy; and that
+was a danger, for the moment they popped off, down they fell. The awful
+thing was that Peter thought this funny.
+
+'There he goes again!' he would cry gleefully, as Michael suddenly
+dropped like a stone.
+
+'Save him, save him!' cried Wendy, looking with horror at the cruel sea
+far below. Eventually Peter would dive through the air, and catch
+Michael just before he could strike the sea, and it was lovely the way
+he did it; but he always waited till the last moment, and you felt it
+was his cleverness that interested him and not the saving of human life.
+Also he was fond of variety, and the sport that engrossed him one moment
+would suddenly cease to engage him, so there was always the possibility
+that the next time you fell he would let you go.
+
+He could sleep in the air without falling, by merely lying on his back
+and floating, but this was, partly at least, because he was so light
+that if you got behind him and blew he went faster.
+
+'Do be more polite to him,' Wendy whispered to John, when they were
+playing 'Follow my Leader.'
+
+'Then tell him to stop showing off,' said John.
+
+When playing Follow my Leader, Peter would fly close to the water and
+touch each shark's tail in passing, just as in the street you may run
+your finger along an iron railing. They could not follow him in this
+with much success, so perhaps it was rather like showing off, especially
+as he kept looking behind to see how many tails they missed.
+
+'You must be nice to him,' Wendy impressed on her brothers. 'What could
+we do if he were to leave us?'
+
+'We could go back,' Michael said.
+
+'How could we ever find our way back without him?'
+
+'Well, then, we could go on,' said John.
+
+'That is the awful thing, John. We should have to go on, for we don't
+know how to stop.'
+
+This was true; Peter had forgotten to show them how to stop.
+
+John said that if the worst came to the worst, all they had to do was to
+go straight on, for the world was round, and so in time they must come
+back to their own window.
+
+'And who is to get food for us, John?'
+
+'I nipped a bit out of that eagle's mouth pretty neatly, Wendy.'
+
+'After the twentieth try,' Wendy reminded him. 'And even though we
+became good at picking up food, see how we bump against clouds and
+things if he is not near to give us a hand.'
+
+Indeed they were constantly bumping. They could now fly strongly, though
+they still kicked far too much; but if they saw a cloud in front of
+them, the more they tried to avoid it, the more certainly did they bump
+into it. If Nana had been with them, she would have had a bandage round
+Michael's forehead by this time.
+
+Peter was not with them for the moment, and they felt rather lonely up
+there by themselves. He could go so much faster than they that he would
+suddenly shoot out of sight, to have some adventure in which they had no
+share. He would come down laughing over something fearfully funny he had
+been saying to a star, but he had already forgotten what it was, or he
+would come up with mermaid scales still sticking to him, and yet not be
+able to say for certain what had been happening. It was really rather
+irritating to children who had never seen a mermaid.
+
+'And if he forgets them, so quickly,' Wendy argued, 'how can we expect
+that he will go on remembering us?'
+
+Indeed, sometimes when he returned he did not remember them, at least
+not well. Wendy was sure of it. She saw recognition come into his eyes
+as he was about to pass them the time of day and go on; once even she
+had to tell him her name.
+
+'I'm Wendy,' she said agitatedly.
+
+He was very sorry. 'I say, Wendy,' he whispered to her, 'always if you
+see me forgetting you, just keep on saying "I'm Wendy," and then I'll
+remember.'
+
+Of course this was rather unsatisfactory. However, to make amends he
+showed them how to lie out flat on a strong wind that was going their
+way, and this was such a pleasant change that they tried it several
+times and found they could sleep thus with security. Indeed they would
+have slept longer, but Peter tired quickly of sleeping, and soon he
+would cry in his captain voice, 'We get off here.' So with occasional
+tiffs, but on the whole rollicking, they drew near the Neverland; for
+after many moons they did reach it, and, what is more, they had been
+going pretty straight all the time, not perhaps so much owing to the
+guidance of Peter or Tink as because the island was out looking for
+them. It is only thus that any one may sight those magic shores.
+
+'There it is,' said Peter calmly.
+
+'Where, where?'
+
+'Where all the arrows are pointing.'
+
+Indeed a million golden arrows were pointing out the island to the
+children, all directed by their friend the sun, who wanted them to be
+sure of their way before leaving them for the night.
+
+[Illustration: "LET HIM KEEP WHO CAN"]
+
+Wendy and John and Michael stood on tiptoe in the air to get their first
+sight of the island. Strange to say, they all recognised it at once, and
+until fear fell upon them they hailed it, not as something long dreamt
+of and seen at last, but as a familiar friend to whom they were
+returning home for the holidays.
+
+'John, there's the lagoon.'
+
+'Wendy, look at the turtles burying their eggs in the sand.'
+
+'I say, John, I see your flamingo with the broken leg.'
+
+'Look, Michael, there's your cave.'
+
+'John, what's that in the brushwood?'
+
+'It's a wolf with her whelps. Wendy, I do believe that's your little
+whelp.'
+
+'There's my boat, John, with her sides stove in.'
+
+'No, it isn't. Why, we burned your boat.'
+
+'That's her, at any rate. I say, John, I see the smoke of the redskin
+camp.'
+
+'Where? Show me, and I'll tell you by the way the smoke curls whether
+they are on the war-path.'
+
+'There, just across the Mysterious River.'
+
+'I see now. Yes, they are on the war-path right enough.'
+
+Peter was a little annoyed with them for knowing so much; but if he
+wanted to lord it over them his triumph was at hand, for have I not told
+you that anon fear fell upon them?
+
+It came as the arrows went, leaving the island in gloom.
+
+In the old days at home the Neverland had always begun to look a little
+dark and threatening by bedtime. Then unexplored patches arose in it and
+spread; black shadows moved about in them; the roar of the beasts of
+prey was quite different now, and above all, you lost the certainty that
+you would win. You were quite glad that the night-lights were in. You
+even liked Nana to say that this was just the mantelpiece over here, and
+that the Neverland was all make-believe.
+
+Of course the Neverland had been make-believe in those days; but it was
+real now, and there were no night-lights, and it was getting darker
+every moment, and where was Nana?
+
+They had been flying apart, but they huddled close to Peter now. His
+careless manner had gone at last, his eyes were sparkling, and a tingle
+went through them every time they touched his body. They were now over
+the fearsome island, flying so low that sometimes a tree grazed their
+feet. Nothing horrid was visible in the air, yet their progress had
+become slow and laboured, exactly as if they were pushing their way
+through hostile forces. Sometimes they hung in the air until Peter had
+beaten on it with his fists.
+
+'They don't want us to land,' he explained.
+
+'Who are they?' Wendy whispered, shuddering.
+
+But he could not or would not say. Tinker Bell had been asleep on his
+shoulder, but now he wakened her and sent her on in front.
+
+Sometimes he poised himself in the air, listening intently with his hand
+to his ear, and again he would stare down with eyes so bright that they
+seemed to bore two holes to earth. Having done these things, he went on
+again.
+
+His courage was almost appalling. 'Do you want an adventure now,' he
+said casually to John, 'or would you like to have your tea first?'
+
+Wendy said 'tea first' quickly, and Michael pressed her hand in
+gratitude, but the braver John hesitated.
+
+'What kind of adventure?' he asked cautiously.
+
+'There's a pirate asleep in the pampas just beneath us,' Peter told
+him. 'If you like, we'll go down and kill him.'
+
+'I don't see him,' John said after a long pause.
+
+'I do.'
+
+'Suppose,' John said a little huskily, 'he were to wake up.'
+
+Peter spoke indignantly. 'You don't think I would kill him while he was
+sleeping! I would wake him first, and then kill him. That's the way I
+always do.'
+
+'I say! Do you kill many?'
+
+'Tons.'
+
+John said 'how ripping,' but decided to have tea first. He asked if
+there were many pirates on the island just now, and Peter said he had
+never known so many.
+
+'Who is captain now?'
+
+'Hook,' answered Peter; and his face became very stern as he said that
+hated word.
+
+'Jas. Hook?'
+
+'Ay.'
+
+Then indeed Michael began to cry, and even John could speak in gulps
+only, for they knew Hook's reputation.
+
+'He was Blackbeard's bo'sun,' John whispered huskily. 'He is the worst
+of them all. He is the only man of whom Barbecue was afraid.'
+
+'That's him,' said Peter.
+
+'What is he like? Is he big?'
+
+'He is not so big as he was.'
+
+'How do you mean?'
+
+'I cut off a bit of him.'
+
+'You!'
+
+'Yes, me,' said Peter sharply.
+
+'I wasn't meaning to be disrespectful.'
+
+'Oh, all right'
+
+'But, I say, what bit?'
+
+'His right hand.'
+
+'Then he can't fight now?'
+
+'Oh, can't he just!'
+
+'Left-hander?'
+
+'He has an iron hook instead of a right hand, and he claws with it.'
+
+'Claws!'
+
+'I say, John,' said Peter.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Say, "Ay, ay, sir."'
+
+'Ay, ay, sir.'
+
+'There is one thing,' Peter continued, 'that every boy who serves under
+me has to promise, and so must you.'
+
+John paled.
+
+'It is this, if we meet Hook in open fight, you must leave him to me.'
+
+'I promise,' John said loyally.
+
+For the moment they were feeling less eerie, because Tink was flying
+with them, and in her light they could distinguish each other.
+Unfortunately she could not fly so slowly as they, and so she had to go
+round and round them in a circle in which they moved as in a halo. Wendy
+quite liked it, until Peter pointed out the drawback.
+
+'She tells me,' he said, 'that the pirates sighted us before the
+darkness came, and got Long Tom out.'
+
+'The big gun?'
+
+'Yes. And of course they must see her light, and if they guess we are
+near it they are sure to let fly.'
+
+'Wendy!'
+
+'John!'
+
+'Michael!'
+
+'Tell her to go away at once, Peter,' the three cried simultaneously,
+but he refused.
+
+'She thinks we have lost the way,' he replied stiffly, 'and she is
+rather frightened. You don't think I would send her away all by herself
+when she is frightened!'
+
+For a moment the circle of light was broken, and something gave Peter a
+loving little pinch.
+
+'Then tell her,' Wendy begged, 'to put out her light.'
+
+'She can't put it out. That is about the only thing fairies can't do. It
+just goes out of itself when she falls asleep, same as the stars.'
+
+'Then tell her to sleep at once,' John almost ordered.
+
+'She can't sleep except when she's sleepy. It is the only other thing
+fairies can't do.'
+
+'Seems to me,' growled John, 'these are the only two things worth
+doing.'
+
+Here he got a pinch, but not a loving one.
+
+'If only one of us had a pocket,' Peter said, 'we could carry her in
+it.' However, they had set off in such a hurry that there was not a
+pocket between the four of them.
+
+He had a happy idea. John's hat!
+
+Tink agreed to travel by hat if it was carried in the hand. John
+carried it, though she had hoped to be carried by Peter. Presently Wendy
+took the hat, because John said it struck against his knee as he flew;
+and this, as we shall see, led to mischief, for Tinker Bell hated to be
+under an obligation to Wendy.
+
+In the black topper the light was completely hidden, and they flew on in
+silence. It was the stillest silence they had ever known, broken once by
+a distant lapping, which Peter explained was the wild beasts drinking at
+the ford, and again by a rasping sound that might have been the branches
+of trees rubbing together, but he said it was the redskins sharpening
+their knives.
+
+Even these noises ceased. To Michael the loneliness was dreadful. 'If
+only something would make a sound!' he cried.
+
+As if in answer to his request, the air was rent by the most tremendous
+crash he had ever heard. The pirates had fired Long Tom at them.
+
+The roar of it echoed through the mountains, and the echoes seemed to
+cry savagely, 'Where are they, where are they, where are they?'
+
+Thus sharply did the terrified three learn the difference between an
+island of make-believe and the same island come true.
+
+When at last the heavens were steady again, John and Michael found
+themselves alone in the darkness. John was treading the air
+mechanically, and Michael without knowing how to float was floating.
+
+'Are you shot?' John whispered tremulously.
+
+'I haven't tried yet,' Michael whispered back.
+
+We know now that no one had been hit. Peter, however, had been carried
+by the wind of the shot far out to sea, while Wendy was blown upwards
+with no companion but Tinker Bell.
+
+It would have been well for Wendy if at that moment she had dropped the
+hat.
+
+I don't know whether the idea came suddenly to Tink, or whether she had
+planned it on the way, but she at once popped out of the hat and began
+to lure Wendy to her destruction.
+
+Tink was not all bad: or, rather, she was all bad just now, but, on the
+other hand, sometimes she was all good. Fairies have to be one thing or
+the other, because being so small they unfortunately have room for one
+feeling only at a time. They are, however, allowed to change, only it
+must be a complete change. At present she was full of jealousy of Wendy.
+What she said in her lovely tinkle Wendy could not of course understand,
+and I believe some of it was bad words, but it sounded kind, and she
+flew back and forward, plainly meaning 'Follow me, and all will be
+well.'
+
+What else could poor Wendy do? She called to Peter and John and Michael,
+and got only mocking echoes in reply. She did not yet know that Tink
+hated her with the fierce hatred of a very woman. And so, bewildered,
+and now staggering in her flight, she followed Tink to her doom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE ISLAND COME TRUE
+
+
+Feeling that Peter was on his way back, the Neverland had again woke
+into life. We ought to use the pluperfect and say wakened, but woke is
+better and was always used by Peter.
+
+In his absence things are usually quiet on the island. The fairies take
+an hour longer in the morning, the beasts attend to their young, the
+redskins feed heavily for six days and nights, and when pirates and lost
+boys meet they merely bite their thumbs at each other. But with the
+coming of Peter, who hates lethargy, they are all under way again: if
+you put your ear to the ground now, you would hear the whole island
+seething with life.
+
+On this evening the chief forces of the island were disposed as
+follows. The lost boys were out looking for Peter, the pirates were out
+looking for the lost boys, the redskins were out looking for the
+pirates, and the beasts were out looking for the redskins. They were
+going round and round the island, but they did not meet because all were
+going at the same rate.
+
+All wanted blood except the boys, who liked it as a rule, but to-night
+were out to greet their captain. The boys on the island vary, of course,
+in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem
+to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out; but
+at this time there were six of them, counting the twins as two. Let us
+pretend to lie here among the sugar-cane and watch them as they steal by
+in single file, each with his hand on his dagger.
+
+They are forbidden by Peter to look in the least like him, and they wear
+the skins of bears slain by themselves, in which they are so round and
+furry that when they fall they roll. They have therefore become very
+sure-footed.
+
+The first to pass is Tootles, not the least brave but the most
+unfortunate of all that gallant band. He had been in fewer adventures
+than any of them, because the big things constantly happened just when
+he had stepped round the corner; all would be quiet, he would take the
+opportunity of going off to gather a few sticks for firewood, and then
+when he returned the others would be sweeping up the blood. This
+ill-luck had given a gentle melancholy to his countenance, but instead
+of souring his nature had sweetened it, so that he was quite the
+humblest of the boys. Poor kind Tootles, there is danger in the air for
+you to-night. Take care lest an adventure is now offered you, which, if
+accepted, will plunge you in deepest woe. Tootles, the fairy Tink who is
+bent on mischief this night is looking for a tool, and she thinks you
+the most easily tricked of the boys. 'Ware Tinker Bell.
+
+Would that he could hear us, but we are not really on the island, and he
+passes by, biting his knuckles.
+
+Next comes Nibs, the gay and debonair, followed by Slightly, who cuts
+whistles out of the trees and dances ecstatically to his own tunes.
+Slightly is the most conceited of the boys. He thinks he remembers the
+days before he was lost, with their manners and customs, and this has
+given his nose an offensive tilt. Curly is fourth; he is a pickle, and
+so often has he had to deliver up his person when Peter said sternly,
+'Stand forth the one who did this thing,' that now at the command he
+stands forth automatically whether he has done it or not. Last come the
+Twins, who cannot be described because we should be sure to be
+describing the wrong one. Peter never quite knew what twins were, and
+his band were not allowed to know anything he did not know, so these two
+were always vague about themselves, and did their best to give
+satisfaction by keeping close together in an apologetic sort of way.
+
+The boys vanish in the gloom, and after a pause, but not a long pause,
+for things go briskly on the island, come the pirates on their track. We
+hear them before they are seen, and it is always the same dreadful song:
+
+
+     'Avast belay, yo ho, heave to,
+       A-pirating we go,
+     And if we're parted by a shot
+       We're sure to meet below!'
+
+
+A more villainous-looking lot never hung in a row on Execution dock.
+Here, a little in advance, ever and again with his head to the ground
+listening, his great arms bare, pieces of eight in his ears as
+ornaments, is the handsome Italian Cecco, who cut his name in letters of
+blood on the back of the governor of the prison at Gao. That gigantic
+black behind him has had many names since he dropped the one with which
+dusky mothers still terrify their children on the banks of the
+Guadjo-mo. Here is Bill Jukes, every inch of him tattooed, the same Bill
+Jukes who got six dozen on the _Walrus_ from Flint before he would drop
+the bag of moidores; and Cookson, said to be Black Murphy's brother (but
+this was never proved); and Gentleman Starkey, once an usher in a public
+school and still dainty in his ways of killing; and Skylights (Morgan's
+Skylights); and the Irish bo'sun Smee, an oddly genial man who stabbed,
+so to speak, without offence, and was the only Nonconformist in Hook's
+crew; and Noodler, whose hands were fixed on backwards; and Robt.
+Mullins and Alf Mason and many another ruffian long known and feared on
+the Spanish Main.
+
+In the midst of them, the blackest and largest jewel in that dark
+setting, reclined James Hook, or as he wrote himself, Jas. Hook, of whom
+it is said he was the only man that the Sea-Cook feared. He lay at his
+ease in a rough chariot drawn and propelled by his men, and instead of a
+right hand he had the iron hook with which ever and anon he encouraged
+them to increase their pace. As dogs this terrible man treated and
+addressed them, and as dogs they obeyed him. In person he was cadaverous
+and blackavized, and his hair was dressed in long curls, which at a
+little distance looked like black candles, and gave a singularly
+threatening expression to his handsome countenance. His eyes were of the
+blue of the forget-me-not, and of a profound melancholy, save when he
+was plunging his hook into you, at which time two red spots appeared in
+them and lit them up horribly. In manner, something of the grand
+seigneur still clung to him, so that he even ripped you up with an air,
+and I have been told that he was a _raconteur_ of repute. He was never
+more sinister than when he was most polite, which is probably the truest
+test of breeding; and the elegance of his diction, even when he was
+swearing, no less than the distinction of his demeanour, showed him one
+of a different caste from his crew. A man of indomitable courage, it was
+said of him that the only thing he shied at was the sight of his own
+blood, which was thick and of an unusual colour. In dress he somewhat
+aped the attire associated with the name of Charles II., having heard it
+said in some earlier period of his career that he bore a strange
+resemblance to the ill-fated Stuarts; and in his mouth he had a holder
+of his own contrivance which enabled him to smoke two cigars at once.
+But undoubtedly the grimmest part of him was his iron claw.
+
+Let us now kill a pirate, to show Hook's method. Skylights will do. As
+they pass, Skylights lurches clumsily against him, ruffling his lace
+collar; the hook shoots forth, there is a tearing sound and one screech,
+then the body is kicked aside, and the pirates pass on. He has not even
+taken the cigars from his mouth.
+
+Such is the terrible man against whom Peter Pan is pitted. Which will
+win?
+
+On the trail of the pirates, stealing noiselessly down the war-path,
+which is not visible to inexperienced eyes, come the redskins, every
+one of them with his eyes peeled. They carry tomahawks and knives, and
+their naked bodies gleam with paint and oil. Strung around them are
+scalps, of boys as well as of pirates, for these are the Piccaninny
+tribe, and not to be confused with the softer-hearted Delawares or the
+Hurons. In the van, on all fours, is Great Big Little Panther, a brave
+of so many scalps that in his present position they somewhat impede his
+progress. Bringing up the rear, the place of greatest danger, comes
+Tiger Lily, proudly erect, a princess in her own right. She is the most
+beautiful of dusky Dianas and the belle of the Piccaninnies, coquettish,
+cold and amorous by turns; there is not a brave who would not have the
+wayward thing to wife, but she staves off the altar with a hatchet.
+Observe how they pass over fallen twigs without making the slightest
+noise. The only sound to be heard is their somewhat heavy breathing. The
+fact is that they are all a little fat just now after the heavy gorging,
+but in time they will work this off. For the moment, however, it
+constitutes their chief danger.
+
+The redskins disappear as they have come like shadows, and soon their
+place is taken by the beasts, a great and motley procession: lions,
+tigers, bears, and the innumerable smaller savage things that flee from
+them, for every kind of beast, and, more particularly; all the
+man-eaters, live cheek by jowl on the favoured island. Their tongues are
+hanging out, they are hungry to-night.
+
+When they have passed, comes the last figure of all, a gigantic
+crocodile. We shall see for whom she is looking presently.
+
+The crocodile passes, but soon the boys appear again, for the procession
+must continue indefinitely until one of the parties stops or changes its
+pace. Then quickly they will be on top of each other.
+
+All are keeping a sharp look-out in front, but none suspects that the
+danger may be creeping up from behind. This shows how real the island
+was.
+
+The first to fall out of the moving circle was the boys. They flung
+themselves down on the sward, close to their underground home.
+
+'I do wish Peter would come back,' every one of them said nervously,
+though in height and still more in breadth they were all larger than
+their captain.
+
+'I am the only one who is not afraid of the pirates,' Slightly said, in
+the tone that prevented his being a general favourite; but perhaps some
+distant sound disturbed him, for he added hastily, 'but I wish he would
+come back, and tell us whether he has heard anything more about
+Cinderella.'
+
+They talked of Cinderella, and Tootles was confident that his mother
+must have been very like her.
+
+It was only in Peter's absence that they could speak of mothers, the
+subject being forbidden by him as silly.
+
+'All I remember about my mother,' Nibs told them, 'is that she often
+said to father, "Oh, how I wish I had a cheque-book of my own." I don't
+know what a cheque-book is, but I should just love to give my mother
+one.'
+
+While they talked they heard a distant sound. You or I, not being wild
+things of the woods, would have heard nothing, but they heard it, and it
+was the grim song:
+
+
+     'Yo ho, yo ho, the pirate life,
+       The flag o' skull and bones,
+     A merry hour, a hempen rope,
+       And hey for Davy Jones.'
+
+
+At once the lost boys--but where are they? They are no longer there.
+Rabbits could not have disappeared more quickly.
+
+I will tell you where they are. With the exception of Nibs, who has
+darted away to reconnoitre, they are already in their home under the
+ground, a very delightful residence of which we shall see a good deal
+presently. But how have they reached it? for there is no entrance to be
+seen, not so much as a pile of brushwood, which if removed would
+disclose the mouth of a cave. Look closely, however, and you may note
+that there are here seven large trees, each having in its hollow trunk a
+hole as large as a boy. These are the seven entrances to the home under
+the ground, for which Hook has been searching in vain these many moons.
+Will he find it to-night?
+
+As the pirates advanced, the quick eye of Starkey sighted Nibs
+disappearing through the wood, and at once his pistol flashed out. But
+an iron claw gripped his shoulder.
+
+'Captain, let go,' he cried, writhing.
+
+Now for the first time we hear the voice of Hook. It was a black voice.
+'Put back that pistol first,' it said threateningly.
+
+'It was one of those boys you hate. I could have shot him dead.'
+
+'Ay, and the sound would have brought Tiger Lily's redskins upon us. Do
+you want to lose your scalp?'
+
+'Shall I after him, captain,' asked pathetic Smee, 'and tickle him with
+Johnny Corkscrew?' Smee had pleasant names for everything, and his
+cutlass was Johnny Corkscrew, because he wriggled it in the wound. One
+could mention many lovable traits in Smee. For instance, after killing,
+it was his spectacles he wiped instead of his weapon.
+
+'Johnny's a silent fellow,' he reminded Hook.
+
+'Not now, Smee,' Hook said darkly. 'He is only one, and I want to
+mischief all the seven. Scatter and look for them.'
+
+The pirates disappeared among the trees, and in a moment their captain
+and Smee were alone. Hook heaved a heavy sigh; and I know not why it
+was, perhaps it was because of the soft beauty of the evening, but
+there came over him a desire to confide to his faithful bo'sun the story
+of his life. He spoke long and earnestly, but what it was all about
+Smee, who was rather stupid, did not know in the least.
+
+Anon he caught the word Peter.
+
+'Most of all,' Hook was saying passionately, 'I want their captain,
+Peter Pan. 'Twas he cut off my arm.' He brandished the hook
+threateningly. 'I've waited long to shake his hand with this. Oh, I'll
+tear him.'
+
+'And yet,' said Smee, 'I have often heard you say that hook was worth a
+score of hands, for combing the hair and other homely uses.'
+
+'Ay,' the captain answered, 'if I was a mother I would pray to have my
+children born with this instead of that,' and he cast a look of pride
+upon his iron hand and one of scorn upon the other. Then again he
+frowned.
+
+'Peter flung my arm,' he said, wincing, 'to a crocodile that happened to
+be passing by.'
+
+'I have often,' said Smee, 'noticed your strange dread of crocodiles.'
+
+'Not of crocodiles,' Hook corrected him, 'but of that one crocodile.' He
+lowered his voice. 'It liked my arm so much, Smee, that it has followed
+me ever since, from sea to sea and from land to land, licking its lips
+for the rest of me.'
+
+'In a way,' said Smee, 'it's a sort of compliment.'
+
+'I want no such compliments,' Hook barked petulantly. 'I want Peter Pan,
+who first gave the brute its taste for me.'
+
+He sat down on a large mushroom, and now there was a quiver in his
+voice. 'Smee,' he said huskily, 'that crocodile would have had me before
+this, but by a lucky chance it swallowed a clock which goes tick tick
+inside it, and so before it can reach me I hear the tick and bolt.' He
+laughed, but in a hollow way.
+
+'Some day,' said Smee, 'the clock will run down, and then he'll get
+you.'
+
+Hook wetted his dry lips. 'Ay,' he said, 'that's the fear that haunts
+me.'
+
+Since sitting down he had felt curiously warm. 'Smee,' he said, 'this
+seat is hot.' He jumped up. 'Odds bobs, hammer and tongs I'm burning.'
+
+They examined the mushroom, which was of a size and solidity unknown on
+the mainland; they tried to pull it up, and it came away at once in
+their hands, for it had no root. Stranger still, smoke began at once to
+ascend. The pirates looked at each other. 'A chimney!' they both
+exclaimed.
+
+They had indeed discovered the chimney of the home under the ground. It
+was the custom of the boys to stop it with a mushroom when enemies were
+in the neighbourhood.
+
+Not only smoke came out of it. There came also children's voices, for so
+safe did the boys feel in their hiding-place that they were gaily
+chattering. The pirates listened grimly, and then replaced the mushroom.
+They looked around them and noted the holes in the seven trees.
+
+'Did you hear them say Peter Pan's from home?' Smee whispered, fidgeting
+with Johnny Corkscrew.
+
+Hook nodded. He stood for a long time lost in thought, and at last a
+curdling smile lit up his swarthy face. Smee had been waiting for it.
+'Unrip your plan, captain,' he cried eagerly.
+
+'To return to the ship,' Hook replied slowly through his teeth, 'and
+cook a large rich cake of a jolly thickness with green sugar on it.
+There can be but one room below, for there is but one chimney. The silly
+moles had not the sense to see that they did not need a door apiece.
+That shows they have no mother. We will leave the cake on the shore of
+the mermaids' lagoon. These boys are always swimming about there,
+playing with the mermaids. They will find the cake and they will gobble
+it up, because, having no mother, they don't know how dangerous 'tis to
+eat rich damp cake.' He burst into laughter, not hollow laughter now,
+but honest laughter. 'Aha, they will die.'
+
+Smee had listened with growing admiration.
+
+'It's the wickedest, prettiest policy ever I heard of,' he cried, and in
+their exultation they danced and sang:
+
+
+     'Avast, belay, when I appear,
+       By fear they're overtook;
+     Nought's left upon your bones when you
+       Have shaken claws with Cook.'
+
+
+They began the verse, but they never finished it, for another sound
+broke in and stilled them. It was at first such a tiny sound that a leaf
+might have fallen on it and smothered it, but as it came nearer it was
+more distinct.
+
+Tick tick tick tick.
+
+Hook stood shuddering, one foot in the air.
+
+'The crocodile,' he gasped, and bounded away, followed by his bo'sun.
+
+It was indeed the crocodile. It had passed the redskins, who were now on
+the trail of the other pirates. It oozed on after Hook.
+
+Once more the boys emerged into the open; but the dangers of the night
+were not yet over, for presently Nibs rushed breathless into their
+midst, pursued by a pack of wolves. The tongues of the pursuers were
+hanging out; the baying of them was horrible.
+
+'Save me, save me!' cried Nibs, falling on the ground.
+
+'But what can we do, what can we do?'
+
+It was a high compliment to Peter that at that dire moment their
+thoughts turned to him.
+
+'What would Peter do?' they cried simultaneously.
+
+Almost in the same breath they added, 'Peter would look at them through
+his legs.'
+
+And then, 'Let us do what Peter would do.'
+
+It is quite the most successful way of defying wolves, and as one boy
+they bent and looked through their legs. The next moment is the long
+one; but victory came quickly, for as the boys advanced upon them in
+this terrible attitude, the wolves dropped their tails and fled.
+
+Now Nibs rose from the ground, and the others thought that his staring
+eyes still saw the wolves. But it was not wolves he saw.
+
+'I have seen a wonderfuller thing,' he cried, as they gathered round him
+eagerly. 'A great white bird. It is flying this way.'
+
+'What kind of a bird, do you think?'
+
+'I don't know,' Nibs said, awestruck, 'but it looks so weary, and as it
+flies it moans, "Poor Wendy."'
+
+'Poor Wendy?'
+
+'I remember,' said Slightly instantly, 'there are birds called Wendies.'
+
+'See, it comes,' cried Curly, pointing to Wendy in the heavens.
+
+Wendy was now almost overhead, and they could hear her plaintive cry.
+But more distinct came the shrill voice of Tinker Bell. The jealous
+fairy had now cast off all disguise of friendship, and was darting at
+her victim from every direction, pinching savagely each time she
+touched.
+
+'Hullo, Tink,' cried the wondering boys.
+
+Tink's reply rang out: 'Peter wants you to shoot the Wendy.'
+
+It was not in their nature to question when Peter ordered. 'Let us do
+what Peter wishes,' cried the simple boys. 'Quick, bows and arrows.'
+
+All but Tootles popped down their trees. He had a bow and arrow with
+him, and Tink noted it, and rubbed her little hands.
+
+'Quick, Tootles, quick,' she screamed. 'Peter will be so pleased.'
+
+Tootles excitedly fitted the arrow to his bow. 'Out of the way, Tink,'
+he shouted; and then he fired, and Wendy fluttered to the ground with an
+arrow in her breast.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE LITTLE HOUSE
+
+
+Foolish Tootles was standing like a conqueror over Wendy's body when the
+other boys sprang, armed, from their trees.
+
+'You are too late,' he cried proudly, 'I have shot the Wendy. Peter will
+be so pleased with me.'
+
+Overhead Tinker Bell shouted 'Silly ass!' and darted into hiding. The
+others did not hear her. They had crowded round Wendy, and as they
+looked a terrible silence fell upon the wood. If Wendy's heart had been
+beating they would all have heard it.
+
+Slightly was the first to speak. 'This is no bird,' he said in a scared
+voice. 'I think it must be a lady.'
+
+'A lady?' said Tootles, and fell a-trembling.
+
+'And we have killed her,' Nibs said hoarsely.
+
+They all whipped off their caps.
+
+'Now I see,' Curly said; 'Peter was bringing her to us.' He threw
+himself sorrowfully on the ground.
+
+'A lady to take care of us at last,' said one of the twins, 'and you
+have killed her.'
+
+They were sorry for him, but sorrier for themselves, and when he took a
+step nearer them they turned from him.
+
+Tootles' face was very white, but there was a dignity about him now that
+had never been there before.
+
+'I did it,' he said, reflecting. 'When ladies used to come to me in
+dreams, I said, "Pretty mother, pretty mother." But when at last she
+really came, I shot her.'
+
+He moved slowly away.
+
+'Don't go,' they called in pity.
+
+'I must,' he answered, shaking; 'I am so afraid of Peter.'
+
+It was at this tragic moment that they heard a sound which made the
+heart of every one of them rise to his mouth. They heard Peter crow.
+
+'Peter!' they cried, for it was always thus that he signalled his
+return.
+
+'Hide her,' they whispered, and gathered hastily around Wendy. But
+Tootles stood aloof.
+
+Again came that ringing crow, and Peter dropped in front of them.
+'Greeting, boys,' he cried, and mechanically they saluted, and then
+again was silence.
+
+He frowned.
+
+'I am back,' he said hotly, 'why do you not cheer?'
+
+They opened their mouths, but the cheers would not come. He overlooked
+it in his haste to tell the glorious tidings.
+
+'Great news, boys,' he cried, 'I have brought at last a mother for you
+all.'
+
+Still no sound, except a little thud from Tootles as he dropped on his
+knees.
+
+'Have you not seen her?' asked Peter, becoming troubled. 'She flew this
+way.'
+
+'Ah me,' one voice said, and another said, 'Oh, mournful day.'
+
+Tootles rose. 'Peter,' he said quietly, 'I will show her to you'; and
+when the others would still have hidden her he said, 'Back, twins, let
+Peter see.'
+
+So they all stood back, and let him see, and after he had looked for a
+little time he did not know what to do next.
+
+'She is dead,' he said uncomfortably. 'Perhaps she is frightened at
+being dead.'
+
+He thought of hopping off in a comic sort of way till he was out of
+sight of her, and then never going near the spot any more. They would
+all have been glad to follow if he had done this.
+
+But there was the arrow. He took it from her heart and faced his band.
+
+'Whose arrow?' he demanded sternly.
+
+'Mine, Peter,' said Tootles on his knees.
+
+'Oh, dastard hand,' Peter said, and he raised the arrow to use it as a
+dagger.
+
+Tootles did not flinch. He bared his breast.
+
+'Strike, Peter,' he said firmly, 'strike true.'
+
+Twice did Peter raise the arrow, and twice did his hand fall. 'I cannot
+strike,' he said with awe, 'there is something stays my hand.'
+
+All looked at him in wonder, save Nibs, who fortunately looked at Wendy.
+
+'It is she,' he cried, 'the Wendy lady; see, her arm.'
+
+Wonderful to relate, Wendy had raised her arm. Nibs bent over her and
+listened reverently. 'I think she said "Poor Tootles,"' he whispered.
+
+'She lives,' Peter said briefly.
+
+Slightly cried instantly, 'The Wendy lady lives.'
+
+Then Peter knelt beside her and found his button. You remember she had
+put it on a chain that she wore round her neck.
+
+'See,' he said, 'the arrow struck against this. It is the kiss I gave
+her. It has saved her life.'
+
+'I remember kisses,' Slightly interposed quickly, 'let me see it. Ay,
+that's a kiss.'
+
+Peter did not hear him. He was begging Wendy to get better quickly, so
+that he could show her the mermaids. Of course she could not answer yet,
+being still in a frightful faint; but from overhead came a wailing note.
+
+'Listen to Tink,' said Curly, 'she is crying because the Wendy lives.'
+
+Then they had to tell Peter of Tink's crime, and almost never had they
+seen him look so stern.
+
+'Listen, Tinker Bell,' he cried; 'I am your friend no more. Begone from
+me for ever.'
+
+She flew on to his shoulder and pleaded, but he brushed her off. Not
+until Wendy again raised her arm did he relent sufficiently to say,
+'Well, not for ever, but for a whole week.'
+
+Do you think Tinker Bell was grateful to Wendy for raising her arm? Oh
+dear no, never wanted to pinch her so much. Fairies indeed are strange,
+and Peter, who understood them best, often cuffed them.
+
+But what to do with Wendy in her present delicate state of health?
+
+'Let us carry her down into the house,' Curly suggested.
+
+'Ay,' said Slightly, 'that is what one does with ladies.'
+
+'No, no,' Peter said, 'you must not touch her. It would not be
+sufficiently respectful.'
+
+'That,' said Slightly, 'is what I was thinking.'
+
+'But if she lies there,' Tootles said, 'she will die.'
+
+'Ay, she will die,' Slightly admitted, 'but there is no way out.'
+
+'Yes, there is,' cried Peter. 'Let us build a little house round her.'
+
+They were all delighted. 'Quick,' he ordered them, 'bring me each of you
+the best of what we have. Gut our house. Be sharp.'
+
+In a moment they were as busy as tailors the night before a wedding.
+They skurried this way and that, down for bedding, up for firewood, and
+while they were at it, who should appear but John and Michael. As they
+dragged along the ground they fell asleep standing, stopped, woke up,
+moved another step and slept again.
+
+'John, John,' Michael would cry, 'wake up. Where is Nana, John, and
+mother?'
+
+And then John would rub his eyes and mutter, 'It is true, we did fly.'
+
+You may be sure they were very relieved to find Peter.
+
+'Hullo, Peter,' they said.
+
+'Hullo,' replied Peter amicably, though he had quite forgotten them. He
+was very busy at the moment measuring Wendy with his feet to see how
+large a house she would need. Of course he meant to leave room for
+chairs and a table. John and Michael watched him.
+
+'Is Wendy asleep?' they asked.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'John,' Michael proposed, 'let us wake her and get her to make supper
+for us'; but as he said it some of the other boys rushed on carrying
+branches for the building of the house.
+
+'Look at them!' he cried.
+
+'Curly,' said Peter in his most captainy voice, 'see that these boys
+help in the building of the house.'
+
+'Ay, ay, sir.'
+
+'Build a house?' exclaimed John.
+
+'For the Wendy,' said Curly.
+
+'For Wendy?' John said, aghast. 'Why, she is only a girl.'
+
+'That,' explained Curly, 'is why we are her servants.'
+
+'You? Wendy's servants!'
+
+'Yes,' said Peter, 'and you also. Away with them.'
+
+The astounded brothers were dragged away to hack and hew and carry.
+'Chairs and a fender first,' Peter ordered. 'Then we shall build the
+house round them.'
+
+'Ay,' said Slightly, 'that is how a house is built; it all comes back to
+me.'
+
+Peter thought of everything. 'Slightly,' he ordered, 'fetch a doctor.'
+
+'Ay, ay,' said Slightly at once, and disappeared, scratching his head.
+But he knew Peter must be obeyed, and he returned in a moment, wearing
+John's hat and looking solemn.
+
+'Please, sir,' said Peter, going to him, 'are you a doctor?'
+
+The difference between him and the other boys at such a time was that
+they knew it was make-believe, while to him make-believe and true were
+exactly the same thing. This sometimes troubled them, as when they had
+to make-believe that they had had their dinners.
+
+If they broke down in their make-believe he rapped them on the knuckles.
+
+'Yes, my little man,' anxiously replied Slightly, who had chapped
+knuckles.
+
+'Please, sir,' Peter explained, 'a lady lies very ill.'
+
+She was lying at their feet, but Slightly had the sense not to see her.
+
+'Tut, tut, tut,' he said, 'where does she lie?'
+
+'In yonder glade.'
+
+'I will put a glass thing in her mouth,' said Slightly; and he
+made-believe to do it, while Peter waited. It was an anxious moment when
+the glass thing was withdrawn.
+
+'How is she?' inquired Peter.
+
+'Tut, tut, tut,' said Slightly, 'this has cured her.'
+
+'I am glad,' Peter cried.
+
+'I will call again in the evening,' Slightly said; 'give her beef tea
+out of a cup with a spout to it'; but after he had returned the hat to
+John he blew big breaths, which was his habit on escaping from a
+difficulty.
+
+In the meantime the wood had been alive with the sound of axes; almost
+everything needed for a cosy dwelling already lay at Wendy's feet.
+
+'If only we knew,' said one, 'the kind of house she likes best.'
+
+'Peter,' shouted another, 'she is moving in her sleep.'
+
+'Her mouth opens,' cried a third, looking respectfully into it. 'Oh,
+lovely!'
+
+'Perhaps she is going to sing in her sleep,' said Peter. 'Wendy, sing
+the kind of house you would like to have.'
+
+Immediately, without opening her eyes, Wendy began to sing:
+
+
+     'I wish I had a pretty house,
+       The littlest ever seen,
+     With funny little red walls
+       And roof of mossy green.'
+
+
+They gurgled with joy at this, for by the greatest good luck the
+branches they had brought were sticky with red sap, and all the ground
+was carpeted with moss. As they rattled up the little house they broke
+into song themselves:
+
+
+     'We've built the little walls and roof
+       And made a lovely door,
+     So tell us, mother Wendy,
+       What are you wanting more?'
+
+
+To this she answered rather greedily:
+
+
+     'Oh, really next I think I'll have
+       Gay windows all about,
+     With roses peeping in, you know,
+       And babies peeping out.'
+
+
+With a blow of their fists they made windows, and large yellow leaves
+were the blinds. But roses----?
+
+'Roses,' cried Peter sternly.
+
+Quickly they made-believe to grow the loveliest roses up the walls.
+
+Babies?
+
+To prevent Peter ordering babies they hurried into song again:
+
+
+     'We've made the roses peeping out,
+       The babes are at the door,
+     We cannot make ourselves, you know,
+       'Cos we've been made before.'
+
+
+Peter, seeing this to be a good idea, at once pretended that it was his
+own. The house was quite beautiful, and no doubt Wendy was very cosy
+within, though, of course, they could no longer see her. Peter strode up
+and down, ordering finishing touches. Nothing escaped his eagle eye.
+Just when it seemed absolutely finished,
+
+'There's no knocker on the door,' he said.
+
+They were very ashamed, but Tootles gave the sole of his shoe, and it
+made an excellent knocker.
+
+Absolutely finished now, they thought.
+
+Not a bit of it. 'There's no chimney,' Peter said; 'we must have a
+chimney.'
+
+'It certainly does need a chimney,' said John importantly. This gave
+Peter an idea. He snatched the hat off John's head, knocked out the
+bottom, and put the hat on the roof. The little house was so pleased to
+have such a capital chimney that, as if to say thank you, smoke
+immediately began to come out of the hat.
+
+Now really and truly it was finished. Nothing remained to do but to
+knock.
+
+'All look your best,' Peter warned them; 'first impressions are awfully
+important.'
+
+He was glad no one asked him what first impressions are; they were all
+too busy looking their best.
+
+He knocked politely; and now the wood was as still as the children, not
+a sound to be heard except from Tinker Bell, who was watching from a
+branch and openly sneering.
+
+What the boys were wondering was, would any one answer the knock? If a
+lady, what would she be like?
+
+The door opened and a lady came out. It was Wendy. They all whipped off
+their hats.
+
+She looked properly surprised, and this was just how they had hoped she
+would look.
+
+'Where am I?' she said.
+
+Of course Slightly was the first to get his word in. 'Wendy lady,' he
+said rapidly, 'for you we built this house.'
+
+'Oh, say you're pleased,' cried Nibs.
+
+'Lovely, darling house,' Wendy said, and they were the very words they
+had hoped she would say.
+
+'And we are your children,' cried the twins.
+
+Then all went on their knees, and holding out their arms cried, 'O Wendy
+lady, be our mother.'
+
+'Ought I?' Wendy said, all shining. 'Of course it's frightfully
+fascinating, but you see I am only a little girl. I have no real
+experience.'
+
+'That doesn't matter,' said Peter, as if he were the only person present
+who knew all about it, though he was really the one who knew least.
+'What we need is just a nice motherly person.'
+
+'Oh dear!' Wendy said, 'you see I feel that is exactly what I am.'
+
+'It is, it is,' they all cried; 'we saw it at once.'
+
+'Very well,' she said, 'I will do my best. Come inside at once, you
+naughty children; I am sure your feet are damp. And before I put you to
+bed I have just time to finish the story of Cinderella.'
+
+In they went; I don't know how there was room for them, but you can
+squeeze very tight in the Neverland. And that was the first of the many
+joyous evenings they had with Wendy. By and by she tucked them up in the
+great bed in the home under the trees, but she herself slept that night
+in the little house, and Peter kept watch outside with drawn sword, for
+the pirates could be heard carousing far away and the wolves were on the
+prowl. The little house looked so cosy and safe in the darkness, with a
+bright light showing through its blinds, and the chimney smoking
+beautifully, and Peter standing on guard. After a time he fell asleep,
+and some unsteady fairies had to climb over him on their way home from
+an orgy. Any of the other boys obstructing the fairy path at night they
+would have mischiefed, but they just tweaked Peter's nose and passed on.
+
+[Illustration: PETER ON GUARD]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE HOME UNDER THE GROUND
+
+
+One of the first things Peter did next day was to measure Wendy and John
+and Michael for hollow trees. Hook, you remember, had sneered at the
+boys for thinking they needed a tree apiece, but this was ignorance, for
+unless your tree fitted you it was difficult to go up and down, and no
+two of the boys were quite the same size. Once you fitted, you drew in
+your breath at the top, and down you went at exactly the right speed,
+while to ascend you drew in and let out alternately, and so wriggled up.
+Of course, when you have mastered the action you are able to do these
+things without thinking of them, and then nothing can be more graceful.
+
+But you simply must fit, and Peter measures you for your tree as
+carefully as for a suit of clothes: the only difference being that the
+clothes are made to fit you, while you have to be made to fit the tree.
+Usually it is done quite easily, as by your wearing too many garments or
+too few; but if you are bumpy in awkward places or the only available
+tree is an odd shape, Peter does some things to you, and after that you
+fit. Once you fit, great care must be taken to go on fitting, and this,
+as Wendy was to discover to her delight, keeps a whole family in perfect
+condition.
+
+Wendy and Michael fitted their trees at the first try, but John had to
+be altered a little.
+
+After a few days' practice they could go up and down as gaily as buckets
+in a well. And how ardently they grew to love their home under the
+ground; especially Wendy. It consisted of one large room, as all houses
+should do, with a floor in which you could dig if you wanted to go
+fishing, and in this floor grew stout mushrooms of a charming colour,
+which were used as stools. A Never tree tried hard to grow in the centre
+of the room, but every morning they sawed the trunk through, level with
+the floor. By tea-time it was always about two feet high, and then they
+put a door on top of it, the whole thus becoming a table; as soon as
+they cleared away, they sawed off the trunk again, and thus there was
+more room to play. There was an enormous fireplace which was in almost
+any part of the room where you cared to light it, and across this Wendy
+stretched strings, made of fibre, from which she suspended her washing.
+The bed was tilted against the wall by day, and let down at 6.30, when
+it filled nearly half the room; and all the boys except Michael slept in
+it, lying like sardines in a tin. There was a strict rule against
+turning round until one gave the signal, when all turned at once.
+Michael should have used it also; but Wendy would have a baby, and he
+was the littlest, and you know what women are, and the short and the
+long of it is that he was hung up in a basket.
+
+It was rough and simple, and not unlike what baby bears would have made
+of an underground house in the same circumstances. But there was one
+recess in the wall, no larger than a bird-cage, which was the private
+apartment of Tinker Bell. It could be shut off from the rest of the
+home by a tiny curtain, which Tink, who was most fastidious, always kept
+drawn when dressing or undressing. No woman, however large, could have
+had a more exquisite boudoir and bedchamber combined. The couch, as she
+always called it, was a genuine Queen Mab, with club legs; and she
+varied the bedspreads according to what fruit-blossom was in season. Her
+mirror was a Puss-in-boots, of which there are now only three,
+unchipped, known to the fairy dealers; the wash-stand was Pie-crust and
+reversible, the chest of drawers an authentic Charming the Sixth, and
+the carpet and rugs of the best (the early) period of Margery and Robin.
+There was a chandelier from Tiddly winks for the look of the thing, but
+of course she lit the residence herself. Tink was very contemptuous of
+the rest of the house, as indeed was perhaps inevitable; and her
+chamber, though beautiful, looked rather conceited, having the
+appearance of a nose permanently turned up.
+
+I suppose it was all especially entrancing to Wendy, because those
+rampagious boys of hers gave her so much to do. Really there were whole
+weeks when, except perhaps with a stocking in the evening, she was never
+above ground. The cooking, I can tell you, kept her nose to the pot.
+Their chief food was roasted breadfruit, yams, cocoa-nuts, baked pig,
+mammee-apples, tappa rolls and bananas, washed down with calabashes of
+poe-poe; but you never exactly knew whether there would be a real meal
+or just a make-believe, it all depended upon Peter's whim. He could eat,
+really eat, if it was part of a game, but he could not stodge just to
+feel stodgy, which is what most children like better than anything else;
+the next best thing being to talk about it. Make-believe was so real to
+him that during a meal of it you could see him getting rounder. Of
+course it was trying, but you simply had to follow his lead, and if you
+could prove to him that you were getting loose for your tree he let you
+stodge.
+
+Wendy's favourite time for sewing and darning was after they had all
+gone to bed. Then, as she expressed it, she had a breathing time for
+herself; and she occupied it in making new things for them, and putting
+double pieces on the knees, for they were all most frightfully hard on
+their knees.
+
+When she sat down to a basketful of their stockings, every heel with a
+hole in it, she would fling up her arms and exclaim, 'Oh dear, I am sure
+I sometimes think spinsters are to be envied.'
+
+Her face beamed when she exclaimed this.
+
+You remember about her pet wolf. Well, it very soon discovered that she
+had come to the island and it found her out, and they just ran into each
+other's arms. After that it followed her about everywhere.
+
+As time wore on did she think much about the beloved parents she had
+left behind her? This is a difficult question, because it is quite
+impossible to say how time does wear on in the Neverland, where it is
+calculated by moons and suns, and there are ever so many more of them
+than on the mainland. But I am afraid that Wendy did not really worry
+about her father and mother; she was absolutely confident that they
+would always keep the window open for her to fly back by, and this gave
+her complete ease of mind. What did disturb her at times was that John
+remembered his parents vaguely only, as people he had once known, while
+Michael was quite willing to believe that she was really his mother.
+These things scared her a little, and nobly anxious to do her duty, she
+tried to fix the old life in their minds by setting them examination
+papers on it, as like as possible to the ones she used to do at school.
+The other boys thought this awfully interesting, and insisted on
+joining, and they made slates for themselves, and sat round the table,
+writing and thinking hard about the questions she had written on another
+slate and passed round. They were the most ordinary questions--'What was
+the colour of Mother's eyes? Which was taller, Father or Mother? Was
+Mother blonde or brunette? Answer all three questions if possible.' '(A)
+Write an essay of not less than 40 words on How I spent my last
+Holidays, or The Caracters of Father and Mother compared. Only one of
+these to be attempted.' Or '(1) Describe Mother's laugh; (2) Describe
+Father's laugh; (3) Describe Mother's Party Dress; (4) Describe the
+Kennel and its Inmate.'
+
+They were just everyday questions like these, and when you could not
+answer them you were told to make a cross; and it was really dreadful
+what a number of crosses even John made. Of course the only boy who
+replied to every question was Slightly, and no one could have been more
+hopeful of coming out first, but his answers were perfectly ridiculous,
+and he really came out last: a melancholy thing.
+
+Peter did not compete. For one thing he despised all mothers except
+Wendy, and for another he was the only boy on the island who could
+neither write nor spell; not the smallest word. He was above all that
+sort of thing.
+
+By the way, the questions were all written in the past tense. What was
+the colour of Mother's eyes, and so on. Wendy, you see, had been
+forgetting too.
+
+Adventures, of course, as we shall see, were of daily occurrence; but
+about this time Peter invented, with Wendy's help, a new game that
+fascinated him enormously, until he suddenly had no more interest in it,
+which, as you have been told, was what always happened with his games.
+It consisted in pretending not to have adventures, in doing the sort of
+thing John and Michael had been doing all their lives: sitting on
+stools flinging balls in the air, pushing each other, going out for
+walks and coming back without having killed so much as a grizzly. To see
+Peter doing nothing on a stool was a great sight; he could not help
+looking solemn at such times, to sit still seemed to him such a comic
+thing to do. He boasted that he had gone a walk for the good of his
+health. For several suns these were the most novel of all adventures to
+him; and John and Michael had to pretend to be delighted also; otherwise
+he would have treated them severely.
+
+He often went out alone, and when he came back you were never absolutely
+certain whether he had had an adventure or not. He might have forgotten
+it so completely that he said nothing about it; and then when you went
+out you found the body; and, on the other hand, he might say a great
+deal about it, and yet you could not find the body. Sometimes he came
+home with his head bandaged, and then Wendy cooed over him and bathed it
+in lukewarm water, while he told a dazzling tale. But she was never
+quite sure, you know. There were, however, many adventures which she
+knew to be true because she was in them herself, and there were still
+more that were at least partly true, for the other boys were in them and
+said they were wholly true. To describe them all would require a book as
+large as an English-Latin, Latin-English Dictionary, and the most we can
+do is to give one as a specimen of an average hour on the island. The
+difficulty is which one to choose. Should we take the brush with the
+redskins at Slightly Gulch? It was a sanguinary affair, and especially
+interesting as showing one of Peter's peculiarities, which was that in
+the middle of a fight he would suddenly change sides. At the Gulch, when
+victory was still in the balance, sometimes leaning this way and
+sometimes that, he called out, 'I'm redskin to-day; what are you,
+Tootles?' And Tootles answered, 'Redskin; what are you, Nibs?' and Nibs
+said,'Redskin; what are you, Twin?' and so on; and they were all
+redskin; and of course this would have ended the fight had not the real
+redskins, fascinated by Peter's methods, agreed to be lost boys for that
+once, and so at it they all went again, more fiercely than ever.
+
+The extraordinary upshot of this adventure was--but we have not decided
+yet that this is the adventure we are to narrate. Perhaps a better one
+would be the night attack by the redskins on the house under the ground,
+when several of them stuck in the hollow trees and had to be pulled out
+like corks. Or we might tell how Peter saved Tiger Lily's life in the
+Mermaids' Lagoon, and so made her his ally.
+
+Or we could tell of that cake the pirates cooked so that the boys might
+eat it and perish; and how they placed it in one cunning spot after
+another; but always Wendy snatched it from the hands of her children, so
+that in time it lost its succulence, and became as hard as a stone, and
+was used as a missile, and Hook fell over it in the dark.
+
+Or suppose we tell of the birds that were Peter's friends, particularly
+of the Never bird that built in a tree overhanging the lagoon, and how
+the nest fell into the water, and still the bird sat on her eggs, and
+Peter gave orders that she was not to be disturbed. That is a pretty
+story, and the end shows how grateful a bird can be; but if we tell it
+we must also tell the whole adventure of the lagoon, which would of
+course be telling two adventures rather than just one. A shorter
+adventure, and quite as exciting, was Tinker Bell's attempt, with the
+help of some street fairies, to have the sleeping Wendy conveyed on a
+great floating leaf to the mainland. Fortunately the leaf gave way and
+Wendy woke, thinking it was bath-time, and swam back. Or again, we might
+choose Peter's defiance of the lions, when he drew a circle round him on
+the ground with an arrow and defied them to cross it; and though he
+waited for hours, with the other boys and Wendy looking on breathlessly
+from trees, not one of them dared to accept his challenge.
+
+Which of these adventures shall we choose? The best way will be to toss
+for it.
+
+I have tossed, and the lagoon has won. This almost makes one wish that
+the gulch or the cake or Tink's leaf had won. Of course I could do it
+again, and make it best out of three; however, perhaps fairest to stick
+to the lagoon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE MERMAIDS' LAGOON
+
+
+If you shut your eyes and are a lucky one, you may see at times a
+shapeless pool of lovely pale colours suspended in the darkness; then if
+you squeeze your eyes tighter, the pool begins to take shape, and the
+colours become so vivid that with another squeeze they must go on fire.
+But just before they go on fire you see the lagoon. This is the nearest
+you ever get to it on the mainland, just one heavenly moment; if there
+could be two moments you might see the surf and hear the mermaids
+singing.
+
+The children often spent long summer days on this lagoon, swimming or
+floating most of the time, playing the mermaid games in the water, and
+so forth. You must not think from this that the mermaids were on
+friendly terms with them; on the contrary, it was among Wendy's lasting
+regrets that all the time she was on the island she never had a civil
+word from one of them. When she stole softly to the edge of the lagoon
+she might see them by the score, especially on Marooners' Rock, where
+they loved to bask, combing out their hair in a lazy way that quite
+irritated her; or she might even swim, on tiptoe as it were, to within a
+yard of them, but then they saw her and dived, probably splashing her
+with their tails, not by accident, but intentionally.
+
+[Illustration: SUMMER DAYS ON THE LAGOON]
+
+They treated all the boys in the same way, except of course Peter, who
+chatted with them on Marooners' Rock by the hour, and sat on their tails
+when they got cheeky. He gave Wendy one of their combs.
+
+The most haunting time at which to see them is at the turn of the moon,
+when they utter strange wailing cries; but the lagoon is dangerous for
+mortals then, and until the evening of which we have now to tell, Wendy
+had never seen the lagoon by moonlight, less from fear, for of course
+Peter would have accompanied her, than because she had strict rules
+about every one being in bed by seven. She was often at the lagoon,
+however, on sunny days after rain, when the mermaids come up in
+extraordinary numbers to play with their bubbles. The bubbles of many
+colours made in rainbow water they treat as balls, hitting them gaily
+from one to another with their tails, and trying to keep them in the
+rainbow till they burst. The goals are at each end of the rainbow, and
+the keepers only are allowed to use their hands. Sometimes hundreds of
+mermaids will be playing in the lagoon at a time, and it is quite a
+pretty sight.
+
+But the moment the children tried to join in they had to play by
+themselves, for the mermaids immediately disappeared. Nevertheless we
+have proof that they secretly watched the interlopers, and were not
+above taking an idea from them; for John introduced a new way of hitting
+the bubble, with the head instead of the hand, and the mermaid
+goal-keepers adopted it. This is the one mark that John has left on the
+Neverland.
+
+It must also have been rather pretty to see the children resting on a
+rock for half an hour after their midday meal. Wendy insisted on their
+doing this, and it had to be a real rest even though the meal was
+make-believe. So they lay there in the sun, and their bodies glistened
+in it, while she sat beside them and looked important.
+
+It was one such day, and they were all on Marooners' Rock. The rock was
+not much larger than their great bed, but of course they all knew how
+not to take up much room, and they were dozing, or at least lying with
+their eyes shut, and pinching occasionally when they thought Wendy was
+not looking. She was very busy, stitching.
+
+While she stitched a change came to the lagoon. Little shivers ran over
+it, and the sun went away and shadows stole across the water, turning it
+cold. Wendy could no longer see to thread her needle, and when she
+looked up, the lagoon that had always hitherto been such a laughing
+place seemed formidable and unfriendly.
+
+It was not, she knew, that night had come, but something as dark as
+night had come. No, worse than that. It had not come, but it had sent
+that shiver through the sea to say that it was coming. What was it?
+
+There crowded upon her all the stories she had been told of Marooners'
+Rock, so called because evil captains put sailors on it and leave them
+there to drown. They drown when the tide rises, for then it is
+submerged.
+
+Of course she should have roused the children at once; not merely
+because of the unknown that was stalking toward them, but because it was
+no longer good for them to sleep on a rock grown chilly. But she was a
+young mother and she did not know this; she thought you simply must
+stick to your rule about half an hour after the midday meal. So, though
+fear was upon her, and she longed to hear male voices, she would not
+waken them. Even when she heard the sound of muffled oars, though her
+heart was in her mouth, she did not waken them. She stood over them to
+let them have their sleep out. Was it not brave of Wendy?
+
+It was well for those boys then that there was one among them who could
+sniff danger even in his sleep. Peter sprang erect, as wide awake at
+once as a dog, and with one warning cry he roused the others.
+
+He stood motionless, one hand to his ear.
+
+'Pirates!' he cried. The others came closer to him. A strange smile was
+playing about his face, and Wendy saw it and shuddered. While that smile
+was on his face no one dared address him; all they could do was to stand
+ready to obey. The order came sharp and incisive.
+
+'Dive!'
+
+There was a gleam of legs, and instantly the lagoon seemed deserted.
+Marooners' Rock stood alone in the forbidding waters, as if it were
+itself marooned.
+
+The boat drew nearer. It was the pirate dinghy, with three figures in
+her, Smee and Starkey, and the third a captive, no other than Tiger
+Lily. Her hands and ankles were tied, and she knew what was to be her
+fate. She was to be left on the rock to perish, an end to one of her
+race more terrible than death by fire or torture, for is it not written
+in the book of the tribe that there is no path through water to the
+happy hunting-ground? Yet her face was impassive; she was the daughter
+of a chief, she must die as a chief's daughter, it is enough.
+
+They had caught her boarding the pirate ship with a knife in her mouth.
+No watch was kept on the ship, it being Hook's boast that the wind of
+his name guarded the ship for a mile around. Now her fate would help to
+guard it also. One more wail would go the round in that wind by night.
+
+In the gloom that they brought with them the two pirates did not see the
+rock till they crashed into it.
+
+'Luff, you lubber,' cried an Irish voice that was Smee's; 'here's the
+rock. Now, then, what we have to do is to hoist the redskin on to it and
+leave her there to drown.'
+
+It was the work of one brutal moment to land the beautiful girl on the
+rock; she was too proud to offer a vain resistance.
+
+Quite near the rock, but out of sight, two heads were bobbing up and
+down, Peter's and Wendy's. Wendy was crying, for it was the first
+tragedy she had seen. Peter had seen many tragedies, but he had
+forgotten them all. He was less sorry than Wendy for Tiger Lily: it was
+two against one that angered him, and he meant to save her. An easy way
+would have been to wait until the pirates had gone, but he was never
+one to choose the easy way.
+
+There was almost nothing he could not do, and he now imitated the voice
+of Hook.
+
+'Ahoy there, you lubbers,' he called. It was a marvellous imitation.
+
+'The captain,' said the pirates, staring at each other in surprise.
+
+'He must be swimming out to us,' Starkey said, when they had looked for
+him in vain.
+
+'We are putting the redskin on the rock,' Smee called out.
+
+'Set her free,' came the astonishing answer.
+
+'Free!'
+
+'Yes, cut her bonds and let her go.'
+
+'But, captain----'
+
+'At once, d'ye hear,' cried Peter, 'or I'll plunge my hook in you.'
+
+'This is queer,' Smee gasped.
+
+'Better do what the captain orders,' said Starkey nervously.
+
+'Ay, ay,' Smee said, and he cut Tiger Lily's cords. At once like an eel
+she slid between Starkey's legs into the water.
+
+Of course Wendy was very elated over Peter's cleverness; but she knew
+that he would be elated also and very likely crow and thus betray
+himself, so at once her hand went out to cover his mouth. But it was
+stayed even in the act, for 'Boat ahoy!' rang over the lagoon in Hook's
+voice, and this time it was not Peter who had spoken.
+
+Peter may have been about to crow, but his face puckered in a whistle of
+surprise instead.
+
+'Boat ahoy!' again came the cry.
+
+Now Wendy understood. The real Hook was also in the water.
+
+He was swimming to the boat, and as his men showed a light to guide him
+he had soon reached them. In the light of the lantern Wendy saw his hook
+grip the boat's side; she saw his evil swarthy face as he rose dripping
+from the water, and, quaking, she would have liked to swim away, but
+Peter would not budge. He was tingling with life and also top-heavy with
+conceit. 'Am I not a wonder, oh, I am a wonder!' he whispered to her;
+and though she thought so also, she was really glad for the sake of his
+reputation that no one heard him except herself.
+
+He signed to her to listen.
+
+The two pirates were very curious to know what had brought their captain
+to them, but he sat with his head on his hook in a position of profound
+melancholy.
+
+'Captain, is all well?' they asked timidly, but he answered with a
+hollow moan.
+
+'He sighs,' said Smee.
+
+'He sighs again,' said Starkey.
+
+'And yet a third time he sighs,' said Smee.
+
+'What's up, captain?'
+
+Then at last he spoke passionately.
+
+'The game's up,' he cried, 'those boys have found a mother.'
+
+Affrighted though she was, Wendy swelled with pride.
+
+'O evil day,' cried Starkey.
+
+'What's a mother?' asked the ignorant Smee.
+
+Wendy was so shocked that she exclaimed, 'He doesn't know!' and always
+after this she felt that if you could have a pet pirate Smee would be
+her one.
+
+Peter pulled her beneath the water, for Hook had started up, crying,
+'What was that?'
+
+'I heard nothing,' said Starkey, raising the lantern over the waters,
+and as the pirates looked they saw a strange sight. It was the nest I
+have told you of, floating on the lagoon, and the Never bird was sitting
+on it.
+
+'See,' said Hook in answer to Smee's question, 'that is a mother. What a
+lesson. The nest must have fallen into the water, but would the mother
+desert her eggs? No.'
+
+There was a break in his voice, as if for a moment he recalled innocent
+days when--but he brushed away this weakness with his hook.
+
+Smee, much impressed, gazed at the bird as the nest was borne past, but
+the more suspicious Starkey said, 'If she is a mother, perhaps she is
+hanging about here to help Peter.'
+
+Hook winced. 'Ay,' he said, 'that is the fear that haunts me.'
+
+He was roused from this dejection by Smee's eager voice.
+
+'Captain,' said Smee, 'could we not kidnap these boys' mother and make
+her our mother?'
+
+'It is a princely scheme,' cried Hook, and at once it took practical
+shape in his great brain. 'We will seize the children and carry them to
+the boat: the boys we will make walk the plank, and Wendy shall be our
+mother.'
+
+Again Wendy forgot herself.
+
+'Never!' she cried, and bobbed.
+
+'What was that?'
+
+But they could see nothing. They thought it must have been but a leaf in
+the wind. 'Do you agree, my bullies?' asked Hook.
+
+'There is my hand on it,' they both said.
+
+'And there is my hook. Swear.'
+
+'They all swore. By this time they were on the rock, and suddenly Hook
+remembered Tiger Lily.
+
+'Where is the redskin?' he demanded abruptly.
+
+He had a playful humour at moments, and they thought this was one of the
+moments.
+
+'That is all right, captain,' Smee answered complacently; 'we let her
+go.'
+
+'Let her go!' cried Hook.
+
+''Twas your own orders,' the bo'sun faltered.
+
+'You called over the water to us to let her go,' said Starkey.
+
+'Brimstone and gall,' thundered Hook, 'what cozening is here?' His face
+had gone black with rage, but he saw that they believed their words,
+and he was startled. 'Lads,' he said, shaking a little, 'I gave no such
+order.'
+
+'It is passing queer,' Smee said, and they all fidgeted uncomfortably.
+Hook raised his voice, but there was a quiver in it.
+
+'Spirit that haunts this dark lagoon to-night,' he cried, 'dost hear
+me?'
+
+Of course Peter should have kept quiet, but of course he did not. He
+immediately answered in Hook's voice:
+
+'Odds, bobs, hammer and tongs, I hear you.'
+
+In that supreme moment Hook did not blanch, even at the gills, but Smee
+and Starkey clung to each other in terror.
+
+'Who are you, stranger, speak?' Hook demanded.
+
+'I am James Hook,' replied the voice, 'captain of the _Jolly Roger_.'
+
+'You are not; you are not,' Hook cried hoarsely.
+
+'Brimstone and gall,' the voice retorted, 'say that again, and I'll cast
+anchor in you.'
+
+Hook tried a more ingratiating manner. 'If you are Hook,' he said
+almost humbly, 'come tell me, who am I?'
+
+'A codfish,' replied the voice, 'only a codfish.'
+
+'A codfish!' Hook echoed blankly; and it was then, but not till then,
+that his proud spirit broke. He saw his men draw back from him.
+
+'Have we been captained all this time by a codfish!' they muttered. 'It
+is lowering to our pride.'
+
+They were his dogs snapping at him, but, tragic figure though he had
+become, he scarcely heeded them. Against such fearful evidence it was
+not their belief in him that he needed, it was his own. He felt his ego
+slipping from him. 'Don't desert me, bully,' he whispered hoarsely to
+it.
+
+In his dark nature there was a touch of the feminine, as in all the
+great pirates, and it sometimes gave him intuitions. Suddenly he tried
+the guessing game.
+
+'Hook,' he called, 'have you another voice?'
+
+Now Peter could never resist a game, and he answered blithely in his own
+voice, 'I have.'
+
+'And another name?'
+
+'Ay, ay.'
+
+'Vegetable?' asked Hook.
+
+'No.'
+
+'Mineral?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Animal?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Man?'
+
+'No!' This answer rang out scornfully.
+
+'Boy?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Ordinary boy?'
+
+'No!'
+
+'Wonderful boy?'
+
+To Wendy's pain the answer that rang out this time was 'Yes.'
+
+'Are you in England?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Are you here?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+Hook was completely puzzled. 'You ask him some questions,' he said to
+the others, wiping his damp brow.
+
+Smee reflected. 'I can't think of a thing,' he said regretfully.
+
+'Can't guess, can't guess,' crowed Peter. 'Do you give it up?'
+
+Of course in his pride he was carrying the game too far, and the
+miscreants saw their chance.
+
+'Yes, yes,' they answered eagerly.
+
+'Well, then,' he cried, 'I am Peter Pan.'
+
+Pan!
+
+In a moment Hook was himself again, and Smee and Starkey were his
+faithful henchmen.
+
+'Now we have him,' Hook shouted. 'Into the water, Smee. Starkey, mind
+the boat. Take him dead or alive.'
+
+He leaped as he spoke, and simultaneously came the gay voice of Peter.
+
+'Are you ready, boys?'
+
+'Ay, ay,' from various parts of the lagoon.
+
+'Then lam into the pirates.'
+
+The fight was short and sharp. First to draw blood was John, who
+gallantly climbed into the boat and held Starkey. There was a fierce
+struggle, in which the cutlass was torn from the pirate's grasp. He
+wriggled overboard and John leapt after him. The dinghy drifted away.
+
+Here and there a head bobbed up in the water, and there was a flash of
+steel followed by a cry or a whoop. In the confusion some struck at
+their own side. The corkscrew of Smee got Tootles in the fourth rib, but
+he was himself pinked in turn by Curly. Farther from the rock Starkey
+was pressing Slightly and the twins hard.
+
+Where all this time was Peter? He was seeking bigger game.
+
+The others were all brave boys, and they must not be blamed for backing
+from the pirate captain. His iron claw made a circle of dead water round
+him, from which they fled like affrighted fishes.
+
+But there was one who did not fear him: there was one prepared to enter
+that circle.
+
+Strangely, it was not in the water that they met. Hook rose to the rock
+to breathe, and at the same moment Peter scaled it on the opposite side.
+The rock was slippery as a ball, and they had to crawl rather than
+climb. Neither knew that the other was coming. Each feeling for a grip
+met the other's arm: in surprise they raised their heads; their faces
+were almost touching; so they met.
+
+Some of the greatest heroes have confessed that just before they fell to
+they had a sinking. Had it been so with Peter at that moment I would
+admit it. After all, this was the only man that the Sea-Cook had feared.
+But Peter had no sinking, he had one feeling only, gladness; and he
+gnashed his pretty teeth with joy. Quick as thought he snatched a knife
+from Hook's belt and was about to drive it home, when he saw that he was
+higher up the rock than his foe. It would not have been fighting fair.
+He gave the pirate a hand to help him up.
+
+It was then that Hook bit him.
+
+Not the pain of this but its unfairness was what dazed Peter. It made
+him quite helpless. He could only stare, horrified. Every child is
+affected thus the first time he is treated unfairly. All he thinks he
+has a right to when he comes to you to be yours is fairness. After you
+have been unfair to him he will love you again, but he will never
+afterwards be quite the same boy. No one ever gets over the first
+unfairness; no one except Peter. He often met it, but he always forgot
+it. I suppose that was the real difference between him and all the rest.
+
+So when he met it now it was like the first time; and he could just
+stare, helpless. Twice the iron hand clawed him.
+
+A few minutes afterwards the other boys saw Hook in the water striking
+wildly for the ship; no elation on his pestilent face now, only white
+fear, for the crocodile was in dogged pursuit of him. On ordinary
+occasions the boys would have swum alongside cheering; but now they were
+uneasy, for they had lost both Peter and Wendy, and were scouring the
+lagoon for them, calling them by name. They found the dinghy and went
+home in it, shouting 'Peter, Wendy' as they went, but no answer came
+save mocking laughter from the mermaids. 'They must be swimming back or
+flying,' the boys concluded. They were not very anxious, they had such
+faith in Peter. They chuckled, boylike, because they would be late for
+bed; and it was all mother Wendy's fault!
+
+When their voices died away there came cold silence over the lagoon, and
+then a feeble cry.
+
+'Help, help!'
+
+Two small figures were beating against the rock; the girl had fainted
+and lay on the boy's arm. With a last effort Peter pulled her up the
+rock and then lay down beside her. Even as he also fainted he saw that
+the water was rising. He knew that they would soon be drowned, but he
+could do no more.
+
+As they lay side by side a mermaid caught Wendy by the feet, and began
+pulling her softly into the water. Peter, feeling her slip from him,
+woke with a start, and was just in time to draw her back. But he had to
+tell her the truth.
+
+'We are on the rock, Wendy,' he said, 'but it is growing smaller. Soon
+the water will be over it.'
+
+She did not understand even now.
+
+'We must go,' she said, almost brightly.
+
+'Yes,' he answered faintly.
+
+'Shall we swim or fly, Peter?'
+
+He had to tell her.
+
+'Do you think you could swim or fly as far as the island, Wendy, without
+my help?'
+
+She had to admit that she was too tired.
+
+He moaned.
+
+'What is it?' she asked, anxious about him at once.
+
+'I can't help you, Wendy. Hook wounded me. I can neither fly nor swim.'
+
+'Do you mean we shall both be drowned?'
+
+'Look how the water is rising.'
+
+They put their hands over their eyes to shut out the sight. They thought
+they would soon be no more. As they sat thus something brushed against
+Peter as light as a kiss, and stayed there, as if saying timidly, 'Can I
+be of any use?'
+
+It was the tail of a kite, which Michael had made some days before. It
+had torn itself out of his hand and floated away.
+
+'Michael's kite,' Peter said without interest, but next moment he had
+seized the tail, and was pulling the kite toward him.
+
+'It lifted Michael off the ground,' he cried; 'why should it not carry
+you?'
+
+'Both of us!'
+
+'It can't lift two; Michael and Curly tried.'
+
+'Let us draw lots,' Wendy said bravely.
+
+'And you a lady; never.' Already he had tied the tail round her. She
+clung to him; she refused to go without him; but with a 'Good-bye,
+Wendy,' he pushed her from the rock; and in a few minutes she was borne
+out of his sight. Peter was alone on the lagoon.
+
+The rock was very small now; soon it would be submerged. Pale rays of
+light tiptoed across the waters; and by and by there was to be heard a
+sound at once the most musical and the most melancholy in the world: the
+mermaids calling to the moon.
+
+Peter was not quite like other boys; but he was afraid at last. A tremor
+ran through him, like a shudder passing over the sea; but on the sea one
+shudder follows another till there are hundreds of them, and Peter felt
+just the one. Next moment he was standing erect on the rock again, with
+that smile on his face and a drum beating within him. It was saying, 'To
+die will be an awfully big adventure.'
+
+[Illustration: "TO DIE WILL BE AN AWFULLY BIG ADVENTURE"]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE NEVER BIRD
+
+
+The last sounds Peter heard before he was quite alone were the mermaids
+retiring one by one to their bedchambers under the sea. He was too far
+away to hear their doors shut; but every door in the coral caves where
+they live rings a tiny bell when it opens or closes (as in all the
+nicest houses on the mainland), and he heard the bells.
+
+Steadily the waters rose till they were nibbling at his feet; and to
+pass the time until they made their final gulp, he watched the only
+thing moving on the lagoon. He thought it was a piece of floating paper,
+perhaps part of the kite, and wondered idly how long it would take to
+drift ashore.
+
+Presently he noticed as an odd thing that it was undoubtedly out upon
+the lagoon with some definite purpose, for it was fighting the tide, and
+sometimes winning; and when it won, Peter, always sympathetic to the
+weaker side, could not help clapping; it was such a gallant piece of
+paper.
+
+It was not really a piece of paper; it was the Never bird, making
+desperate efforts to reach Peter on her nest. By working her wings, in a
+way she had learned since the nest fell into the water, she was able to
+some extent to guide her strange craft, but by the time Peter recognised
+her she was very exhausted. She had come to save him, to give him her
+nest, though there were eggs in it. I rather wonder at the bird, for
+though he had been nice to her, he had also sometimes tormented her. I
+can suppose only that, like Mrs. Darling and the rest of them, she was
+melted because he had all his first teeth.
+
+She called out to him what she had come for, and he called out to her
+what was she doing there; but of course neither of them understood the
+other's language. In fanciful stories people can talk to the birds
+freely, and I wish for the moment I could pretend that this was such a
+story, and say that Peter replied intelligently to the Never bird; but
+truth is best, and I want to tell only what really happened. Well, not
+only could they not understand each other, but they forgot their
+manners.
+
+'I--want--you--to--get--into--the--nest,' the bird called, speaking as
+slowly and distinctly as possible, 'and--then--you--can--drift--ashore,
+but--I--am--too--tired--to--bring--it--any--nearer--so--you--must--
+try--to--swim--to--it.'
+
+'What are you quacking about?' Peter answered. 'Why don't you let the
+nest drift as usual?'
+
+'I--want--you--' the bird said, and repeated it all over.
+
+Then Peter tried slow and distinct.
+
+'What--are--you--quacking--about?' and so on.
+
+The Never bird became irritated; they have very short tempers.
+
+'You dunderheaded little jay,' she screamed, 'why don't you do as I tell
+you?'
+
+Peter felt that she was calling him names, and at a venture he retorted
+hotly:
+
+'So are you!'
+
+Then rather curiously they both snapped out the same remark:
+
+'Shut up!'
+
+'Shut up!'
+
+Nevertheless the bird was determined to save him if she could, and by
+one last mighty effort she propelled the nest against the rock. Then up
+she flew; deserting her eggs, so as to make her meaning clear.
+
+Then at last he understood, and clutched the nest and waved his thanks
+to the bird as she fluttered overhead. It was not to receive his thanks,
+however, that she hung there in the sky; it was not even to watch him
+get into the nest; it was to see what he did with her eggs.
+
+There were two large white eggs, and Peter lifted them up and reflected.
+The bird covered her face with her wings, so as not to see the last of
+her eggs; but she could not help peeping between the feathers.
+
+I forget whether I have told you that there was a stave on the rock,
+driven into it by some buccaneers of long ago to mark the site of
+buried treasure. The children had discovered the glittering hoard, and
+when in mischievous mood used to fling showers of moidores, diamonds,
+pearls and pieces of eight to the gulls, who pounced upon them for food,
+and then flew away, raging at the scurvy trick that had been played upon
+them. The stave was still there, and on it Starkey had hung his hat, a
+deep tarpaulin, watertight, with a broad brim. Peter put the eggs into
+this hat and set it on the lagoon. It floated beautifully.
+
+The Never bird saw at once what he was up to, and screamed her
+admiration of him; and, alas, Peter crowed his agreement with her. Then
+he got into the nest, reared the stave in it as a mast, and hung up his
+shirt for a sail. At the same moment the bird fluttered down upon the
+hat and once more sat snugly on her eggs. She drifted in one direction,
+and he was borne off in another, both cheering.
+
+Of course when Peter landed he beached his barque in a place where the
+bird would easily find it; but the hat was such a great success that she
+abandoned the nest. It drifted about till it went to pieces, and often
+Starkey came to the shore of the lagoon, and with many bitter feelings
+watched the bird sitting on his hat. As we shall not see her again, it
+may be worth mentioning here that all Never birds now build in that
+shape of nest, with a broad brim on which the youngsters take an airing.
+
+Great were the rejoicings when Peter reached the home under the ground
+almost as soon as Wendy, who had been carried hither and thither by the
+kite. Every boy had adventures to tell; but perhaps the biggest
+adventure of all was that they were several hours late for bed. This so
+inflated them that they did various dodgy things to get staying up still
+longer, such as demanding bandages; but Wendy, though glorying in having
+them all home again safe and sound, was scandalised by the lateness of
+the hour, and cried, 'To bed, to bed,' in a voice that had to be obeyed.
+Next day, however, she was awfully tender, and gave out bandages to
+every one; and they played till bed-time at limping about and carrying
+their arms in slings.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE HAPPY HOME
+
+
+One important result of the brush on the lagoon was that it made the
+redskins their friends. Peter had saved Tiger Lily from a dreadful fate,
+and now there was nothing she and her braves would not do for him. All
+night they sat above, keeping watch over the home under the ground and
+awaiting the big attack by the pirates which obviously could not be much
+longer delayed. Even by day they hung about, smoking the pipe of peace,
+and looking almost as if they wanted tit-bits to eat.
+
+They called Peter the Great White Father, prostrating themselves before
+him; and he liked this tremendously, so that it was not really good for
+him.
+
+'The great white father,' he would say to them in a very lordly manner,
+as they grovelled at his feet, 'is glad to see the Piccaninny warriors
+protecting his wigwam from the pirates.'
+
+'Me Tiger Lily,' that lovely creature would reply. 'Peter Pan save me,
+me his velly nice friend. Me no let pirates hurt him.'
+
+She was far too pretty to cringe in this way, but Peter thought it his
+due, and he would answer condescendingly, 'It is good. Peter Pan has
+spoken.'
+
+Always when he said, 'Peter Pan has spoken,' it meant that they must now
+shut up, and they accepted it humbly in that spirit; but they were by no
+means so respectful to the other boys, whom they looked upon as just
+ordinary braves. They said 'How-do?' to them, and things like that; and
+what annoyed the boys was that Peter seemed to think this all right.
+
+Secretly Wendy sympathised with them a little, but she was far too loyal
+a housewife to listen to any complaints against father. 'Father knows
+best,' she always said, whatever her private opinion must be. Her
+private opinion was that the redskins should not call her a squaw.
+
+We have now reached the evening that was to be known among them as the
+Night of Nights, because of its adventures and their upshot. The day, as
+if quietly gathering its forces, had been almost uneventful, and now the
+redskins in their blankets were at their posts above, while, below, the
+children were having their evening meal; all except Peter, who had gone
+out to get the time. The way you got the time on the island was to find
+the crocodile, and then stay near him till the clock struck.
+
+This meal happened to be a make-believe tea, and they sat round the
+board, guzzling in their greed; and really, what with their chatter and
+recriminations, the noise, as Wendy said, was positively deafening. To
+be sure, she did not mind noise, but she simply would not have them
+grabbing things, and then excusing themselves by saying that Tootles had
+pushed their elbow. There was a fixed rule that they must never hit back
+at meals, but should refer the matter of dispute to Wendy by raising the
+right arm politely and saying, 'I complain of so-and-so'; but what
+usually happened was that they forgot to do this or did it too much.
+
+'Silence,' cried Wendy when for the twentieth time she had told them
+that they were not all to speak at once. 'Is your calabash empty,
+Slightly darling?'
+
+'Not quite empty, mummy,' Slightly said, after looking into an imaginary
+mug.
+
+'He hasn't even begun to drink his milk,' Nibs interposed.
+
+This was telling, and Slightly seized his chance.
+
+'I complain of Nibs,' he cried promptly.
+
+John, however, had held up his hand first.
+
+'Well, John?'
+
+'May I sit in Peter's chair, as he is not here?'
+
+'Sit in father's chair, John!' Wendy was scandalised. 'Certainly not.'
+
+'He is not really our father,' John answered. 'He didn't even know how a
+father does till I showed him.'
+
+This was grumbling. 'We complain of John,' cried the twins.
+
+Tootles held up his hand. He was so much the humblest of them, indeed he
+was the only humble one, that Wendy was specially gentle with him.
+
+'I don't suppose,' Tootles said diffidently, 'that I could be father.'
+
+'No, Tootles.'
+
+Once Tootles began, which was not very often, he had a silly way of
+going on.
+
+'As I can't be father,' he said heavily, 'I don't suppose, Michael, you
+would let me be baby?'
+
+'No, I won't,' Michael rapped out. He was already in his basket.
+
+'As I can't be baby,' Tootles said, getting heavier and heavier, 'do you
+think I could be a twin?'
+
+'No, indeed,' replied the twins; 'it's awfully difficult to be a twin.'
+
+'As I can't be anything important,' said Tootles, 'would any of you like
+to see me do a trick?'
+
+'No,' they all replied.
+
+Then at last he stopped. 'I hadn't really any hope,' he said.
+
+The hateful telling broke out again.
+
+'Slightly is coughing on the table.'
+
+'The twins began with mammee-apples.'
+
+'Curly is taking both tappa rolls and yams.'
+
+'Nibs is speaking with his mouth full.'
+
+'I complain of the twins.'
+
+'I complain of Curly.'
+
+'I complain of Nibs.'
+
+'Oh dear, oh dear,' cried Wendy, 'I'm sure I sometimes think that
+children are more trouble than they are worth.'
+
+She told them to clear away, and sat down to her work-basket: a heavy
+load of stockings and every knee with a hole in it as usual.
+
+'Wendy,' remonstrated Michael, 'I'm too big for a cradle.'
+
+'I must have somebody in a cradle,' she said almost tartly, 'and you are
+the littlest. A cradle is such a nice homely thing to have about a
+house.'
+
+While she sewed they played around her; such a group of happy faces and
+dancing limbs lit up by that romantic fire. It had become a very
+familiar scene this in the home under the ground, but we are looking on
+it for the last time.
+
+There was a step above, and Wendy, you may be sure, was the first to
+recognise it.
+
+'Children, I hear your father's step. He likes you to meet him at the
+door.'
+
+Above, the redskins crouched before Peter.
+
+'Watch well, braves. I have spoken.'
+
+And then, as so often before, the gay children dragged him from his
+tree. As so often before, but never again.
+
+He had brought nuts for the boys as well as the correct time for Wendy.
+
+'Peter, you just spoil them, you know,' Wendy simpered.
+
+'Ah, old lady,' said Peter, hanging up his gun.
+
+'It was me told him mothers are called old lady,' Michael whispered to
+Curly.
+
+'I complain of Michael,' said Curly instantly.
+
+The first twin came to Peter. 'Father, we want to dance.'
+
+'Dance away, my little man,' said Peter, who was in high good humour.
+
+'But we want you to dance.'
+
+Peter was really the best dancer among them, but he pretended to be
+scandalised.
+
+'Me! My old bones would rattle.'
+
+'And mummy too.'
+
+'What,' cried Wendy, 'the mother of such an armful, dance!'
+
+'But on a Saturday night,' Slightly insinuated.
+
+It was not really Saturday night, at least it may have been, for they
+had long lost count of the days; but always if they wanted to do
+anything special they said this was Saturday night, and then they did
+it.
+
+'Of course it is Saturday night, Peter,' Wendy said, relenting.
+
+'People of our figure, Wendy.'
+
+'But it is only among our own progeny.'
+
+'True, true.'
+
+So they were told they could dance, but they must put on their nighties
+first.
+
+'Ah, old lady,' Peter said aside to Wendy, warming himself by the fire
+and looking down at her as she sat turning a heel, 'there is nothing
+more pleasant, of an evening for you and me when the day's toil is over
+than to rest by the fire with the little ones near by.'
+
+'It is sweet, Peter, isn't it?' Wendy said, frightfully gratified.
+'Peter, I think Curly has your nose.'
+
+'Michael takes after you.'
+
+She went to him and put her hand on his shoulder.
+
+'Dear Peter,' she said, 'with such a large family, of course, I have now
+passed my best, but you don't want to change me, do you?'
+
+'No, Wendy.'
+
+Certainly he did not want a change, but he looked at her uncomfortably;
+blinking, you know, like one not sure whether he was awake or asleep.
+
+'Peter, what is it?'
+
+'I was just thinking,' he said, a little scared. 'It is only
+make-believe, isn't it, that I am their father?'
+
+'Oh yes,' Wendy said primly.
+
+'You see,' he continued apologetically, 'it would make me seem so old to
+be their real father.'
+
+'But they are ours, Peter, yours and mine.'
+
+'But not really, Wendy?' he asked anxiously.
+
+'Not if you don't wish it,' she replied; and she distinctly heard his
+sigh of relief. 'Peter,' she asked, trying to speak firmly, 'what are
+your exact feelings for me?'
+
+'Those of a devoted son, Wendy.'
+
+'I thought so,' she said, and went and sat by herself at the extreme end
+of the room.
+
+'You are so queer,' he said, frankly puzzled, 'and Tiger Lily is just
+the same. There is something she wants to be to me, but she says it is
+not my mother.'
+
+'No, indeed, it is not,' Wendy replied with frightful emphasis. Now we
+know why she was prejudiced against the redskins.
+
+'Then what is it?'
+
+'It isn't for a lady to tell.'
+
+'Oh, very well,' Peter said, a little nettled. 'Perhaps Tinker Bell will
+tell me.'
+
+'Oh yes, Tinker Bell will tell you,' Wendy retorted scornfully. 'She is
+an abandoned little creature.'
+
+Here Tink, who was in her boudoir, eavesdropping, squeaked out something
+impudent.
+
+'She says she glories in being abandoned,' Peter interpreted.
+
+He had a sudden idea. 'Perhaps Tink wants to be my mother?'
+
+'You silly ass!' cried Tinker Bell in a passion.
+
+She had said it so often that Wendy needed no translation.
+
+'I almost agree with her,' Wendy snapped. Fancy Wendy snapping. But she
+had been much tried, and she little knew what was to happen before the
+night was out. If she had known she would not have snapped.
+
+None of them knew. Perhaps it was best not to know. Their ignorance gave
+them one more glad hour; and as it was to be their last hour on the
+island, let us rejoice that there were sixty glad minutes in it. They
+sang and danced in their night-gowns. Such a deliciously creepy song it
+was, in which they pretended to be frightened at their own shadows;
+little witting that so soon shadows would close in upon them, from whom
+they would shrink in real fear. So uproariously gay was the dance, and
+how they buffeted each other on the bed and out of it! It was a pillow
+fight rather than a dance, and when it was finished, the pillows
+insisted on one bout more, like partners who know that they may never
+meet again. The stories they told, before it was time for Wendy's
+good-night story! Even Slightly tried to tell a story that night, but
+the beginning was so fearfully dull that it appalled even himself, and
+he said gloomily:
+
+'Yes, it is a dull beginning. I say, let us pretend that it is the end.'
+
+And then at last they all got into bed for Wendy's story, the story they
+loved best, the story Peter hated. Usually when she began to tell this
+story he left the room or put his hands over his ears; and possibly if
+he had done either of those things this time they might all still be on
+the island. But to-night he remained on his stool; and we shall see what
+happened.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+WENDY'S STORY
+
+
+'Listen, then,' said Wendy, settling down to her story, with Michael at
+her feet and seven boys in the bed. 'There was once a gentleman----'
+
+'I had rather he had been a lady,' Curly said.
+
+'I wish he had been a white rat,' said Nibs.
+
+'Quiet,' their mother admonished them. 'There was a lady also, and----'
+
+'O mummy,' cried the first twin, 'you mean that there is a lady also,
+don't you? She is not dead, is she?'
+
+'Oh no.'
+
+'I am awfully glad she isn't dead,' said Tootles. 'Are you glad, John?'
+
+'Of course I am.'
+
+'Are you glad, Nibs?'
+
+'Rather.'
+
+'Are you glad, Twins?'
+
+'We are just glad.'
+
+'Oh dear,' sighed Wendy.
+
+'Little less noise there,' Peter called out, determined that she should
+have fair play, however beastly a story it might be in his opinion.
+
+'The gentleman's name,' Wendy continued, 'was Mr. Darling, and her name
+was Mrs. Darling.'
+
+'I knew them,' John said, to annoy the others.
+
+'I think I knew them,' said Michael rather doubtfully.
+
+'They were married, you know,' explained Wendy, 'and what do you think
+they had?'
+
+'White rats,' cried Nibs, inspired.
+
+'No.'
+
+'It's awfully puzzling,' said Tootles, who knew the story by heart.
+
+'Quiet, Tootles. They had three descendants.'
+
+'What is descendants?'
+
+'Well, you are one, Twin.
+
+'Do you hear that, John? I am a descendant.'
+
+'Descendants are only children,' said John.
+
+'Oh dear, oh dear,' sighed Wendy. 'Now these three children had a
+faithful nurse called Nana; but Mr. Darling was angry with her and
+chained her up in the yard; and so all the children flew away.'
+
+'It's an awfully good story,' said Nibs.
+
+'They flew away,' Wendy continued, 'to the Neverland, where the lost
+children are.'
+
+'I just thought they did,' Curly broke in excitedly. 'I don't know how
+it is, but I just thought they did.'
+
+'O Wendy,' cried Tootles, 'was one of the lost children called Tootles?'
+
+'Yes, he was.'
+
+'I am in a story. Hurrah, I am in a story, Nibs.'
+
+'Hush. Now I want you to consider the feelings of the unhappy parents
+with all their children flown away.'
+
+'Oo!' they all moaned, though they were not really considering the
+feelings of the unhappy parents one jot.
+
+'Think of the empty beds!'
+
+'Oo!'
+
+'It's awfully sad,' the first twin said cheerfully.
+
+'I don't see how it can have a happy ending,' said the second twin. 'Do
+you, Nibs?'
+
+'I'm frightfully anxious.'
+
+'If you knew how great is a mother's love,' Wendy told them
+triumphantly, 'you would have no fear.' She had now come to the part
+that Peter hated.
+
+'I do like a mother's love,' said Tootles, hitting Nibs with a pillow.
+'Do you like a mother's love, Nibs?'
+
+'I do just,' said Nibs, hitting back.
+
+'You see,' Wendy said complacently, 'our heroine knew that the mother
+would always leave the window open for her children to fly back by; so
+they stayed away for years and had a lovely time.'
+
+'Did they ever go back?'
+
+'Let us now,' said Wendy, bracing herself for her finest effort, 'take a
+peep into the future'; and they all gave themselves the twist that makes
+peeps into the future easier. 'Years have rolled by; and who is this
+elegant lady of uncertain age alighting at London Station?'
+
+'O Wendy, who is she?' cried Nibs, every bit as excited as if he didn't
+know.
+
+'Can it be--yes--no--it is--the fair Wendy!'
+
+'Oh!'
+
+'And who are the two noble portly figures accompanying her, now grown to
+man's estate? Can they be John and Michael? They are!'
+
+'Oh!'
+
+'"See, dear brothers," says Wendy, pointing upwards, '"there is the
+window still standing open. Ah, now we are rewarded for our sublime
+faith in a mother's love." So up they flew to their mummy and daddy; and
+pen cannot describe the happy scene, over which we draw a veil.'
+
+That was the story, and they were as pleased with it as the fair
+narrator herself. Everything just as it should be, you see. Off we skip
+like the most heartless things in the world, which is what children are,
+but so attractive; and we have an entirely selfish time; and then when
+we have need of special attention we nobly return for it, confident that
+we shall be embraced instead of smacked.
+
+So great indeed was their faith in a mother's love that they felt they
+could afford to be callous for a bit longer.
+
+But there was one there who knew better; and when Wendy finished he
+uttered a hollow groan.
+
+'What is it, Peter?' she cried, running to him, thinking he was ill. She
+felt him solicitously, lower down than his chest. 'Where is it, Peter?'
+
+'It isn't that kind of pain,' Peter replied darkly.
+
+'Then what kind is it?'
+
+'Wendy, you are wrong about mothers.'
+
+They all gathered round him in affright, so alarming was his agitation;
+and with a fine candour he told them what he had hitherto concealed.
+
+'Long ago,' he said, 'I thought like you that my mother would always
+keep the window open for me; so I stayed away for moons and moons and
+moons, and then flew back; but the window was barred, for mother had
+forgotten all about me, and there was another little boy sleeping in my
+bed.'
+
+I am not sure that this was true, but Peter thought it was true; and it
+scared them.
+
+'Are you sure mothers are like that?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+So this was the truth about mothers. The toads!
+
+Still it is best to be careful; and no one knows so quickly as a child
+when he should give in. 'Wendy, let us go home,' cried John and Michael
+together.
+
+'Yes,' she said, clutching them.
+
+'Not to-night?' asked the lost boys bewildered. They knew in what they
+called their hearts that one can get on quite well without a mother, and
+that it is only the mothers who think you can't.
+
+'At once,' Wendy replied resolutely, for the horrible thought had come
+to her: 'Perhaps mother is in half mourning by this time.'
+
+This dread made her forgetful of what must be Peter's feelings, and she
+said to him rather sharply, 'Peter, will you make the necessary
+arrangements?'
+
+'If you wish it,', he replied, as coolly as if she had asked him to pass
+the nuts.
+
+[Illustration: WENDY'S STORY]
+
+Not so much as a sorry-to-lose-you between them! If she did not mind the
+parting, he was going to show her, was Peter, that neither did he.
+
+But of course he cared very much; and he was so full of wrath against
+grown-ups, who, as usual, were spoiling everything, that as soon as he
+got inside his tree he breathed intentionally quick short breaths at the
+rate of about five to a second. He did this because there is a saying in
+the Neverland that, every time you breathe, a grown-up dies; and Peter
+was killing them off vindictively as fast as possible.
+
+Then having given the necessary instructions to the redskins he returned
+to the home, where an unworthy scene had been enacted in his absence.
+Panic-stricken at the thought of losing Wendy the lost boys had advanced
+upon her threateningly.
+
+'It will be worse than before she came,' they cried.
+
+'We shan't let her go.'
+
+'Let's keep her prisoner.'
+
+'Ay, chain her up.'
+
+In her extremity an instinct told her to which of them to turn.
+
+'Tootles,' she cried, 'I appeal to you.'
+
+Was it not strange? she appealed to Tootles, quite the silliest one.
+
+Grandly, however, did Tootles respond. For that one moment he dropped
+his silliness and spoke with dignity.
+
+'I am just Tootles,' he said, 'and nobody minds me. But the first who
+does not behave to Wendy like an English gentleman I will blood him
+severely.'
+
+He drew his hanger; and for that instant his sun was at noon. The others
+held back uneasily. Then Peter returned, and they saw at once that they
+would get no support from him. He would keep no girl in the Neverland
+against her will.
+
+'Wendy,' he said, striding up and down, 'I have asked the redskins to
+guide you through the wood, as flying tires you so.'
+
+'Thank you, Peter.'
+
+'Then,' he continued, in the short sharp voice of one accustomed to be
+obeyed, 'Tinker Bell will take you across the sea. Wake her, Nibs.'
+
+Nibs had to knock twice before he got an answer, though Tink had really
+been sitting up in bed listening for some time.
+
+'Who are you? How dare you? Go away,' she cried.
+
+'You are to get up, Tink,' Nibs called, 'and take Wendy on a journey.'
+
+Of course Tink had been delighted to hear that Wendy was going; but she
+was jolly well determined not to be her courier, and she said so in
+still more offensive language. Then she pretended to be asleep again.
+
+'She says she won't,' Nibs exclaimed, aghast at such insubordination,
+whereupon Peter went sternly toward the young lady's chamber.
+
+'Tink,' he rapped out, 'if you don't get up and dress at once I will
+open the curtains, and then we shall all see you in your _négligée_.'
+
+This made her leap to the floor. 'Who said I wasn't getting up?' she
+cried.
+
+In the meantime the boys were gazing very forlornly at Wendy, now
+equipped with John and Michael for the journey. By this time they were
+dejected, not merely because they were about to lose her, but also
+because they felt that she was going off to something nice to which they
+had not been invited. Novelty was beckoning to them as usual.
+
+Crediting them with a nobler feeling Wendy melted.
+
+'Dear ones,' she said, 'if you will all come with me I feel almost sure
+I can get my father and mother to adopt you.'
+
+The invitation was meant specially for Peter; but each of the boys was
+thinking exclusively of himself, and at once they jumped with joy.
+
+'But won't they think us rather a handful?' Nibs asked in the middle of
+his jump.
+
+'Oh no,' said Wendy, rapidly thinking it out, 'it will only mean having
+a few beds in the drawing-room; they can be hidden behind screens on
+first Thursdays.'
+
+'Peter, can we go?' they all cried imploringly. They took it for granted
+that if they went he would go also, but really they scarcely cared. Thus
+children are ever ready, when novelty knocks, to desert their dearest
+ones.
+
+'All right,' Peter replied with a bitter smile; and immediately they
+rushed to get their things.
+
+'And now, Peter,' Wendy said, thinking she had put everything right, 'I
+am going to give you your medicine before you go.' She loved to give
+them medicine, and undoubtedly gave them too much. Of course it was
+only water, but it was out of a calabash, and she always shook the
+calabash and counted the drops, which gave it a certain medicinal
+quality. On this occasion, however, she did not give Peter his draught,
+for just as she had prepared it, she saw a look on his face that made
+her heart sink.
+
+'Get your things, Peter,' she cried, shaking.
+
+'No,' he answered, pretending indifference, 'I am not going with you,
+Wendy.'
+
+'Yes, Peter.'
+
+'No.'
+
+To show that her departure would leave him unmoved, he skipped up and
+down the room, playing gaily on his heartless pipes. She had to run
+about after him, though it was rather undignified.
+
+'To find your mother,' she coaxed.
+
+Now, if Peter had ever quite had a mother, he no longer missed her. He
+could do very well without one. He had thought them out, and remembered
+only their bad points.
+
+'No, no,' he told Wendy decisively; 'perhaps she would say I was old,
+and I just want always to be a little boy and to have fun.'
+
+'But, Peter----'
+
+'No.'
+
+And so the others had to be told.
+
+'Peter isn't coming.'
+
+Peter not coming! They gazed blankly at him, their sticks over their
+backs, and on each stick a bundle. Their first thought was that if Peter
+was not going he had probably changed his mind about letting them go.
+
+But he was far too proud for that. 'If you find your mothers,' he said
+darkly, 'I hope you will like them.'
+
+The awful cynicism of this made an uncomfortable impression, and most of
+them began to look rather doubtful. After all, their faces said, were
+they not noodles to want to go?
+
+'Now then,' cried Peter, 'no fuss, no blubbering; good-bye, Wendy'; and
+he held out his hand cheerily, quite as if they must really go now, for
+he had something important to do.
+
+She had to take his hand, as there was no indication that he would
+prefer a thimble.
+
+'You will remember about changing your flannels, Peter?' she said,
+lingering over him. She was always so particular about their flannels.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And you will take your medicine?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+That seemed to be everything; and an awkward pause followed. Peter,
+however, was not the kind that breaks down before people. 'Are you
+ready, Tinker Bell?' he called out.
+
+'Ay, ay.'
+
+'Then lead the way.'
+
+Tink darted up the nearest tree; but no one followed her, for it was at
+this moment that the pirates made their dreadful attack upon the
+redskins. Above, where all had been so still, the air was rent with
+shrieks and the clash of steel. Below, there was dead silence. Mouths
+opened and remained open. Wendy fell on her knees, but her arms were
+extended toward Peter. All arms were extended to him, as if suddenly
+blown in his direction; they were beseeching him mutely not to desert
+them. As for Peter, he seized his sword, the same he thought he had
+slain Barbecue with; and the lust of battle was in his eye.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE CHILDREN ARE CARRIED OFF
+
+
+The pirate attack had been a complete surprise: a sure proof that the
+unscrupulous Hook had conducted it improperly, for to surprise redskins
+fairly is beyond the wit of the white man.
+
+By all the unwritten laws of savage warfare it is always the redskin who
+attacks, and with the wiliness of his race he does it just before the
+dawn, at which time he knows the courage of the whites to be at its
+lowest ebb. The white men have in the meantime made a rude stockade on
+the summit of yonder undulating ground, at the foot of which a stream
+runs; for it is destruction to be too far from water. There they await
+the onslaught, the inexperienced ones clutching their revolvers and
+treading on twigs, but the old hands sleeping tranquilly until just
+before the dawn. Through the long black night the savage scouts wriggle,
+snake-like, among the grass without stirring a blade. The brushwood
+closes behind them as silently as sand into which a mole has dived. Not
+a sound is to be heard, save when they give vent to a wonderful
+imitation of the lonely call of the coyote. The cry is answered by other
+braves; and some of them do it even better than the coyotes, who are not
+very good at it. So the chill hours wear on, and the long suspense is
+horribly trying to the paleface who has to live through it for the first
+time; but to the trained hand those ghastly calls and still ghastlier
+silences are but an intimation of how the night is marching.
+
+That this was the usual procedure was so well known to Hook that in
+disregarding it he cannot be excused on the plea of ignorance.
+
+The Piccaninnies, on their part, trusted implicitly to his honour, and
+their whole action of the night stands out in marked contrast to his.
+They left nothing undone that was consistent with the reputation of
+their tribe. With that alertness of the senses which is at once the
+marvel and despair of civilised peoples, they knew that the pirates were
+on the island from the moment one of them trod on a dry stick; and in an
+incredibly short space of time the coyote cries began. Every foot of
+ground between the spot where Hook had landed his forces and the home
+under the trees was stealthily examined by braves wearing their
+mocassins with the heels in front. They found only one hillock with a
+stream at its base, so that Hook had no choice; here he must establish
+himself and wait for just before the dawn. Everything being thus mapped
+out with almost diabolical cunning, the main body of the redskins folded
+their blankets around them, and in the phlegmatic manner that is to them
+the pearl of manhood squatted above the children's home, awaiting the
+cold moment when they should deal pale death.
+
+Here dreaming, though wide-awake, of the exquisite tortures to which
+they were to put him at break of day, those confiding savages were found
+by the treacherous Hook. From the accounts afterwards supplied by such
+of the scouts as escaped the carnage, he does not seem even to have
+paused at the rising ground, though it is certain that in that grey
+light he must have seen it: no thought of waiting to be attacked appears
+from first to last to have visited his subtle mind; he would not even
+hold off till the night was nearly spent; on he pounded with no policy
+but to fall to. What could the bewildered scouts do, masters as they
+were of every warlike artifice save this one, but trot helplessly after
+him, exposing themselves fatally to view, the while they gave pathetic
+utterance to the coyote cry.
+
+Around the brave Tiger Lily were a dozen of her stoutest warriors, and
+they suddenly saw the perfidious pirates bearing down upon them. Fell
+from their eyes then the film through which they had looked at victory.
+No more would they torture at the stake. For them the happy
+hunting-grounds now. They knew it; but as their fathers' sons they
+acquitted themselves. Even then they had time to gather in a phalanx
+that would have been hard to break had they risen quickly, but this they
+were forbidden to do by the traditions of their race. It is written that
+the noble savage must never express surprise in the presence of the
+white. Thus terrible as the sudden appearance of the pirates must have
+been to them, they remained stationary for a moment, not a muscle
+moving; as if the foe had come by invitation. Then, indeed, the
+tradition gallantly upheld, they seized their weapons, and the air was
+torn with the warcry; but it was now too late.
+
+It is no part of ours to describe what was a massacre rather than a
+fight. Thus perished many of the flower of the Piccaninny tribe. Not all
+unavenged did they die, for with Lean Wolf fell Alf Mason, to disturb
+the Spanish Main no more; and among others who bit the dust were Geo.
+Scourie, Chas. Turley, and the Alsatian Foggerty. Turley fell to the
+tomahawk of the terrible Panther, who ultimately cut a way through the
+pirates with Tiger Lily and a small remnant of the tribe.
+
+To what extent Hook is to blame for his tactics on this occasion is for
+the historian to decide. Had he waited on the rising ground till the
+proper hour he and his men would probably have been butchered; and in
+judging him it is only fair to take this into account. What he should
+perhaps have done was to acquaint his opponents that he proposed to
+follow a new method. On the other hand this, as destroying the element
+of surprise, would have made his strategy of no avail, so that the whole
+question is beset with difficulties. One cannot at least withhold a
+reluctant admiration for the wit that had conceived so bold a scheme,
+and the fell genius with which it was carried out.
+
+What were his own feelings about himself at that triumphant moment? Fain
+would his dogs have known, as breathing heavily and wiping their
+cutlasses, they gathered at a discreet distance from his hook, and
+squinted through their ferret eyes at this extraordinary man. Elation
+must have been in his heart, but his face did not reflect it: ever a
+dark and solitary enigma, he stood aloof from his followers in spirit as
+in substance.
+
+The night's work was not yet over, for it was not the redskins he had
+come out to destroy; they were but the bees to be smoked, so that he
+should get at the honey. It was Pan he wanted, Pan and Wendy and their
+band, but chiefly Pan.
+
+Peter was such a small boy that one tends to wonder at the man's hatred
+of him. True he had flung Hook's arm to the crocodile; but even this and
+the increased insecurity of life to which it led, owing to the
+crocodile's pertinacity, hardly account for a vindictiveness so
+relentless and malignant. The truth is that there was a something about
+Peter which goaded the pirate captain to frenzy. It was not his courage,
+it was not his engaging appearance, it was not--. There is no beating
+about the bush, for we know quite well what it was, and have got to
+tell. It was Peter's cockiness.
+
+This had got on Hook's nerves; it made his iron claw twitch, and at
+night it disturbed him like an insect. While Peter lived, the tortured
+man felt that he was a lion in a cage into which a sparrow had come.
+
+The question now was how to get down the trees, or how to get his dogs
+down? He ran his greedy eyes over them, searching for the thinnest ones.
+They wriggled uncomfortably, for they knew he would not scruple to ram
+them down with poles.
+
+In the meantime, what of the boys? We have seen them at the first clang
+of weapons, turned as it were into stone figures, open-mouthed, all
+appealing with outstretched arms to Peter; and we return to them as
+their mouths close, and their arms fall to their sides. The pandemonium
+above has ceased almost as suddenly as it arose, passed like a fierce
+gust of wind; but they know that in the passing it has determined their
+fate.
+
+Which side had won?
+
+The pirates, listening avidly at the mouths of the trees, heard the
+question put by every boy, and alas, they also heard Peter's answer.
+
+'If the redskins have won,' he said, 'they will beat the tom-tom; it is
+always their sign of victory.'
+
+Now Smee had found the tom-tom, and was at that moment sitting on it.
+'You will never hear the tom-tom again,' he muttered, but inaudibly of
+course, for strict silence had been enjoined. To his amazement Hook
+signed to him to beat the tom-tom; and slowly there came to Smee an
+understanding of the dreadful wickedness of the order. Never, probably,
+had this simple man admired Hook so much.
+
+Twice Smee beat upon the instrument, and then stopped to listen
+gleefully.
+
+'The tom-tom,' the miscreants heard Peter cry; 'an Indian victory!'
+
+The doomed children answered with a cheer that was music to the black
+hearts above, and almost immediately they repeated their goodbyes to
+Peter. This puzzled the pirates, but all their other feelings were
+swallowed by a base delight that the enemy were about to come up the
+trees. They smirked at each other and rubbed their hands. Rapidly and
+silently Hook gave his orders: one man to each tree, and the others to
+arrange themselves in a line two yards apart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+DO YOU BELIEVE IN FAIRIES?
+
+
+The more quickly this horror is disposed of the better. The first to
+emerge from his tree was Curly. He rose out of it into the arms of
+Cecco, who flung him to Smee, who flung him to Starkey, who flung him to
+Bill Jukes, who flung him to Noodler, and so he was tossed from one to
+another till he fell at the feet of the black pirate. All the boys were
+plucked from their trees in this ruthless manner; and several of them
+were in the air at a time, like bales of goods flung from hand to hand.
+
+[Illustration: FLUNG LIKE BALES]
+
+A different treatment was accorded to Wendy, who came last. With
+ironical politeness Hook raised his hat to her, and, offering her his
+arm, escorted her to the spot where the others were being gagged. He
+did it with such an air, he was so frightfully _distingué_, that she was
+too fascinated to cry out. She was only a little girl.
+
+Perhaps it is tell-tale to divulge that for a moment Hook entranced her,
+and we tell on her only because her slip led to strange results. Had she
+haughtily unhanded him (and we should have loved to write it of her),
+she would have been hurled through the air like the others, and then
+Hook would probably not have been present at the tying of the children;
+and had he not been at the tying he would not have discovered Slightly's
+secret, and without the secret he could not presently have made his foul
+attempt on Peter's life.
+
+They were tied to prevent their flying away, doubled up with their knees
+close to their ears; and for the trussing of them the black pirate had
+cut a rope into nine equal pieces. All went well until Slightly's turn
+came, when he was found to be like those irritating parcels that use up
+all the string in going round and leave no tags with which to tie a
+knot. The pirates kicked him in their rage, just as you kick the parcel
+(though in fairness you should kick the string); and strange to say it
+was Hook who told them to belay their violence. His lip was curled with
+malicious triumph. While his dogs were merely sweating because every
+time they tried to pack the unhappy lad tight in one part he bulged out
+in another, Hook's master mind had gone far beneath Slightly's surface,
+probing not for effects but for causes; and his exultation showed that
+he had found them. Slightly, white to the gills, knew that Hook had
+surprised his secret, which was this, that no boy so blown out could use
+a tree wherein an average man need stick. Poor Slightly, most wretched
+of all the children now, for he was in a panic about Peter, bitterly
+regretted what he had done. Madly addicted to the drinking of water when
+he was hot, he had swelled in consequence to his present girth, and
+instead of reducing himself to fit his tree he had, unknown to the
+others, whittled his tree to make it fit him.
+
+Sufficient of this Hook guessed to persuade him that Peter at last lay
+at his mercy; but no word of the dark design that now formed in the
+subterranean caverns of his mind crossed his lips; he merely signed that
+the captives were to be conveyed to the ship, and that he would be
+alone.
+
+How to convey them? Hunched up in their ropes they might indeed be
+rolled down hill like barrels, but most of the way lay through a morass.
+Again Hook's genius surmounted difficulties. He indicated that the
+little house must be used as a conveyance. The children were flung into
+it, four stout pirates raised it on their shoulders, the others fell in
+behind, and singing the hateful pirate chorus the strange procession set
+off through the wood. I don't know whether any of the children were
+crying; if so, the singing drowned the sound; but as the little house
+disappeared in the forest, a brave though tiny jet of smoke issued from
+its chimney as if defying Hook.
+
+Hook saw it, and it did Peter a bad service. It dried up any trickle of
+pity for him that may have remained in the pirate's infuriated breast.
+
+The first thing he did on finding himself alone in the fast falling
+night was to tiptoe to Slightly's tree, and make sure that it provided
+him with a passage. Then for long he remained brooding; his hat of ill
+omen on the sward, so that a gentle breeze which had arisen might play
+refreshingly through his hair. Dark as were his thoughts his blue eyes
+were as soft as the periwinkle. Intently he listened for any sound from
+the nether world, but all was as silent below as above; the house under
+the ground seemed to be but one more empty tenement in the void. Was
+that boy asleep, or did he stand waiting at the foot of Slightly's tree,
+with his dagger in his hand?
+
+There was no way of knowing, save by going down. Hook let his cloak slip
+softly to the ground, and then biting his lips till a lewd blood stood
+on them, he stepped into the tree. He was a brave man; but for a moment
+he had to stop there and wipe his brow, which was dripping like a
+candle. Then silently he let himself go into the unknown.
+
+He arrived unmolested at the foot of the shaft, and stood still again,
+biting at his breath, which had almost left him. As his eyes became
+accustomed to the dim light various objects in the home under the trees
+took shape; but the only one on which his greedy gaze rested, long
+sought for and found at last, was the great bed. On the bed lay Peter
+fast asleep.
+
+Unaware of the tragedy being enacted above, Peter had continued, for a
+little time after the children left, to play gaily on his pipes: no
+doubt rather a forlorn attempt to prove to himself that he did not care.
+Then he decided not to take his medicine, so as to grieve Wendy. Then he
+lay down on the bed outside the coverlet, to vex her still more; for she
+had always tucked them inside it, because you never know that you may
+not grow chilly at the turn of the night. Then he nearly cried; but it
+struck him how indignant she would be if he laughed instead; so he
+laughed a haughty laugh and fell asleep in the middle of it.
+
+Sometimes, though not often, he had dreams, and they were more painful
+than the dreams of other boys. For hours he could not be separated from
+these dreams, though he wailed piteously in them. They had to do, I
+think, with the riddle of his existence. At such times it had been
+Wendy's custom to take him out of bed and sit with him on her lap,
+soothing him in dear ways of her own invention, and when he grew calmer
+to put him back to bed before he quite woke up, so that he should not
+know of the indignity to which she had subjected him. But on this
+occasion he had fallen at once into a dreamless sleep. One arm dropped
+over the edge of the bed, one leg was arched, and the unfinished part of
+his laugh was stranded on his mouth, which was open, showing the little
+pearls.
+
+Thus defenceless Hook found him. He stood silent at the foot of the tree
+looking across the chamber at his enemy. Did no feeling of compassion
+disturb his sombre breast? The man was not wholly evil; he loved flowers
+(I have been told) and sweet music (he was himself no mean performer on
+the harpsichord); and, let it be frankly admitted, the idyllic nature of
+the scene stirred him profoundly. Mastered by his better self he would
+have returned reluctantly up the tree, but for one thing.
+
+What stayed him was Peter's impertinent appearance as he slept. The open
+mouth, the drooping arm, the arched knee: they were such a
+personification of cockiness as, taken together, will never again one
+may hope be presented to eyes so sensitive to their offensiveness. They
+steeled Hook's heart. If his rage had broken him into a hundred pieces
+every one of them would have disregarded the incident, and leapt at the
+sleeper.
+
+Though a light from the one lamp shone dimly on the bed Hook stood in
+darkness himself, and at the first stealthy step forward he discovered
+an obstacle, the door of Slightly's tree. It did not entirely fill the
+aperture, and he had been looking over it. Feeling for the catch, he
+found to his fury that it was low down, beyond his reach. To his
+disordered brain it seemed then that the irritating quality in Peter's
+face and figure visibly increased, and he rattled the door and flung
+himself against it. Was his enemy to escape him after all.
+
+But what was that? The red in his eye had caught sight of Peter's
+medicine standing on a ledge within easy reach. He fathomed what it was
+straightway, and immediately he knew that the sleeper was in his power.
+
+Lest he should be taken alive, Hook always carried about his person a
+dreadful drug, blended by himself of all the death-dealing rings that
+had come into his possession. These he had boiled down into a yellow
+liquid quite unknown to science, which was probably the most virulent
+poison in existence.
+
+Five drops of this he now added to Peter's cup. His hand shook, but it
+was in exultation rather than in shame. As he did it he avoided glancing
+at the sleeper, but not lest pity should unnerve him; merely to avoid
+spilling. Then one long gloating look he cast upon his victim, and
+turning, wormed his way with difficulty up the tree. As he emerged at
+the top he looked the very spirit of evil breaking from its hole.
+Donning his hat at its most rakish angle, he wound his cloak around him,
+holding one end in front as if to conceal his person from the night, of
+which it was the blackest part, and muttering strangely to himself stole
+away through the trees.
+
+Peter slept on. The light guttered and went out, leaving the tenement in
+darkness; but still he slept. It must have been not less than ten
+o'clock by the crocodile, when he suddenly sat up in his bed, wakened
+by he knew not what. It was a soft cautious tapping on the door of his
+tree.
+
+Soft and cautious, but in that stillness it was sinister. Peter felt for
+his dagger till his hand gripped it. Then he spoke.
+
+'Who is that?'
+
+For long there was no answer: then again the knock.
+
+'Who are you?'
+
+No answer.
+
+He was thrilled, and he loved being thrilled. In two strides he reached
+his door. Unlike Slightly's door it filled the aperture, so that he
+could not see beyond it, nor could the one knocking see him.
+
+'I won't open unless you speak,' Peter cried.
+
+Then at last the visitor spoke, in a lovely bell-like voice.
+
+'Let me in, Peter.'
+
+It was Tink, and quickly he unbarred to her. She flew in excitedly, her
+face flushed and her dress stained with mud.
+
+'What is it?'
+
+'Oh, you could never guess,' she cried, and offered him three guesses.
+'Out with it!' he shouted; and in one ungrammatical sentence, as long as
+the ribbons conjurers pull from their mouths, she told of the capture of
+Wendy and the boys.
+
+Peter's heart bobbed up and down as he listened. Wendy bound, and on the
+pirate ship; she who loved everything to be just so!
+
+'I'll rescue her,' he cried, leaping at his weapons. As he leapt he
+thought of something he could do to please her. He could take his
+medicine.
+
+His hand closed on the fatal draught.
+
+'No!' shrieked Tinker Bell, who had heard Hook muttering about his deed
+as he sped through the forest.
+
+'Why not?'
+
+'It is poisoned.'
+
+'Poisoned? Who could have poisoned it?'
+
+'Hook.'
+
+'Don't be silly. How could Hook have got down here?'
+
+Alas, Tinker Bell could not explain this, for even she did not know the
+dark secret of Slightly's tree. Nevertheless Hook's words had left no
+room for doubt. The cup was poisoned.
+
+'Besides,' said Peter, quite believing himself, 'I never fell asleep.'
+
+He raised the cup. No time for words now; time for deeds; and with one
+of her lightning movements Tink got between his lips and the draught,
+and drained it to the dregs.
+
+'Why, Tink, how dare you drink my medicine?'
+
+But she did not answer. Already she was reeling in the air.
+
+'What is the matter with you?' cried Peter, suddenly afraid.
+
+'It was poisoned, Peter,' she told him softly; 'and now I am going to be
+dead.'
+
+'O Tink, did you drink it to save me?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'But why, Tink?'
+
+Her wings would scarcely carry her now, but in reply she alighted on his
+shoulder and gave his chin a loving bite. She whispered in his ear 'You
+silly ass'; and then, tottering to her chamber, lay down on the bed.
+
+His head almost filled the fourth wall of her little room as he knelt
+near her in distress. Every moment her light was growing fainter; and he
+knew that if it went out she would be no more. She liked his tears so
+much that she put out her beautiful finger and let them run over it.
+
+Her voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said.
+Then he made it out. She was saying that she thought she could get well
+again if children believed in fairies.
+
+Peter flung out his arms. There were no children there, and it was
+night-time; but he addressed all who might be dreaming of the Neverland,
+and who were therefore nearer to him than you think: boys and girls in
+their nighties, and naked papooses in their baskets hung from trees.
+
+'Do you believe?' he cried.
+
+Tink sat up in bed almost briskly to listen to her fate.
+
+She fancied she heard answers in the affirmative, and then again she
+wasn't sure.
+
+'What do you think?' she asked Peter.
+
+'If you believe,' he shouted to them, 'clap your hands; don't let Tink
+die.'
+
+Many clapped.
+
+Some didn't.
+
+A few little beasts hissed.
+
+The clapping stopped suddenly; as if countless mothers had rushed to
+their nurseries to see what on earth was happening; but already Tink was
+saved. First her voice grew strong; then she popped out of bed; then she
+was flashing through the room more merry and impudent than ever. She
+never thought of thanking those who believed, but she would have liked
+to get at the ones who had hissed.
+
+'And now to rescue Wendy.'
+
+The moon was riding in a cloudy heaven when Peter rose from his tree,
+begirt with weapons and wearing little else, to set out upon his
+perilous quest. It was not such a night as he would have chosen. He had
+hoped to fly, keeping not far from the ground so that nothing unwonted
+should escape his eyes; but in that fitful light to have flown low would
+have meant trailing his shadow through the trees, thus disturbing the
+birds and acquainting a watchful foe that he was astir.
+
+He regretted now that he had given the birds of the island such strange
+names that they are very wild and difficult of approach.
+
+There was no other course but to press forward in redskin fashion, at
+which happily he was an adept. But in what direction, for he could not
+be sure that the children had been taken to the ship? A slight fall of
+snow had obliterated all footmarks; and a deathly silence pervaded the
+island, as if for a space Nature stood still in horror of the recent
+carnage. He had taught the children something of the forest lore that he
+had himself learned from Tiger Lily and Tinker Bell, and knew that in
+their dire hour they were not likely to forget it. Slightly, if he had
+an opportunity, would blaze the trees, for instance, Curly would drop
+seeds, and Wendy would leave her handkerchief at some important place.
+But morning was needed to search for such guidance, and he could not
+wait. The upper world had called him, but would give no help.
+
+The crocodile passed him, but not another living thing, not a sound, not
+a movement; and yet he knew well that sudden death might be at the next
+tree, or stalking him from behind.
+
+He swore this terrible oath: 'Hook or me this time.'
+
+Now he crawled forward like a snake; and again, erect, he darted across
+a space on which the moonlight played: one finger on his lip and his
+dagger at the ready. He was frightfully happy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE PIRATE SHIP
+
+
+One green light squinting over Kidd's Creek, which is near the mouth of
+the pirate river, marked where the brig, the _Jolly Roger_, lay, low in
+the water; a rakish-looking craft foul to the hull, every beam in her
+detestable like ground strewn with mangled feathers. She was the
+cannibal of the seas, and scarce needed that watchful eye, for she
+floated immune in the horror of her name.
+
+She was wrapped in the blanket of night, through which no sound from her
+could have reached the shore. There was little sound, and none agreeable
+save the whir of the ship's sewing machine at which Smee sat, ever
+industrious and obliging, the essence of the commonplace, pathetic Smee.
+I know not why he was so infinitely pathetic, unless it were because he
+was so pathetically unaware of it; but even strong men had to turn
+hastily from looking at him, and more than once on summer evenings he
+had touched the fount of Hook's tears and made it flow. Of this, as of
+almost everything else, Smee was quite unconscious.
+
+A few of the pirates leant over the bulwarks drinking in the miasma of
+the night; others sprawled by barrels over games of dice and cards; and
+the exhausted four who had carried the little house lay prone on the
+deck, where even in their sleep they rolled skilfully to this side or
+that out of Hook's reach, lest he should claw them mechanically in
+passing.
+
+Hook trod the deck in thought. O man unfathomable. It was his hour of
+triumph. Peter had been removed for ever from his path, and all the
+other boys were on the brig, about to walk the plank. It was his
+grimmest deed since the days when he had brought Barbecue to heel; and
+knowing as we do how vain a tabernacle is man, could we be surprised had
+he now paced the deck unsteadily, bellied out by the winds of his
+success?
+
+But there was no elation in his gait, which kept pace with the action
+of his sombre mind. Hook was profoundly dejected.
+
+He was often thus when communing with himself on board ship in the
+quietude of the night. It was because he was so terribly alone. This
+inscrutable man never felt more alone than when surrounded by his dogs.
+They were socially so inferior to him.
+
+Hook was not his true name. To reveal who he really was would even at
+this date set the country in a blaze; but as those who read between the
+lines must already have guessed, he had been at a famous public school;
+and its traditions still clung to him like garments, with which indeed
+they are largely concerned. Thus it was offensive to him even now to
+board a ship in the same dress in which he grappled her; and he still
+adhered in his walk to the school's distinguished slouch. But above all
+he retained the passion for good form.
+
+Good form! However much he may have degenerated, he still knew that this
+is all that really matters.
+
+From far within him he heard a creaking as of rusty portals, and
+through them came a stern tap-tap-tap, like hammering in the night when
+one cannot sleep. 'Have you been good form to-day?' was their eternal
+question.
+
+'Fame, fame, that glittering bauble, it is mine,' he cried.
+
+'Is it quite good form to be distinguished at anything?' the tap-tap
+from his school replied.
+
+'I am the only man whom Barbecue feared,' he urged; 'and Flint himself
+feared Barbecue.'
+
+'Barbecue, Flint--what house?' came the cutting retort.
+
+Most disquieting reflection of all, was it not bad form to think about
+good form?
+
+His vitals were tortured by this problem. It was a claw within him
+sharper than the iron one; and as it tore him, the perspiration dripped
+down his tallow countenance and streaked his doublet. Ofttimes he drew
+his sleeve across his face, but there was no damming that trickle.
+
+Ah, envy not Hook.
+
+There came to him a presentiment of his early dissolution. It was as if
+Peter's terrible oath had boarded the ship. Hook felt a gloomy desire
+to make his dying speech, lest presently there should be no time for it.
+
+'Better for Hook,' he cried, 'if he had had less ambition.' It was in
+his darkest hours only that he referred to himself in the third person.
+
+'No little children love me.'
+
+Strange that he should think of this, which had never troubled him
+before; perhaps the sewing machine brought it to his mind. For long he
+muttered to himself, staring at Smee, who was hemming placidly, under
+the conviction that all children feared him.
+
+Feared him! Feared Smee! There was not a child on board the brig that
+night who did not already love him. He had said horrid things to them
+and hit them with the palm of his hand, because he could not hit with
+his fist; but they had only clung to him the more. Michael had tried on
+his spectacles.
+
+To tell poor Smee that they thought him lovable! Hook itched to do it,
+but it seemed too brutal. Instead, he revolved this mystery in his mind:
+why do they find Smee lovable? He pursued the problem like the
+sleuth-hound that he was. If Smee was lovable, what was it that made him
+so? A terrible answer suddenly presented itself: 'Good form?'
+
+Had the bo'sun good form without knowing it, which is the best form of
+all?
+
+He remembered that you have to prove you don't know you have it before
+you are eligible for Pop.
+
+With a cry of rage he raised his iron hand over Smee's head; but he did
+not tear. What arrested him was this reflection:
+
+'To claw a man because he is good form, what would that be?'
+
+'Bad form!'
+
+The unhappy Hook was as impotent as he was damp, and he fell forward
+like a cut flower.
+
+His dogs thinking him out of the way for a time, discipline instantly
+relaxed; and they broke into a bacchanalian dance, which brought him to
+his feet at once; all traces of human weakness gone, as if a bucket of
+water had passed over him.
+
+'Quiet, you scugs,' he cried, 'or I'll cast anchor in you'; and at once
+the din was hushed. 'Are all the children chained, so that they cannot
+fly away?'
+
+'Ay, ay.'
+
+'Then hoist them up.'
+
+The wretched prisoners were dragged from the hold, all except Wendy, and
+ranged in line in front of him. For a time he seemed unconscious of
+their presence. He lolled at his ease, humming, not unmelodiously,
+snatches of a rude song, and fingering a pack of cards. Ever and anon
+the light from his cigar gave a touch of colour to his face.
+
+'Now then, bullies,' he said briskly, 'six of you walk the plank
+to-night, but I have room for two cabin boys. Which of you is it to be?'
+
+'Don't irritate him unnecessarily,' had been Wendy's instructions in the
+hold; so Tootles stepped forward politely. Tootles hated the idea of
+signing under such a man, but an instinct told him that it would be
+prudent to lay the responsibility on an absent person; and though a
+somewhat silly boy, he knew that mothers alone are always willing to be
+the buffer. All children know this about mothers, and despise them for
+it, but make constant use of it.
+
+So Tootles explained prudently, 'You see, sir, I don't think my mother
+would like me to be a pirate. Would your mother like you to be a pirate,
+Slightly?'
+
+He winked at Slightly, who said mournfully, 'I don't think so,' as if he
+wished things had been otherwise. 'Would your mother like you to be a
+pirate, Twin?'
+
+'I don't think so,' said the first twin, as clever as the others. 'Nibs,
+would----'
+
+'Stow this gab,' roared Hook, and the spokesmen were dragged back. 'You,
+boy,' he said, addressing John, 'you look as if you had a little pluck
+in you. Didst never want to be a pirate, my hearty?'
+
+Now John had sometimes experienced this hankering at maths. prep.; and
+he was struck by Hook's picking him out.
+
+'I once thought of calling myself Red-handed Jack,' he said diffidently.
+
+'And a good name too. We'll call you that here, bully, if you join.'
+
+'What do you think, Michael?' asked John.
+
+'What would you call me if I join?' Michael demanded.
+
+'Blackbeard Joe.'
+
+Michael was naturally impressed. 'What do you think, John?' He wanted
+John to decide, and John wanted him to decide.
+
+'Shall we still be respectful subjects of the King?' John inquired.
+
+Through Hook's teeth came the answer: 'You would have to swear, "Down
+with the King."'
+
+Perhaps John had not behaved very well so far, but he shone out now.
+
+'Then I refuse,' he cried, banging the barrel in front of Hook.
+
+'And I refuse,' cried Michael.
+
+'Rule Britannia!' squeaked Curly.
+
+The infuriated pirates buffeted them in the mouth; and Hook roared out,
+'That seals your doom. Bring up their mother. Get the plank ready.'
+
+They were only boys, and they went white as they saw Jukes and Cecco
+preparing the fatal plank. But they tried to look brave when Wendy was
+brought up.
+
+No words of mine can tell you how Wendy despised those pirates. To the
+boys there was at least some glamour in the pirate calling; but all that
+she saw was that the ship had not been scrubbed for years. There was not
+a porthole, on the grimy glass of which you might not have written with
+your finger 'Dirty pig'; and she had already written it on several. But
+as the boys gathered round her she had no thought, of course, save for
+them.
+
+'So, my beauty,' said Hook, as if he spoke in syrup, 'you are to see
+your children walk the plank.'
+
+Fine gentleman though he was, the intensity of his communings had soiled
+his ruff, and suddenly he knew that she was gazing at it. With a hasty
+gesture he tried to hide it, but he was too late.
+
+'Are they to die?' asked Wendy, with a look of such frightful contempt
+that he nearly fainted.
+
+'They are,' he snarled. 'Silence all,' he called gloatingly, 'for a
+mother's last words to her children.'
+
+At this moment Wendy was grand. 'These are my last words, dear boys,'
+she said firmly. 'I feel that I have a message to you from your real
+mothers, and it is this: "We hope our sons will die like English
+gentlemen."'
+
+Even the pirates were awed; and Tootles cried out hysterically, 'I am
+going to do what my mother hopes. What are you to do, Nibs?'
+
+'What my mother hopes. What are you to do, Twin?'
+
+'What my mother hopes. John, what are----'
+
+But Hook had found his voice again.
+
+'Tie her up,' he shouted.
+
+It was Smee who tied her to the mast. 'See here, honey,' he whispered,
+'I'll save you if you promise to be my mother.'
+
+But not even for Smee would she make such a promise. 'I would almost
+rather have no children at all,' she said disdainfully.
+
+It is sad to know that not a boy was looking at her as Smee tied her to
+the mast; the eyes of all were on the plank: that last little walk they
+were about to take. They were no longer able to hope that they would
+walk it manfully, for the capacity to think had gone from them; they
+could stare and shiver only.
+
+Hook smiled on them with his teeth closed, and took a step toward Wendy.
+His intention was to turn her face so that she should see the boys
+walking the plank one by one. But he never reached her, he never heard
+the cry of anguish he hoped to wring from her. He heard something else
+instead.
+
+It was the terrible tick-tick of the crocodile.
+
+They all heard it--pirates, boys, Wendy; and immediately every head was
+blown in one direction; not to the water whence the sound proceeded, but
+toward Hook. All knew that what was about to happen concerned him alone,
+and that from being actors they were suddenly become spectators.
+
+Very frightful was it to see the change that came over him. It was as if
+he had been clipped at every joint. He fell in a little heap.
+
+The sound came steadily nearer; and in advance of it came this ghastly
+thought, 'The crocodile is about to board the ship.'
+
+Even the iron claw hung inactive; as if knowing that it was no
+intrinsic part of what the attacking force wanted. Left so fearfully
+alone, any other man would have lain with his eyes shut where he fell:
+but the gigantic brain of Hook was still working, and under its guidance
+he crawled on his knees along the deck as far from the sound as he could
+go. The pirates respectfully cleared a passage for him, and it was only
+when he brought up against the bulwarks that he spoke.
+
+'Hide me,' he cried hoarsely.
+
+They gathered round him; all eyes averted from the thing that was coming
+aboard. They had no thought of fighting it. It was Fate.
+
+Only when Hook was hidden from them did curiosity loosen the limbs of
+the boys so that they could rush to the ship's side to see the crocodile
+climbing it. Then they got the strangest surprise of this Night of
+Nights; for it was no crocodile that was coming to their aid. It was
+Peter.
+
+He signed to them not to give vent to any cry of admiration that might
+rouse suspicion. Then he went on ticking.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+'HOOK OR ME THIS TIME'
+
+
+Odd things happen to all of us on our way through life without our
+noticing for a time that they have happened. Thus, to take an instance,
+we suddenly discover that we have been deaf in one ear for we don't know
+how long, but, say, half an hour. Now such an experience had come that
+night to Peter. When last we saw him he was stealing across the island
+with one finger to his lips and his dagger at the ready. He had seen the
+crocodile pass by without noticing anything peculiar about it, but by
+and by he remembered that it had not been ticking. At first he thought
+this eerie, but soon he concluded rightly that the clock had run down.
+
+Without giving a thought to what might be the feelings of a
+fellow-creature thus abruptly deprived of its closest companion, Peter
+at once considered how he could turn the catastrophe to his own use; and
+he decided to tick, so that wild beasts should believe he was the
+crocodile and let him pass unmolested. He ticked superbly, but with one
+unforeseen result. The crocodile was among those who heard the sound,
+and it followed him, though whether with the purpose of regaining what
+it had lost, or merely as a friend under the belief that it was again
+ticking itself, will never be certainly known, for, like all slaves to a
+fixed idea, it was a stupid beast.
+
+Peter reached the shore without mishap, and went straight on; his legs
+encountering the water as if quite unaware that they had entered a new
+element. Thus many animals pass from land to water, but no other human
+of whom I know. As he swam he had but one thought: 'Hook or me this
+time.' He had ticked so long that he now went on ticking without knowing
+that he was doing it. Had he known he would have stopped, for to board
+the brig by the help of the tick, though an ingenious idea, had not
+occurred to him.
+
+[Illustration: HOOK OR ME THIS TIME]
+
+On the contrary, he thought he had scaled her side as noiseless as a
+mouse; and he was amazed to see the pirates cowering from him, with Hook
+in their midst as abject as if he had heard the crocodile.
+
+The crocodile! No sooner did Peter remember it than he heard the
+ticking. At first he thought the sound did come from the crocodile, and
+he looked behind him swiftly. Then he realised that he was doing it
+himself, and in a flash he understood the situation. 'How clever of me,'
+he thought at once, and signed to the boys not to burst into applause.
+
+It was at this moment that Ed Teynte the quartermaster emerged from the
+forecastle and came along the deck. Now, reader, time what happened by
+your watch. Peter struck true and deep. John clapped his hands on the
+ill-fated pirate's mouth to stifle the dying groan. He fell forward.
+Four boys caught him to prevent the thud. Peter gave the signal, and the
+carrion was cast overboard. There was a splash, and then silence. How
+long has it taken?
+
+'One!' (Slightly had begun to count.)
+
+None too soon, Peter, every inch of him on tiptoe, vanished into the
+cabin; for more than one pirate was screwing up his courage to look
+round. They could hear each other's distressed breathing now, which
+showed them that the more terrible sound had passed.
+
+'It's gone, captain,' Smee said, wiping his spectacles. 'All's still
+again.'
+
+Slowly Hook let his head emerge from his ruff, and listened so intently
+that he could have caught the echo of the tick. There was not a sound,
+and he drew himself up firmly to his full height.
+
+'Then here's to Johnny Plank,' he cried brazenly, hating the boys more
+than ever because they had seen him unbend. He broke into the villainous
+ditty:
+
+
+     'Yo ho, yo ho, the frisky plank,
+       You walks along it so,
+     Till it goes down and you goes down
+       To Davy Jones below!'
+
+
+To terrorise the prisoners the more, though with a certain loss of
+dignity, he danced along an imaginary plank, grimacing at them as he
+sang; and when he finished he cried, 'Do you want a touch of the cat
+before you walk the plank?'
+
+At that they fell on their knees. 'No, no,' they cried so piteously
+that every pirate smiled.
+
+'Fetch the cat, Jukes,' said Hook; 'it's in the cabin.'
+
+The cabin! Peter was in the cabin! The children gazed at each other.
+
+'Ay, ay,' said Jukes blithely, and he strode into the cabin. They
+followed him with their eyes; they scarce knew that Hook had resumed his
+song, his dogs joining in with him:
+
+
+     'Yo ho, yo ho, the scratching cat,
+       Its tails are nine, you know,
+     And when they're writ upon your back--
+
+
+What was the last line will never be known, for of a sudden the song was
+stayed by a dreadful screech from the cabin. It wailed through the ship,
+and died away. Then was heard a crowing sound which was well understood
+by the boys, but to the pirates was almost more eerie than the screech.
+
+'What was that?' cried Hook.
+
+'Two,' said Slightly solemnly.
+
+The Italian Cecco hesitated for a moment and then swung into the cabin.
+He tottered out, haggard.
+
+'What's the matter with Bill Jukes, you dog?' hissed Hook, towering over
+him.
+
+'The matter wi' him is he's dead, stabbed,' replied Cecco in a hollow
+Voice.
+
+'Bill Jukes dead!' cried the startled pirates.
+
+'The cabin's as black as a pit,' Cecco said, almost gibbering, 'but
+there is something terrible in there: the thing you heard crowing.'
+
+The exultation of the boys, the lowering looks of the pirates, both were
+seen by Hook.
+
+'Cecco,' he said in his most steely voice, 'go back and fetch me out
+that doodle-doo.'
+
+Cecco, bravest of the brave, cowered before his captain, crying 'No,
+no'; but Hook was purring to his claw.
+
+'Did you say you would go, Cecco?' he said musingly.
+
+Cecco went, first flinging up his arms despairingly. There was no more
+singing, all listened now; and again came a death-screech and again a
+crow.
+
+No one spoke except Slightly. 'Three,' he said.
+
+Hook rallied his dogs with a gesture. ''Sdeath and odds fish,' he
+thundered, 'who is to bring me that doodle-doo?'
+
+'Wait till Cecco comes out,' growled Starkey, and the others took up the
+cry.
+
+'I think I heard you volunteer, Starkey,' said Hook, purring again.
+
+'No, by thunder!' Starkey cried.
+
+'My hook thinks you did,' said Hook, crossing to him. 'I wonder if it
+would not be advisable, Starkey, to humour the hook?'
+
+'I'll swing before I go in there,' replied Starkey doggedly, and again
+he had the support of the crew.
+
+'Is it mutiny?' asked Hook more pleasantly than ever. 'Starkey's
+ringleader.'
+
+'Captain, mercy,' Starkey whimpered, all of a tremble now.
+
+'Shake hands, Starkey,' said Hook, proffering his claw.
+
+Starkey looked round for help, but all deserted him. As he backed Hook
+advanced, and now the red spark was in his eye. With a despairing scream
+the pirate leapt upon Long Tom and precipitated himself into the sea.
+
+'Four,' said Slightly.
+
+'And now,' Hook asked courteously, 'did any other gentleman say mutiny?'
+Seizing a lantern and raising his claw with a menacing gesture, 'I'll
+bring out that doodle-doo myself,' he said, and sped into the cabin.
+
+'Five.' How Slightly longed to say it. He wetted his lips to be ready,
+but Hook came staggering out, without his lantern.
+
+'Something blew out the light,' he said a little unsteadily.
+
+'Something!' echoed Mullins.
+
+'What of Cecco?' demanded Noodler.
+
+'He's as dead as Jukes,' said Hook shortly.
+
+His reluctance to return to the cabin impressed them all unfavourably,
+and the mutinous sounds again broke forth. All pirates are
+superstitious; and Cookson cried, 'They do say the surest sign a ship's
+accurst is when there's one on board more than can be accounted for.'
+
+'I've heard,' muttered Mullins, 'he always boards the pirate craft at
+last. Had he a tail, captain?'
+
+'They say,' said another, looking viciously at Hook, 'that when he
+comes it's in the likeness of the wickedest man aboard.'
+
+'Had he a hook, captain?' asked Cookson insolently; and one after
+another took up the cry, 'The ship's doomed.' At this the children could
+not resist raising a cheer. Hook had well-nigh forgotten his prisoners,
+but as he swung round on them now his face lit up again.
+
+'Lads,' he cried to his crew, 'here's a notion. Open the cabin door and
+drive them in. Let them fight the doodle-doo for their lives. If they
+kill him, we're so much the better; if he kills them, we're none the
+worse.'
+
+For the last time his dogs admired Hook, and devotedly they did his
+bidding. The boys, pretending to struggle, were pushed into the cabin
+and the door was closed on them.
+
+'Now, listen,' cried Hook, and all listened. But not one dared to face
+the door. Yes, one, Wendy, who all this time had been bound to the mast.
+It was for neither a scream nor a crow that she was watching; it was for
+the reappearance of Peter.
+
+She had not long to wait. In the cabin he had found the thing for which
+he had gone in search: the key that would free the children of their
+manacles; and now they all stole forth, armed with such weapons as they
+could find. First signing to them to hide, Peter cut Wendy's bonds, and
+then nothing could have been easier than for them all to fly off
+together; but one thing barred the way, an oath, 'Hook or me this time.'
+So when he had freed Wendy, he whispered to her to conceal herself with
+the others, and himself took her place by the mast, her cloak around him
+so that he should pass for her. Then he took a great breath and crowed.
+
+To the pirates it was a voice crying that all the boys lay slain in the
+cabin; and they were panic-stricken. Hook tried to hearten them; but
+like the dogs he had made them they showed him their fangs, and he knew
+that if he took his eyes off them now they would leap at him.
+
+'Lads,' he said, ready to cajole or strike as need be, but never
+quailing for an instant, 'I've thought it out. There's a Jonah abroad.'
+
+'Ay,' they snarled, 'a man wi' a hook.'
+
+'No, lads, no, it's the girl. Never was luck on a pirate ship wi' a
+woman on board. We'll right the ship when she's gone.'
+
+Some of them remembered that this had been a saying of Flint's. 'It's
+worth trying,' they said doubtfully.
+
+'Fling the girl overboard,' cried Hook; and they made a rush at the
+figure in the cloak.
+
+'There's none can save you now, missy,' Mullins hissed jeeringly.
+
+'There's one,' replied the figure.
+
+'Who's that?'
+
+'Peter Pan the avenger!' came the terrible answer; and as he spoke Peter
+flung off his cloak. Then they all knew who 'twas that had been undoing
+them in the cabin, and twice Hook essayed to speak and twice he failed.
+In that frightful moment I think his fierce heart broke.
+
+At last he cried, 'Cleave him to the brisket,' but without conviction.
+
+'Down, boys, and at them,' Peter's voice rang out; and in another moment
+the clash of arms was resounding through the ship. Had the pirates kept
+together it is certain that they would have won; but the onset came
+when they were all unstrung, and they ran hither and thither, striking
+wildly, each thinking himself the last survivor of the crew. Man to man
+they were the stronger; but they fought on the defensive only, which
+enabled the boys to hunt in pairs and choose their quarry. Some of the
+miscreants leapt into the sea; others hid in dark recesses, where they
+were found by Slightly, who did not fight, but ran about with a lantern
+which he flashed in their faces, so that they were half blinded and fell
+an easy prey to the reeking swords of the other boys. There was little
+sound to be heard but the clang of weapons, an occasional screech or
+splash, and Slightly monotonously counting--five--six--seven--eight--
+nine--ten--eleven.
+
+I think all were gone when a group of savage boys surrounded Hook, who
+seemed to have a charmed life, as he kept them at bay in that circle of
+fire. They had done for his dogs, but this man alone seemed to be a
+match for them all. Again and again they closed upon him, and again and
+again he hewed a clear space. He had lifted up one boy with his hook,
+and was using him as a buckler, when another, who had just passed his
+sword through Mullins, sprang into the fray.
+
+'Put up your swords, boys,' cried the newcomer, 'this man is mine.'
+
+[Illustration: "THIS MAN IS MINE!"]
+
+Thus suddenly Hook found himself face to face with Peter. The others
+drew back and formed a ring round them.
+
+For long the two enemies looked at one another; Hook shuddering
+slightly, and Peter with the strange smile upon his face.
+
+'So, Pan,' said Hook at last, 'this is all your doing.'
+
+'Ay, James Hook,' came the stern answer, 'it is all my doing.'
+
+'Proud and insolent youth,' said Hook, 'prepare to meet thy doom.'
+
+'Dark and sinister man,' Peter answered, 'have at thee.'
+
+Without more words they fell to, and for a space there was no advantage
+to either blade. Peter was a superb swordsman, and parried with dazzling
+rapidity; ever and anon he followed up a feint with a lunge that got
+past his foe's defence, but his shorter reach stood him in ill stead,
+and he could not drive the steel home. Hook, scarcely his inferior in
+brilliancy, but not quite so nimble in wrist play, forced him back by
+the weight of his onset, hoping suddenly to end all with a favourite
+thrust, taught him long ago by Barbecue at Rio; but to his astonishment
+he found this thrust turned aside again and again. Then he sought to
+close and give the quietus with his iron hook, which all this time had
+been pawing the air; but Peter doubled under it and, lunging fiercely,
+pierced him in the ribs. At sight of his own blood, whose peculiar
+colour, you remember, was offensive to him, the sword fell from Hook's
+hand, and he was at Peter's mercy.
+
+'Now!' cried all the boys; but with a magnificent gesture Peter invited
+his opponent to pick up his sword. Hook did so instantly, but with a
+tragic feeling that Peter was showing good form.
+
+Hitherto he had thought it was some fiend fighting him, but darker
+suspicions assailed him now.
+
+'Pan, who and what art thou?' he cried huskily.
+
+'I'm youth, I'm joy,' Peter answered at a venture, 'I'm a little bird
+that has broken out of the egg.'
+
+This, of course, was nonsense; but it was proof to the unhappy Hook that
+Peter did not know in the least who or what he was, which is the very
+pinnacle of good form.
+
+'To 't again,' he cried despairingly.
+
+He fought now like a human flail, and every sweep of that terrible sword
+would have severed in twain any man or boy who obstructed it; but Peter
+fluttered round him as if the very wind it made blew him out of the
+danger zone. And again and again he darted in and pricked.
+
+Hook was fighting now without hope. That passionate breast no longer
+asked for life; but for one boon it craved: to see Peter bad form before
+it was cold for ever.
+
+Abandoning the fight he rushed into the powder magazine and fired it.
+
+'In two minutes,' he cried, 'the ship will be blown to pieces.'
+
+Now, now, he thought, true form will show.
+
+But Peter issued from the powder magazine with the shell in his hands,
+and calmly flung it overboard.
+
+What sort of form was Hook himself showing? Misguided man though he was,
+we may be glad, without sympathising with him, that in the end he was
+true to the traditions of his race. The other boys were flying around
+him now, flouting, scornful; and as he staggered about the deck striking
+up at them impotently, his mind was no longer with them; it was
+slouching in the playing fields of long ago, or being sent up for good,
+or watching the wall-game from a famous wall. And his shoes were right,
+and his waistcoat was right, and his tie was right, and his socks were
+right.
+
+James Hook, thou not wholly unheroic figure, farewell.
+
+For we have come to his last moment.
+
+Seeing Peter slowly advancing upon him through the air with dagger
+poised, he sprang upon the bulwarks to cast himself into the sea. He did
+not know that the crocodile was waiting for him; for we purposely
+stopped the clock that this knowledge might be spared him: a little mark
+of respect from us at the end.
+
+He had one last triumph, which I think we need not grudge him. As he
+stood on the bulwark looking over his shoulder at Peter gliding through
+the air, he invited him with a gesture to use his foot. It made Peter
+kick instead of stab.
+
+At last Hook had got the boon for which he craved.
+
+'Bad form,' he cried jeeringly, and went content to the crocodile.
+
+Thus perished James Hook.
+
+'Seventeen,' Slightly sang out; but he was not quite correct in his
+figures. Fifteen paid the penalty for their crimes that night; but two
+reached the shore: Starkey to be captured by the redskins, who made him
+nurse for all their papooses, a melancholy come-down for a pirate; and
+Smee, who henceforth wandered about the world in his spectacles, making
+a precarious living by saying he was the only man that Jas. Hook had
+feared.
+
+Wendy, of course, had stood by taking no part in the fight, though
+watching Peter with glistening eyes; but now that all was over she
+became prominent again. She praised them equally, and shuddered
+delightfully when Michael showed her the place where he had killed one;
+and then she took them into Hook's cabin and pointed to his watch which
+was hanging on a nail. It said 'half-past one'!
+
+The lateness of the hour was almost the biggest thing of all. She got
+them to bed in the pirates' bunks pretty quickly, you may be sure; all
+but Peter, who strutted up and down on deck, until at last he fell
+asleep by the side of Long Tom. He had one of his dreams that night, and
+cried in his sleep for a long time, and Wendy held him tight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE RETURN HOME
+
+
+By two bells that morning they were all stirring their stumps; for there
+was a big sea running; and Tootles, the bo'sun, was among them, with a
+rope's end in his hand and chewing tobacco. They all donned pirate
+clothes cut off at the knee, shaved smartly, and tumbled up, with the
+true nautical roll and hitching their trousers.
+
+It need not be said who was the captain. Nibs and John were first and
+second mate. There was a woman aboard. The rest were tars before the
+mast, and lived in the fo'c'sle. Peter had already lashed himself to the
+wheel; but he piped all hands and delivered a short address to them;
+said he hoped they would do their duty like gallant hearties, but that
+he knew they were the scum of Rio and the Gold Coast, and if they
+snapped at him he would tear them. His bluff strident words struck the
+note sailors understand, and they cheered him lustily. Then a few sharp
+orders were given, and they turned the ship round, and nosed her for the
+mainland.
+
+Captain Pan calculated, after consulting the ship's chart, that if this
+weather lasted they should strike the Azores about the 21st of June,
+after which it would save time to fly.
+
+Some of them wanted it to be an honest ship and others were in favour of
+keeping it a pirate; but the captain treated them as dogs, and they
+dared not express their wishes to him even in a round robin. Instant
+obedience was the only safe thing. Slightly got a dozen for looking
+perplexed when told to take soundings. The general feeling was that
+Peter was honest just now to lull Wendy's suspicions, but that there
+might be a change when the new suit was ready, which, against her will,
+she was making for him out of some of Hook's wickedest garments. It was
+afterwards whispered among them that on the first night he wore this
+suit he sat long in the cabin with Hook's cigar-holder in his mouth and
+one hand clenched, all but the forefinger, which he bent and held
+threateningly aloft like a hook.
+
+Instead of watching the ship, however, we must now return to that
+desolate home from which three of our characters had taken heartless
+flight so long ago. It seems a shame to have neglected No. 14 all this
+time; and yet we may be sure that Mrs. Darling does not blame us. If we
+had returned sooner to look with sorrowful sympathy at her, she would
+probably have cried, 'Don't be silly; what do I matter? Do go back and
+keep an eye on the children.' So long as mothers are like this their
+children will take advantage of them; and they may lay to that.
+
+Even now we venture into that familiar nursery only because its lawful
+occupants are on their way home; we are merely hurrying on in advance of
+them to see that their beds are properly aired and that Mr. and Mrs.
+Darling do not go out for the evening. We are no more than servants. Why
+on earth should their beds be properly aired, seeing that they left them
+in such a thankless hurry? Would it not serve them jolly well right if
+they came back and found that their parents were spending the week-end
+in the country? It would be the moral lesson they have been in need of
+ever since we met them; but if we contrived things in this way Mrs.
+Darling would never forgive us.
+
+One thing I should like to do immensely, and that is to tell her, in the
+way authors have, that the children are coming back, that indeed they
+will be here on Thursday week. This would spoil so completely the
+surprise to which Wendy and John and Michael are looking forward. They
+have been planning it out on the ship: mother's rapture, father's shout
+of joy, Nana's leap through the air to embrace them first, when what
+they ought to be preparing for is a good hiding. How delicious to spoil
+it all by breaking the news in advance; so that when they enter grandly
+Mrs. Darling may not even offer Wendy her mouth, and Mr. Darling may
+exclaim pettishly, 'Dash it all, here are those boys again.' However, we
+should get no thanks even for this. We are beginning to know Mrs.
+Darling by this time, and may be sure that she would upbraid us for
+depriving the children of their little pleasure.
+
+'But, my dear madam, it is ten days till Thursday week; so that by
+telling you what's what, we can save you ten days of unhappiness.'
+
+'Yes, but at what a cost! By depriving the children of ten minutes of
+delight.'
+
+'Oh, if you look at it in that way.'
+
+'What other way is there in which to look at it?'
+
+You see, the woman had no proper spirit. I had meant to say
+extraordinarily nice things about her; but I despise her, and not one of
+them will I say now. She does not really need to be told to have things
+ready, for they are ready. All the beds are aired, and she never leaves
+the house, and observe, the window is open. For all the use we are to
+her, we might go back to the ship. However, as we are here we may as
+well stay and look on. That is all we are, lookers-on. Nobody really
+wants us. So let us watch and say jaggy things, in the hope that some of
+them will hurt.
+
+The only change to be seen in the night-nursery is that between nine
+and six the kennel is no longer there. When the children flew away, Mr.
+Darling felt in his bones that all the blame was his for having chained
+Nana up, and that from first to last she had been wiser than he. Of
+course, as we have seen, he was quite a simple man; indeed he might have
+passed for a boy again if he had been able to take his baldness off; but
+he had also a noble sense of justice and a lion courage to do what
+seemed right to him; and having thought the matter out with anxious care
+after the flight of the children, he went down on all fours and crawled
+into the kennel. To all Mrs. Darling's dear invitations to him to come
+out he replied sadly but firmly:
+
+'No, my own one, this is the place for me.'
+
+In the bitterness of his remorse he swore that he would never leave the
+kennel until his children came back. Of course this was a pity; but
+whatever Mr. Darling did he had to do in excess; otherwise he soon gave
+up doing it. And there never was a more humble man than the once proud
+George Darling, as he sat in the kennel of an evening talking with his
+wife of their children and all their pretty ways.
+
+Very touching was his deference to Nana. He would not let her come into
+the kennel, but on all other matters he followed her wishes implicitly.
+
+Every morning the kennel was carried with Mr. Darling in it to a cab,
+which conveyed him to his office, and he returned home in the same way
+at six. Something of the strength of character of the man will be seen
+if we remember how sensitive he was to the opinion of neighbours: this
+man whose every movement now attracted surprised attention. Inwardly he
+must have suffered torture; but he preserved a calm exterior even when
+the young criticised his little home, and he always lifted his hat
+courteously to any lady who looked inside.
+
+It may have been quixotic, but it was magnificent. Soon the inward
+meaning of it leaked out, and the great heart of the public was touched.
+Crowds followed the cab, cheering it lustily; charming girls scaled it
+to get his autograph; interviews appeared in the better class of papers,
+and society invited him to dinner and added, 'Do come in the kennel.'
+
+On that eventful Thursday week Mrs. Darling was in the night-nursery
+awaiting George's return home: a very sad-eyed woman. Now that we look
+at her closely and remember the gaiety of her in the old days, all gone
+now just because she has lost her babes, I find I won't be able to say
+nasty things about her after all. If she was too fond of her rubbishy
+children she couldn't help it. Look at her in her chair, where she has
+fallen asleep. The corner of her mouth, where one looks first, is almost
+withered up. Her hand moves restlessly on her breast as if she had a
+pain there. Some like Peter best and some like Wendy best, but I like
+her best. Suppose, to make her happy, we whisper to her in her sleep
+that the brats are coming back. They are really within two miles of the
+window now, and flying strong, but all we need whisper is that they are
+on the way. Let's.
+
+It is a pity we did it, for she has started up, calling their names; and
+there is no one in the room but Nana.
+
+'O Nana, I dreamt my dear ones had come back.'
+
+Nana had filmy eyes, but all she could do was to put her paw gently on
+her mistress's lap; and they were sitting together thus when the kennel
+was brought back. As Mr. Darling puts his head out at it to kiss his
+wife, we see that his face is more worn than of yore, but has a softer
+expression.
+
+He gave his hat to Liza, who took it scornfully; for she had no
+imagination, and was quite incapable of understanding the motives of
+such a man. Outside, the crowd who had accompanied the cab home were
+still cheering, and he was naturally not unmoved.
+
+'Listen to them,' he said; 'it is very gratifying.'
+
+'Lot of little boys,' sneered Liza.
+
+'There were several adults to-day,' he assured her with a faint flush;
+but when she tossed her head he had not a word of reproof for her.
+Social success had not spoilt him; it had made him sweeter. For some
+time he sat half out of the kennel, talking with Mrs. Darling of this
+success, and pressing her hand reassuringly when she said she hoped his
+head would not be turned by it.
+
+'But if I had been a weak man,' he said. 'Good heavens, if I had been a
+weak man!'
+
+'And, George,' she said timidly, 'you are as full of remorse as ever,
+aren't you?'
+
+'Full of remorse as ever, dearest! See my punishment: living in a
+kennel.'
+
+'But it is punishment, isn't it, George? You are sure you are not
+enjoying it?'
+
+'My love!'
+
+You may be sure she begged his pardon; and then, feeling drowsy, he
+curled round in the kennel.
+
+'Won't you play me to sleep,' he asked, 'on the nursery piano?' and as
+she was crossing to the day nursery he added thoughtlessly, 'And shut
+that window. I feel a draught.'
+
+'O George, never ask me to do that. The window must always be left open
+for them, always, always.'
+
+Now it was his turn to beg her pardon; and she went into the day nursery
+and played, and soon he was asleep; and while he slept, Wendy and John
+and Michael flew into the room.
+
+Oh no. We have written it so, because that was the charming arrangement
+planned by them before we left the ship; but something must have
+happened since then, for it is not they who have flown in, it is Peter
+and Tinker Bell.
+
+Peter's first words tell all.
+
+'Quick, Tink,' he whispered, 'close the window; bar it. That's right.
+Now you and I must get away by the door; and when Wendy comes she will
+think her mother has barred her out; and she will have to go back with
+me.'
+
+Now I understand what had hitherto puzzled me, why when Peter had
+exterminated the pirates he did not return to the island and leave Tink
+to escort the children to the mainland. This trick had been in his head
+all the time.
+
+Instead of feeling that he was behaving badly he danced with glee; then
+he peeped into the day-nursery to see who was playing. He whispered to
+Tink, 'It's Wendy's mother. She is a pretty lady, but not so pretty as
+my mother. Her mouth is full of thimbles, but not so full as my mother's
+was.'
+
+Of course he knew nothing whatever about his mother; but he sometimes
+bragged about her.
+
+He did not know the tune, which was 'Home, Sweet Home,' but he knew it
+was saying, 'Come back, Wendy, Wendy, Wendy'; and he cried exultantly,
+'You will never see Wendy again, lady, for the window is barred.'
+
+He peeped in again to see why the music had stopped; and now he saw that
+Mrs. Darling had laid her head on the box, and that two tears were
+sitting on her eyes.
+
+'She wants me to unbar the window,' thought Peter, 'but I won't, not I.'
+
+He peeped again, and the tears were still there, or another two had
+taken their place.
+
+'She's awfully fond of Wendy,' he said to himself. He was angry with her
+now for not seeing why she could not have Wendy.
+
+The reason was so simple: 'I'm fond of her too. We can't both have her,
+lady.'
+
+But the lady would not make the best of it, and he was unhappy. He
+ceased to look at her, but even then she would not let go of him. He
+skipped about and made funny faces, but when he stopped it was just as
+if she were inside him, knocking.
+
+'Oh, all right,' he said at last, and gulped. Then he unbarred the
+window. 'Come on, Tink,' he cried, with a frightful sneer at the laws
+of nature; 'we don't want any silly mothers'; and he flew away.
+
+Thus Wendy and John and Michael found the window open for them after
+all, which of course was more than they deserved. They alighted on the
+floor, quite unashamed of themselves; and the youngest one had already
+forgotten his home.
+
+'John,' he said, looking around him doubtfully, 'I think I have been
+here before.'
+
+'Of course you have, you silly. There is your old bed.'
+
+'So it is,' Michael said, but not with much conviction.
+
+'I say,' cried John, 'the kennel!' and he dashed across to look into it.
+
+'Perhaps Nana is inside it,' Wendy said.
+
+But John whistled. 'Hullo,' he said, 'there's a man inside it.'
+
+'It's father!' exclaimed Wendy.
+
+'Let me see father,' Michael begged eagerly, and he took a good look.
+'He is not so big as the pirate I killed,' he said with such frank
+disappointment that I am glad Mr. Darling was asleep; it would have
+been sad if those had been the first words he heard his little Michael
+say.
+
+Wendy and John had been taken aback somewhat at finding their father in
+the kennel.
+
+'Surely,' said John, like one who had lost faith in his memory, 'he used
+not to sleep in the kennel?'
+
+'John,' Wendy said falteringly, 'perhaps we don't remember the old life
+as well as we thought we did.'
+
+A chill fell upon them; and serve them right.
+
+'It is very careless of mother,' said that young scoundrel John, 'not to
+be here when we come back.'
+
+It was then that Mrs. Darling began playing again.
+
+'It's mother!' cried Wendy, peeping.
+
+'So it is!' said John.
+
+'Then are you not really our mother, Wendy?' asked Michael, who was
+surely sleepy.
+
+'Oh dear!' exclaimed Wendy, with her first real twinge of remorse, 'it
+was quite time we came back.'
+
+'Let us creep in,' John suggested, 'and put our hands over her eyes.'
+
+But Wendy, who saw that they must break the joyous news more gently,
+had a better plan.
+
+'Let us all slip into our beds, and be there when she comes in, just as
+if we had never been away.'
+
+And so when Mrs. Darling went back to the night-nursery to see if her
+husband was asleep, all the beds were occupied. The children waited for
+her cry of joy, but it did not come. She saw them, but she did not
+believe they were there. You see, she saw them in their beds so often in
+her dreams that she thought this was just the dream hanging around her
+still.
+
+She sat down in the chair by the fire, where in the old days she had
+nursed them.
+
+They could not understand this, and a cold fear fell upon all the three
+of them.
+
+'Mother!' Wendy cried.
+
+'That's Wendy,' she said, but still she was sure it was the dream.
+
+'Mother!'
+
+'That's John,' she said.
+
+'Mother!' cried Michael. He knew her now.
+
+'That's Michael,' she said, and she stretched out her arms for the
+three little selfish children they would never envelop again. Yes, they
+did, they went round Wendy and John and Michael, who had slipped out of
+bed and run to her.
+
+'George, George,' she cried when she could speak; and Mr. Darling woke
+to share her bliss, and Nana came rushing in. There could not have been
+a lovelier sight; but there was none to see it except a strange boy who
+was staring in at the window. He had ecstasies innumerable that other
+children can never know; but he was looking through the window at the
+one joy from which he must be for ever barred.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+WHEN WENDY GREW UP
+
+
+I hope you want to know what became of the other boys. They were waiting
+below to give Wendy time to explain about them; and when they had
+counted five hundred they went up. They went up by the stair, because
+they thought this would make a better impression. They stood in a row in
+front of Mrs. Darling, with their hats off, and wishing they were not
+wearing their pirate clothes. They said nothing, but their eyes asked
+her to have them. They ought to have looked at Mr. Darling also, but
+they forgot about him.
+
+Of course Mrs. Darling said at once that she would have them; but Mr.
+Darling was curiously depressed, and they saw that he considered six a
+rather large number.
+
+'I must say,' he said to Wendy, 'that you don't do things by halves,' a
+grudging remark which the twins thought was pointed at them.
+
+The first twin was the proud one, and he asked, flushing, 'Do you think
+we should be too much of a handful, sir? Because if so we can go away.'
+
+'Father!' Wendy cried, shocked; but still the cloud was on him. He knew
+he was behaving unworthily, but he could not help it.
+
+'We could lie doubled up,' said Nibs.
+
+'I always cut their hair myself,' said Wendy.
+
+'George!' Mrs. Darling exclaimed, pained to see her dear one showing
+himself in such an unfavourable light.
+
+Then he burst into tears, and the truth came out. He was as glad to have
+them as she was, he said, but he thought they should have asked his
+consent as well as hers, instead of treating him as a cypher in his own
+house.
+
+'I don't think he is a cypher,' Tootles cried instantly. 'Do you think
+he is a cypher, Curly?'
+
+'No, I don't. Do you think he is a cypher, Slightly?'
+
+'Rather not. Twin, what do you think?'
+
+It turned out that not one of them thought him a cypher; and he was
+absurdly gratified, and said he would find space for them all in the
+drawing-room if they fitted in.
+
+'We'll fit in, sir,' they assured him.
+
+'Then follow the leader,' he cried gaily. 'Mind you, I am not sure that
+we have a drawing-room, but we pretend we have, and it's all the same.
+Hoop la!'
+
+He went off dancing through the house, and they all cried 'Hoop la!' and
+danced after him, searching for the drawing-room; and I forget whether
+they found it, but at any rate they found corners, and they all fitted
+in.
+
+As for Peter, he saw Wendy once again before he flew away. He did not
+exactly come to the window, but he brushed against it in passing, so
+that she could open it if she liked and call to him. That was what she
+did.
+
+'Hullo, Wendy, good-bye,' he said.
+
+'Oh dear, are you going away?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'You don't feel, Peter,' she said falteringly, 'that you would like to
+say anything to my parents about a very sweet subject?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'About me, Peter?'
+
+'No.'
+
+Mrs. Darling came to the window, for at present she was keeping a sharp
+eye on Wendy. She told Peter that she had adopted all the other boys,
+and would like to adopt him also.
+
+'Would you send me to school?' he inquired craftily.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And then to an office?'
+
+'I suppose so.'
+
+'Soon I should be a man?'
+
+'Very soon.'
+
+'I don't want to go to school and learn solemn things,' he told her
+passionately. 'I don't want to be a man. O Wendy's mother, if I was to
+wake up and feel there was a beard!'
+
+'Peter,' said Wendy the comforter, 'I should love you in a beard'; and
+Mrs. Darling stretched out her arms to him, but he repulsed her.
+
+'Keep back, lady, no one is going to catch me and make me a man.'
+
+'But where are you going to live?'
+
+'With Tink in the house we built for Wendy. The fairies are to put it
+high up among the tree tops where they sleep at nights.'
+
+'How lovely,' cried Wendy so longingly that Mrs. Darling tightened her
+grip.
+
+'I thought all the fairies were dead,' Mrs. Darling said.
+
+'There are always a lot of young ones,' explained Wendy, who was now
+quite an authority, 'because you see when a new baby laughs for the
+first time a new fairy is born, and as there are always new babies there
+are always new fairies. They live in nests on the tops of trees; and the
+mauve ones are boys and the white ones are girls, and the blue ones are
+just little sillies who are not sure what they are.'
+
+'I shall have such fun,' said Peter, with one eye on Wendy.
+
+'It will be rather lonely in the evening,' she said, 'sitting by the
+fire.'
+
+'I shall have Tink.'
+
+'Tink can't go a twentieth part of the way round,' she reminded him a
+little tartly.
+
+'Sneaky tell-tale!' Tink called out from somewhere round the corner.
+
+'It doesn't matter,' Peter said.
+
+'O Peter, you know it matters.'
+
+'Well, then, come with me to the little house.'
+
+'May I, mummy?'
+
+'Certainly not. I have got you home again, and I mean to keep you.'
+
+'But he does so need a mother.'
+
+'So do you, my love.'
+
+'Oh, all right,' Peter said, as if he had asked her from politeness
+merely; but Mrs. Darling saw his mouth twitch, and she made this
+handsome offer: to let Wendy go to him for a week every year to do his
+spring cleaning. Wendy would have preferred a more permanent
+arrangement; and it seemed to her that spring would be long in coming;
+but this promise sent Peter away quite gay again. He had no sense of
+time, and was so full of adventures that all I have told you about him
+is only a halfpenny-worth of them. I suppose it was because Wendy knew
+this that her last words to him were these rather plaintive ones:
+
+'You won't forget me, Peter, will you, before spring-cleaning time
+comes?'
+
+Of course Peter promised; and then he flew away. He took Mrs. Darling's
+kiss with him. The kiss that had been for no one else Peter took quite
+easily. Funny. But she seemed satisfied.
+
+Of course all the boys went to school; and most of them got into Class
+III., but Slightly was put first into Class IV. and then into Class V.
+Class I. is the top class. Before they had attended school a week they
+saw what goats they had been not to remain on the island; but it was too
+late now, and soon they settled down to being as ordinary as you or me
+or Jenkins minor. It is sad to have to say that the power to fly
+gradually left them. At first Nana tied their feet to the bed-posts so
+that they should not fly away in the night; and one of their diversions
+by day was to pretend to fall off 'buses; but by and by they ceased to
+tug at their bonds in bed, and found that they hurt themselves when they
+let go of the 'bus. In time they could not even fly after their hats.
+Want of practice, they called it; but what it really meant was that they
+no longer believed.
+
+Michael believed longer than the other boys, though they jeered at him;
+so he was with Wendy when Peter came for her at the end of the first
+year. She flew away with Peter in the frock she had woven from leaves
+and berries in the Neverland, and her one fear was that he might notice
+how short it had become; but he never noticed, he had so much to say
+about himself.
+
+She had looked forward to thrilling talks with him about old times, but
+new adventures had crowded the old ones from his mind.
+
+'Who is Captain Hook?' he asked with interest when she spoke of the arch
+enemy.
+
+'Don't you remember,' she asked, amazed, 'how you killed him and saved
+all our lives?'
+
+'I forget them after I kill them,' he replied carelessly.
+
+When she expressed a doubtful hope that Tinker Bell would be glad to see
+her he said, 'Who is Tinker Bell?'
+
+'O Peter,' she said, shocked; but even when she explained he could not
+remember.
+
+'There are such a lot of them,' he said. 'I expect she is no more.'
+
+I expect he was right, for fairies don't live long, but they are so
+little that a short time seems a good while to them.
+
+Wendy was pained too to find that the past year was but as yesterday to
+Peter; it had seemed such a long year of waiting to her. But he was
+exactly as fascinating as ever, and they had a lovely spring cleaning in
+the little house on the tree tops.
+
+Next year he did not come for her. She waited in a new frock because the
+old one simply would not meet; but he never came.
+
+'Perhaps he is ill,' Michael said.
+
+'You know he is never ill.'
+
+Michael came close to her and whispered, with a shiver, 'Perhaps there
+is no such person, Wendy!' and then Wendy would have cried if Michael
+had not been crying.
+
+Peter came next spring cleaning; and the strange thing was that he never
+knew he had missed a year.
+
+That was the last time the girl Wendy ever saw him. For a little longer
+she tried for his sake not to have growing pains; and she felt she was
+untrue to him when she got a prize for general knowledge. But the years
+came and went without bringing the careless boy; and when they met again
+Wendy was a married woman, and Peter was no more to her than a little
+dust in the box in which she had kept her toys. Wendy was grown up. You
+need not be sorry for her. She was one of the kind that likes to grow
+up. In the end she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than other
+girls.
+
+All the boys were grown up and done for by this time; so it is scarcely
+worth while saying anything more about them. You may see the twins and
+Nibs and Curly any day going to an office, each carrying a little bag
+and an umbrella. Michael is an engine-driver. Slightly married a lady of
+title, and so he became a lord. You see that judge in a wig coming out
+at the iron door? That used to be Tootles. The bearded man who doesn't
+know any story to tell his children was once John.
+
+Wendy was married in white with a pink sash. It is strange to think
+that Peter did not alight in the church and forbid the banns.
+
+Years rolled on again, and Wendy had a daughter. This ought not to be
+written in ink but in a golden splash.
+
+She was called Jane, and always had an odd inquiring look, as if from
+the moment she arrived on the mainland she wanted to ask questions. When
+she was old enough to ask them they were mostly about Peter Pan. She
+loved to hear of Peter, and Wendy told her all she could remember in the
+very nursery from which the famous flight had taken place. It was Jane's
+nursery now, for her father had bought it at the three per cents. from
+Wendy's father, who was no longer fond of stairs. Mrs. Darling was now
+dead and forgotten.
+
+There were only two beds in the nursery now, Jane's and her nurse's; and
+there was no kennel, for Nana also had passed away. She died of old age,
+and at the end she had been rather difficult to get on with; being very
+firmly convinced that no one knew how to look after children except
+herself.
+
+Once a week Jane's nurse had her evening off; and then it was Wendy's
+part to put Jane to bed. That was the time for stories. It was Jane's
+invention to raise the sheet over her mother's head and her own, thus
+making a tent, and in the awful darkness to whisper:
+
+'What do we see now?'
+
+'I don't think I see anything to-night,' says Wendy, with a feeling that
+if Nana were here she would object to further conversation.
+
+'Yes, you do,' says Jane, 'you see when you were a little girl.'
+
+'That is a long time ago, sweetheart,' says Wendy. 'Ah me, how time
+flies!'
+
+'Does it fly,' asks the artful child, 'the way you flew when you were a
+little girl?'
+
+'The way I flew! Do you know, Jane, I sometimes wonder whether I ever
+did really fly.'
+
+'Yes, you did.'
+
+'The dear old days when I could fly!'
+
+'Why can't you fly now, mother?'
+
+'Because I am grown up, dearest. When people grow up they forget the
+way.'
+
+'Why do they forget the way?'
+
+'Because they are no longer gay and innocent and heartless. It is only
+the gay and innocent and heartless who can fly.'
+
+'What is gay and innocent and heartless? I do wish I was gay and
+innocent and heartless.'
+
+Or perhaps Wendy admits that she does see something. 'I do believe,' she
+says, 'that it is this nursery.'
+
+'I do believe it is,' says Jane. 'Go on.'
+
+They are now embarked on the great adventure of the night when Peter
+flew in looking for his shadow.
+
+'The foolish fellow,' says Wendy, 'tried to stick it on with soap, and
+when he could not he cried, and that woke me, and I sewed it on for
+him.'
+
+'You have missed a bit,' interrupts Jane, who now knows the story better
+than her mother. 'When you saw him sitting on the floor crying what did
+you say?'
+
+'I sat up in bed and I said, "Boy, why are you crying?"'
+
+'Yes, that was it,' says Jane, with a big breath.
+
+'And then he flew us all away to the Neverland and the fairies and the
+pirates and the redskins and the mermaids' lagoon, and the home under
+the ground, and the little house.'
+
+'Yes! which did you like best of all?'
+
+'I think I liked the home under the ground best of all.'
+
+'Yes, so do I. What was the last thing Peter ever said to you?'
+
+'The last thing he ever said to me was, "Just always be waiting for me,
+and then some night you will hear me crowing."'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'But, alas, he forgot all about me.' Wendy said it with a smile. She was
+as grown up as that.
+
+'What did his crow sound like?' Jane asked one evening.
+
+'It was like this,' Wendy said, trying to imitate Peter's crow.
+
+'No, it wasn't,' Jane said gravely, 'it was like this'; and she did it
+ever so much better than her mother.
+
+Wendy was a little startled. 'My darling, how can you know?'
+
+'I often hear it when I am sleeping,' Jane said.
+
+'Ah yes, many girls hear it when they are sleeping, but I was the only
+one who heard it awake.'
+
+'Lucky you,' said Jane.
+
+And then one night came the tragedy. It was the spring of the year, and
+the story had been told for the night, and Jane was now asleep in her
+bed. Wendy was sitting on the floor, very close to the fire, so as to
+see to darn, for there was no other light in the nursery; and while she
+sat darning she heard a crow. Then the window blew open as of old, and
+Peter dropped on the floor.
+
+He was exactly the same as ever, and Wendy saw at once that he still had
+all his first teeth.
+
+He was a little boy, and she was grown up. She huddled by the fire not
+daring to move, helpless and guilty, a big woman.
+
+'Hullo, Wendy,' he said, not noticing any difference, for he was
+thinking chiefly of himself; and in the dim light her white dress might
+have been the night-gown in which he had seen her first.
+
+'Hullo, Peter,' she replied faintly, squeezing herself as small as
+possible. Something inside her was crying 'Woman, woman, let go of me.'
+
+'Hullo, where is John?' he asked, suddenly missing the third bed.
+
+'John is not here now,' she gasped.
+
+'Is Michael asleep?' he asked, with a careless glance at Jane.
+
+'Yes,' she answered; and now she felt that she was untrue to Jane as
+well as to Peter.
+
+'That is not Michael,' she said quickly, lest a judgment should fall on
+her.
+
+Peter looked. 'Hullo, is it a new one?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Boy or girl?'
+
+'Girl.'
+
+Now surely he would understand; but not a bit of it.
+
+'Peter,' she said, faltering, 'are you expecting me to fly away with
+you?'
+
+'Of course that is why I have come.' He added a little sternly, 'Have
+you forgotten that this is spring-cleaning time?'
+
+She knew it was useless to say that he had let many spring-cleaning
+times pass.
+
+'I can't come,' she said apologetically, 'I have forgotten how to fly.'
+
+'I'll soon teach you again.'
+
+'O Peter, don't waste the fairy dust on me.'
+
+She had risen; and now at last a fear assailed him. 'What is it?' he
+cried, shrinking.
+
+'I will turn up the light,' she said, 'and then you can see for
+yourself.'
+
+For almost the only time in his life that I know of, Peter was afraid.
+'Don't turn up the light,' he cried.
+
+She let her hands play in the hair of the tragic boy. She was not a
+little girl heart-broken about him; she was a grown woman smiling at it
+all, but they were wet smiles.
+
+Then she turned up the light, and Peter saw. He gave a cry of pain; and
+when the tall beautiful creature stooped to lift him in her arms he drew
+back sharply.
+
+'What is it?' he cried again.
+
+She had to tell him.
+
+'I am old, Peter. I am ever so much more than twenty. I grew up long
+ago.'
+
+'You promised not to!'
+
+'I couldn't help it. I am a married woman, Peter.'
+
+'No, you're not.'
+
+'Yes, and the little girl in the bed is my baby.'
+
+'No, she's not.'
+
+But he supposed she was; and he took a step towards the sleeping child
+with his dagger upraised. Of course he did not strike. He sat down on
+the floor instead and sobbed; and Wendy did not know how to comfort him,
+though she could have done it so easily once. She was only a woman now,
+and she ran out of the room to try to think.
+
+Peter continued to cry, and soon his sobs woke Jane. She sat up in bed,
+and was interested at once.
+
+[Illustration: PETER AND JANE]
+
+'Boy,' she said, 'why are you crying?'
+
+Peter rose and bowed to her, and she bowed to him from the bed.
+
+'Hullo,' he said.
+
+'Hullo,' said Jane.
+
+'My name is Peter Pan,' he told her.
+
+'Yes, I know.'
+
+'I came back for my mother,' he explained; 'to take her to the
+Neverland.'
+
+'Yes, I know,' Jane said, 'I been waiting for you.'
+
+When Wendy returned diffidently she found Peter sitting on the bed-post
+crowing gloriously, while Jane in her nighty was flying round the room
+in solemn ecstasy.
+
+'She is my mother,' Peter explained; and Jane descended and stood by his
+side, with the look on her face that he liked to see on ladies when they
+gazed at him.
+
+'He does so need a mother,' Jane said.
+
+'Yes, I know,' Wendy admitted rather forlornly; 'no one knows it so well
+as I.'
+
+'Good-bye,' said Peter to Wendy; and he rose in the air, and the
+shameless Jane rose with him; it was already her easiest way of moving
+about.
+
+Wendy rushed to the window.
+
+'No, no,' she cried.
+
+'It is just for spring-cleaning time,' Jane said; 'he wants me always to
+do his spring cleaning.'
+
+'If only I could go with you,' Wendy sighed.
+
+'You see you can't fly,' said Jane.
+
+Of course in the end Wendy let them fly away together. Our last glimpse
+of her shows her at the window, watching them receding into the sky
+until they were as small as stars.
+
+As you look at Wendy you may see her hair becoming white, and her figure
+little again, for all this happened long ago. Jane is now a common
+grown-up, with a daughter called Margaret; and every spring-cleaning
+time, except when he forgets, Peter comes for Margaret and takes her to
+the Neverland, where she tells him stories about himself, to which he
+listens eagerly. When Margaret grows up she will have a daughter, who is
+to be Peter's mother in turn; and thus it will go on, so long as
+children are gay and innocent and heartless.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Peter and Wendy, by James Matthew Barrie
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PETER AND WENDY ***
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Peter And Wendy, by J. M. Barrie.
+    </title>
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Peter and Wendy, by James Matthew Barrie
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Peter and Wendy
+
+Author: James Matthew Barrie
+
+Illustrator: F. D. Bedford
+
+Release Date: September 18, 2008 [EBook #26654]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PETER AND WENDY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chris Curnow, Lindy Walsh, Martin Pettit The
+Internet Archive for help with the illustrations and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h1>PETER AND WENDY</h1>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="center"><img src="images/icover.jpg" width='447' height='700' alt="cover" /></div>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="i005" id="i005"></a><img src="images/i005.jpg" width='495' height='700' alt="THE NEVER NEVER LAND" /></div>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="i006" id="i006"></a><img src="images/i006.jpg" width='499' height='700' alt="PETER AND WENDY BY J. M. BARRIE ILLUSTRATED BY F. D. BEDFORD NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS" /></div>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+<!-- Autogenerated TOC. Modify or delete as required. -->
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</a></h3>
+
+<h4>PETER BREAKS THROUGH</h4>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</a></h3>
+
+<h4>THE SHADOW</h4>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</a></h3>
+
+<h4>COME AWAY, COME AWAY!</h4>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</a></h3>
+
+<h4>THE FLIGHT</h4>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</a></h3>
+
+<h4>THE ISLAND COME TRUE</h4>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</a></h3>
+
+<h4>THE LITTLE HOUSE</h4>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_VII">CHAPTER VII</a></h3>
+
+<h4>THE HOME UNDER THE GROUND</h4>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_VIII">CHAPTER VIII</a></h3>
+
+<h4>THE MERMAIDS' LAGOON</h4>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_IX">CHAPTER IX</a></h3>
+
+<h4>THE NEVER BIRD</h4>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_X">CHAPTER X</a></h3>
+
+<h4>THE HAPPY HOME</h4>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XI">CHAPTER XI</a></h3>
+
+<h4>WENDY'S STORY</h4>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XII">CHAPTER XII</a></h3>
+
+<h4>THE CHILDREN ARE CARRIED OFF</h4>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XIII">CHAPTER XIII</a></h3>
+
+<h4>DO YOU BELIEVE IN FAIRIES?</h4>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XIV">CHAPTER XIV</a></h3>
+
+<h4>THE PIRATE SHIP</h4>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XV">CHAPTER XV</a></h3>
+
+<h4>'HOOK OR ME THIS TIME'</h4>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XVI">CHAPTER XVI</a></h3>
+
+<h4>THE RETURN HOME</h4>
+
+<h3><a href="#CHAPTER_XVII">CHAPTER XVII</a></h3>
+
+<h4>WHEN WENDY GREW UP</h4>
+
+<hr />
+
+<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<h3><a href="#i005">THE NEVER NEVER LAND</a></h3>
+
+<h3><a href="#i006">TITLE PAGE</a></h3>
+
+<h3><a href="#i044">PETER FLEW IN</a></h3>
+
+<h3><a href="#i090">THE BIRDS WERE FLOWN</a></h3>
+
+<h3><a href="#i078">LET HIM KEEP WHO CAN</a></h3>
+
+<h3><a href="#i130">PETER ON GUARD</a></h3>
+
+<h3><a href="#i148">SUMMER DAYS ON THE LAGOON</a></h3>
+
+<h3><a href="#i166">"TO DIE WILL BE AN AWFULLY BIG ADVENTURE"</a></h3>
+
+<h3><a href="#i192">WENDY'S STORY</a></h3>
+
+<h3><a href="#i218">FLUNG LIKE BALES</a></h3>
+
+<h3><a href="#i228">HOOK OR ME THIS TIME</a></h3>
+
+<h3><a href="#i254">"THIS MAN IS MINE!"</a></h3>
+
+<h3><a href="#i288">PETER AND JANE</a></h3>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>PETER BREAKS THROUGH</h3>
+
+<p>All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow
+up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old
+she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with
+it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for
+Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, 'Oh, why can't you
+remain like this for ever!' This was all that passed between them on the
+subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always
+know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.</p>
+
+<p>Of course they lived at 14, and until Wendy came her mother was the
+chief one. She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span> sweet
+mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the
+other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there
+is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that
+Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the
+right-hand corner.</p>
+
+<p>The way Mr. Darling won her was this: the many gentlemen who had been
+boys when she was a girl discovered simultaneously that they loved her,
+and they all ran to her house to propose to her except Mr. Darling, who
+took a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her. He got all of her,
+except the innermost box and the kiss. He never knew about the box, and
+in time he gave up trying for the kiss. Wendy thought Napoleon could
+have got it, but I can picture him trying, and then going off in a
+passion, slamming the door.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Darling used to boast to Wendy that her mother not only loved him
+but respected him. He was one of those deep ones who know about stocks
+and shares. Of course no one really knows, but he quite seemed to know,
+and he often said stocks were up and shares<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span> were down in a way that
+would have made any woman respect him.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Darling was married in white, and at first she kept the books
+perfectly, almost gleefully, as if it were a game, not so much as a
+brussels sprout was missing; but by and by whole cauliflowers dropped
+out, and instead of them there were pictures of babies without faces.
+She drew them when she should have been totting up. They were Mrs.
+Darling's guesses.</p>
+
+<p>Wendy came first, then John, then Michael.</p>
+
+<p>For a week or two after Wendy came it was doubtful whether they would be
+able to keep her, as she was another mouth to feed. Mr. Darling was
+frightfully proud of her, but he was very honourable, and he sat on the
+edge of Mrs. Darling's bed, holding her hand and calculating expenses,
+while she looked at him imploringly. She wanted to risk it, come what
+might, but that was not his way; his way was with a pencil and a piece
+of paper, and if she confused him with suggestions he had to begin at
+the beginning again.</p>
+
+<p>'Now don't interrupt,' he would beg of her. 'I have one pound seventeen
+here, and two<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span> and six at the office; I can cut off my coffee at the
+office, say ten shillings, making two nine and six, with your eighteen
+and three makes three nine seven, with five naught naught in my
+cheque-book makes eight nine seven,&mdash;who is that moving?&mdash;eight nine
+seven, dot and carry seven&mdash;don't speak, my own&mdash;and the pound you lent
+to that man who came to the door&mdash;quiet, child&mdash;dot and carry
+child&mdash;there, you've done it!&mdash;did I say nine nine seven? yes, I said
+nine nine seven; the question is, can we try it for a year on nine nine
+seven?'</p>
+
+<p>'Of course we can, George,' she cried. But she was prejudiced in Wendy's
+favour, and he was really the grander character of the two.</p>
+
+<p>'Remember mumps,' he warned her almost threateningly, and off he went
+again. 'Mumps one pound, that is what I have put down, but I daresay it
+will be more like thirty shillings&mdash;don't speak&mdash;measles one five,
+German measles half a guinea, makes two fifteen six&mdash;don't waggle your
+finger&mdash;whooping-cough, say fifteen shillings'&mdash;and so on it went, and
+it added up differently each time; but at last Wendy just got through,
+with mumps reduced<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span> to twelve six, and the two kinds of measles treated
+as one.</p>
+
+<p>There was the same excitement over John, and Michael had even a narrower
+squeak; but both were kept, and soon you might have seen the three of
+them going in a row to Miss Fulsom's Kindergarten school, accompanied by
+their nurse.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Darling loved to have everything just so, and Mr. Darling had a
+passion for being exactly like his neighbours; so, of course, they had a
+nurse. As they were poor, owing to the amount of milk the children
+drank, this nurse was a prim Newfoundland dog, called Nana, who had
+belonged to no one in particular until the Darlings engaged her. She had
+always thought children important, however, and the Darlings had become
+acquainted with her in Kensington Gardens, where she spent most of her
+spare time peeping into perambulators, and was much hated by careless
+nursemaids, whom she followed to their homes and complained of to their
+mistresses. She proved to be quite a treasure of a nurse. How thorough
+she was at bath-time; and up at any moment of the night if one of her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>
+charges made the slightest cry. Of course her kennel was in the nursery.
+She had a genius for knowing when a cough is a thing to have no patience
+with and when it needs stocking round your throat. She believed to her
+last day in old-fashioned remedies like rhubarb leaf, and made sounds of
+contempt over all this new-fangled talk about germs, and so on. It was a
+lesson in propriety to see her escorting the children to school, walking
+sedately by their side when they were well behaved, and butting them
+back into line if they strayed. On John's footer days she never once
+forgot his sweater, and she usually carried an umbrella in her mouth in
+case of rain. There is a room in the basement of Miss Fulsom's school
+where the nurses wait. They sat on forms, while Nana lay on the floor,
+but that was the only difference. They affected to ignore her as of an
+inferior social status to themselves, and she despised their light talk.
+She resented visits to the nursery from Mrs. Darling's friends, but if
+they did come she first whipped off Michael's pinafore and put him into
+the one with blue braiding, and smoothed out Wendy and made a dash at
+John's hair.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span></p><p>No nursery could possibly have been conducted more correctly, and Mr.
+Darling knew it, yet he sometimes wondered uneasily whether the
+neighbours talked.</p>
+
+<p>He had his position in the city to consider.</p>
+
+<p>Nana also troubled him in another way. He had sometimes a feeling that
+she did not admire him. 'I know she admires you tremendously, George,'
+Mrs. Darling would assure him, and then she would sign to the children
+to be specially nice to father. Lovely dances followed, in which the
+only other servant, Liza, was sometimes allowed to join. Such a midget
+she looked in her long skirt and maid's cap, though she had sworn, when
+engaged, that she would never see ten again. The gaiety of those romps!
+And gayest of all was Mrs. Darling, who would pirouette so wildly that
+all you could see of her was the kiss, and then if you had dashed at her
+you might have got it. There never was a simpler happier family until
+the coming of Peter Pan.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children's
+minds. It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span> children
+are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next
+morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have
+wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you
+can't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it
+very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You
+would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of
+your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up,
+making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as
+if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight.
+When you wake in the morning, the naughtinesses and evil passions with
+which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom
+of your mind; and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your
+prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.</p>
+
+<p>I don't know whether you have ever seen a map of a person's mind.
+Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can
+become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a
+child's mind,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span> which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the
+time. There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on a
+card, and these are probably roads in the island; for the Neverland is
+always more or less an island, with astonishing splashes of colour here
+and there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and
+savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves
+through which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers, and a
+hut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked nose.
+It would be an easy map if that were all; but there is also first day at
+school, religion, fathers, the round pond, needlework, murders,
+hangings, verbs that take the dative, chocolate pudding day, getting
+into braces, say ninety-nine, three-pence for pulling out your tooth
+yourself, and so on; and either these are part of the island or they are
+another map showing through, and it is all rather confusing, especially
+as nothing will stand still.</p>
+
+<p>Of course the Neverlands vary a good deal. John's, for instance, had a
+lagoon with flamingoes flying over it at which John was shooting,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span> while
+Michael, who was very small, had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it.
+John lived in a boat turned upside down on the sands, Michael in a
+wigwam, Wendy in a house of leaves deftly sewn together. John had no
+friends, Michael had friends at night, Wendy had a pet wolf forsaken by
+its parents; but on the whole the Neverlands have a family resemblance,
+and if they stood still in a row you could say of them that they have
+each other's nose, and so forth. On these magic shores children at play
+are for ever beaching their coracles. We too have been there; we can
+still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more.</p>
+
+<p>Of all delectable islands the Neverland is the snuggest and most
+compact; not large and sprawly, you know, with tedious distances between
+one adventure and another, but nicely crammed. When you play at it by
+day with the chairs and table-cloth, it is not in the least alarming,
+but in the two minutes before you go to sleep it becomes very nearly
+real. That is why there are night-lights.</p>
+
+<p>Occasionally in her travels through her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span>children's minds Mrs. Darling
+found things she could not understand, and of these quite the most
+perplexing was the word Peter. She knew of no Peter, and yet he was here
+and there in John and Michael's minds, while Wendy's began to be
+scrawled all over with him. The name stood out in bolder letters than
+any of the other words, and as Mrs. Darling gazed she felt that it had
+an oddly cocky appearance.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, he is rather cocky,' Wendy admitted with regret. Her mother had
+been questioning her.</p>
+
+<p>'But who is he, my pet?'</p>
+
+<p>'He is Peter Pan, you know, mother.'</p>
+
+<p>At first Mrs. Darling did not know, but after thinking back into her
+childhood she just remembered a Peter Pan who was said to live with the
+fairies. There were odd stories about him; as that when children died he
+went part of the way with them, so that they should not be frightened.
+She had believed in him at the time, but now that she was married and
+full of sense she quite doubted whether there was any such person.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p><p>'Besides,' she said to Wendy, 'he would be grown up by this time.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh no, he isn't grown up,' Wendy assured her confidently, 'and he is
+just my size.' She meant that he was her size in both mind and body; she
+didn't know how she knew it, she just knew it.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Darling consulted Mr. Darling, but he smiled pooh-pooh. 'Mark my
+words,' he said, 'it is some nonsense Nana has been putting into their
+heads; just the sort of idea a dog would have. Leave it alone, and it
+will blow over.'</p>
+
+<p>But it would not blow over; and soon the troublesome boy gave Mrs.
+Darling quite a shock.</p>
+
+<p>Children have the strangest adventures without being troubled by them.
+For instance, they may remember to mention, a week after the event
+happened, that when they were in the wood they met their dead father and
+had a game with him. It was in this casual way that Wendy one morning
+made a disquieting revelation. Some leaves of a tree had been found on
+the nursery floor, which certainly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span> were not there when the children
+went to bed, and Mrs. Darling was puzzling over them when Wendy said
+with a tolerant smile:</p>
+
+<p>'I do believe it is that Peter again!'</p>
+
+<p>'Whatever do you mean, Wendy?'</p>
+
+<p>'It is so naughty of him not to wipe,' Wendy said, sighing. She was a
+tidy child.</p>
+
+<p>She explained in quite a matter-of-fact way that she thought Peter
+sometimes came to the nursery in the night and sat on the foot of her
+bed and played on his pipes to her. Unfortunately she never woke, so she
+didn't know how she knew, she just knew.</p>
+
+<p>'What nonsense you talk, precious. No one can get into the house without
+knocking.'</p>
+
+<p>'I think he comes in by the window,' she said.</p>
+
+<p>'My love, it is three floors up.'</p>
+
+<p>'Were not the leaves at the foot of the window, mother?'</p>
+
+<p>It was quite true; the leaves had been found very near the window.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Darling did not know what to think, for it all seemed so natural to
+Wendy that you could not dismiss it by saying she had been dreaming.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span></p><p>'My child,' the mother cried, 'why did you not tell me of this before?'</p>
+
+<p>'I forgot,' said Wendy lightly. She was in a hurry to get her breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>Oh, surely she must have been dreaming.</p>
+
+<p>But, on the other hand, there were the leaves. Mrs. Darling examined
+them carefully; they were skeleton leaves, but she was sure they did not
+come from any tree that grew in England. She crawled about the floor,
+peering at it with a candle for marks of a strange foot. She rattled the
+poker up the chimney and tapped the walls. She let down a tape from the
+window to the pavement, and it was a sheer drop of thirty feet, without
+so much as a spout to climb up by.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly Wendy had been dreaming.</p>
+
+<p>But Wendy had not been dreaming, as the very next night showed, the
+night on which the extraordinary adventures of these children may be
+said to have begun.</p>
+
+<p>On the night we speak of all the children were once more in bed. It
+happened to be Nana's evening off, and Mrs. Darling had bathed them and
+sung to them till one by one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span> they had let go her hand and slid away
+into the land of sleep.</p>
+
+<p>All were looking so safe and cosy that she smiled at her fears now and
+sat down tranquilly by the fire to sew.</p>
+
+<p>It was something for Michael, who on his birthday was getting into
+shirts. The fire was warm, however, and the nursery dimly lit by three
+night-lights, and presently the sewing lay on Mrs. Darling's lap. Then
+her head nodded, oh, so gracefully. She was asleep. Look at the four of
+them, Wendy and Michael over there, John here, and Mrs. Darling by the
+fire. There should have been a fourth night-light.</p>
+
+<p>While she slept she had a dream. She dreamt that the Neverland had come
+too near and that a strange boy had broken through from it. He did not
+alarm her, for she thought she had seen him before in the faces of many
+women who have no children. Perhaps he is to be found in the faces of
+some mothers also. But in her dream he had rent the film that obscures
+the Neverland, and she saw Wendy and John and Michael peeping through
+the gap.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span></p><p>The dream by itself would have been a trifle, but while she was
+dreaming the window of the nursery blew open, and a boy did drop on the
+floor. He was accompanied by a strange light, no bigger than your fist,
+which darted about the room like a living thing; and I think it must
+have been this light that wakened Mrs. Darling.</p>
+
+<p>She started up with a cry, and saw the boy, and somehow she knew at once
+that he was Peter Pan. If you or I or Wendy had been there we should
+have seen that he was very like Mrs. Darling's kiss. He was a lovely
+boy, clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that ooze out of trees; but
+the most entrancing thing about him was that he had all his first teeth.
+When he saw she was a grown-up, he gnashed the little pearls at her.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>THE SHADOW</h3>
+
+<p>Mrs. Darling screamed, and, as if in answer to a bell, the door opened,
+and Nana entered, returned from her evening out. She growled and sprang
+at the boy, who leapt lightly through the window. Again Mrs. Darling
+screamed, this time in distress for him, for she thought he was killed,
+and she ran down into the street to look for his little body, but it was
+not there; and she looked up, and in the black night she could see
+nothing but what she thought was a shooting star.</p>
+
+<p>She returned to the nursery, and found Nana with something in her mouth,
+which proved to be the boy's shadow. As he leapt at the window Nana had
+closed it quickly, too late to catch him, but his shadow had not had
+time<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span> to get out; slam went the window and snapped it off.</p>
+
+<p>You may be sure Mrs. Darling examined the shadow carefully, but it was
+quite the ordinary kind.</p>
+
+<p>Nana had no doubt of what was the best thing to do with this shadow. She
+hung it out at the window, meaning 'He is sure to come back for it; let
+us put it where he can get it easily without disturbing the children.'</p>
+
+<p>But unfortunately Mrs. Darling could not leave it hanging out at the
+window; it looked so like the washing and lowered the whole tone of the
+house. She thought of showing it to Mr. Darling, but he was totting up
+winter greatcoats for John and Michael, with a wet towel round his head
+to keep his brain clear, and it seemed a shame to trouble him; besides,
+she knew exactly what he would say: 'It all comes of having a dog for a
+nurse.'</p>
+
+<p>She decided to roll the shadow up and put it away carefully in a drawer,
+until a fitting opportunity came for telling her husband. Ah me!</p>
+
+<p>The opportunity came a week later, on that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span> never-to-be-forgotten
+Friday. Of course it was a Friday.</p>
+
+<p>'I ought to have been specially careful on a Friday,' she used to say
+afterwards to her husband, while perhaps Nana was on the other side of
+her, holding her hand.</p>
+
+<p>'No, no,' Mr. Darling always said, 'I am responsible for it all. I,
+George Darling, did it. <i>Mea culpa, mea culpa.</i>' He had had a classical
+education.</p>
+
+<p>They sat thus night after night recalling that fatal Friday, till every
+detail of it was stamped on their brains and came through on the other
+side like the faces on a bad coinage.</p>
+
+<p>'If only I had not accepted that invitation to dine at 27,' Mrs. Darling
+said.</p>
+
+<p>'If only I had not poured my medicine into Nana's bowl,' said Mr.
+Darling.</p>
+
+<p>'If only I had pretended to like the medicine,' was what Nana's wet eyes
+said.</p>
+
+<p>'My liking for parties, George.'</p>
+
+<p>'My fatal gift of humour, dearest.'</p>
+
+<p>'My touchiness about trifles, dear master and mistress.'</p>
+
+<p>Then one or more of them would break down<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> altogether; Nana at the
+thought, 'It's true, it's true, they ought not to have had a dog for a
+nurse.' Many a time it was Mr. Darling who put the handkerchief to
+Nana's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>'That fiend!' Mr. Darling would cry, and Nana's bark was the echo of it,
+but Mrs. Darling never upbraided Peter; there was something in the
+right-hand corner of her mouth that wanted her not to call Peter names.</p>
+
+<p>They would sit there in the empty nursery, recalling fondly every
+smallest detail of that dreadful evening. It had begun so uneventfully,
+so precisely like a hundred other evenings, with Nana putting on the
+water for Michael's bath and carrying him to it on her back.</p>
+
+<p>'I won't go to bed,' he had shouted, like one who still believed that he
+had the last word on the subject, 'I won't, I won't. Nana, it isn't six
+o'clock yet. Oh dear, oh dear, I shan't love you any more, Nana. I tell
+you I won't be bathed, I won't, I won't!'</p>
+
+<p>Then Mrs. Darling had come in, wearing her white evening-gown. She had
+dressed early because Wendy so loved to see her in her evening-gown,
+with the necklace George had given<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span> her. She was wearing Wendy's
+bracelet on her arm; she had asked for the loan of it. Wendy so loved to
+lend her bracelet to her mother.</p>
+
+<p>She had found her two older children playing at being herself and father
+on the occasion of Wendy's birth, and John was saying:</p>
+
+<p>'I am happy to inform you, Mrs. Darling, that you are now a mother,' in
+just such a tone as Mr. Darling himself may have used on the real
+occasion.</p>
+
+<p>Wendy had danced with joy, just as the real Mrs. Darling must have done.</p>
+
+<p>Then John was born, with the extra pomp that he conceived due to the
+birth of a male, and Michael came from his bath to ask to be born also,
+but John said brutally that they did not want any more.</p>
+
+<p>Michael had nearly cried. 'Nobody wants me,' he said, and of course the
+lady in evening-dress could not stand that.</p>
+
+<p>'I do,' she said, 'I so want a third child.'</p>
+
+<p>'Boy or girl?' asked Michael, not too hopefully.</p>
+
+<p>'Boy.'</p>
+
+<p>Then he had leapt into her arms. Such a<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span> little thing for Mr. and Mrs.
+Darling and Nana to recall now, but not so little if that was to be
+Michael's last night in the nursery.</p>
+
+<p>They go on with their recollections.</p>
+
+<p>'It was then that I rushed in like a tornado, wasn't it?' Mr. Darling
+would say, scorning himself; and indeed he had been like a tornado.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps there was some excuse for him. He, too, had been dressing for
+the party, and all had gone well with him until he came to his tie. It
+is an astounding thing to have to tell, but this man, though he knew
+about stocks and shares, had no real mastery of his tie. Sometimes the
+thing yielded to him without a contest, but there were occasions when it
+would have been better for the house if he had swallowed his pride and
+used a made-up tie.</p>
+
+<p>This was such an occasion. He came rushing into the nursery with the
+crumpled little brute of a tie in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>'Why, what is the matter, father dear?'</p>
+
+<p>'Matter!' he yelled; he really yelled. 'This tie, it will not tie.' He
+became dangerously sarcastic. 'Not round my neck! Round the bed-post! Oh
+yes, twenty times have I<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span> made it up round the bed-post, but round my
+neck, no! Oh dear no! begs to be excused!'</p>
+
+<p>He thought Mrs. Darling was not sufficiently impressed, and he went on
+sternly, 'I warn you of this, mother, that unless this tie is round my
+neck we don't go out to dinner to-night, and if I don't go out to dinner
+to-night, I never go to the office again, and if I don't go to the
+office again, you and I starve, and our children will be flung into the
+streets.'</p>
+
+<p>Even then Mrs. Darling was placid. 'Let me try, dear,' she said, and
+indeed that was what he had come to ask her to do; and with her nice
+cool hands she tied his tie for him, while the children stood around to
+see their fate decided. Some men would have resented her being able to
+do it so easily, but Mr. Darling was far too fine a nature for that; he
+thanked her carelessly, at once forgot his rage, and in another moment
+was dancing round the room with Michael on his back.</p>
+
+<p>'How wildly we romped!' says Mrs. Darling now, recalling it.</p>
+
+<p>'Our last romp!' Mr. Darling groaned.</p>
+
+<p>'O George, do you remember Michael<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span> suddenly said to me, "How did you
+get to know me, mother?"'</p>
+
+<p>'I remember!'</p>
+
+<p>'They were rather sweet, don't you think, George?'</p>
+
+<p>'And they were ours, ours, and now they are gone.'</p>
+
+<p>The romp had ended with the appearance of Nana, and most unluckily Mr.
+Darling collided against her, covering his trousers with hairs. They
+were not only new trousers, but they were the first he had ever had with
+braid on them, and he had to bite his lip to prevent the tears coming.
+Of course Mrs. Darling brushed him, but he began to talk again about its
+being a mistake to have a dog for a nurse.</p>
+
+<p>'George, Nana is a treasure.'</p>
+
+<p>'No doubt, but I have an uneasy feeling at times that she looks upon the
+children as puppies.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh no, dear one, I feel sure she knows they have souls.'</p>
+
+<p>'I wonder,' Mr. Darling said thoughtfully, 'I wonder.' It was an
+opportunity, his wife felt, for telling him about the boy. At first he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>
+pooh-poohed the story, but he became thoughtful when she showed him the
+shadow.</p>
+
+<p>'It is nobody I know,' he said, examining it carefully, 'but he does
+look a scoundrel.'</p>
+
+<p>'We were still discussing it, you remember,' says Mr. Darling, 'when
+Nana came in with Michael's medicine. You will never carry the bottle in
+your mouth again, Nana, and it is all my fault.</p>
+
+<p>Strong man though he was, there is no doubt that he had behaved rather
+foolishly over the medicine. If he had a weakness, it was for thinking
+that all his life he had taken medicine boldly; and so now, when Michael
+dodged the spoon in Nana's mouth, he had said reprovingly, 'Be a man,
+Michael.'</p>
+
+<p>'Won't; won't,' Michael cried naughtily. Mrs. Darling left the room to
+get a chocolate for him, and Mr. Darling thought this showed want of
+firmness.</p>
+
+<p>'Mother, don't pamper him,' he called after her. 'Michael, when I was
+your age I took medicine without a murmur. I said "Thank you, kind
+parents, for giving me bottles to make me well."'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span></p><p>He really thought this was true, and Wendy, who was now in her
+night-gown, believed it also, and she said, to encourage Michael, 'That
+medicine you sometimes take, father, is much nastier, isn't it?'</p>
+
+<p>'Ever so much nastier,' Mr. Darling said bravely, 'and I would take it
+now as an example to you, Michael, if I hadn't lost the bottle.'</p>
+
+<p>He had not exactly lost it; he had climbed in the dead of night to the
+top of the wardrobe and hidden it there. What he did not know was that
+the faithful Liza had found it, and put it back on his wash-stand.</p>
+
+<p>'I know where it is, father,' Wendy cried, always glad to be of service.
+'I'll bring it,' and she was off before he could stop her. Immediately
+his spirits sank in the strangest way.</p>
+
+<p>'John,' he said, shuddering, 'it's most beastly stuff. It's that nasty,
+sticky, sweet kind.'</p>
+
+<p>'It will soon be over, father,' John said cheerily, and then in rushed
+Wendy with the medicine in a glass.</p>
+
+<p>'I have been as quick as I could,' she panted.</p>
+
+<p>'You have been wonderfully quick,' her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span> father retorted, with a
+vindictive politeness that was quite thrown away upon her. 'Michael
+first,' he said doggedly.</p>
+
+<p>'Father first,' said Michael, who was of a suspicious nature.</p>
+
+<p>'I shall be sick, you know,' Mr. Darling said threateningly.</p>
+
+<p>'Come on, father,' said John.</p>
+
+<p>'Hold your tongue, John,' his father rapped out.</p>
+
+<p>Wendy was quite puzzled. 'I thought you took it quite easily, father.'</p>
+
+<p>'That is not the point,' he retorted. 'The point is, that there is more
+in my glass than in Michael's spoon.' His proud heart was nearly
+bursting. 'And it isn't fair; I would say it though it were with my last
+breath; it isn't fair.'</p>
+
+<p>'Father, I am waiting,' said Michael coldly.</p>
+
+<p>'It's all very well to say you are waiting; so am I waiting.'</p>
+
+<p>'Father's a cowardy custard.'</p>
+
+<p>'So are you a cowardy custard.'</p>
+
+<p>'I'm not frightened.'</p>
+
+<p>'Neither am I frightened.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span></p><p>'Well, then, take it.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, then, you take it.'</p>
+
+<p>Wendy had a splendid idea. 'Why not both take it at the same time?'</p>
+
+<p>'Certainly,' said Mr. Darling. 'Are you ready, Michael?'</p>
+
+<p>Wendy gave the words, one, two, three, and Michael took his medicine,
+but Mr. Darling slipped his behind his back.</p>
+
+<p>There was a yell of rage from Michael, and 'O father!' Wendy exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>'What do you mean by "O father"?' Mr. Darling demanded. 'Stop that row,
+Michael. I meant to take mine, but I&mdash;I missed it.'</p>
+
+<p>It was dreadful the way all the three were looking at him, just as if
+they did not admire him. 'Look here, all of you,' he said entreatingly,
+as soon as Nana had gone into the bathroom, 'I have just thought of a
+splendid joke. I shall pour my medicine into Nana's bowl, and she will
+drink it, thinking it is milk!'</p>
+
+<p>It was the colour of milk; but the children did not have their father's
+sense of humour, and they looked at him reproachfully as he poured<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> the
+medicine into Nana's bowl. 'What fun,' he said doubtfully, and they did
+not dare expose him when Mrs. Darling and Nana returned.</p>
+
+<p>'Nana, good dog,' he said, patting her, 'I have put a little milk into
+your bowl, Nana.'</p>
+
+<p>Nana wagged her tail, ran to the medicine, and began lapping it. Then
+she gave Mr. Darling such a look, not an angry look: she showed him the
+great red tear that makes us so sorry for noble dogs, and crept into her
+kennel.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Darling was frightfully ashamed of himself, but he would not give
+in. In a horrid silence Mrs. Darling smelt the bowl. 'O George,' she
+said, 'it's your medicine!'</p>
+
+<p>'It was only a joke,' he roared, while she comforted her boys, and Wendy
+hugged Nana. 'Much good,' he said bitterly, 'my wearing myself to the
+bone trying to be funny in this house.'</p>
+
+<p>And still Wendy hugged Nana. 'That's right,' he shouted. 'Coddle her!
+Nobody coddles me. Oh dear no! I am only the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span> breadwinner, why should I
+be coddled, why, why, why!'</p>
+
+<p>'George,' Mrs. Darling entreated him, 'not so loud; the servants will
+hear you.' Somehow they had got into the way of calling Liza the
+servants.</p>
+
+<p>'Let them,' he answered recklessly. 'Bring in the whole world. But I
+refuse to allow that dog to lord it in my nursery for an hour longer.'</p>
+
+<p>The children wept, and Nana ran to him beseechingly, but he waved her
+back. He felt he was a strong man again. 'In vain, in vain,' he cried;
+'the proper place for you is the yard, and there you go to be tied up
+this instant.'</p>
+
+<p>'George, George,' Mrs. Darling whispered, 'remember what I told you
+about that boy.'</p>
+
+<p>Alas, he would not listen. He was determined to show who was master in
+that house, and when commands would not draw Nana from the kennel, he
+lured her out of it with honeyed words, and seizing her roughly, dragged
+her from the nursery. He was ashamed of himself, and yet he did it. It
+was all owing to his too affectionate nature, which craved for
+admiration.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span> When he had tied her up in the back-yard, the wretched
+father went and sat in the passage, with his knuckles to his eyes.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime Mrs. Darling had put the children to bed in unwonted
+silence and lit their night-lights. They could hear Nana barking, and
+John whimpered, 'It is because he is chaining her up in the yard,' but
+Wendy was wiser.</p>
+
+<p>'That is not Nana's unhappy bark,' she said, little guessing what was
+about to happen; 'that is her bark when she smells danger.'</p>
+
+<p>Danger!</p>
+
+<p>'Are you sure, Wendy?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh yes.'</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Darling quivered and went to the window. It was securely fastened.
+She looked out, and the night was peppered with stars. They were
+crowding round the house, as if curious to see what was to take place
+there, but she did not notice this, nor that one or two of the smaller
+ones winked at her. Yet a nameless fear clutched at her heart and made
+her cry, 'Oh, how I wish that I wasn't going to a party to-night!'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span></p><p>Even Michael, already half asleep, knew that she was perturbed, and he
+asked, 'Can anything harm us, mother, after the night-lights are lit?'</p>
+
+<p>'Nothing, precious,' she said; 'they are the eyes a mother leaves behind
+her to guard her children.'</p>
+
+<p>She went from bed to bed singing enchantments over them, and little
+Michael flung his arms round her. 'Mother,' he cried, 'I'm glad of you.'
+They were the last words she was to hear from him for a long time.</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="i044" id="i044"></a><img src="images/i044.jpg" width='490' height='700' alt="PETER FLEW IN" /></div>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>No. 27 was only a few yards distant, but there had been a slight fall of
+snow, and Father and Mother Darling picked their way over it deftly not
+to soil their shoes. They were already the only persons in the street,
+and all the stars were watching them. Stars are beautiful, but they may
+not take an active part in anything, they must just look on for ever. It
+is a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no
+star now knows what it was. So the older ones have become glassy-eyed
+and seldom speak (winking is the star language), but the little ones
+still wonder. They are not really friendly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span> to Peter, who has a
+mischievous way of stealing up behind them and trying to blow them out;
+but they are so fond of fun that they were on his side to-night, and
+anxious to get the grown-ups out of the way. So as soon as the door of
+27 closed on Mr. and Mrs. Darling there was a commotion in the
+firmament, and the smallest of all the stars in the Milky Way screamed
+out:</p>
+
+<p>'Now, Peter!'</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>COME AWAY, COME AWAY!</h3>
+
+<p>For a moment after Mr. and Mrs. Darling left the house the night-lights
+by the beds of the three children continued to burn clearly. They were
+awfully nice little night-lights, and one cannot help wishing that they
+could have kept awake to see Peter; but Wendy's light blinked and gave
+such a yawn that the other two yawned also, and before they could close
+their mouths all the three went out.</p>
+
+<p>There was another light in the room now, a thousand times brighter than
+the night-lights, and in the time we have taken to say this, it has been
+in all the drawers in the nursery, looking for Peter's shadow, rummaged
+the wardrobe and turned every pocket inside out.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span> It was not really a
+light; it made this light by flashing about so quickly, but when it came
+to rest for a second you saw it was a fairy, no longer than your hand,
+but still growing. It was a girl called Tinker Bell exquisitely gowned
+in a skeleton leaf, cut low and square, through which her figure could
+be seen to the best advantage. She was slightly inclined to
+<i>embonpoint</i>.</p>
+
+<p>A moment after the fairy's entrance the window was blown open by the
+breathing of the little stars, and Peter dropped in. He had carried
+Tinker Bell part of the way, and his hand was still messy with the fairy
+dust.</p>
+
+<p>'Tinker Bell,' he called softly, after making sure that the children
+were asleep, 'Tink, where are you?' She was in a jug for the moment, and
+liking it extremely; she had never been in a jug before.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, do come out of that jug, and tell me, do you know where they put my
+shadow?'</p>
+
+<p>The loveliest tinkle as of golden bells answered him. It is the fairy
+language. You ordinary children can never hear it, but if you were to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>
+hear it you would know that you had heard it once before.</p>
+
+<p>Tink said that the shadow was in the big box. She meant the chest of
+drawers, and Peter jumped at the drawers, scattering their contents to
+the floor with both hands, as kings toss ha'pence to the crowd. In a
+moment he had recovered his shadow, and in his delight he forgot that he
+had shut Tinker Bell up in the drawer.</p>
+
+<p>If he thought at all, but I don't believe he ever thought, it was that
+he and his shadow, when brought near each other, would join like drops
+of water; and when they did not he was appalled. He tried to stick it on
+with soap from the bathroom, but that also failed. A shudder passed
+through Peter, and he sat on the floor and cried.</p>
+
+<p>His sobs woke Wendy, and she sat up in bed. She was not alarmed to see a
+stranger crying on the nursery floor; she was only pleasantly
+interested.</p>
+
+<p>'Boy,' she said courteously, 'why are you crying?'</p>
+
+<p>Peter could be exceedingly polite also, having<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span> learned the grand manner
+at fairy ceremonies, and he rose and bowed to her beautifully. She was
+much pleased, and bowed beautifully to him from the bed.</p>
+
+<p>'What's your name?' he asked.</p>
+
+<p>'Wendy Moira Angela Darling,' she replied with some satisfaction. 'What
+is your name?'</p>
+
+<p>'Peter Pan.'</p>
+
+<p>She was already sure that he must be Peter, but it did seem a
+comparatively short name.</p>
+
+<p>'Is that all?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' he said rather sharply. He felt for the first time that it was a
+shortish name.</p>
+
+<p>'I'm so sorry,' said Wendy Moira Angela.</p>
+
+<p>'It doesn't matter,' Peter gulped.</p>
+
+<p>She asked where he lived.</p>
+
+<p>'Second to the right,' said Peter, 'and then straight on till morning.'</p>
+
+<p>'What a funny address!'</p>
+
+<p>Peter had a sinking. For the first time he felt that perhaps it was a
+funny address.</p>
+
+<p>'No, it isn't,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>'I mean,' Wendy said nicely, remembering that she was hostess, 'is that
+what they put on the letters?'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p><p>He wished she had not mentioned letters.</p>
+
+<p>'Don't get any letters,' he said contemptuously.</p>
+
+<p>'But your mother gets letters?'</p>
+
+<p>'Don't have a mother,' he said. Not only had he no mother, but he had
+not the slightest desire to have one. He thought them very overrated
+persons. Wendy, however, felt at once that she was in the presence of a
+tragedy.</p>
+
+<p>'O Peter, no wonder you were crying,' she said, and got out of bed and
+ran to him.</p>
+
+<p>'I wasn't crying about mothers,' he said rather indignantly. 'I was
+crying because I can't get my shadow to stick on. Besides, I wasn't
+crying.'</p>
+
+<p>'It has come off?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes.'</p>
+
+<p>Then Wendy saw the shadow on the floor, looking so draggled, and she was
+frightfully sorry for Peter. 'How awful!' she said, but she could not
+help smiling when she saw that he had been trying to stick it on with
+soap. How exactly like a boy!</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately she knew at once what to do<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span> 'It must be sewn on,' she said,
+just a little patronisingly.</p>
+
+<p>'What's sewn?' he asked.</p>
+
+<p>'You're dreadfully ignorant.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, I'm not.'</p>
+
+<p>But she was exulting in his ignorance. 'I shall sew it on for you, my
+little man,' she said, though he was as tall as herself; and she got out
+her housewife, and sewed the shadow on to Peter's foot.</p>
+
+<p>'I daresay it will hurt a little,' she warned him.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, I shan't cry,' said Peter, who was already of opinion that he had
+never cried in his life. And he clenched his teeth and did not cry; and
+soon his shadow was behaving properly, though still a little creased.</p>
+
+<p>'Perhaps I should have ironed it,' Wendy said thoughtfully; but Peter,
+boylike, was indifferent to appearances, and he was now jumping about in
+the wildest glee. Alas, he had already forgotten that he owed his bliss
+to Wendy. He thought he had attached the shadow himself. 'How clever I
+am,' he crowed rapturously, 'oh, the cleverness of me!'</p>
+
+<p>It is humiliating to have to confess that this<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span> conceit of Peter was one
+of his most fascinating qualities. To put it with brutal frankness,
+there never was a cockier boy.</p>
+
+<p>But for the moment Wendy was shocked. 'You conceit,' she exclaimed, with
+frightful sarcasm; 'of course I did nothing!'</p>
+
+<p>'You did a little,' Peter said carelessly, and continued to dance.</p>
+
+<p>'A little!' she replied with hauteur; 'if I am no use I can at least
+withdraw'; and she sprang in the most dignified way into bed and covered
+her face with the blankets.</p>
+
+<p>To induce her to look up he pretended to be going away, and when this
+failed he sat on the end of the bed and tapped her gently with his foot.
+'Wendy,' he said, 'don't withdraw. I can't help crowing, Wendy, when I'm
+pleased with myself.' Still she would not look up, though she was
+listening eagerly. 'Wendy,' he continued, in a voice that no woman has
+ever yet been able to resist, 'Wendy, one girl is more use than twenty
+boys.'</p>
+
+<p>Now Wendy was every inch a woman, though there were not very many
+inches, and she peeped out of the bedclothes.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span></p><p>'Do you really think so, Peter?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, I do.'</p>
+
+<p>'I think it's perfectly sweet of you,' she declared, 'and I'll get up
+again'; and she sat with him on the side of the bed. She also said she
+would give him a kiss if he liked, but Peter did not know what she
+meant, and he held out his hand expectantly.</p>
+
+<p>'Surely you know what a kiss is?' she asked, aghast.</p>
+
+<p>'I shall know when you give it to me,' he replied stiffly; and not to
+hurt his feelings she gave him a thimble.</p>
+
+<p>'Now,' said he, 'shall I give you a kiss?' and she replied with a slight
+primness, 'If you please.' She made herself rather cheap by inclining
+her face toward him, but he merely dropped an acorn button into her
+hand; so she slowly returned her face to where it had been before, and
+said nicely that she would wear his kiss on the chain round her neck. It
+was lucky that she did put it on that chain, for it was afterwards to
+save her life.</p>
+
+<p>When people in our set are introduced, it is customary for them to ask
+each other's age, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span> so Wendy, who always liked to do the correct
+thing, asked Peter how old he was. It was not really a happy question to
+ask him; it was like an examination paper that asks grammar, when what
+you want to be asked is Kings of England.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't know,' he replied uneasily, 'but I am quite young.' He really
+knew nothing about it; he had merely suspicions, but he said at a
+venture, 'Wendy, I ran away the day I was born.'</p>
+
+<p>Wendy was quite surprised, but interested; and she indicated in the
+charming drawing-room manner, by a touch on her night-gown, that he
+could sit nearer her.</p>
+
+<p>'It was because I heard father and mother,' he explained in a low voice,
+'talking about what I was to be when I became a man.' He was
+extraordinarily agitated now. 'I don't want ever to be a man,' he said
+with passion. 'I want always to be a little boy and to have fun. So I
+ran away to Kensington Gardens and lived a long long time among the
+fairies.'</p>
+
+<p>She gave him a look of the most intense admiration, and he thought it
+was because he had run away, but it was really because he knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span> fairies.
+Wendy had lived such a home life that to know fairies struck her as
+quite delightful. She poured out questions about them, to his surprise,
+for they were rather a nuisance to him, getting in his way and so on,
+and indeed he sometimes had to give them a hiding. Still, he liked them
+on the whole, and he told her about the beginning of fairies.</p>
+
+<p>'You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the first time, its
+laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about,
+and that was the beginning of fairies.'</p>
+
+<p>Tedious talk this, but being a stay-at-home she liked it.</p>
+
+<p>'And so,' he went on good-naturedly, 'there ought to be one fairy for
+every boy and girl.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ought to be? Isn't there?'</p>
+
+<p>'No. You see children know such a lot now, they soon don't believe in
+fairies, and every time a child says, 'I don't believe in fairies,'
+there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.</p>
+
+<p>Really, he thought they had now talked enough about fairies, and it
+struck him that Tinker Bell was keeping very quiet. 'I can't think where
+she has gone to,' he said, rising, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span> he called Tink by name. Wendy's
+heart went flutter with a sudden thrill.</p>
+
+<p>'Peter,' she cried, clutching him, 'you don't mean to tell me that there
+is a fairy in this room!'</p>
+
+<p>'She was here just now,' he said a little impatiently. 'You don't hear
+her, do you?' and they both listened.</p>
+
+<p>'The only sound I hear,' said Wendy, 'is like a tinkle of bells.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, that's Tink, that's the fairy language. I think I hear her too.'</p>
+
+<p>The sound came from the chest of drawers, and Peter made a merry face.
+No one could ever look quite so merry as Peter, and the loveliest of
+gurgles was his laugh. He had his first laugh still.</p>
+
+<p>'Wendy,' he whispered gleefully, 'I do believe I shut her up in the
+drawer!'</p>
+
+<p>He let poor Tink out of the drawer, and she flew about the nursery
+screaming with fury. 'You shouldn't say such things,' Peter retorted.
+'Of course I'm very sorry, but how could I know you were in the drawer?'</p>
+
+<p>Wendy was not listening to him. 'O<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span> Peter,' she cried, 'if she would
+only stand still and let me see her!'</p>
+
+<p>'They hardly ever stand still,' he said, but for one moment Wendy saw
+the romantic figure come to rest on the cuckoo clock. 'O the lovely!'
+she cried, though Tink's face was still distorted with passion.</p>
+
+<p>'Tink,' said Peter amiably, 'this lady says she wishes you were her
+fairy.'</p>
+
+<p>Tinker Bell answered insolently.</p>
+
+<p>'What does she say, Peter?'</p>
+
+<p>He had to translate. 'She is not very polite. She says you are a great
+ugly girl, and that she is my fairy.'</p>
+
+<p>He tried to argue with Tink. 'You know you can't be my fairy, Tink,
+because I am a gentleman and you are a lady.'</p>
+
+<p>To this Tink replied in these words, 'You silly ass,' and disappeared
+into the bathroom. 'She is quite a common fairy,' Peter explained
+apologetically; 'she is called Tinker Bell because she mends the pots
+and kettles.'</p>
+
+<p>They were together in the armchair by this time, and Wendy plied him
+with more questions.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span></p><p>'If you don't live in Kensington Gardens now&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Sometimes I do still.'</p>
+
+<p>'But where do you live mostly now?'</p>
+
+<p>'With the lost boys.'</p>
+
+<p>'Who are they?'</p>
+
+<p>'They are the children who fall out of their perambulators when the
+nurse is looking the other way. If they are not claimed in seven days
+they are sent far away to the Neverland to defray expenses. I'm
+captain.'</p>
+
+<p>'What fun it must be!'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' said cunning Peter, 'but we are rather lonely. You see we have no
+female companionship.'</p>
+
+<p>'Are none of the others girls?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh no; girls, you know, are much too clever to fall out of their
+prams.'</p>
+
+<p>This flattered Wendy immensely. 'I think,' she said, 'it is perfectly
+lovely the way you talk about girls; John there just despises us.'</p>
+
+<p>For reply Peter rose and kicked John out of bed, blankets and all; one
+kick. This seemed to Wendy rather forward for a first meeting, and she
+told him with spirit that he was not captain<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span> in her house. However,
+John continued to sleep so placidly on the floor that she allowed him to
+remain there. 'And I know you meant to be kind,' she said, relenting,
+'so you may give me a kiss.'</p>
+
+<p>For the moment she had forgotten his ignorance about kisses. 'I thought
+you would want it back,' he said a little bitterly, and offered to
+return her the thimble.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh dear,' said the nice Wendy, 'I don't mean a kiss, I mean a thimble.'</p>
+
+<p>'What's that?'</p>
+
+<p>'It's like this.' She kissed him.</p>
+
+<p>'Funny!' said Peter gravely. 'Now shall I give you a thimble?'</p>
+
+<p>'If you wish to,' said Wendy, keeping her head erect this time.</p>
+
+<p>Peter thimbled her, and almost immediately she screeched. 'What is it,
+Wendy?'</p>
+
+<p>'It was exactly as if some one were pulling my hair.'</p>
+
+<p>'That must have been Tink. I never knew her so naughty before.'</p>
+
+<p>And indeed Tink was darting about again, using offensive language.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span></p><p>'She says she will do that to you, Wendy, every time I give you a
+thimble.'</p>
+
+<p>'But why?'</p>
+
+<p>'Why, Tink?'</p>
+
+<p>Again Tink replied, 'You silly ass.' Peter could not understand why, but
+Wendy understood; and she was just slightly disappointed when he
+admitted that he came to the nursery window not to see her but to listen
+to stories.</p>
+
+<p>'You see I don't know any stories. None of the lost boys know any
+stories.'</p>
+
+<p>'How perfectly awful,' Wendy said.</p>
+
+<p>'Do you know,' Peter asked, 'why swallows build in the eaves of houses?
+It is to listen to the stories. O Wendy, your mother was telling you
+such a lovely story.'</p>
+
+<p>'Which story was it?'</p>
+
+<p>'About the prince who couldn't find the lady who wore the glass
+slipper.'</p>
+
+<p>'Peter,' said Wendy excitedly, 'that was Cinderella, and he found her,
+and they lived happy ever after.'</p>
+
+<p>Peter was so glad that he rose from the floor, where they had been
+sitting, and hurried to the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span> window. 'Where are you going?' she cried
+with misgiving.</p>
+
+<p>'To tell the other boys.'</p>
+
+<p>'Don't go, Peter,' she entreated, 'I know such lots of stories.'</p>
+
+<p>Those were her precise words, so there can be no denying that it was she
+who first tempted him.</p>
+
+<p>He came back, and there was a greedy look in his eyes now which ought to
+have alarmed her, but did not.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, the stories I could tell to the boys!' she cried, and then Peter
+gripped her and began to draw her toward the window.</p>
+
+<p>'Let me go!' she ordered him.</p>
+
+<p>'Wendy, do come with me and tell the other boys.'</p>
+
+<p>Of course she was very pleased to be asked, but she said, 'Oh dear, I
+can't. Think of mummy! Besides, I can't fly.'</p>
+
+<p>'I'll teach you.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, how lovely to fly.'</p>
+
+<p>'I'll teach you how to jump on the wind's back, and then away we go.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oo!' she exclaimed rapturously.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p><p>'Wendy, Wendy, when you are sleeping in your silly bed you might be
+flying about with me saying funny things to the stars.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oo!'</p>
+
+<p>'And, Wendy, there are mermaids.'</p>
+
+<p>'Mermaids! With tails?'</p>
+
+<p>'Such long tails.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh,' cried Wendy, 'to see a mermaid!'</p>
+
+<p>He had become frightfully cunning. 'Wendy,' he said, 'how we should all
+respect you.'</p>
+
+<p>She was wriggling her body in distress. It was quite as if she were
+trying to remain on the nursery floor.</p>
+
+<p>But he had no pity for her.</p>
+
+<p>'Wendy,' he said, the sly one, 'you could tuck us in at night.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oo!'</p>
+
+<p>'None of us has ever been tucked in at night.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oo,' and her arms went out to him.</p>
+
+<p>'And you could darn our clothes, and make pockets for us. None of us has
+any pockets.'</p>
+
+<p>How could she resist. 'Of course it's awfully fascinating!' she cried.
+'Peter, would you teach John and Michael to fly too?'</p>
+
+<p>'If you like,' he said indifferently; and she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span> ran to John and Michael
+and shook them. 'Wake up,' she cried, 'Peter Pan has come and he is to
+teach us to fly.'</p>
+
+<p>John rubbed his eyes. 'Then I shall get up,' he said. Of course he was
+on the floor already. 'Hallo,' he said, 'I am up!'</p>
+
+<p>Michael was up by this time also, looking as sharp as a knife with six
+blades and a saw, but Peter suddenly signed silence. Their faces assumed
+the awful craftiness of children listening for sounds from the grown-up
+world. All was as still as salt. Then everything was right. No, stop!
+Everything was wrong. Nana, who had been barking distressfully all the
+evening, was quiet now. It was her silence they had heard.</p>
+
+<p>'Out with the light! Hide! Quick!' cried John, taking command for the
+only time throughout the whole adventure. And thus when Liza entered,
+holding Nana, the nursery seemed quite its old self, very dark; and you
+could have sworn you heard its three wicked inmates breathing
+angelically as they slept. They were really doing it artfully from
+behind the window curtains.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span></p><p>Liza was in a bad temper, for she was mixing the Christmas puddings in
+the kitchen, and had been drawn away from them, with a raisin still on
+her cheek, by Nana's absurd suspicions. She thought the best way of
+getting a little quiet was to take Nana to the nursery for a moment, but
+in custody of course.</p>
+
+<p>'There, you suspicious brute,' she said, not sorry that Nana was in
+disgrace, 'they are perfectly safe, aren't they? Every one of the little
+angels sound asleep in bed. Listen to their gentle breathing.'</p>
+
+<p>Here Michael, encouraged by his success, breathed so loudly that they
+were nearly detected. Nana knew that kind of breathing, and she tried to
+drag herself out of Liza's clutches.</p>
+
+<p>But Liza was dense. 'No more of it, Nana,' she said sternly, pulling her
+out of the room. 'I warn you if you bark again I shall go straight for
+master and missus and bring them home from the party, and then, oh,
+won't master whip you, just.'</p>
+
+<p>She tied the unhappy dog up again, but do you think Nana ceased to bark?
+Bring master and missus home from the party! Why, that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> was just what
+she wanted. Do you think she cared whether she was whipped so long as
+her charges were safe? Unfortunately Liza returned to her puddings, and
+Nana, seeing that no help would come from her, strained and strained at
+the chain until at last she broke it. In another moment she had burst
+into the dining-room of 27 and flung up her paws to heaven, her most
+expressive way of making a communication. Mr. and Mrs. Darling knew at
+once that something terrible was happening in their nursery, and without
+a good-bye to their hostess they rushed into the street.</p>
+
+<p>But it was now ten minutes since three scoundrels had been breathing
+behind the curtains; and Peter Pan can do a great deal in ten minutes.</p>
+
+<p>We now return to the nursery.</p>
+
+<p>'It's all right,' John announced, emerging from his hiding-place. 'I
+say, Peter, can you really fly?'</p>
+
+<p>Instead of troubling to answer him Peter flew round the room, taking the
+mantelpiece on the way.</p>
+
+<p>'How topping!' said John and Michael.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span></p><p>'How sweet!' cried Wendy.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, I'm sweet, oh, I am sweet!' said Peter, forgetting his manners
+again.</p>
+
+<p>It looked delightfully easy, and they tried it first from the floor and
+then from the beds, but they always went down instead of up.</p>
+
+<p>'I say, how do you do it?' asked John, rubbing his knee. He was quite a
+practical boy.</p>
+
+<p>'You just think lovely wonderful thoughts,' Peter explained, 'and they
+lift you up in the air.'</p>
+
+<p>He showed them again.</p>
+
+<p>'You're so nippy at it,' John said; 'couldn't you do it very slowly
+once?'</p>
+
+<p>Peter did it both slowly and quickly. 'I've got it now, Wendy!' cried
+John, but soon he found he had not. Not one of them could fly an inch,
+though even Michael was in words of two syllables, and Peter did not
+know A from Z.</p>
+
+<p>Of course Peter had been trifling with them, for no one can fly unless
+the fairy dust has been blown on him. Fortunately, as we have mentioned,
+one of his hands was messy with it, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span> he blew some on each of them,
+with the most superb results.</p>
+
+<p>'Now just wriggle your shoulders this way,' he said, 'and let go.'</p>
+
+<p>They were all on their beds, and gallant Michael let go first. He did
+not quite mean to let go, but he did it, and immediately he was borne
+across the room.</p>
+
+<p>'I flewed!' he screamed while still in mid-air.</p>
+
+<p>John let go and met Wendy near the bathroom.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, lovely!'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, ripping!'</p>
+
+<p>'Look at me!'</p>
+
+<p>'Look at me!'</p>
+
+<p>'Look at me!'</p>
+
+<p>They were not nearly so elegant as Peter, they could not help kicking a
+little, but their heads were bobbing against the ceiling, and there is
+almost nothing so delicious as that. Peter gave Wendy a hand at first,
+but had to desist, Tink was so indignant.</p>
+
+<p>Up and down they went, and round and round. Heavenly was Wendy's word.</p>
+
+<p>'I say,' cried John, 'why shouldn't we all go out!'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span></p><p>Of course it was to this that Peter had been luring them.</p>
+
+<p>Michael was ready: he wanted to see how long it took him to do a billion
+miles. But Wendy hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>'Mermaids!' said Peter again.</p>
+
+<p>'Oo!'</p>
+
+<p>'And there are pirates.'</p>
+
+<p>'Pirates,' cried John, seizing his Sunday hat, 'let us go at once.'</p>
+
+<p>It was just at this moment that Mr. and Mrs. Darling hurried with Nana
+out of 27. They ran into the middle of the street to look up at the
+nursery window; and, yes, it was still shut, but the room was ablaze
+with light, and most heart-gripping sight of all, they could see in
+shadow on the curtain three little figures in night attire circling
+round and round, not on the floor but in the air.</p>
+
+<p>Not three figures, four!</p>
+
+<p>In a tremble they opened the street door. Mr. Darling would have rushed
+upstairs, but Mrs. Darling signed to him to go softly. She even tried to
+make her heart go softly.</p>
+
+<p>Will they reach the nursery in time? If so,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> how delightful for them,
+and we shall all breathe a sigh of relief, but there will be no story.
+On the other hand, if they are not in time, I solemnly promise that it
+will all come right in the end.</p>
+
+<p>They would have reached the nursery in time had it not been that the
+little stars were watching them. Once again the stars blew the window
+open, and that smallest star of all called out:</p>
+
+<p>'Cave, Peter!'</p>
+
+<p>Then Peter knew that there was not a moment to lose. 'Come,' he cried
+imperiously, and soared out at once into the night, followed by John and
+Michael and Wendy.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. and Mrs. Darling and Nana rushed into the nursery too late. The
+birds were flown.</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="i090" id="i090"></a><img src="images/i090.jpg" width='495' height='700' alt="THE BIRDS WERE FLOWN" /></div>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE FLIGHT</h3>
+
+<p>'Second to the right, and straight on till morning.'</p>
+
+<p>That, Peter had told Wendy, was the way to the Neverland; but even
+birds, carrying maps and consulting them at windy corners, could not
+have sighted it with these instructions. Peter, you see, just said
+anything that came into his head.</p>
+
+<p>At first his companions trusted him implicitly, and so great were the
+delights of flying that they wasted time circling round church spires or
+any other tall objects on the way that took their fancy.</p>
+
+<p>John and Michael raced, Michael getting a start.</p>
+
+<p>They recalled with contempt that not so long<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span> ago they had thought
+themselves fine fellows for being able to fly round a room.</p>
+
+<p>Not so long ago. But how long ago? They were flying over the sea before
+this thought began to disturb Wendy seriously. John thought it was their
+second sea and their third night.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes it was dark and sometimes light, and now they were very cold
+and again too warm. Did they really feel hungry at times, or were they
+merely pretending, because Peter had such a jolly new way of feeding
+them? His way was to pursue birds who had food in their mouths suitable
+for humans and snatch it from them; then the birds would follow and
+snatch it back; and they would all go chasing each other gaily for
+miles, parting at last with mutual expressions of good-will. But Wendy
+noticed with gentle concern that Peter did not seem to know that this
+was rather an odd way of getting your bread and butter, nor even that
+there are other ways.</p>
+
+<p>Certainly they did not pretend to be sleepy, they were sleepy; and that
+was a danger, for the moment they popped off, down they fell.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span> The awful
+thing was that Peter thought this funny.</p>
+
+<p>'There he goes again!' he would cry gleefully, as Michael suddenly
+dropped like a stone.</p>
+
+<p>'Save him, save him!' cried Wendy, looking with horror at the cruel sea
+far below. Eventually Peter would dive through the air, and catch
+Michael just before he could strike the sea, and it was lovely the way
+he did it; but he always waited till the last moment, and you felt it
+was his cleverness that interested him and not the saving of human life.
+Also he was fond of variety, and the sport that engrossed him one moment
+would suddenly cease to engage him, so there was always the possibility
+that the next time you fell he would let you go.</p>
+
+<p>He could sleep in the air without falling, by merely lying on his back
+and floating, but this was, partly at least, because he was so light
+that if you got behind him and blew he went faster.</p>
+
+<p>'Do be more polite to him,' Wendy whispered to John, when they were
+playing 'Follow my Leader.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span></p><p>'Then tell him to stop showing off,' said John.</p>
+
+<p>When playing Follow my Leader, Peter would fly close to the water and
+touch each shark's tail in passing, just as in the street you may run
+your finger along an iron railing. They could not follow him in this
+with much success, so perhaps it was rather like showing off, especially
+as he kept looking behind to see how many tails they missed.</p>
+
+<p>'You must be nice to him,' Wendy impressed on her brothers. 'What could
+we do if he were to leave us?'</p>
+
+<p>'We could go back,' Michael said.</p>
+
+<p>'How could we ever find our way back without him?'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, then, we could go on,' said John.</p>
+
+<p>'That is the awful thing, John. We should have to go on, for we don't
+know how to stop.'</p>
+
+<p>This was true; Peter had forgotten to show them how to stop.</p>
+
+<p>John said that if the worst came to the worst, all they had to do was to
+go straight on, for the world was round, and so in time they must come
+back to their own window.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span></p><p>'And who is to get food for us, John?'</p>
+
+<p>'I nipped a bit out of that eagle's mouth pretty neatly, Wendy.'</p>
+
+<p>'After the twentieth try,' Wendy reminded him. 'And even though we
+became good at picking up food, see how we bump against clouds and
+things if he is not near to give us a hand.'</p>
+
+<p>Indeed they were constantly bumping. They could now fly strongly, though
+they still kicked far too much; but if they saw a cloud in front of
+them, the more they tried to avoid it, the more certainly did they bump
+into it. If Nana had been with them, she would have had a bandage round
+Michael's forehead by this time.</p>
+
+<p>Peter was not with them for the moment, and they felt rather lonely up
+there by themselves. He could go so much faster than they that he would
+suddenly shoot out of sight, to have some adventure in which they had no
+share. He would come down laughing over something fearfully funny he had
+been saying to a star, but he had already forgotten what it was, or he
+would come up with mermaid scales still <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>sticking to him, and yet not be
+able to say for certain what had been happening. It was really rather
+irritating to children who had never seen a mermaid.</p>
+
+<p>'And if he forgets them, so quickly,' Wendy argued, 'how can we expect
+that he will go on remembering us?'</p>
+
+<p>Indeed, sometimes when he returned he did not remember them, at least
+not well. Wendy was sure of it. She saw recognition come into his eyes
+as he was about to pass them the time of day and go on; once even she
+had to tell him her name.</p>
+
+<p>'I'm Wendy,' she said agitatedly.</p>
+
+<p>He was very sorry. 'I say, Wendy,' he whispered to her, 'always if you
+see me forgetting you, just keep on saying "I'm Wendy," and then I'll
+remember.'</p>
+
+<p>Of course this was rather unsatisfactory. However, to make amends he
+showed them how to lie out flat on a strong wind that was going their
+way, and this was such a pleasant change that they tried it several
+times and found they could sleep thus with security. Indeed they would
+have slept longer, but Peter<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span> tired quickly of sleeping, and soon he
+would cry in his captain voice, 'We get off here.' So with occasional
+tiffs, but on the whole rollicking, they drew near the Neverland; for
+after many moons they did reach it, and, what is more, they had been
+going pretty straight all the time, not perhaps so much owing to the
+guidance of Peter or Tink as because the island was out looking for
+them. It is only thus that any one may sight those magic shores.</p>
+
+<p>'There it is,' said Peter calmly.</p>
+
+<p>'Where, where?'</p>
+
+<p>'Where all the arrows are pointing.'</p>
+
+<p>Indeed a million golden arrows were pointing out the island to the
+children, all directed by their friend the sun, who wanted them to be
+sure of their way before leaving them for the night.</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="i078" id="i078"></a><img src="images/i078.jpg" width='491' height='700' alt="LET HIM KEEP WHO CAN" /></div>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Wendy and John and Michael stood on tiptoe in the air to get their first
+sight of the island. Strange to say, they all recognised it at once, and
+until fear fell upon them they hailed it, not as something long dreamt
+of and seen at last, but as a familiar friend to whom they were
+returning home for the holidays.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p><p>'John, there's the lagoon.'</p>
+
+<p>'Wendy, look at the turtles burying their eggs in the sand.'</p>
+
+<p>'I say, John, I see your flamingo with the broken leg.'</p>
+
+<p>'Look, Michael, there's your cave.'</p>
+
+<p>'John, what's that in the brushwood?'</p>
+
+<p>'It's a wolf with her whelps. Wendy, I do believe that's your little
+whelp.'</p>
+
+<p>'There's my boat, John, with her sides stove in.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, it isn't. Why, we burned your boat.'</p>
+
+<p>'That's her, at any rate. I say, John, I see the smoke of the redskin
+camp.'</p>
+
+<p>'Where? Show me, and I'll tell you by the way the smoke curls whether
+they are on the war-path.'</p>
+
+<p>'There, just across the Mysterious River.'</p>
+
+<p>'I see now. Yes, they are on the war-path right enough.'</p>
+
+<p>Peter was a little annoyed with them for knowing so much; but if he
+wanted to lord it over them his triumph was at hand, for have I not told
+you that anon fear fell upon them?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p><p>It came as the arrows went, leaving the island in gloom.</p>
+
+<p>In the old days at home the Neverland had always begun to look a little
+dark and threatening by bedtime. Then unexplored patches arose in it and
+spread; black shadows moved about in them; the roar of the beasts of
+prey was quite different now, and above all, you lost the certainty that
+you would win. You were quite glad that the night-lights were in. You
+even liked Nana to say that this was just the mantelpiece over here, and
+that the Neverland was all make-believe.</p>
+
+<p>Of course the Neverland had been make-believe in those days; but it was
+real now, and there were no night-lights, and it was getting darker
+every moment, and where was Nana?</p>
+
+<p>They had been flying apart, but they huddled close to Peter now. His
+careless manner had gone at last, his eyes were sparkling, and a tingle
+went through them every time they touched his body. They were now over
+the fearsome island, flying so low that sometimes a tree grazed their
+feet. Nothing horrid was visible in the air, yet their progress had
+become slow<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span> and laboured, exactly as if they were pushing their way
+through hostile forces. Sometimes they hung in the air until Peter had
+beaten on it with his fists.</p>
+
+<p>'They don't want us to land,' he explained.</p>
+
+<p>'Who are they?' Wendy whispered, shuddering.</p>
+
+<p>But he could not or would not say. Tinker Bell had been asleep on his
+shoulder, but now he wakened her and sent her on in front.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes he poised himself in the air, listening intently with his hand
+to his ear, and again he would stare down with eyes so bright that they
+seemed to bore two holes to earth. Having done these things, he went on
+again.</p>
+
+<p>His courage was almost appalling. 'Do you want an adventure now,' he
+said casually to John, 'or would you like to have your tea first?'</p>
+
+<p>Wendy said 'tea first' quickly, and Michael pressed her hand in
+gratitude, but the braver John hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>'What kind of adventure?' he asked cautiously.</p>
+
+<p>'There's a pirate asleep in the pampas just<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span> beneath us,' Peter told
+him. 'If you like, we'll go down and kill him.'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't see him,' John said after a long pause.</p>
+
+<p>'I do.'</p>
+
+<p>'Suppose,' John said a little huskily, 'he were to wake up.'</p>
+
+<p>Peter spoke indignantly. 'You don't think I would kill him while he was
+sleeping! I would wake him first, and then kill him. That's the way I
+always do.'</p>
+
+<p>'I say! Do you kill many?'</p>
+
+<p>'Tons.'</p>
+
+<p>John said 'how ripping,' but decided to have tea first. He asked if
+there were many pirates on the island just now, and Peter said he had
+never known so many.</p>
+
+<p>'Who is captain now?'</p>
+
+<p>'Hook,' answered Peter; and his face became very stern as he said that
+hated word.</p>
+
+<p>'Jas. Hook?'</p>
+
+<p>'Ay.'</p>
+
+<p>Then indeed Michael began to cry, and even John could speak in gulps
+only, for they knew Hook's reputation.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span></p><p>'He was Blackbeard's bo'sun,' John whispered huskily. 'He is the worst
+of them all. He is the only man of whom Barbecue was afraid.'</p>
+
+<p>'That's him,' said Peter.</p>
+
+<p>'What is he like? Is he big?'</p>
+
+<p>'He is not so big as he was.'</p>
+
+<p>'How do you mean?'</p>
+
+<p>'I cut off a bit of him.'</p>
+
+<p>'You!'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, me,' said Peter sharply.</p>
+
+<p>'I wasn't meaning to be disrespectful.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, all right'</p>
+
+<p>'But, I say, what bit?'</p>
+
+<p>'His right hand.'</p>
+
+<p>'Then he can't fight now?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, can't he just!'</p>
+
+<p>'Left-hander?'</p>
+
+<p>'He has an iron hook instead of a right hand, and he claws with it.'</p>
+
+<p>'Claws!'</p>
+
+<p>'I say, John,' said Peter.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes.'</p>
+
+<p>'Say, "Ay, ay, sir."'</p>
+
+<p>'Ay, ay, sir.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p><p>'There is one thing,' Peter continued, 'that every boy who serves under
+me has to promise, and so must you.'</p>
+
+<p>John paled.</p>
+
+<p>'It is this, if we meet Hook in open fight, you must leave him to me.'</p>
+
+<p>'I promise,' John said loyally.</p>
+
+<p>For the moment they were feeling less eerie, because Tink was flying
+with them, and in her light they could distinguish each other.
+Unfortunately she could not fly so slowly as they, and so she had to go
+round and round them in a circle in which they moved as in a halo. Wendy
+quite liked it, until Peter pointed out the drawback.</p>
+
+<p>'She tells me,' he said, 'that the pirates sighted us before the
+darkness came, and got Long Tom out.'</p>
+
+<p>'The big gun?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes. And of course they must see her light, and if they guess we are
+near it they are sure to let fly.'</p>
+
+<p>'Wendy!'</p>
+
+<p>'John!'</p>
+
+<p>'Michael!'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span></p><p>'Tell her to go away at once, Peter,' the three cried simultaneously,
+but he refused.</p>
+
+<p>'She thinks we have lost the way,' he replied stiffly, 'and she is
+rather frightened. You don't think I would send her away all by herself
+when she is frightened!'</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the circle of light was broken, and something gave Peter a
+loving little pinch.</p>
+
+<p>'Then tell her,' Wendy begged, 'to put out her light.'</p>
+
+<p>'She can't put it out. That is about the only thing fairies can't do. It
+just goes out of itself when she falls asleep, same as the stars.'</p>
+
+<p>'Then tell her to sleep at once,' John almost ordered.</p>
+
+<p>'She can't sleep except when she's sleepy. It is the only other thing
+fairies can't do.'</p>
+
+<p>'Seems to me,' growled John, 'these are the only two things worth
+doing.'</p>
+
+<p>Here he got a pinch, but not a loving one.</p>
+
+<p>'If only one of us had a pocket,' Peter said, 'we could carry her in
+it.' However, they had set off in such a hurry that there was not a
+pocket between the four of them.</p>
+
+<p>He had a happy idea. John's hat!</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p><p>Tink agreed to travel by hat if it was carried in the hand. John
+carried it, though she had hoped to be carried by Peter. Presently Wendy
+took the hat, because John said it struck against his knee as he flew;
+and this, as we shall see, led to mischief, for Tinker Bell hated to be
+under an obligation to Wendy.</p>
+
+<p>In the black topper the light was completely hidden, and they flew on in
+silence. It was the stillest silence they had ever known, broken once by
+a distant lapping, which Peter explained was the wild beasts drinking at
+the ford, and again by a rasping sound that might have been the branches
+of trees rubbing together, but he said it was the redskins sharpening
+their knives.</p>
+
+<p>Even these noises ceased. To Michael the loneliness was dreadful. 'If
+only something would make a sound!' he cried.</p>
+
+<p>As if in answer to his request, the air was rent by the most tremendous
+crash he had ever heard. The pirates had fired Long Tom at them.</p>
+
+<p>The roar of it echoed through the mountains, and the echoes seemed to
+cry savagely, 'Where are they, where are they, where are they?'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span></p><p>Thus sharply did the terrified three learn the difference between an
+island of make-believe and the same island come true.</p>
+
+<p>When at last the heavens were steady again, John and Michael found
+themselves alone in the darkness. John was treading the air
+mechanically, and Michael without knowing how to float was floating.</p>
+
+<p>'Are you shot?' John whispered tremulously.</p>
+
+<p>'I haven't tried yet,' Michael whispered back.</p>
+
+<p>We know now that no one had been hit. Peter, however, had been carried
+by the wind of the shot far out to sea, while Wendy was blown upwards
+with no companion but Tinker Bell.</p>
+
+<p>It would have been well for Wendy if at that moment she had dropped the
+hat.</p>
+
+<p>I don't know whether the idea came suddenly to Tink, or whether she had
+planned it on the way, but she at once popped out of the hat and began
+to lure Wendy to her destruction.</p>
+
+<p>Tink was not all bad: or, rather, she was all bad just now, but, on the
+other hand, sometimes she was all good. Fairies have to be one thing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span> or
+the other, because being so small they unfortunately have room for one
+feeling only at a time. They are, however, allowed to change, only it
+must be a complete change. At present she was full of jealousy of Wendy.
+What she said in her lovely tinkle Wendy could not of course understand,
+and I believe some of it was bad words, but it sounded kind, and she
+flew back and forward, plainly meaning 'Follow me, and all will be
+well.'</p>
+
+<p>What else could poor Wendy do? She called to Peter and John and Michael,
+and got only mocking echoes in reply. She did not yet know that Tink
+hated her with the fierce hatred of a very woman. And so, bewildered,
+and now staggering in her flight, she followed Tink to her doom.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>THE ISLAND COME TRUE</h3>
+
+<p>Feeling that Peter was on his way back, the Neverland had again woke
+into life. We ought to use the pluperfect and say wakened, but woke is
+better and was always used by Peter.</p>
+
+<p>In his absence things are usually quiet on the island. The fairies take
+an hour longer in the morning, the beasts attend to their young, the
+redskins feed heavily for six days and nights, and when pirates and lost
+boys meet they merely bite their thumbs at each other. But with the
+coming of Peter, who hates lethargy, they are all under way again: if
+you put your ear to the ground now, you would hear the whole island
+seething with life.</p>
+
+<p>On this evening the chief forces of the island<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span> were disposed as
+follows. The lost boys were out looking for Peter, the pirates were out
+looking for the lost boys, the redskins were out looking for the
+pirates, and the beasts were out looking for the redskins. They were
+going round and round the island, but they did not meet because all were
+going at the same rate.</p>
+
+<p>All wanted blood except the boys, who liked it as a rule, but to-night
+were out to greet their captain. The boys on the island vary, of course,
+in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem
+to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out; but
+at this time there were six of them, counting the twins as two. Let us
+pretend to lie here among the sugar-cane and watch them as they steal by
+in single file, each with his hand on his dagger.</p>
+
+<p>They are forbidden by Peter to look in the least like him, and they wear
+the skins of bears slain by themselves, in which they are so round and
+furry that when they fall they roll. They have therefore become very
+sure-footed.</p>
+
+<p>The first to pass is Tootles, not the least brave but the most
+unfortunate of all that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span> gallant band. He had been in fewer adventures
+than any of them, because the big things constantly happened just when
+he had stepped round the corner; all would be quiet, he would take the
+opportunity of going off to gather a few sticks for firewood, and then
+when he returned the others would be sweeping up the blood. This
+ill-luck had given a gentle melancholy to his countenance, but instead
+of souring his nature had sweetened it, so that he was quite the
+humblest of the boys. Poor kind Tootles, there is danger in the air for
+you to-night. Take care lest an adventure is now offered you, which, if
+accepted, will plunge you in deepest woe. Tootles, the fairy Tink who is
+bent on mischief this night is looking for a tool, and she thinks you
+the most easily tricked of the boys. 'Ware Tinker Bell.</p>
+
+<p>Would that he could hear us, but we are not really on the island, and he
+passes by, biting his knuckles.</p>
+
+<p>Next comes Nibs, the gay and debonair, followed by Slightly, who cuts
+whistles out of the trees and dances ecstatically to his own tunes.
+Slightly is the most conceited of the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span> boys. He thinks he remembers the
+days before he was lost, with their manners and customs, and this has
+given his nose an offensive tilt. Curly is fourth; he is a pickle, and
+so often has he had to deliver up his person when Peter said sternly,
+'Stand forth the one who did this thing,' that now at the command he
+stands forth automatically whether he has done it or not. Last come the
+Twins, who cannot be described because we should be sure to be
+describing the wrong one. Peter never quite knew what twins were, and
+his band were not allowed to know anything he did not know, so these two
+were always vague about themselves, and did their best to give
+satisfaction by keeping close together in an apologetic sort of way.</p>
+
+<p>The boys vanish in the gloom, and after a pause, but not a long pause,
+for things go briskly on the island, come the pirates on their track. We
+hear them before they are seen, and it is always the same dreadful song:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>'Avast belay, yo ho, heave to,</div>
+<div class="i1">A-pirating we go,</div>
+<div>And if we're parted by a shot</div>
+<div class="i1">We're sure to meet below!'</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span></p><p>A more villainous-looking lot never hung in a row on Execution dock.
+Here, a little in advance, ever and again with his head to the ground
+listening, his great arms bare, pieces of eight in his ears as
+ornaments, is the handsome Italian Cecco, who cut his name in letters of
+blood on the back of the governor of the prison at Gao. That gigantic
+black behind him has had many names since he dropped the one with which
+dusky mothers still terrify their children on the banks of the
+Guadjo-mo. Here is Bill Jukes, every inch of him tattooed, the same Bill
+Jukes who got six dozen on the <i>Walrus</i> from Flint before he would drop
+the bag of moidores; and Cookson, said to be Black Murphy's brother (but
+this was never proved); and Gentleman Starkey, once an usher in a public
+school and still dainty in his ways of killing; and Skylights (Morgan's
+Skylights); and the Irish bo'sun Smee, an oddly genial man who stabbed,
+so to speak, without offence, and was the only Nonconformist in Hook's
+crew; and Noodler, whose hands were fixed on backwards; and Robt.
+Mullins and Alf Mason and many another ruffian long known and feared on
+the Spanish Main.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span></p><p>In the midst of them, the blackest and largest jewel in that dark
+setting, reclined James Hook, or as he wrote himself, Jas. Hook, of whom
+it is said he was the only man that the Sea-Cook feared. He lay at his
+ease in a rough chariot drawn and propelled by his men, and instead of a
+right hand he had the iron hook with which ever and anon he encouraged
+them to increase their pace. As dogs this terrible man treated and
+addressed them, and as dogs they obeyed him. In person he was cadaverous
+and blackavized, and his hair was dressed in long curls, which at a
+little distance looked like black candles, and gave a singularly
+threatening expression to his handsome countenance. His eyes were of the
+blue of the forget-me-not, and of a profound melancholy, save when he
+was plunging his hook into you, at which time two red spots appeared in
+them and lit them up horribly. In manner, something of the grand
+seigneur still clung to him, so that he even ripped you up with an air,
+and I have been told that he was a <i>raconteur</i> of repute. He was never
+more sinister than when he was most polite, which is probably the truest
+test of breeding; and the elegance of his diction,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span> even when he was
+swearing, no less than the distinction of his demeanour, showed him one
+of a different caste from his crew. A man of indomitable courage, it was
+said of him that the only thing he shied at was the sight of his own
+blood, which was thick and of an unusual colour. In dress he somewhat
+aped the attire associated with the name of Charles II., having heard it
+said in some earlier period of his career that he bore a strange
+resemblance to the ill-fated Stuarts; and in his mouth he had a holder
+of his own contrivance which enabled him to smoke two cigars at once.
+But undoubtedly the grimmest part of him was his iron claw.</p>
+
+<p>Let us now kill a pirate, to show Hook's method. Skylights will do. As
+they pass, Skylights lurches clumsily against him, ruffling his lace
+collar; the hook shoots forth, there is a tearing sound and one screech,
+then the body is kicked aside, and the pirates pass on. He has not even
+taken the cigars from his mouth.</p>
+
+<p>Such is the terrible man against whom Peter Pan is pitted. Which will
+win?</p>
+
+<p>On the trail of the pirates, stealing noiselessly down the war-path,
+which is not visible to <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>inexperienced eyes, come the redskins, every
+one of them with his eyes peeled. They carry tomahawks and knives, and
+their naked bodies gleam with paint and oil. Strung around them are
+scalps, of boys as well as of pirates, for these are the Piccaninny
+tribe, and not to be confused with the softer-hearted Delawares or the
+Hurons. In the van, on all fours, is Great Big Little Panther, a brave
+of so many scalps that in his present position they somewhat impede his
+progress. Bringing up the rear, the place of greatest danger, comes
+Tiger Lily, proudly erect, a princess in her own right. She is the most
+beautiful of dusky Dianas and the belle of the Piccaninnies, coquettish,
+cold and amorous by turns; there is not a brave who would not have the
+wayward thing to wife, but she staves off the altar with a hatchet.
+Observe how they pass over fallen twigs without making the slightest
+noise. The only sound to be heard is their somewhat heavy breathing. The
+fact is that they are all a little fat just now after the heavy gorging,
+but in time they will work this off. For the moment, however, it
+constitutes their chief danger.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p><p>The redskins disappear as they have come like shadows, and soon their
+place is taken by the beasts, a great and motley procession: lions,
+tigers, bears, and the innumerable smaller savage things that flee from
+them, for every kind of beast, and, more particularly; all the
+man-eaters, live cheek by jowl on the favoured island. Their tongues are
+hanging out, they are hungry to-night.</p>
+
+<p>When they have passed, comes the last figure of all, a gigantic
+crocodile. We shall see for whom she is looking presently.</p>
+
+<p>The crocodile passes, but soon the boys appear again, for the procession
+must continue indefinitely until one of the parties stops or changes its
+pace. Then quickly they will be on top of each other.</p>
+
+<p>All are keeping a sharp look-out in front, but none suspects that the
+danger may be creeping up from behind. This shows how real the island
+was.</p>
+
+<p>The first to fall out of the moving circle was the boys. They flung
+themselves down on the sward, close to their underground home.</p>
+
+<p>'I do wish Peter would come back,' every one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> of them said nervously,
+though in height and still more in breadth they were all larger than
+their captain.</p>
+
+<p>'I am the only one who is not afraid of the pirates,' Slightly said, in
+the tone that prevented his being a general favourite; but perhaps some
+distant sound disturbed him, for he added hastily, 'but I wish he would
+come back, and tell us whether he has heard anything more about
+Cinderella.'</p>
+
+<p>They talked of Cinderella, and Tootles was confident that his mother
+must have been very like her.</p>
+
+<p>It was only in Peter's absence that they could speak of mothers, the
+subject being forbidden by him as silly.</p>
+
+<p>'All I remember about my mother,' Nibs told them, 'is that she often
+said to father, "Oh, how I wish I had a cheque-book of my own." I don't
+know what a cheque-book is, but I should just love to give my mother
+one.'</p>
+
+<p>While they talked they heard a distant sound. You or I, not being wild
+things of the woods, would have heard nothing, but they heard it, and it
+was the grim song:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span><div>'Yo ho, yo ho, the pirate life,</div>
+<div class="i1">The flag o' skull and bones,</div>
+<div>A merry hour, a hempen rope,</div>
+<div class="i1">And hey for Davy Jones.'</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>At once the lost boys&mdash;but where are they? They are no longer there.
+Rabbits could not have disappeared more quickly.</p>
+
+<p>I will tell you where they are. With the exception of Nibs, who has
+darted away to reconnoitre, they are already in their home under the
+ground, a very delightful residence of which we shall see a good deal
+presently. But how have they reached it? for there is no entrance to be
+seen, not so much as a pile of brushwood, which if removed would
+disclose the mouth of a cave. Look closely, however, and you may note
+that there are here seven large trees, each having in its hollow trunk a
+hole as large as a boy. These are the seven entrances to the home under
+the ground, for which Hook has been searching in vain these many moons.
+Will he find it to-night?</p>
+
+<p>As the pirates advanced, the quick eye of Starkey sighted Nibs
+disappearing through the wood, and at once his pistol flashed out. But
+an iron claw gripped his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p><p>'Captain, let go,' he cried, writhing.</p>
+
+<p>Now for the first time we hear the voice of Hook. It was a black voice.
+'Put back that pistol first,' it said threateningly.</p>
+
+<p>'It was one of those boys you hate. I could have shot him dead.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ay, and the sound would have brought Tiger Lily's redskins upon us. Do
+you want to lose your scalp?'</p>
+
+<p>'Shall I after him, captain,' asked pathetic Smee, 'and tickle him with
+Johnny Corkscrew?' Smee had pleasant names for everything, and his
+cutlass was Johnny Corkscrew, because he wriggled it in the wound. One
+could mention many lovable traits in Smee. For instance, after killing,
+it was his spectacles he wiped instead of his weapon.</p>
+
+<p>'Johnny's a silent fellow,' he reminded Hook.</p>
+
+<p>'Not now, Smee,' Hook said darkly. 'He is only one, and I want to
+mischief all the seven. Scatter and look for them.'</p>
+
+<p>The pirates disappeared among the trees, and in a moment their captain
+and Smee were alone. Hook heaved a heavy sigh; and I know not why it
+was, perhaps it was because of the soft<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span> beauty of the evening, but
+there came over him a desire to confide to his faithful bo'sun the story
+of his life. He spoke long and earnestly, but what it was all about
+Smee, who was rather stupid, did not know in the least.</p>
+
+<p>Anon he caught the word Peter.</p>
+
+<p>'Most of all,' Hook was saying passionately, 'I want their captain,
+Peter Pan. 'Twas he cut off my arm.' He brandished the hook
+threateningly. 'I've waited long to shake his hand with this. Oh, I'll
+tear him.'</p>
+
+<p>'And yet,' said Smee, 'I have often heard you say that hook was worth a
+score of hands, for combing the hair and other homely uses.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ay,' the captain answered, 'if I was a mother I would pray to have my
+children born with this instead of that,' and he cast a look of pride
+upon his iron hand and one of scorn upon the other. Then again he
+frowned.</p>
+
+<p>'Peter flung my arm,' he said, wincing, 'to a crocodile that happened to
+be passing by.'</p>
+
+<p>'I have often,' said Smee, 'noticed your strange dread of crocodiles.'</p>
+
+<p>'Not of crocodiles,' Hook corrected him, 'but of that one crocodile.' He
+lowered his voice.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span> 'It liked my arm so much, Smee, that it has followed
+me ever since, from sea to sea and from land to land, licking its lips
+for the rest of me.'</p>
+
+<p>'In a way,' said Smee, 'it's a sort of compliment.'</p>
+
+<p>'I want no such compliments,' Hook barked petulantly. 'I want Peter Pan,
+who first gave the brute its taste for me.'</p>
+
+<p>He sat down on a large mushroom, and now there was a quiver in his
+voice. 'Smee,' he said huskily, 'that crocodile would have had me before
+this, but by a lucky chance it swallowed a clock which goes tick tick
+inside it, and so before it can reach me I hear the tick and bolt.' He
+laughed, but in a hollow way.</p>
+
+<p>'Some day,' said Smee, 'the clock will run down, and then he'll get
+you.'</p>
+
+<p>Hook wetted his dry lips. 'Ay,' he said, 'that's the fear that haunts
+me.'</p>
+
+<p>Since sitting down he had felt curiously warm. 'Smee,' he said, 'this
+seat is hot.' He jumped up. 'Odds bobs, hammer and tongs I'm burning.'</p>
+
+<p>They examined the mushroom, which was of a size and solidity unknown on
+the mainland;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span> they tried to pull it up, and it came away at once in
+their hands, for it had no root. Stranger still, smoke began at once to
+ascend. The pirates looked at each other. 'A chimney!' they both
+exclaimed.</p>
+
+<p>They had indeed discovered the chimney of the home under the ground. It
+was the custom of the boys to stop it with a mushroom when enemies were
+in the neighbourhood.</p>
+
+<p>Not only smoke came out of it. There came also children's voices, for so
+safe did the boys feel in their hiding-place that they were gaily
+chattering. The pirates listened grimly, and then replaced the mushroom.
+They looked around them and noted the holes in the seven trees.</p>
+
+<p>'Did you hear them say Peter Pan's from home?' Smee whispered, fidgeting
+with Johnny Corkscrew.</p>
+
+<p>Hook nodded. He stood for a long time lost in thought, and at last a
+curdling smile lit up his swarthy face. Smee had been waiting for it.
+'Unrip your plan, captain,' he cried eagerly.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p><p>'To return to the ship,' Hook replied slowly through his teeth, 'and
+cook a large rich cake of a jolly thickness with green sugar on it.
+There can be but one room below, for there is but one chimney. The silly
+moles had not the sense to see that they did not need a door apiece.
+That shows they have no mother. We will leave the cake on the shore of
+the mermaids' lagoon. These boys are always swimming about there,
+playing with the mermaids. They will find the cake and they will gobble
+it up, because, having no mother, they don't know how dangerous 'tis to
+eat rich damp cake.' He burst into laughter, not hollow laughter now,
+but honest laughter. 'Aha, they will die.'</p>
+
+<p>Smee had listened with growing admiration.</p>
+
+<p>'It's the wickedest, prettiest policy ever I heard of,' he cried, and in
+their exultation they danced and sang:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>'Avast, belay, when I appear,</div>
+<div class="i1">By fear they're overtook;</div>
+<div>Nought's left upon your bones when you</div>
+<div class="i1">Have shaken claws with Cook.'</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>They began the verse, but they never finished<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span> it, for another sound
+broke in and stilled them. It was at first such a tiny sound that a leaf
+might have fallen on it and smothered it, but as it came nearer it was
+more distinct.</p>
+
+<p>Tick tick tick tick.</p>
+
+<p>Hook stood shuddering, one foot in the air.</p>
+
+<p>'The crocodile,' he gasped, and bounded away, followed by his bo'sun.</p>
+
+<p>It was indeed the crocodile. It had passed the redskins, who were now on
+the trail of the other pirates. It oozed on after Hook.</p>
+
+<p>Once more the boys emerged into the open; but the dangers of the night
+were not yet over, for presently Nibs rushed breathless into their
+midst, pursued by a pack of wolves. The tongues of the pursuers were
+hanging out; the baying of them was horrible.</p>
+
+<p>'Save me, save me!' cried Nibs, falling on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>'But what can we do, what can we do?'</p>
+
+<p>It was a high compliment to Peter that at that dire moment their
+thoughts turned to him.</p>
+
+<p>'What would Peter do?' they cried simultaneously.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p><p>Almost in the same breath they added, 'Peter would look at them through
+his legs.'</p>
+
+<p>And then, 'Let us do what Peter would do.'</p>
+
+<p>It is quite the most successful way of defying wolves, and as one boy
+they bent and looked through their legs. The next moment is the long
+one; but victory came quickly, for as the boys advanced upon them in
+this terrible attitude, the wolves dropped their tails and fled.</p>
+
+<p>Now Nibs rose from the ground, and the others thought that his staring
+eyes still saw the wolves. But it was not wolves he saw.</p>
+
+<p>'I have seen a wonderfuller thing,' he cried, as they gathered round him
+eagerly. 'A great white bird. It is flying this way.'</p>
+
+<p>'What kind of a bird, do you think?'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't know,' Nibs said, awestruck, 'but it looks so weary, and as it
+flies it moans, "Poor Wendy."'</p>
+
+<p>'Poor Wendy?'</p>
+
+<p>'I remember,' said Slightly instantly, 'there are birds called Wendies.'</p>
+
+<p>'See, it comes,' cried Curly, pointing to Wendy in the heavens.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span></p><p>Wendy was now almost overhead, and they could hear her plaintive cry.
+But more distinct came the shrill voice of Tinker Bell. The jealous
+fairy had now cast off all disguise of friendship, and was darting at
+her victim from every direction, pinching savagely each time she
+touched.</p>
+
+<p>'Hullo, Tink,' cried the wondering boys.</p>
+
+<p>Tink's reply rang out: 'Peter wants you to shoot the Wendy.'</p>
+
+<p>It was not in their nature to question when Peter ordered. 'Let us do
+what Peter wishes,' cried the simple boys. 'Quick, bows and arrows.'</p>
+
+<p>All but Tootles popped down their trees. He had a bow and arrow with
+him, and Tink noted it, and rubbed her little hands.</p>
+
+<p>'Quick, Tootles, quick,' she screamed. 'Peter will be so pleased.'</p>
+
+<p>Tootles excitedly fitted the arrow to his bow. 'Out of the way, Tink,'
+he shouted; and then he fired, and Wendy fluttered to the ground with an
+arrow in her breast.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LITTLE HOUSE</h3>
+
+<p>Foolish Tootles was standing like a conqueror over Wendy's body when the
+other boys sprang, armed, from their trees.</p>
+
+<p>'You are too late,' he cried proudly, 'I have shot the Wendy. Peter will
+be so pleased with me.'</p>
+
+<p>Overhead Tinker Bell shouted 'Silly ass!' and darted into hiding. The
+others did not hear her. They had crowded round Wendy, and as they
+looked a terrible silence fell upon the wood. If Wendy's heart had been
+beating they would all have heard it.</p>
+
+<p>Slightly was the first to speak. 'This is no bird,' he said in a scared
+voice. 'I think it must be a lady.'</p>
+
+<p>'A lady?' said Tootles, and fell a-trembling.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p><p>'And we have killed her,' Nibs said hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p>They all whipped off their caps.</p>
+
+<p>'Now I see,' Curly said; 'Peter was bringing her to us.' He threw
+himself sorrowfully on the ground.</p>
+
+<p>'A lady to take care of us at last,' said one of the twins, 'and you
+have killed her.'</p>
+
+<p>They were sorry for him, but sorrier for themselves, and when he took a
+step nearer them they turned from him.</p>
+
+<p>Tootles' face was very white, but there was a dignity about him now that
+had never been there before.</p>
+
+<p>'I did it,' he said, reflecting. 'When ladies used to come to me in
+dreams, I said, "Pretty mother, pretty mother." But when at last she
+really came, I shot her.'</p>
+
+<p>He moved slowly away.</p>
+
+<p>'Don't go,' they called in pity.</p>
+
+<p>'I must,' he answered, shaking; 'I am so afraid of Peter.'</p>
+
+<p>It was at this tragic moment that they heard a sound which made the
+heart of every one of them rise to his mouth. They heard Peter crow.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span></p><p>'Peter!' they cried, for it was always thus that he signalled his
+return.</p>
+
+<p>'Hide her,' they whispered, and gathered hastily around Wendy. But
+Tootles stood aloof.</p>
+
+<p>Again came that ringing crow, and Peter dropped in front of them.
+'Greeting, boys,' he cried, and mechanically they saluted, and then
+again was silence.</p>
+
+<p>He frowned.</p>
+
+<p>'I am back,' he said hotly, 'why do you not cheer?'</p>
+
+<p>They opened their mouths, but the cheers would not come. He overlooked
+it in his haste to tell the glorious tidings.</p>
+
+<p>'Great news, boys,' he cried, 'I have brought at last a mother for you
+all.'</p>
+
+<p>Still no sound, except a little thud from Tootles as he dropped on his
+knees.</p>
+
+<p>'Have you not seen her?' asked Peter, becoming troubled. 'She flew this
+way.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ah me,' one voice said, and another said, 'Oh, mournful day.'</p>
+
+<p>Tootles rose. 'Peter,' he said quietly, 'I will show her to you'; and
+when the others would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> still have hidden her he said, 'Back, twins, let
+Peter see.'</p>
+
+<p>So they all stood back, and let him see, and after he had looked for a
+little time he did not know what to do next.</p>
+
+<p>'She is dead,' he said uncomfortably. 'Perhaps she is frightened at
+being dead.'</p>
+
+<p>He thought of hopping off in a comic sort of way till he was out of
+sight of her, and then never going near the spot any more. They would
+all have been glad to follow if he had done this.</p>
+
+<p>But there was the arrow. He took it from her heart and faced his band.</p>
+
+<p>'Whose arrow?' he demanded sternly.</p>
+
+<p>'Mine, Peter,' said Tootles on his knees.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, dastard hand,' Peter said, and he raised the arrow to use it as a
+dagger.</p>
+
+<p>Tootles did not flinch. He bared his breast.</p>
+
+<p>'Strike, Peter,' he said firmly, 'strike true.'</p>
+
+<p>Twice did Peter raise the arrow, and twice did his hand fall. 'I cannot
+strike,' he said with awe, 'there is something stays my hand.'</p>
+
+<p>All looked at him in wonder, save Nibs, who fortunately looked at Wendy.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span></p><p>'It is she,' he cried, 'the Wendy lady; see, her arm.'</p>
+
+<p>Wonderful to relate, Wendy had raised her arm. Nibs bent over her and
+listened reverently. 'I think she said "Poor Tootles,"' he whispered.</p>
+
+<p>'She lives,' Peter said briefly.</p>
+
+<p>Slightly cried instantly, 'The Wendy lady lives.'</p>
+
+<p>Then Peter knelt beside her and found his button. You remember she had
+put it on a chain that she wore round her neck.</p>
+
+<p>'See,' he said, 'the arrow struck against this. It is the kiss I gave
+her. It has saved her life.'</p>
+
+<p>'I remember kisses,' Slightly interposed quickly, 'let me see it. Ay,
+that's a kiss.'</p>
+
+<p>Peter did not hear him. He was begging Wendy to get better quickly, so
+that he could show her the mermaids. Of course she could not answer yet,
+being still in a frightful faint; but from overhead came a wailing note.</p>
+
+<p>'Listen to Tink,' said Curly, 'she is crying because the Wendy lives.'</p>
+
+<p>Then they had to tell Peter of Tink's crime,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span> and almost never had they
+seen him look so stern.</p>
+
+<p>'Listen, Tinker Bell,' he cried; 'I am your friend no more. Begone from
+me for ever.'</p>
+
+<p>She flew on to his shoulder and pleaded, but he brushed her off. Not
+until Wendy again raised her arm did he relent sufficiently to say,
+'Well, not for ever, but for a whole week.'</p>
+
+<p>Do you think Tinker Bell was grateful to Wendy for raising her arm? Oh
+dear no, never wanted to pinch her so much. Fairies indeed are strange,
+and Peter, who understood them best, often cuffed them.</p>
+
+<p>But what to do with Wendy in her present delicate state of health?</p>
+
+<p>'Let us carry her down into the house,' Curly suggested.</p>
+
+<p>'Ay,' said Slightly, 'that is what one does with ladies.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, no,' Peter said, 'you must not touch her. It would not be
+sufficiently respectful.'</p>
+
+<p>'That,' said Slightly, 'is what I was thinking.'</p>
+
+<p>'But if she lies there,' Tootles said, 'she will die.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span></p><p>'Ay, she will die,' Slightly admitted, 'but there is no way out.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, there is,' cried Peter. 'Let us build a little house round her.'</p>
+
+<p>They were all delighted. 'Quick,' he ordered them, 'bring me each of you
+the best of what we have. Gut our house. Be sharp.'</p>
+
+<p>In a moment they were as busy as tailors the night before a wedding.
+They skurried this way and that, down for bedding, up for firewood, and
+while they were at it, who should appear but John and Michael. As they
+dragged along the ground they fell asleep standing, stopped, woke up,
+moved another step and slept again.</p>
+
+<p>'John, John,' Michael would cry, 'wake up. Where is Nana, John, and
+mother?'</p>
+
+<p>And then John would rub his eyes and mutter, 'It is true, we did fly.'</p>
+
+<p>You may be sure they were very relieved to find Peter.</p>
+
+<p>'Hullo, Peter,' they said.</p>
+
+<p>'Hullo,' replied Peter amicably, though he had quite forgotten them. He
+was very busy at the moment measuring Wendy with<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span> his feet to see how
+large a house she would need. Of course he meant to leave room for
+chairs and a table. John and Michael watched him.</p>
+
+<p>'Is Wendy asleep?' they asked.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes.'</p>
+
+<p>'John,' Michael proposed, 'let us wake her and get her to make supper
+for us'; but as he said it some of the other boys rushed on carrying
+branches for the building of the house.</p>
+
+<p>'Look at them!' he cried.</p>
+
+<p>'Curly,' said Peter in his most captainy voice, 'see that these boys
+help in the building of the house.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ay, ay, sir.'</p>
+
+<p>'Build a house?' exclaimed John.</p>
+
+<p>'For the Wendy,' said Curly.</p>
+
+<p>'For Wendy?' John said, aghast. 'Why, she is only a girl.'</p>
+
+<p>'That,' explained Curly, 'is why we are her servants.'</p>
+
+<p>'You? Wendy's servants!'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' said Peter, 'and you also. Away with them.'</p>
+
+<p>The astounded brothers were dragged away<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span> to hack and hew and carry.
+'Chairs and a fender first,' Peter ordered. 'Then we shall build the
+house round them.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ay,' said Slightly, 'that is how a house is built; it all comes back to
+me.'</p>
+
+<p>Peter thought of everything. 'Slightly,' he ordered, 'fetch a doctor.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ay, ay,' said Slightly at once, and disappeared, scratching his head.
+But he knew Peter must be obeyed, and he returned in a moment, wearing
+John's hat and looking solemn.</p>
+
+<p>'Please, sir,' said Peter, going to him, 'are you a doctor?'</p>
+
+<p>The difference between him and the other boys at such a time was that
+they knew it was make-believe, while to him make-believe and true were
+exactly the same thing. This sometimes troubled them, as when they had
+to make-believe that they had had their dinners.</p>
+
+<p>If they broke down in their make-believe he rapped them on the knuckles.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, my little man,' anxiously replied Slightly, who had chapped
+knuckles.</p>
+
+<p>'Please, sir,' Peter explained, 'a lady lies very ill.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span></p><p>She was lying at their feet, but Slightly had the sense not to see her.</p>
+
+<p>'Tut, tut, tut,' he said, 'where does she lie?'</p>
+
+<p>'In yonder glade.'</p>
+
+<p>'I will put a glass thing in her mouth,' said Slightly; and he
+made-believe to do it, while Peter waited. It was an anxious moment when
+the glass thing was withdrawn.</p>
+
+<p>'How is she?' inquired Peter.</p>
+
+<p>'Tut, tut, tut,' said Slightly, 'this has cured her.'</p>
+
+<p>'I am glad,' Peter cried.</p>
+
+<p>'I will call again in the evening,' Slightly said; 'give her beef tea
+out of a cup with a spout to it'; but after he had returned the hat to
+John he blew big breaths, which was his habit on escaping from a
+difficulty.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime the wood had been alive with the sound of axes; almost
+everything needed for a cosy dwelling already lay at Wendy's feet.</p>
+
+<p>'If only we knew,' said one, 'the kind of house she likes best.'</p>
+
+<p>'Peter,' shouted another, 'she is moving in her sleep.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p><p>'Her mouth opens,' cried a third, looking respectfully into it. 'Oh,
+lovely!'</p>
+
+<p>'Perhaps she is going to sing in her sleep,' said Peter. 'Wendy, sing
+the kind of house you would like to have.'</p>
+
+<p>Immediately, without opening her eyes, Wendy began to sing:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>'I wish I had a pretty house,</div>
+<div class="i1">The littlest ever seen,</div>
+<div>With funny little red walls</div>
+<div class="i1">And roof of mossy green.'</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>They gurgled with joy at this, for by the greatest good luck the
+branches they had brought were sticky with red sap, and all the ground
+was carpeted with moss. As they rattled up the little house they broke
+into song themselves:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>'We've built the little walls and roof</div>
+<div class="i1">And made a lovely door,</div>
+<div>So tell us, mother Wendy,</div>
+<div class="i1">What are you wanting more?'</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>To this she answered rather greedily:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>'Oh, really next I think I'll have</div>
+<div class="i1">Gay windows all about,</div>
+<div>With roses peeping in, you know,</div>
+<div class="i1">And babies peeping out.'</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span></p><p>With a blow of their fists they made windows, and large yellow leaves
+were the blinds. But roses&mdash;&mdash;?</p>
+
+<p>'Roses,' cried Peter sternly.</p>
+
+<p>Quickly they made-believe to grow the loveliest roses up the walls.</p>
+
+<p>Babies?</p>
+
+<p>To prevent Peter ordering babies they hurried into song again:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>'We've made the roses peeping out,</div>
+<div class="i1">The babes are at the door,</div>
+<div>We cannot make ourselves, you know,</div>
+<div class="i1">'Cos we've been made before.'</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>Peter, seeing this to be a good idea, at once pretended that it was his
+own. The house was quite beautiful, and no doubt Wendy was very cosy
+within, though, of course, they could no longer see her. Peter strode up
+and down, ordering finishing touches. Nothing escaped his eagle eye.
+Just when it seemed absolutely finished,</p>
+
+<p>'There's no knocker on the door,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>They were very ashamed, but Tootles gave the sole of his shoe, and it
+made an excellent knocker.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span></p><p>Absolutely finished now, they thought.</p>
+
+<p>Not a bit of it. 'There's no chimney,' Peter said; 'we must have a
+chimney.'</p>
+
+<p>'It certainly does need a chimney,' said John importantly. This gave
+Peter an idea. He snatched the hat off John's head, knocked out the
+bottom, and put the hat on the roof. The little house was so pleased to
+have such a capital chimney that, as if to say thank you, smoke
+immediately began to come out of the hat.</p>
+
+<p>Now really and truly it was finished. Nothing remained to do but to
+knock.</p>
+
+<p>'All look your best,' Peter warned them; 'first impressions are awfully
+important.'</p>
+
+<p>He was glad no one asked him what first impressions are; they were all
+too busy looking their best.</p>
+
+<p>He knocked politely; and now the wood was as still as the children, not
+a sound to be heard except from Tinker Bell, who was watching from a
+branch and openly sneering.</p>
+
+<p>What the boys were wondering was, would any one answer the knock? If a
+lady, what would she be like?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span></p><p>The door opened and a lady came out. It was Wendy. They all whipped off
+their hats.</p>
+
+<p>She looked properly surprised, and this was just how they had hoped she
+would look.</p>
+
+<p>'Where am I?' she said.</p>
+
+<p>Of course Slightly was the first to get his word in. 'Wendy lady,' he
+said rapidly, 'for you we built this house.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, say you're pleased,' cried Nibs.</p>
+
+<p>'Lovely, darling house,' Wendy said, and they were the very words they
+had hoped she would say.</p>
+
+<p>'And we are your children,' cried the twins.</p>
+
+<p>Then all went on their knees, and holding out their arms cried, 'O Wendy
+lady, be our mother.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ought I?' Wendy said, all shining. 'Of course it's frightfully
+fascinating, but you see I am only a little girl. I have no real
+experience.'</p>
+
+<p>'That doesn't matter,' said Peter, as if he were the only person present
+who knew all about it, though he was really the one who knew least.
+'What we need is just a nice motherly person.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p><p>'Oh dear!' Wendy said, 'you see I feel that is exactly what I am.'</p>
+
+<p>'It is, it is,' they all cried; 'we saw it at once.'</p>
+
+<p>'Very well,' she said, 'I will do my best. Come inside at once, you
+naughty children; I am sure your feet are damp. And before I put you to
+bed I have just time to finish the story of Cinderella.'</p>
+
+<p>In they went; I don't know how there was room for them, but you can
+squeeze very tight in the Neverland. And that was the first of the many
+joyous evenings they had with Wendy. By and by she tucked them up in the
+great bed in the home under the trees, but she herself slept that night
+in the little house, and Peter kept watch outside with drawn sword, for
+the pirates could be heard carousing far away and the wolves were on the
+prowl. The little house looked so cosy and safe in the darkness, with a
+bright light showing through its blinds, and the chimney smoking
+beautifully, and Peter standing on guard. After a time he fell asleep,
+and some unsteady fairies had to climb over him on their way home from
+an<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> orgy. Any of the other boys obstructing the fairy path at night they
+would have mischiefed, but they just tweaked Peter's nose and passed on.</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="i130" id="i130"></a><img src="images/i130.jpg" width='488' height='700' alt="PETER ON GUARD" /></div>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HOME UNDER THE GROUND</h3>
+
+<p>One of the first things Peter did next day was to measure Wendy and John
+and Michael for hollow trees. Hook, you remember, had sneered at the
+boys for thinking they needed a tree apiece, but this was ignorance, for
+unless your tree fitted you it was difficult to go up and down, and no
+two of the boys were quite the same size. Once you fitted, you drew in
+your breath at the top, and down you went at exactly the right speed,
+while to ascend you drew in and let out alternately, and so wriggled up.
+Of course, when you have mastered the action you are able to do these
+things without thinking of them, and then nothing can be more graceful.</p>
+
+<p>But you simply must fit, and Peter measures<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span> you for your tree as
+carefully as for a suit of clothes: the only difference being that the
+clothes are made to fit you, while you have to be made to fit the tree.
+Usually it is done quite easily, as by your wearing too many garments or
+too few; but if you are bumpy in awkward places or the only available
+tree is an odd shape, Peter does some things to you, and after that you
+fit. Once you fit, great care must be taken to go on fitting, and this,
+as Wendy was to discover to her delight, keeps a whole family in perfect
+condition.</p>
+
+<p>Wendy and Michael fitted their trees at the first try, but John had to
+be altered a little.</p>
+
+<p>After a few days' practice they could go up and down as gaily as buckets
+in a well. And how ardently they grew to love their home under the
+ground; especially Wendy. It consisted of one large room, as all houses
+should do, with a floor in which you could dig if you wanted to go
+fishing, and in this floor grew stout mushrooms of a charming colour,
+which were used as stools. A Never tree tried hard to grow in the centre
+of the room, but every morning they sawed the trunk through, level with
+the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> floor. By tea-time it was always about two feet high, and then they
+put a door on top of it, the whole thus becoming a table; as soon as
+they cleared away, they sawed off the trunk again, and thus there was
+more room to play. There was an enormous fireplace which was in almost
+any part of the room where you cared to light it, and across this Wendy
+stretched strings, made of fibre, from which she suspended her washing.
+The bed was tilted against the wall by day, and let down at 6.30, when
+it filled nearly half the room; and all the boys except Michael slept in
+it, lying like sardines in a tin. There was a strict rule against
+turning round until one gave the signal, when all turned at once.
+Michael should have used it also; but Wendy would have a baby, and he
+was the littlest, and you know what women are, and the short and the
+long of it is that he was hung up in a basket.</p>
+
+<p>It was rough and simple, and not unlike what baby bears would have made
+of an underground house in the same circumstances. But there was one
+recess in the wall, no larger than a bird-cage, which was the private
+apart<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>ment of Tinker Bell. It could be shut off from the rest of the
+home by a tiny curtain, which Tink, who was most fastidious, always kept
+drawn when dressing or undressing. No woman, however large, could have
+had a more exquisite boudoir and bedchamber combined. The couch, as she
+always called it, was a genuine Queen Mab, with club legs; and she
+varied the bedspreads according to what fruit-blossom was in season. Her
+mirror was a Puss-in-boots, of which there are now only three,
+unchipped, known to the fairy dealers; the wash-stand was Pie-crust and
+reversible, the chest of drawers an authentic Charming the Sixth, and
+the carpet and rugs of the best (the early) period of Margery and Robin.
+There was a chandelier from Tiddly winks for the look of the thing, but
+of course she lit the residence herself. Tink was very contemptuous of
+the rest of the house, as indeed was perhaps inevitable; and her
+chamber, though beautiful, looked rather conceited, having the
+appearance of a nose permanently turned up.</p>
+
+<p>I suppose it was all especially entrancing to Wendy, because those
+rampagious boys of hers<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span> gave her so much to do. Really there were whole
+weeks when, except perhaps with a stocking in the evening, she was never
+above ground. The cooking, I can tell you, kept her nose to the pot.
+Their chief food was roasted breadfruit, yams, cocoa-nuts, baked pig,
+mammee-apples, tappa rolls and bananas, washed down with calabashes of
+poe-poe; but you never exactly knew whether there would be a real meal
+or just a make-believe, it all depended upon Peter's whim. He could eat,
+really eat, if it was part of a game, but he could not stodge just to
+feel stodgy, which is what most children like better than anything else;
+the next best thing being to talk about it. Make-believe was so real to
+him that during a meal of it you could see him getting rounder. Of
+course it was trying, but you simply had to follow his lead, and if you
+could prove to him that you were getting loose for your tree he let you
+stodge.</p>
+
+<p>Wendy's favourite time for sewing and darning was after they had all
+gone to bed. Then, as she expressed it, she had a breathing time for
+herself; and she occupied it in making new things for them, and putting
+double pieces<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span> on the knees, for they were all most frightfully hard on
+their knees.</p>
+
+<p>When she sat down to a basketful of their stockings, every heel with a
+hole in it, she would fling up her arms and exclaim, 'Oh dear, I am sure
+I sometimes think spinsters are to be envied.'</p>
+
+<p>Her face beamed when she exclaimed this.</p>
+
+<p>You remember about her pet wolf. Well, it very soon discovered that she
+had come to the island and it found her out, and they just ran into each
+other's arms. After that it followed her about everywhere.</p>
+
+<p>As time wore on did she think much about the beloved parents she had
+left behind her? This is a difficult question, because it is quite
+impossible to say how time does wear on in the Neverland, where it is
+calculated by moons and suns, and there are ever so many more of them
+than on the mainland. But I am afraid that Wendy did not really worry
+about her father and mother; she was absolutely confident that they
+would always keep the window open for her to fly back by, and this gave
+her complete ease of mind. What did disturb her at times<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span> was that John
+remembered his parents vaguely only, as people he had once known, while
+Michael was quite willing to believe that she was really his mother.
+These things scared her a little, and nobly anxious to do her duty, she
+tried to fix the old life in their minds by setting them examination
+papers on it, as like as possible to the ones she used to do at school.
+The other boys thought this awfully interesting, and insisted on
+joining, and they made slates for themselves, and sat round the table,
+writing and thinking hard about the questions she had written on another
+slate and passed round. They were the most ordinary questions&mdash;'What was
+the colour of Mother's eyes? Which was taller, Father or Mother? Was
+Mother blonde or brunette? Answer all three questions if possible.' '(A)
+Write an essay of not less than 40 words on How I spent my last
+Holidays, or The Caracters of Father and Mother compared. Only one of
+these to be attempted.' Or '(1) Describe Mother's laugh; (2) Describe
+Father's laugh; (3) Describe Mother's Party Dress; (4) Describe the
+Kennel and its Inmate.'</p>
+
+<p>They were just everyday questions like these,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> and when you could not
+answer them you were told to make a cross; and it was really dreadful
+what a number of crosses even John made. Of course the only boy who
+replied to every question was Slightly, and no one could have been more
+hopeful of coming out first, but his answers were perfectly ridiculous,
+and he really came out last: a melancholy thing.</p>
+
+<p>Peter did not compete. For one thing he despised all mothers except
+Wendy, and for another he was the only boy on the island who could
+neither write nor spell; not the smallest word. He was above all that
+sort of thing.</p>
+
+<p>By the way, the questions were all written in the past tense. What was
+the colour of Mother's eyes, and so on. Wendy, you see, had been
+forgetting too.</p>
+
+<p>Adventures, of course, as we shall see, were of daily occurrence; but
+about this time Peter invented, with Wendy's help, a new game that
+fascinated him enormously, until he suddenly had no more interest in it,
+which, as you have been told, was what always happened with his games.
+It consisted in pretending not to have adventures, in doing the sort of
+thing John and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span> Michael had been doing all their lives: sitting on
+stools flinging balls in the air, pushing each other, going out for
+walks and coming back without having killed so much as a grizzly. To see
+Peter doing nothing on a stool was a great sight; he could not help
+looking solemn at such times, to sit still seemed to him such a comic
+thing to do. He boasted that he had gone a walk for the good of his
+health. For several suns these were the most novel of all adventures to
+him; and John and Michael had to pretend to be delighted also; otherwise
+he would have treated them severely.</p>
+
+<p>He often went out alone, and when he came back you were never absolutely
+certain whether he had had an adventure or not. He might have forgotten
+it so completely that he said nothing about it; and then when you went
+out you found the body; and, on the other hand, he might say a great
+deal about it, and yet you could not find the body. Sometimes he came
+home with his head bandaged, and then Wendy cooed over him and bathed it
+in lukewarm water, while he told a dazzling tale. But she was never
+quite sure, you know. There were,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span> however, many adventures which she
+knew to be true because she was in them herself, and there were still
+more that were at least partly true, for the other boys were in them and
+said they were wholly true. To describe them all would require a book as
+large as an English-Latin, Latin-English Dictionary, and the most we can
+do is to give one as a specimen of an average hour on the island. The
+difficulty is which one to choose. Should we take the brush with the
+redskins at Slightly Gulch? It was a sanguinary affair, and especially
+interesting as showing one of Peter's peculiarities, which was that in
+the middle of a fight he would suddenly change sides. At the Gulch, when
+victory was still in the balance, sometimes leaning this way and
+sometimes that, he called out, 'I'm redskin to-day; what are you,
+Tootles?' And Tootles answered, 'Redskin; what are you, Nibs?' and Nibs
+said,'Redskin; what are you, Twin?' and so on; and they were all
+redskin; and of course this would have ended the fight had not the real
+redskins, fascinated by Peter's methods, agreed to be lost boys for that
+once, and so at it they all went again, more fiercely than ever.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span></p><p>The extraordinary upshot of this adventure was&mdash;but we have not decided
+yet that this is the adventure we are to narrate. Perhaps a better one
+would be the night attack by the redskins on the house under the ground,
+when several of them stuck in the hollow trees and had to be pulled out
+like corks. Or we might tell how Peter saved Tiger Lily's life in the
+Mermaids' Lagoon, and so made her his ally.</p>
+
+<p>Or we could tell of that cake the pirates cooked so that the boys might
+eat it and perish; and how they placed it in one cunning spot after
+another; but always Wendy snatched it from the hands of her children, so
+that in time it lost its succulence, and became as hard as a stone, and
+was used as a missile, and Hook fell over it in the dark.</p>
+
+<p>Or suppose we tell of the birds that were Peter's friends, particularly
+of the Never bird that built in a tree overhanging the lagoon, and how
+the nest fell into the water, and still the bird sat on her eggs, and
+Peter gave orders that she was not to be disturbed. That is a pretty
+story, and the end shows how grateful a bird can be; but if we tell it
+we must also tell<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span> the whole adventure of the lagoon, which would of
+course be telling two adventures rather than just one. A shorter
+adventure, and quite as exciting, was Tinker Bell's attempt, with the
+help of some street fairies, to have the sleeping Wendy conveyed on a
+great floating leaf to the mainland. Fortunately the leaf gave way and
+Wendy woke, thinking it was bath-time, and swam back. Or again, we might
+choose Peter's defiance of the lions, when he drew a circle round him on
+the ground with an arrow and defied them to cross it; and though he
+waited for hours, with the other boys and Wendy looking on breathlessly
+from trees, not one of them dared to accept his challenge.</p>
+
+<p>Which of these adventures shall we choose? The best way will be to toss
+for it.</p>
+
+<p>I have tossed, and the lagoon has won. This almost makes one wish that
+the gulch or the cake or Tink's leaf had won. Of course I could do it
+again, and make it best out of three; however, perhaps fairest to stick
+to the lagoon.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE MERMAIDS' LAGOON</h3>
+
+<p>If you shut your eyes and are a lucky one, you may see at times a
+shapeless pool of lovely pale colours suspended in the darkness; then if
+you squeeze your eyes tighter, the pool begins to take shape, and the
+colours become so vivid that with another squeeze they must go on fire.
+But just before they go on fire you see the lagoon. This is the nearest
+you ever get to it on the mainland, just one heavenly moment; if there
+could be two moments you might see the surf and hear the mermaids
+singing.</p>
+
+<p>The children often spent long summer days on this lagoon, swimming or
+floating most of the time, playing the mermaid games in the water, and
+so forth. You must not think from this that the mermaids were on
+friendly terms<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> with them; on the contrary, it was among Wendy's lasting
+regrets that all the time she was on the island she never had a civil
+word from one of them. When she stole softly to the edge of the lagoon
+she might see them by the score, especially on Marooners' Rock, where
+they loved to bask, combing out their hair in a lazy way that quite
+irritated her; or she might even swim, on tiptoe as it were, to within a
+yard of them, but then they saw her and dived, probably splashing her
+with their tails, not by accident, but intentionally.</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="i148" id="i148"></a><img src="images/i148.jpg" width='487' height='700' alt="SUMMER DAYS ON THE LAGOON" /></div>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>They treated all the boys in the same way, except of course Peter, who
+chatted with them on Marooners' Rock by the hour, and sat on their tails
+when they got cheeky. He gave Wendy one of their combs.</p>
+
+<p>The most haunting time at which to see them is at the turn of the moon,
+when they utter strange wailing cries; but the lagoon is dangerous for
+mortals then, and until the evening of which we have now to tell, Wendy
+had never seen the lagoon by moonlight, less from fear, for of course
+Peter would have accompanied her, than because she had strict rules
+about every one<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> being in bed by seven. She was often at the lagoon,
+however, on sunny days after rain, when the mermaids come up in
+extraordinary numbers to play with their bubbles. The bubbles of many
+colours made in rainbow water they treat as balls, hitting them gaily
+from one to another with their tails, and trying to keep them in the
+rainbow till they burst. The goals are at each end of the rainbow, and
+the keepers only are allowed to use their hands. Sometimes hundreds of
+mermaids will be playing in the lagoon at a time, and it is quite a
+pretty sight.</p>
+
+<p>But the moment the children tried to join in they had to play by
+themselves, for the mermaids immediately disappeared. Nevertheless we
+have proof that they secretly watched the interlopers, and were not
+above taking an idea from them; for John introduced a new way of hitting
+the bubble, with the head instead of the hand, and the mermaid
+goal-keepers adopted it. This is the one mark that John has left on the
+Neverland.</p>
+
+<p>It must also have been rather pretty to see the children resting on a
+rock for half an hour after their midday meal. Wendy insisted on their<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>
+doing this, and it had to be a real rest even though the meal was
+make-believe. So they lay there in the sun, and their bodies glistened
+in it, while she sat beside them and looked important.</p>
+
+<p>It was one such day, and they were all on Marooners' Rock. The rock was
+not much larger than their great bed, but of course they all knew how
+not to take up much room, and they were dozing, or at least lying with
+their eyes shut, and pinching occasionally when they thought Wendy was
+not looking. She was very busy, stitching.</p>
+
+<p>While she stitched a change came to the lagoon. Little shivers ran over
+it, and the sun went away and shadows stole across the water, turning it
+cold. Wendy could no longer see to thread her needle, and when she
+looked up, the lagoon that had always hitherto been such a laughing
+place seemed formidable and unfriendly.</p>
+
+<p>It was not, she knew, that night had come, but something as dark as
+night had come. No, worse than that. It had not come, but it had sent
+that shiver through the sea to say that it was coming. What was it?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span></p><p>There crowded upon her all the stories she had been told of Marooners'
+Rock, so called because evil captains put sailors on it and leave them
+there to drown. They drown when the tide rises, for then it is
+submerged.</p>
+
+<p>Of course she should have roused the children at once; not merely
+because of the unknown that was stalking toward them, but because it was
+no longer good for them to sleep on a rock grown chilly. But she was a
+young mother and she did not know this; she thought you simply must
+stick to your rule about half an hour after the midday meal. So, though
+fear was upon her, and she longed to hear male voices, she would not
+waken them. Even when she heard the sound of muffled oars, though her
+heart was in her mouth, she did not waken them. She stood over them to
+let them have their sleep out. Was it not brave of Wendy?</p>
+
+<p>It was well for those boys then that there was one among them who could
+sniff danger even in his sleep. Peter sprang erect, as wide awake at
+once as a dog, and with one warning cry he roused the others.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span></p><p>He stood motionless, one hand to his ear.</p>
+
+<p>'Pirates!' he cried. The others came closer to him. A strange smile was
+playing about his face, and Wendy saw it and shuddered. While that smile
+was on his face no one dared address him; all they could do was to stand
+ready to obey. The order came sharp and incisive.</p>
+
+<p>'Dive!'</p>
+
+<p>There was a gleam of legs, and instantly the lagoon seemed deserted.
+Marooners' Rock stood alone in the forbidding waters, as if it were
+itself marooned.</p>
+
+<p>The boat drew nearer. It was the pirate dinghy, with three figures in
+her, Smee and Starkey, and the third a captive, no other than Tiger
+Lily. Her hands and ankles were tied, and she knew what was to be her
+fate. She was to be left on the rock to perish, an end to one of her
+race more terrible than death by fire or torture, for is it not written
+in the book of the tribe that there is no path through water to the
+happy hunting-ground? Yet her face was impassive; she was the daughter
+of a chief, she must die as a chief's daughter, it is enough.</p>
+
+<p>They had caught her boarding the pirate ship<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span> with a knife in her mouth.
+No watch was kept on the ship, it being Hook's boast that the wind of
+his name guarded the ship for a mile around. Now her fate would help to
+guard it also. One more wail would go the round in that wind by night.</p>
+
+<p>In the gloom that they brought with them the two pirates did not see the
+rock till they crashed into it.</p>
+
+<p>'Luff, you lubber,' cried an Irish voice that was Smee's; 'here's the
+rock. Now, then, what we have to do is to hoist the redskin on to it and
+leave her there to drown.'</p>
+
+<p>It was the work of one brutal moment to land the beautiful girl on the
+rock; she was too proud to offer a vain resistance.</p>
+
+<p>Quite near the rock, but out of sight, two heads were bobbing up and
+down, Peter's and Wendy's. Wendy was crying, for it was the first
+tragedy she had seen. Peter had seen many tragedies, but he had
+forgotten them all. He was less sorry than Wendy for Tiger Lily: it was
+two against one that angered him, and he meant to save her. An easy way
+would have been to wait until the pirates had gone,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span> but he was never
+one to choose the easy way.</p>
+
+<p>There was almost nothing he could not do, and he now imitated the voice
+of Hook.</p>
+
+<p>'Ahoy there, you lubbers,' he called. It was a marvellous imitation.</p>
+
+<p>'The captain,' said the pirates, staring at each other in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>'He must be swimming out to us,' Starkey said, when they had looked for
+him in vain.</p>
+
+<p>'We are putting the redskin on the rock,' Smee called out.</p>
+
+<p>'Set her free,' came the astonishing answer.</p>
+
+<p>'Free!'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, cut her bonds and let her go.'</p>
+
+<p>'But, captain&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'At once, d'ye hear,' cried Peter, 'or I'll plunge my hook in you.'</p>
+
+<p>'This is queer,' Smee gasped.</p>
+
+<p>'Better do what the captain orders,' said Starkey nervously.</p>
+
+<p>'Ay, ay,' Smee said, and he cut Tiger Lily's cords. At once like an eel
+she slid between Starkey's legs into the water.</p>
+
+<p>Of course Wendy was very elated over<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span> Peter's cleverness; but she knew
+that he would be elated also and very likely crow and thus betray
+himself, so at once her hand went out to cover his mouth. But it was
+stayed even in the act, for 'Boat ahoy!' rang over the lagoon in Hook's
+voice, and this time it was not Peter who had spoken.</p>
+
+<p>Peter may have been about to crow, but his face puckered in a whistle of
+surprise instead.</p>
+
+<p>'Boat ahoy!' again came the cry.</p>
+
+<p>Now Wendy understood. The real Hook was also in the water.</p>
+
+<p>He was swimming to the boat, and as his men showed a light to guide him
+he had soon reached them. In the light of the lantern Wendy saw his hook
+grip the boat's side; she saw his evil swarthy face as he rose dripping
+from the water, and, quaking, she would have liked to swim away, but
+Peter would not budge. He was tingling with life and also top-heavy with
+conceit. 'Am I not a wonder, oh, I am a wonder!' he whispered to her;
+and though she thought so also, she was really glad for the sake of his
+reputation that no one heard him except herself.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span></p><p>He signed to her to listen.</p>
+
+<p>The two pirates were very curious to know what had brought their captain
+to them, but he sat with his head on his hook in a position of profound
+melancholy.</p>
+
+<p>'Captain, is all well?' they asked timidly, but he answered with a
+hollow moan.</p>
+
+<p>'He sighs,' said Smee.</p>
+
+<p>'He sighs again,' said Starkey.</p>
+
+<p>'And yet a third time he sighs,' said Smee.</p>
+
+<p>'What's up, captain?'</p>
+
+<p>Then at last he spoke passionately.</p>
+
+<p>'The game's up,' he cried, 'those boys have found a mother.'</p>
+
+<p>Affrighted though she was, Wendy swelled with pride.</p>
+
+<p>'O evil day,' cried Starkey.</p>
+
+<p>'What's a mother?' asked the ignorant Smee.</p>
+
+<p>Wendy was so shocked that she exclaimed, 'He doesn't know!' and always
+after this she felt that if you could have a pet pirate Smee would be
+her one.</p>
+
+<p>Peter pulled her beneath the water, for Hook had started up, crying,
+'What was that?'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p><p>'I heard nothing,' said Starkey, raising the lantern over the waters,
+and as the pirates looked they saw a strange sight. It was the nest I
+have told you of, floating on the lagoon, and the Never bird was sitting
+on it.</p>
+
+<p>'See,' said Hook in answer to Smee's question, 'that is a mother. What a
+lesson. The nest must have fallen into the water, but would the mother
+desert her eggs? No.'</p>
+
+<p>There was a break in his voice, as if for a moment he recalled innocent
+days when&mdash;but he brushed away this weakness with his hook.</p>
+
+<p>Smee, much impressed, gazed at the bird as the nest was borne past, but
+the more suspicious Starkey said, 'If she is a mother, perhaps she is
+hanging about here to help Peter.'</p>
+
+<p>Hook winced. 'Ay,' he said, 'that is the fear that haunts me.'</p>
+
+<p>He was roused from this dejection by Smee's eager voice.</p>
+
+<p>'Captain,' said Smee, 'could we not kidnap these boys' mother and make
+her our mother?'</p>
+
+<p>'It is a princely scheme,' cried Hook, and at once it took practical
+shape in his great brain. 'We will seize the children and carry them to<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>
+the boat: the boys we will make walk the plank, and Wendy shall be our
+mother.'</p>
+
+<p>Again Wendy forgot herself.</p>
+
+<p>'Never!' she cried, and bobbed.</p>
+
+<p>'What was that?'</p>
+
+<p>But they could see nothing. They thought it must have been but a leaf in
+the wind. 'Do you agree, my bullies?' asked Hook.</p>
+
+<p>'There is my hand on it,' they both said.</p>
+
+<p>'And there is my hook. Swear.'</p>
+
+<p>'They all swore. By this time they were on the rock, and suddenly Hook
+remembered Tiger Lily.</p>
+
+<p>'Where is the redskin?' he demanded abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>He had a playful humour at moments, and they thought this was one of the
+moments.</p>
+
+<p>'That is all right, captain,' Smee answered complacently; 'we let her
+go.'</p>
+
+<p>'Let her go!' cried Hook.</p>
+
+<p>''Twas your own orders,' the bo'sun faltered.</p>
+
+<p>'You called over the water to us to let her go,' said Starkey.</p>
+
+<p>'Brimstone and gall,' thundered Hook, 'what cozening is here?' His face
+had gone black<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span> with rage, but he saw that they believed their words,
+and he was startled. 'Lads,' he said, shaking a little, 'I gave no such
+order.'</p>
+
+<p>'It is passing queer,' Smee said, and they all fidgeted uncomfortably.
+Hook raised his voice, but there was a quiver in it.</p>
+
+<p>'Spirit that haunts this dark lagoon to-night,' he cried, 'dost hear
+me?'</p>
+
+<p>Of course Peter should have kept quiet, but of course he did not. He
+immediately answered in Hook's voice:</p>
+
+<p>'Odds, bobs, hammer and tongs, I hear you.'</p>
+
+<p>In that supreme moment Hook did not blanch, even at the gills, but Smee
+and Starkey clung to each other in terror.</p>
+
+<p>'Who are you, stranger, speak?' Hook demanded.</p>
+
+<p>'I am James Hook,' replied the voice, 'captain of the <i>Jolly Roger</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>'You are not; you are not,' Hook cried hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p>'Brimstone and gall,' the voice retorted, 'say that again, and I'll cast
+anchor in you.'</p>
+
+<p>Hook tried a more ingratiating manner. 'If<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> you are Hook,' he said
+almost humbly, 'come tell me, who am I?'</p>
+
+<p>'A codfish,' replied the voice, 'only a codfish.'</p>
+
+<p>'A codfish!' Hook echoed blankly; and it was then, but not till then,
+that his proud spirit broke. He saw his men draw back from him.</p>
+
+<p>'Have we been captained all this time by a codfish!' they muttered. 'It
+is lowering to our pride.'</p>
+
+<p>They were his dogs snapping at him, but, tragic figure though he had
+become, he scarcely heeded them. Against such fearful evidence it was
+not their belief in him that he needed, it was his own. He felt his ego
+slipping from him. 'Don't desert me, bully,' he whispered hoarsely to
+it.</p>
+
+<p>In his dark nature there was a touch of the feminine, as in all the
+great pirates, and it sometimes gave him intuitions. Suddenly he tried
+the guessing game.</p>
+
+<p>'Hook,' he called, 'have you another voice?'</p>
+
+<p>Now Peter could never resist a game, and he answered blithely in his own
+voice, 'I have.'</p>
+
+<p>'And another name?'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p><p>'Ay, ay.'</p>
+
+<p>'Vegetable?' asked Hook.</p>
+
+<p>'No.'</p>
+
+<p>'Mineral?'</p>
+
+<p>'No.'</p>
+
+<p>'Animal?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes.'</p>
+
+<p>'Man?'</p>
+
+<p>'No!' This answer rang out scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>'Boy?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ordinary boy?'</p>
+
+<p>'No!'</p>
+
+<p>'Wonderful boy?'</p>
+
+<p>To Wendy's pain the answer that rang out this time was 'Yes.'</p>
+
+<p>'Are you in England?'</p>
+
+<p>'No.'</p>
+
+<p>'Are you here?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes.'</p>
+
+<p>Hook was completely puzzled. 'You ask him some questions,' he said to
+the others, wiping his damp brow.</p>
+
+<p>Smee reflected. 'I can't think of a thing,' he said regretfully.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span></p><p>'Can't guess, can't guess,' crowed Peter. 'Do you give it up?'</p>
+
+<p>Of course in his pride he was carrying the game too far, and the
+miscreants saw their chance.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, yes,' they answered eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, then,' he cried, 'I am Peter Pan.'</p>
+
+<p>Pan!</p>
+
+<p>In a moment Hook was himself again, and Smee and Starkey were his
+faithful henchmen.</p>
+
+<p>'Now we have him,' Hook shouted. 'Into the water, Smee. Starkey, mind
+the boat. Take him dead or alive.'</p>
+
+<p>He leaped as he spoke, and simultaneously came the gay voice of Peter.</p>
+
+<p>'Are you ready, boys?'</p>
+
+<p>'Ay, ay,' from various parts of the lagoon.</p>
+
+<p>'Then lam into the pirates.'</p>
+
+<p>The fight was short and sharp. First to draw blood was John, who
+gallantly climbed into the boat and held Starkey. There was a fierce
+struggle, in which the cutlass was torn from the pirate's grasp. He
+wriggled overboard and John leapt after him. The dinghy drifted away.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span></p><p>Here and there a head bobbed up in the water, and there was a flash of
+steel followed by a cry or a whoop. In the confusion some struck at
+their own side. The corkscrew of Smee got Tootles in the fourth rib, but
+he was himself pinked in turn by Curly. Farther from the rock Starkey
+was pressing Slightly and the twins hard.</p>
+
+<p>Where all this time was Peter? He was seeking bigger game.</p>
+
+<p>The others were all brave boys, and they must not be blamed for backing
+from the pirate captain. His iron claw made a circle of dead water round
+him, from which they fled like affrighted fishes.</p>
+
+<p>But there was one who did not fear him: there was one prepared to enter
+that circle.</p>
+
+<p>Strangely, it was not in the water that they met. Hook rose to the rock
+to breathe, and at the same moment Peter scaled it on the opposite side.
+The rock was slippery as a ball, and they had to crawl rather than
+climb. Neither knew that the other was coming. Each feeling for a grip
+met the other's arm: in surprise they raised<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span> their heads; their faces
+were almost touching; so they met.</p>
+
+<p>Some of the greatest heroes have confessed that just before they fell to
+they had a sinking. Had it been so with Peter at that moment I would
+admit it. After all, this was the only man that the Sea-Cook had feared.
+But Peter had no sinking, he had one feeling only, gladness; and he
+gnashed his pretty teeth with joy. Quick as thought he snatched a knife
+from Hook's belt and was about to drive it home, when he saw that he was
+higher up the rock than his foe. It would not have been fighting fair.
+He gave the pirate a hand to help him up.</p>
+
+<p>It was then that Hook bit him.</p>
+
+<p>Not the pain of this but its unfairness was what dazed Peter. It made
+him quite helpless. He could only stare, horrified. Every child is
+affected thus the first time he is treated unfairly. All he thinks he
+has a right to when he comes to you to be yours is fairness. After you
+have been unfair to him he will love you again, but he will never
+afterwards be quite the same boy. No one ever gets over the first
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>unfairness; no one except Peter. He often met it, but he always forgot
+it. I suppose that was the real difference between him and all the rest.</p>
+
+<p>So when he met it now it was like the first time; and he could just
+stare, helpless. Twice the iron hand clawed him.</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes afterwards the other boys saw Hook in the water striking
+wildly for the ship; no elation on his pestilent face now, only white
+fear, for the crocodile was in dogged pursuit of him. On ordinary
+occasions the boys would have swum alongside cheering; but now they were
+uneasy, for they had lost both Peter and Wendy, and were scouring the
+lagoon for them, calling them by name. They found the dinghy and went
+home in it, shouting 'Peter, Wendy' as they went, but no answer came
+save mocking laughter from the mermaids. 'They must be swimming back or
+flying,' the boys concluded. They were not very anxious, they had such
+faith in Peter. They chuckled, boylike, because they would be late for
+bed; and it was all mother Wendy's fault!</p>
+
+<p>When their voices died away there came cold silence over the lagoon, and
+then a feeble cry.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p><p>'Help, help!'</p>
+
+<p>Two small figures were beating against the rock; the girl had fainted
+and lay on the boy's arm. With a last effort Peter pulled her up the
+rock and then lay down beside her. Even as he also fainted he saw that
+the water was rising. He knew that they would soon be drowned, but he
+could do no more.</p>
+
+<p>As they lay side by side a mermaid caught Wendy by the feet, and began
+pulling her softly into the water. Peter, feeling her slip from him,
+woke with a start, and was just in time to draw her back. But he had to
+tell her the truth.</p>
+
+<p>'We are on the rock, Wendy,' he said, 'but it is growing smaller. Soon
+the water will be over it.'</p>
+
+<p>She did not understand even now.</p>
+
+<p>'We must go,' she said, almost brightly.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' he answered faintly.</p>
+
+<p>'Shall we swim or fly, Peter?'</p>
+
+<p>He had to tell her.</p>
+
+<p>'Do you think you could swim or fly as far as the island, Wendy, without
+my help?'</p>
+
+<p>She had to admit that she was too tired.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span></p><p>He moaned.</p>
+
+<p>'What is it?' she asked, anxious about him at once.</p>
+
+<p>'I can't help you, Wendy. Hook wounded me. I can neither fly nor swim.'</p>
+
+<p>'Do you mean we shall both be drowned?'</p>
+
+<p>'Look how the water is rising.'</p>
+
+<p>They put their hands over their eyes to shut out the sight. They thought
+they would soon be no more. As they sat thus something brushed against
+Peter as light as a kiss, and stayed there, as if saying timidly, 'Can I
+be of any use?'</p>
+
+<p>It was the tail of a kite, which Michael had made some days before. It
+had torn itself out of his hand and floated away.</p>
+
+<p>'Michael's kite,' Peter said without interest, but next moment he had
+seized the tail, and was pulling the kite toward him.</p>
+
+<p>'It lifted Michael off the ground,' he cried; 'why should it not carry
+you?'</p>
+
+<p>'Both of us!'</p>
+
+<p>'It can't lift two; Michael and Curly tried.'</p>
+
+<p>'Let us draw lots,' Wendy said bravely.</p>
+
+<p>'And you a lady; never.' Already he had<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span> tied the tail round her. She
+clung to him; she refused to go without him; but with a 'Good-bye,
+Wendy,' he pushed her from the rock; and in a few minutes she was borne
+out of his sight. Peter was alone on the lagoon.</p>
+
+<p>The rock was very small now; soon it would be submerged. Pale rays of
+light tiptoed across the waters; and by and by there was to be heard a
+sound at once the most musical and the most melancholy in the world: the
+mermaids calling to the moon.</p>
+
+<p>Peter was not quite like other boys; but he was afraid at last. A tremor
+ran through him, like a shudder passing over the sea; but on the sea one
+shudder follows another till there are hundreds of them, and Peter felt
+just the one. Next moment he was standing erect on the rock again, with
+that smile on his face and a drum beating within him. It was saying, 'To
+die will be an awfully big adventure.'</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="i166" id="i166"></a><img src="images/i166.jpg" width='487' height='700' alt="TO DIE WILL BE AN AWFULLY BIG ADVENTURE" /></div>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>THE NEVER BIRD</h3>
+
+<p>The last sounds Peter heard before he was quite alone were the mermaids
+retiring one by one to their bedchambers under the sea. He was too far
+away to hear their doors shut; but every door in the coral caves where
+they live rings a tiny bell when it opens or closes (as in all the
+nicest houses on the mainland), and he heard the bells.</p>
+
+<p>Steadily the waters rose till they were nibbling at his feet; and to
+pass the time until they made their final gulp, he watched the only
+thing moving on the lagoon. He thought it was a piece of floating paper,
+perhaps part of the kite, and wondered idly how long it would take to
+drift ashore.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span></p><p>Presently he noticed as an odd thing that it was undoubtedly out upon
+the lagoon with some definite purpose, for it was fighting the tide, and
+sometimes winning; and when it won, Peter, always sympathetic to the
+weaker side, could not help clapping; it was such a gallant piece of
+paper.</p>
+
+<p>It was not really a piece of paper; it was the Never bird, making
+desperate efforts to reach Peter on her nest. By working her wings, in a
+way she had learned since the nest fell into the water, she was able to
+some extent to guide her strange craft, but by the time Peter recognised
+her she was very exhausted. She had come to save him, to give him her
+nest, though there were eggs in it. I rather wonder at the bird, for
+though he had been nice to her, he had also sometimes tormented her. I
+can suppose only that, like Mrs. Darling and the rest of them, she was
+melted because he had all his first teeth.</p>
+
+<p>She called out to him what she had come for, and he called out to her
+what was she doing there; but of course neither of them understood the
+other's language. In fanciful stories people<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> can talk to the birds
+freely, and I wish for the moment I could pretend that this was such a
+story, and say that Peter replied intelligently to the Never bird; but
+truth is best, and I want to tell only what really happened. Well, not
+only could they not understand each other, but they forgot their
+manners.</p>
+
+<p>'I&mdash;want&mdash;you&mdash;to&mdash;get&mdash;into&mdash;the&mdash;nest,' the bird called, speaking as
+slowly and distinctly as possible, 'and&mdash;then&mdash;you&mdash;can&mdash;drift&mdash;ashore,
+but&mdash;I&mdash;am&mdash;too&mdash;tired&mdash;to&mdash;bring&mdash;it&mdash;any&mdash;nearer&mdash;so&mdash;you&mdash;must&mdash;try&mdash;to&mdash;swim&mdash;to&mdash;it.'</p>
+
+<p>'What are you quacking about?' Peter answered. 'Why don't you let the
+nest drift as usual?'</p>
+
+<p>'I&mdash;want&mdash;you&mdash;' the bird said, and repeated it all over.</p>
+
+<p>Then Peter tried slow and distinct.</p>
+
+<p>'What&mdash;are&mdash;you&mdash;quacking&mdash;about?' and so on.</p>
+
+<p>The Never bird became irritated; they have very short tempers.</p>
+
+<p>'You dunderheaded little jay,' she screamed, 'why don't you do as I tell
+you?'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span></p><p>Peter felt that she was calling him names, and at a venture he retorted
+hotly:</p>
+
+<p>'So are you!'</p>
+
+<p>Then rather curiously they both snapped out the same remark:</p>
+
+<p>'Shut up!'</p>
+
+<p>'Shut up!'</p>
+
+<p>Nevertheless the bird was determined to save him if she could, and by
+one last mighty effort she propelled the nest against the rock. Then up
+she flew; deserting her eggs, so as to make her meaning clear.</p>
+
+<p>Then at last he understood, and clutched the nest and waved his thanks
+to the bird as she fluttered overhead. It was not to receive his thanks,
+however, that she hung there in the sky; it was not even to watch him
+get into the nest; it was to see what he did with her eggs.</p>
+
+<p>There were two large white eggs, and Peter lifted them up and reflected.
+The bird covered her face with her wings, so as not to see the last of
+her eggs; but she could not help peeping between the feathers.</p>
+
+<p>I forget whether I have told you that there was a stave on the rock,
+driven into it by some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span> buccaneers of long ago to mark the site of
+buried treasure. The children had discovered the glittering hoard, and
+when in mischievous mood used to fling showers of moidores, diamonds,
+pearls and pieces of eight to the gulls, who pounced upon them for food,
+and then flew away, raging at the scurvy trick that had been played upon
+them. The stave was still there, and on it Starkey had hung his hat, a
+deep tarpaulin, watertight, with a broad brim. Peter put the eggs into
+this hat and set it on the lagoon. It floated beautifully.</p>
+
+<p>The Never bird saw at once what he was up to, and screamed her
+admiration of him; and, alas, Peter crowed his agreement with her. Then
+he got into the nest, reared the stave in it as a mast, and hung up his
+shirt for a sail. At the same moment the bird fluttered down upon the
+hat and once more sat snugly on her eggs. She drifted in one direction,
+and he was borne off in another, both cheering.</p>
+
+<p>Of course when Peter landed he beached his barque in a place where the
+bird would easily find it; but the hat was such a great success that she
+abandoned the nest. It drifted about<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span> till it went to pieces, and often
+Starkey came to the shore of the lagoon, and with many bitter feelings
+watched the bird sitting on his hat. As we shall not see her again, it
+may be worth mentioning here that all Never birds now build in that
+shape of nest, with a broad brim on which the youngsters take an airing.</p>
+
+<p>Great were the rejoicings when Peter reached the home under the ground
+almost as soon as Wendy, who had been carried hither and thither by the
+kite. Every boy had adventures to tell; but perhaps the biggest
+adventure of all was that they were several hours late for bed. This so
+inflated them that they did various dodgy things to get staying up still
+longer, such as demanding bandages; but Wendy, though glorying in having
+them all home again safe and sound, was scandalised by the lateness of
+the hour, and cried, 'To bed, to bed,' in a voice that had to be obeyed.
+Next day, however, she was awfully tender, and gave out bandages to
+every one; and they played till bed-time at limping about and carrying
+their arms in slings.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>THE HAPPY HOME</h3>
+
+<p>One important result of the brush on the lagoon was that it made the
+redskins their friends. Peter had saved Tiger Lily from a dreadful fate,
+and now there was nothing she and her braves would not do for him. All
+night they sat above, keeping watch over the home under the ground and
+awaiting the big attack by the pirates which obviously could not be much
+longer delayed. Even by day they hung about, smoking the pipe of peace,
+and looking almost as if they wanted tit-bits to eat.</p>
+
+<p>They called Peter the Great White Father, prostrating themselves before
+him; and he liked this tremendously, so that it was not really good for
+him.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span></p><p>'The great white father,' he would say to them in a very lordly manner,
+as they grovelled at his feet, 'is glad to see the Piccaninny warriors
+protecting his wigwam from the pirates.'</p>
+
+<p>'Me Tiger Lily,' that lovely creature would reply. 'Peter Pan save me,
+me his velly nice friend. Me no let pirates hurt him.'</p>
+
+<p>She was far too pretty to cringe in this way, but Peter thought it his
+due, and he would answer condescendingly, 'It is good. Peter Pan has
+spoken.'</p>
+
+<p>Always when he said, 'Peter Pan has spoken,' it meant that they must now
+shut up, and they accepted it humbly in that spirit; but they were by no
+means so respectful to the other boys, whom they looked upon as just
+ordinary braves. They said 'How-do?' to them, and things like that; and
+what annoyed the boys was that Peter seemed to think this all right.</p>
+
+<p>Secretly Wendy sympathised with them a little, but she was far too loyal
+a housewife to listen to any complaints against father. 'Father knows
+best,' she always said, whatever her private opinion must be. Her
+private opinion was that the redskins should not call her a squaw.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span></p><p>We have now reached the evening that was to be known among them as the
+Night of Nights, because of its adventures and their upshot. The day, as
+if quietly gathering its forces, had been almost uneventful, and now the
+redskins in their blankets were at their posts above, while, below, the
+children were having their evening meal; all except Peter, who had gone
+out to get the time. The way you got the time on the island was to find
+the crocodile, and then stay near him till the clock struck.</p>
+
+<p>This meal happened to be a make-believe tea, and they sat round the
+board, guzzling in their greed; and really, what with their chatter and
+recriminations, the noise, as Wendy said, was positively deafening. To
+be sure, she did not mind noise, but she simply would not have them
+grabbing things, and then excusing themselves by saying that Tootles had
+pushed their elbow. There was a fixed rule that they must never hit back
+at meals, but should refer the matter of dispute to Wendy by raising the
+right arm politely and saying, 'I complain of so-and-so'; but what
+usually happened was that they forgot to do this or did it too much.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p><p>'Silence,' cried Wendy when for the twentieth time she had told them
+that they were not all to speak at once. 'Is your calabash empty,
+Slightly darling?'</p>
+
+<p>'Not quite empty, mummy,' Slightly said, after looking into an imaginary
+mug.</p>
+
+<p>'He hasn't even begun to drink his milk,' Nibs interposed.</p>
+
+<p>This was telling, and Slightly seized his chance.</p>
+
+<p>'I complain of Nibs,' he cried promptly.</p>
+
+<p>John, however, had held up his hand first.</p>
+
+<p>'Well, John?'</p>
+
+<p>'May I sit in Peter's chair, as he is not here?'</p>
+
+<p>'Sit in father's chair, John!' Wendy was scandalised. 'Certainly not.'</p>
+
+<p>'He is not really our father,' John answered. 'He didn't even know how a
+father does till I showed him.'</p>
+
+<p>This was grumbling. 'We complain of John,' cried the twins.</p>
+
+<p>Tootles held up his hand. He was so much the humblest of them, indeed he
+was the only humble one, that Wendy was specially gentle with him.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span></p><p>'I don't suppose,' Tootles said diffidently, 'that I could be father.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, Tootles.'</p>
+
+<p>Once Tootles began, which was not very often, he had a silly way of
+going on.</p>
+
+<p>'As I can't be father,' he said heavily, 'I don't suppose, Michael, you
+would let me be baby?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, I won't,' Michael rapped out. He was already in his basket.</p>
+
+<p>'As I can't be baby,' Tootles said, getting heavier and heavier, 'do you
+think I could be a twin?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, indeed,' replied the twins; 'it's awfully difficult to be a twin.'</p>
+
+<p>'As I can't be anything important,' said Tootles, 'would any of you like
+to see me do a trick?'</p>
+
+<p>'No,' they all replied.</p>
+
+<p>Then at last he stopped. 'I hadn't really any hope,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>The hateful telling broke out again.</p>
+
+<p>'Slightly is coughing on the table.'</p>
+
+<p>'The twins began with mammee-apples.'</p>
+
+<p>'Curly is taking both tappa rolls and yams.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span></p><p>'Nibs is speaking with his mouth full.'</p>
+
+<p>'I complain of the twins.'</p>
+
+<p>'I complain of Curly.'</p>
+
+<p>'I complain of Nibs.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh dear, oh dear,' cried Wendy, 'I'm sure I sometimes think that
+children are more trouble than they are worth.'</p>
+
+<p>She told them to clear away, and sat down to her work-basket: a heavy
+load of stockings and every knee with a hole in it as usual.</p>
+
+<p>'Wendy,' remonstrated Michael, 'I'm too big for a cradle.'</p>
+
+<p>'I must have somebody in a cradle,' she said almost tartly, 'and you are
+the littlest. A cradle is such a nice homely thing to have about a
+house.'</p>
+
+<p>While she sewed they played around her; such a group of happy faces and
+dancing limbs lit up by that romantic fire. It had become a very
+familiar scene this in the home under the ground, but we are looking on
+it for the last time.</p>
+
+<p>There was a step above, and Wendy, you may be sure, was the first to
+recognise it.</p>
+
+<p>'Children, I hear your father's step. He likes you to meet him at the
+door.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p><p>Above, the redskins crouched before Peter.</p>
+
+<p>'Watch well, braves. I have spoken.'</p>
+
+<p>And then, as so often before, the gay children dragged him from his
+tree. As so often before, but never again.</p>
+
+<p>He had brought nuts for the boys as well as the correct time for Wendy.</p>
+
+<p>'Peter, you just spoil them, you know,' Wendy simpered.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, old lady,' said Peter, hanging up his gun.</p>
+
+<p>'It was me told him mothers are called old lady,' Michael whispered to
+Curly.</p>
+
+<p>'I complain of Michael,' said Curly instantly.</p>
+
+<p>The first twin came to Peter. 'Father, we want to dance.'</p>
+
+<p>'Dance away, my little man,' said Peter, who was in high good humour.</p>
+
+<p>'But we want you to dance.'</p>
+
+<p>Peter was really the best dancer among them, but he pretended to be
+scandalised.</p>
+
+<p>'Me! My old bones would rattle.'</p>
+
+<p>'And mummy too.'</p>
+
+<p>'What,' cried Wendy, 'the mother of such an armful, dance!'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p><p>'But on a Saturday night,' Slightly insinuated.</p>
+
+<p>It was not really Saturday night, at least it may have been, for they
+had long lost count of the days; but always if they wanted to do
+anything special they said this was Saturday night, and then they did
+it.</p>
+
+<p>'Of course it is Saturday night, Peter,' Wendy said, relenting.</p>
+
+<p>'People of our figure, Wendy.'</p>
+
+<p>'But it is only among our own progeny.'</p>
+
+<p>'True, true.'</p>
+
+<p>So they were told they could dance, but they must put on their nighties
+first.</p>
+
+<p>'Ah, old lady,' Peter said aside to Wendy, warming himself by the fire
+and looking down at her as she sat turning a heel, 'there is nothing
+more pleasant, of an evening for you and me when the day's toil is over
+than to rest by the fire with the little ones near by.'</p>
+
+<p>'It is sweet, Peter, isn't it?' Wendy said, frightfully gratified.
+'Peter, I think Curly has your nose.'</p>
+
+<p>'Michael takes after you.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span></p><p>She went to him and put her hand on his shoulder.</p>
+
+<p>'Dear Peter,' she said, 'with such a large family, of course, I have now
+passed my best, but you don't want to change me, do you?'</p>
+
+<p>'No, Wendy.'</p>
+
+<p>Certainly he did not want a change, but he looked at her uncomfortably;
+blinking, you know, like one not sure whether he was awake or asleep.</p>
+
+<p>'Peter, what is it?'</p>
+
+<p>'I was just thinking,' he said, a little scared. 'It is only
+make-believe, isn't it, that I am their father?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh yes,' Wendy said primly.</p>
+
+<p>'You see,' he continued apologetically, 'it would make me seem so old to
+be their real father.'</p>
+
+<p>'But they are ours, Peter, yours and mine.'</p>
+
+<p>'But not really, Wendy?' he asked anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>'Not if you don't wish it,' she replied; and she distinctly heard his
+sigh of relief. 'Peter,' she asked, trying to speak firmly, 'what are
+your exact feelings for me?'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p><p>'Those of a devoted son, Wendy.'</p>
+
+<p>'I thought so,' she said, and went and sat by herself at the extreme end
+of the room.</p>
+
+<p>'You are so queer,' he said, frankly puzzled, 'and Tiger Lily is just
+the same. There is something she wants to be to me, but she says it is
+not my mother.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, indeed, it is not,' Wendy replied with frightful emphasis. Now we
+know why she was prejudiced against the redskins.</p>
+
+<p>'Then what is it?'</p>
+
+<p>'It isn't for a lady to tell.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, very well,' Peter said, a little nettled. 'Perhaps Tinker Bell will
+tell me.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh yes, Tinker Bell will tell you,' Wendy retorted scornfully. 'She is
+an abandoned little creature.'</p>
+
+<p>Here Tink, who was in her boudoir, eavesdropping, squeaked out something
+impudent.</p>
+
+<p>'She says she glories in being abandoned,' Peter interpreted.</p>
+
+<p>He had a sudden idea. 'Perhaps Tink wants to be my mother?'</p>
+
+<p>'You silly ass!' cried Tinker Bell in a passion.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span></p><p>She had said it so often that Wendy needed no translation.</p>
+
+<p>'I almost agree with her,' Wendy snapped. Fancy Wendy snapping. But she
+had been much tried, and she little knew what was to happen before the
+night was out. If she had known she would not have snapped.</p>
+
+<p>None of them knew. Perhaps it was best not to know. Their ignorance gave
+them one more glad hour; and as it was to be their last hour on the
+island, let us rejoice that there were sixty glad minutes in it. They
+sang and danced in their night-gowns. Such a deliciously creepy song it
+was, in which they pretended to be frightened at their own shadows;
+little witting that so soon shadows would close in upon them, from whom
+they would shrink in real fear. So uproariously gay was the dance, and
+how they buffeted each other on the bed and out of it! It was a pillow
+fight rather than a dance, and when it was finished, the pillows
+insisted on one bout more, like partners who know that they may never
+meet again. The stories they told, before it was time for Wendy's
+good-night story! Even Slightly tried to tell a story that<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span> night, but
+the beginning was so fearfully dull that it appalled even himself, and
+he said gloomily:</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, it is a dull beginning. I say, let us pretend that it is the end.'</p>
+
+<p>And then at last they all got into bed for Wendy's story, the story they
+loved best, the story Peter hated. Usually when she began to tell this
+story he left the room or put his hands over his ears; and possibly if
+he had done either of those things this time they might all still be on
+the island. But to-night he remained on his stool; and we shall see what
+happened.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2>
+
+<h3>WENDY'S STORY</h3>
+
+<p>'Listen, then,' said Wendy, settling down to her story, with Michael at
+her feet and seven boys in the bed. 'There was once a gentleman&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'I had rather he had been a lady,' Curly said.</p>
+
+<p>'I wish he had been a white rat,' said Nibs.</p>
+
+<p>'Quiet,' their mother admonished them. 'There was a lady also, and&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'O mummy,' cried the first twin, 'you mean that there is a lady also,
+don't you? She is not dead, is she?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh no.'</p>
+
+<p>'I am awfully glad she isn't dead,' said Tootles. 'Are you glad, John?'</p>
+
+<p>'Of course I am.'</p>
+
+<p>'Are you glad, Nibs?'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span></p><p>'Rather.'</p>
+
+<p>'Are you glad, Twins?'</p>
+
+<p>'We are just glad.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh dear,' sighed Wendy.</p>
+
+<p>'Little less noise there,' Peter called out, determined that she should
+have fair play, however beastly a story it might be in his opinion.</p>
+
+<p>'The gentleman's name,' Wendy continued, 'was Mr. Darling, and her name
+was Mrs. Darling.'</p>
+
+<p>'I knew them,' John said, to annoy the others.</p>
+
+<p>'I think I knew them,' said Michael rather doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>'They were married, you know,' explained Wendy, 'and what do you think
+they had?'</p>
+
+<p>'White rats,' cried Nibs, inspired.</p>
+
+<p>'No.'</p>
+
+<p>'It's awfully puzzling,' said Tootles, who knew the story by heart.</p>
+
+<p>'Quiet, Tootles. They had three descendants.'</p>
+
+<p>'What is descendants?'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, you are one, Twin.</p>
+
+<p>'Do you hear that, John? I am a descendant.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span></p><p>'Descendants are only children,' said John.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh dear, oh dear,' sighed Wendy. 'Now these three children had a
+faithful nurse called Nana; but Mr. Darling was angry with her and
+chained her up in the yard; and so all the children flew away.'</p>
+
+<p>'It's an awfully good story,' said Nibs.</p>
+
+<p>'They flew away,' Wendy continued, 'to the Neverland, where the lost
+children are.'</p>
+
+<p>'I just thought they did,' Curly broke in excitedly. 'I don't know how
+it is, but I just thought they did.'</p>
+
+<p>'O Wendy,' cried Tootles, 'was one of the lost children called Tootles?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, he was.'</p>
+
+<p>'I am in a story. Hurrah, I am in a story, Nibs.'</p>
+
+<p>'Hush. Now I want you to consider the feelings of the unhappy parents
+with all their children flown away.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oo!' they all moaned, though they were not really considering the
+feelings of the unhappy parents one jot.</p>
+
+<p>'Think of the empty beds!'</p>
+
+<p>'Oo!'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span></p><p>'It's awfully sad,' the first twin said cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't see how it can have a happy ending,' said the second twin. 'Do
+you, Nibs?'</p>
+
+<p>'I'm frightfully anxious.'</p>
+
+<p>'If you knew how great is a mother's love,' Wendy told them
+triumphantly, 'you would have no fear.' She had now come to the part
+that Peter hated.</p>
+
+<p>'I do like a mother's love,' said Tootles, hitting Nibs with a pillow.
+'Do you like a mother's love, Nibs?'</p>
+
+<p>'I do just,' said Nibs, hitting back.</p>
+
+<p>'You see,' Wendy said complacently, 'our heroine knew that the mother
+would always leave the window open for her children to fly back by; so
+they stayed away for years and had a lovely time.'</p>
+
+<p>'Did they ever go back?'</p>
+
+<p>'Let us now,' said Wendy, bracing herself for her finest effort, 'take a
+peep into the future'; and they all gave themselves the twist that makes
+peeps into the future easier. 'Years have rolled by; and who is this
+elegant lady of uncertain age alighting at London Station?'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p><p>'O Wendy, who is she?' cried Nibs, every bit as excited as if he didn't
+know.</p>
+
+<p>'Can it be&mdash;yes&mdash;no&mdash;it is&mdash;the fair Wendy!'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh!'</p>
+
+<p>'And who are the two noble portly figures accompanying her, now grown to
+man's estate? Can they be John and Michael? They are!'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh!'</p>
+
+<p>'"See, dear brothers," says Wendy, pointing upwards, '"there is the
+window still standing open. Ah, now we are rewarded for our sublime
+faith in a mother's love." So up they flew to their mummy and daddy; and
+pen cannot describe the happy scene, over which we draw a veil.'</p>
+
+<p>That was the story, and they were as pleased with it as the fair
+narrator herself. Everything just as it should be, you see. Off we skip
+like the most heartless things in the world, which is what children are,
+but so attractive; and we have an entirely selfish time; and then when
+we have need of special attention we nobly return for it, confident that
+we shall be embraced instead of smacked.</p>
+
+<p>So great indeed was their faith in a mother's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span> love that they felt they
+could afford to be callous for a bit longer.</p>
+
+<p>But there was one there who knew better; and when Wendy finished he
+uttered a hollow groan.</p>
+
+<p>'What is it, Peter?' she cried, running to him, thinking he was ill. She
+felt him solicitously, lower down than his chest. 'Where is it, Peter?'</p>
+
+<p>'It isn't that kind of pain,' Peter replied darkly.</p>
+
+<p>'Then what kind is it?'</p>
+
+<p>'Wendy, you are wrong about mothers.'</p>
+
+<p>They all gathered round him in affright, so alarming was his agitation;
+and with a fine candour he told them what he had hitherto concealed.</p>
+
+<p>'Long ago,' he said, 'I thought like you that my mother would always
+keep the window open for me; so I stayed away for moons and moons and
+moons, and then flew back; but the window was barred, for mother had
+forgotten all about me, and there was another little boy sleeping in my
+bed.'</p>
+
+<p>I am not sure that this was true, but Peter thought it was true; and it
+scared them.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span></p><p>'Are you sure mothers are like that?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes.'</p>
+
+<p>So this was the truth about mothers. The toads!</p>
+
+<p>Still it is best to be careful; and no one knows so quickly as a child
+when he should give in. 'Wendy, let us go home,' cried John and Michael
+together.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' she said, clutching them.</p>
+
+<p>'Not to-night?' asked the lost boys bewildered. They knew in what they
+called their hearts that one can get on quite well without a mother, and
+that it is only the mothers who think you can't.</p>
+
+<p>'At once,' Wendy replied resolutely, for the horrible thought had come
+to her: 'Perhaps mother is in half mourning by this time.'</p>
+
+<p>This dread made her forgetful of what must be Peter's feelings, and she
+said to him rather sharply, 'Peter, will you make the necessary
+arrangements?'</p>
+
+<p>'If you wish it,', he replied, as coolly as if she had asked him to pass
+the nuts.</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="i192" id="i192"></a><img src="images/i192.jpg" width='493' height='700' alt="WENDY'S STORY" /></div>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Not so much as a sorry-to-lose-you between them! If she did not mind the
+parting, he was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> going to show her, was Peter, that neither did he.</p>
+
+<p>But of course he cared very much; and he was so full of wrath against
+grown-ups, who, as usual, were spoiling everything, that as soon as he
+got inside his tree he breathed intentionally quick short breaths at the
+rate of about five to a second. He did this because there is a saying in
+the Neverland that, every time you breathe, a grown-up dies; and Peter
+was killing them off vindictively as fast as possible.</p>
+
+<p>Then having given the necessary instructions to the redskins he returned
+to the home, where an unworthy scene had been enacted in his absence.
+Panic-stricken at the thought of losing Wendy the lost boys had advanced
+upon her threateningly.</p>
+
+<p>'It will be worse than before she came,' they cried.</p>
+
+<p>'We shan't let her go.'</p>
+
+<p>'Let's keep her prisoner.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ay, chain her up.'</p>
+
+<p>In her extremity an instinct told her to which of them to turn.</p>
+
+<p>'Tootles,' she cried, 'I appeal to you.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span></p><p>Was it not strange? she appealed to Tootles, quite the silliest one.</p>
+
+<p>Grandly, however, did Tootles respond. For that one moment he dropped
+his silliness and spoke with dignity.</p>
+
+<p>'I am just Tootles,' he said, 'and nobody minds me. But the first who
+does not behave to Wendy like an English gentleman I will blood him
+severely.'</p>
+
+<p>He drew his hanger; and for that instant his sun was at noon. The others
+held back uneasily. Then Peter returned, and they saw at once that they
+would get no support from him. He would keep no girl in the Neverland
+against her will.</p>
+
+<p>'Wendy,' he said, striding up and down, 'I have asked the redskins to
+guide you through the wood, as flying tires you so.'</p>
+
+<p>'Thank you, Peter.'</p>
+
+<p>'Then,' he continued, in the short sharp voice of one accustomed to be
+obeyed, 'Tinker Bell will take you across the sea. Wake her, Nibs.'</p>
+
+<p>Nibs had to knock twice before he got an answer, though Tink had really
+been sitting up in bed listening for some time.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span></p><p>'Who are you? How dare you? Go away,' she cried.</p>
+
+<p>'You are to get up, Tink,' Nibs called, 'and take Wendy on a journey.'</p>
+
+<p>Of course Tink had been delighted to hear that Wendy was going; but she
+was jolly well determined not to be her courier, and she said so in
+still more offensive language. Then she pretended to be asleep again.</p>
+
+<p>'She says she won't,' Nibs exclaimed, aghast at such insubordination,
+whereupon Peter went sternly toward the young lady's chamber.</p>
+
+<p>'Tink,' he rapped out, 'if you don't get up and dress at once I will
+open the curtains, and then we shall all see you in your <i>n&eacute;glig&eacute;e</i>.'</p>
+
+<p>This made her leap to the floor. 'Who said I wasn't getting up?' she
+cried.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime the boys were gazing very forlornly at Wendy, now
+equipped with John and Michael for the journey. By this time they were
+dejected, not merely because they were about to lose her, but also
+because they felt that she was going off to something nice to which they
+had not been invited. Novelty was beckoning to them as usual.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p><p>Crediting them with a nobler feeling Wendy melted.</p>
+
+<p>'Dear ones,' she said, 'if you will all come with me I feel almost sure
+I can get my father and mother to adopt you.'</p>
+
+<p>The invitation was meant specially for Peter; but each of the boys was
+thinking exclusively of himself, and at once they jumped with joy.</p>
+
+<p>'But won't they think us rather a handful?' Nibs asked in the middle of
+his jump.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh no,' said Wendy, rapidly thinking it out, 'it will only mean having
+a few beds in the drawing-room; they can be hidden behind screens on
+first Thursdays.'</p>
+
+<p>'Peter, can we go?' they all cried imploringly. They took it for granted
+that if they went he would go also, but really they scarcely cared. Thus
+children are ever ready, when novelty knocks, to desert their dearest
+ones.</p>
+
+<p>'All right,' Peter replied with a bitter smile; and immediately they
+rushed to get their things.</p>
+
+<p>'And now, Peter,' Wendy said, thinking she had put everything right, 'I
+am going to give you your medicine before you go.' She loved to give
+them medicine, and undoubtedly gave<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span> them too much. Of course it was
+only water, but it was out of a calabash, and she always shook the
+calabash and counted the drops, which gave it a certain medicinal
+quality. On this occasion, however, she did not give Peter his draught,
+for just as she had prepared it, she saw a look on his face that made
+her heart sink.</p>
+
+<p>'Get your things, Peter,' she cried, shaking.</p>
+
+<p>'No,' he answered, pretending indifference, 'I am not going with you,
+Wendy.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, Peter.'</p>
+
+<p>'No.'</p>
+
+<p>To show that her departure would leave him unmoved, he skipped up and
+down the room, playing gaily on his heartless pipes. She had to run
+about after him, though it was rather undignified.</p>
+
+<p>'To find your mother,' she coaxed.</p>
+
+<p>Now, if Peter had ever quite had a mother, he no longer missed her. He
+could do very well without one. He had thought them out, and remembered
+only their bad points.</p>
+
+<p>'No, no,' he told Wendy decisively; 'perhaps she would say I was old,
+and I just want always to be a little boy and to have fun.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span></p><p>'But, Peter&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'No.'</p>
+
+<p>And so the others had to be told.</p>
+
+<p>'Peter isn't coming.'</p>
+
+<p>Peter not coming! They gazed blankly at him, their sticks over their
+backs, and on each stick a bundle. Their first thought was that if Peter
+was not going he had probably changed his mind about letting them go.</p>
+
+<p>But he was far too proud for that. 'If you find your mothers,' he said
+darkly, 'I hope you will like them.'</p>
+
+<p>The awful cynicism of this made an uncomfortable impression, and most of
+them began to look rather doubtful. After all, their faces said, were
+they not noodles to want to go?</p>
+
+<p>'Now then,' cried Peter, 'no fuss, no blubbering; good-bye, Wendy'; and
+he held out his hand cheerily, quite as if they must really go now, for
+he had something important to do.</p>
+
+<p>She had to take his hand, as there was no indication that he would
+prefer a thimble.</p>
+
+<p>'You will remember about changing your flannels, Peter?' she said,
+lingering over him.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span> She was always so particular about their flannels.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes.'</p>
+
+<p>'And you will take your medicine?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes.'</p>
+
+<p>That seemed to be everything; and an awkward pause followed. Peter,
+however, was not the kind that breaks down before people. 'Are you
+ready, Tinker Bell?' he called out.</p>
+
+<p>'Ay, ay.'</p>
+
+<p>'Then lead the way.'</p>
+
+<p>Tink darted up the nearest tree; but no one followed her, for it was at
+this moment that the pirates made their dreadful attack upon the
+redskins. Above, where all had been so still, the air was rent with
+shrieks and the clash of steel. Below, there was dead silence. Mouths
+opened and remained open. Wendy fell on her knees, but her arms were
+extended toward Peter. All arms were extended to him, as if suddenly
+blown in his direction; they were beseeching him mutely not to desert
+them. As for Peter, he seized his sword, the same he thought he had
+slain Barbecue with; and the lust of battle was in his eye.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2>
+
+<h3>THE CHILDREN ARE CARRIED OFF</h3>
+
+<p>The pirate attack had been a complete surprise: a sure proof that the
+unscrupulous Hook had conducted it improperly, for to surprise redskins
+fairly is beyond the wit of the white man.</p>
+
+<p>By all the unwritten laws of savage warfare it is always the redskin who
+attacks, and with the wiliness of his race he does it just before the
+dawn, at which time he knows the courage of the whites to be at its
+lowest ebb. The white men have in the meantime made a rude stockade on
+the summit of yonder undulating ground, at the foot of which a stream
+runs; for it is destruction to be too far from water. There they await
+the onslaught, the inexperienced ones clutching their revolvers and
+treading on twigs,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span> but the old hands sleeping tranquilly until just
+before the dawn. Through the long black night the savage scouts wriggle,
+snake-like, among the grass without stirring a blade. The brushwood
+closes behind them as silently as sand into which a mole has dived. Not
+a sound is to be heard, save when they give vent to a wonderful
+imitation of the lonely call of the coyote. The cry is answered by other
+braves; and some of them do it even better than the coyotes, who are not
+very good at it. So the chill hours wear on, and the long suspense is
+horribly trying to the paleface who has to live through it for the first
+time; but to the trained hand those ghastly calls and still ghastlier
+silences are but an intimation of how the night is marching.</p>
+
+<p>That this was the usual procedure was so well known to Hook that in
+disregarding it he cannot be excused on the plea of ignorance.</p>
+
+<p>The Piccaninnies, on their part, trusted implicitly to his honour, and
+their whole action of the night stands out in marked contrast to his.
+They left nothing undone that was consistent with the reputation of
+their tribe. With that alertness of the senses which is at once the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>
+marvel and despair of civilised peoples, they knew that the pirates were
+on the island from the moment one of them trod on a dry stick; and in an
+incredibly short space of time the coyote cries began. Every foot of
+ground between the spot where Hook had landed his forces and the home
+under the trees was stealthily examined by braves wearing their
+mocassins with the heels in front. They found only one hillock with a
+stream at its base, so that Hook had no choice; here he must establish
+himself and wait for just before the dawn. Everything being thus mapped
+out with almost diabolical cunning, the main body of the redskins folded
+their blankets around them, and in the phlegmatic manner that is to them
+the pearl of manhood squatted above the children's home, awaiting the
+cold moment when they should deal pale death.</p>
+
+<p>Here dreaming, though wide-awake, of the exquisite tortures to which
+they were to put him at break of day, those confiding savages were found
+by the treacherous Hook. From the accounts afterwards supplied by such
+of the scouts as escaped the carnage, he does not seem<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span> even to have
+paused at the rising ground, though it is certain that in that grey
+light he must have seen it: no thought of waiting to be attacked appears
+from first to last to have visited his subtle mind; he would not even
+hold off till the night was nearly spent; on he pounded with no policy
+but to fall to. What could the bewildered scouts do, masters as they
+were of every warlike artifice save this one, but trot helplessly after
+him, exposing themselves fatally to view, the while they gave pathetic
+utterance to the coyote cry.</p>
+
+<p>Around the brave Tiger Lily were a dozen of her stoutest warriors, and
+they suddenly saw the perfidious pirates bearing down upon them. Fell
+from their eyes then the film through which they had looked at victory.
+No more would they torture at the stake. For them the happy
+hunting-grounds now. They knew it; but as their fathers' sons they
+acquitted themselves. Even then they had time to gather in a phalanx
+that would have been hard to break had they risen quickly, but this they
+were forbidden to do by the traditions of their race. It is written that
+the noble savage must never express <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>surprise in the presence of the
+white. Thus terrible as the sudden appearance of the pirates must have
+been to them, they remained stationary for a moment, not a muscle
+moving; as if the foe had come by invitation. Then, indeed, the
+tradition gallantly upheld, they seized their weapons, and the air was
+torn with the warcry; but it was now too late.</p>
+
+<p>It is no part of ours to describe what was a massacre rather than a
+fight. Thus perished many of the flower of the Piccaninny tribe. Not all
+unavenged did they die, for with Lean Wolf fell Alf Mason, to disturb
+the Spanish Main no more; and among others who bit the dust were Geo.
+Scourie, Chas. Turley, and the Alsatian Foggerty. Turley fell to the
+tomahawk of the terrible Panther, who ultimately cut a way through the
+pirates with Tiger Lily and a small remnant of the tribe.</p>
+
+<p>To what extent Hook is to blame for his tactics on this occasion is for
+the historian to decide. Had he waited on the rising ground till the
+proper hour he and his men would probably have been butchered; and in
+judging him it is only fair to take this into account. What he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span> should
+perhaps have done was to acquaint his opponents that he proposed to
+follow a new method. On the other hand this, as destroying the element
+of surprise, would have made his strategy of no avail, so that the whole
+question is beset with difficulties. One cannot at least withhold a
+reluctant admiration for the wit that had conceived so bold a scheme,
+and the fell genius with which it was carried out.</p>
+
+<p>What were his own feelings about himself at that triumphant moment? Fain
+would his dogs have known, as breathing heavily and wiping their
+cutlasses, they gathered at a discreet distance from his hook, and
+squinted through their ferret eyes at this extraordinary man. Elation
+must have been in his heart, but his face did not reflect it: ever a
+dark and solitary enigma, he stood aloof from his followers in spirit as
+in substance.</p>
+
+<p>The night's work was not yet over, for it was not the redskins he had
+come out to destroy; they were but the bees to be smoked, so that he
+should get at the honey. It was Pan he wanted, Pan and Wendy and their
+band, but chiefly Pan.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span></p><p>Peter was such a small boy that one tends to wonder at the man's hatred
+of him. True he had flung Hook's arm to the crocodile; but even this and
+the increased insecurity of life to which it led, owing to the
+crocodile's pertinacity, hardly account for a vindictiveness so
+relentless and malignant. The truth is that there was a something about
+Peter which goaded the pirate captain to frenzy. It was not his courage,
+it was not his engaging appearance, it was not&mdash;. There is no beating
+about the bush, for we know quite well what it was, and have got to
+tell. It was Peter's cockiness.</p>
+
+<p>This had got on Hook's nerves; it made his iron claw twitch, and at
+night it disturbed him like an insect. While Peter lived, the tortured
+man felt that he was a lion in a cage into which a sparrow had come.</p>
+
+<p>The question now was how to get down the trees, or how to get his dogs
+down? He ran his greedy eyes over them, searching for the thinnest ones.
+They wriggled uncomfortably, for they knew he would not scruple to ram
+them down with poles.</p>
+
+<p>In the meantime, what of the boys? We<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span> have seen them at the first clang
+of weapons, turned as it were into stone figures, open-mouthed, all
+appealing with outstretched arms to Peter; and we return to them as
+their mouths close, and their arms fall to their sides. The pandemonium
+above has ceased almost as suddenly as it arose, passed like a fierce
+gust of wind; but they know that in the passing it has determined their
+fate.</p>
+
+<p>Which side had won?</p>
+
+<p>The pirates, listening avidly at the mouths of the trees, heard the
+question put by every boy, and alas, they also heard Peter's answer.</p>
+
+<p>'If the redskins have won,' he said, 'they will beat the tom-tom; it is
+always their sign of victory.'</p>
+
+<p>Now Smee had found the tom-tom, and was at that moment sitting on it.
+'You will never hear the tom-tom again,' he muttered, but inaudibly of
+course, for strict silence had been enjoined. To his amazement Hook
+signed to him to beat the tom-tom; and slowly there came to Smee an
+understanding of the dreadful wickedness of the order. Never, probably,
+had this simple man admired Hook so much.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p><p>Twice Smee beat upon the instrument, and then stopped to listen
+gleefully.</p>
+
+<p>'The tom-tom,' the miscreants heard Peter cry; 'an Indian victory!'</p>
+
+<p>The doomed children answered with a cheer that was music to the black
+hearts above, and almost immediately they repeated their goodbyes to
+Peter. This puzzled the pirates, but all their other feelings were
+swallowed by a base delight that the enemy were about to come up the
+trees. They smirked at each other and rubbed their hands. Rapidly and
+silently Hook gave his orders: one man to each tree, and the others to
+arrange themselves in a line two yards apart.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2>
+
+<h3>DO YOU BELIEVE IN FAIRIES?</h3>
+
+<p>The more quickly this horror is disposed of the better. The first to
+emerge from his tree was Curly. He rose out of it into the arms of
+Cecco, who flung him to Smee, who flung him to Starkey, who flung him to
+Bill Jukes, who flung him to Noodler, and so he was tossed from one to
+another till he fell at the feet of the black pirate. All the boys were
+plucked from their trees in this ruthless manner; and several of them
+were in the air at a time, like bales of goods flung from hand to hand.</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="i218" id="i218"></a><img src="images/i218.jpg" width='491' height='700' alt="FLUNG LIKE BALES" /></div>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>A different treatment was accorded to Wendy, who came last. With
+ironical politeness Hook raised his hat to her, and, offering her his
+arm, escorted her to the spot where the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span> others were being gagged. He
+did it with such an air, he was so frightfully <i>distingu&eacute;</i>, that she was
+too fascinated to cry out. She was only a little girl.</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps it is tell-tale to divulge that for a moment Hook entranced her,
+and we tell on her only because her slip led to strange results. Had she
+haughtily unhanded him (and we should have loved to write it of her),
+she would have been hurled through the air like the others, and then
+Hook would probably not have been present at the tying of the children;
+and had he not been at the tying he would not have discovered Slightly's
+secret, and without the secret he could not presently have made his foul
+attempt on Peter's life.</p>
+
+<p>They were tied to prevent their flying away, doubled up with their knees
+close to their ears; and for the trussing of them the black pirate had
+cut a rope into nine equal pieces. All went well until Slightly's turn
+came, when he was found to be like those irritating parcels that use up
+all the string in going round and leave no tags with which to tie a
+knot. The pirates kicked him in their rage, just as you<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> kick the parcel
+(though in fairness you should kick the string); and strange to say it
+was Hook who told them to belay their violence. His lip was curled with
+malicious triumph. While his dogs were merely sweating because every
+time they tried to pack the unhappy lad tight in one part he bulged out
+in another, Hook's master mind had gone far beneath Slightly's surface,
+probing not for effects but for causes; and his exultation showed that
+he had found them. Slightly, white to the gills, knew that Hook had
+surprised his secret, which was this, that no boy so blown out could use
+a tree wherein an average man need stick. Poor Slightly, most wretched
+of all the children now, for he was in a panic about Peter, bitterly
+regretted what he had done. Madly addicted to the drinking of water when
+he was hot, he had swelled in consequence to his present girth, and
+instead of reducing himself to fit his tree he had, unknown to the
+others, whittled his tree to make it fit him.</p>
+
+<p>Sufficient of this Hook guessed to persuade him that Peter at last lay
+at his mercy; but no word of the dark design that now formed in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span> the
+subterranean caverns of his mind crossed his lips; he merely signed that
+the captives were to be conveyed to the ship, and that he would be
+alone.</p>
+
+<p>How to convey them? Hunched up in their ropes they might indeed be
+rolled down hill like barrels, but most of the way lay through a morass.
+Again Hook's genius surmounted difficulties. He indicated that the
+little house must be used as a conveyance. The children were flung into
+it, four stout pirates raised it on their shoulders, the others fell in
+behind, and singing the hateful pirate chorus the strange procession set
+off through the wood. I don't know whether any of the children were
+crying; if so, the singing drowned the sound; but as the little house
+disappeared in the forest, a brave though tiny jet of smoke issued from
+its chimney as if defying Hook.</p>
+
+<p>Hook saw it, and it did Peter a bad service. It dried up any trickle of
+pity for him that may have remained in the pirate's infuriated breast.</p>
+
+<p>The first thing he did on finding himself alone in the fast falling
+night was to tiptoe to Slightly's<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span> tree, and make sure that it provided
+him with a passage. Then for long he remained brooding; his hat of ill
+omen on the sward, so that a gentle breeze which had arisen might play
+refreshingly through his hair. Dark as were his thoughts his blue eyes
+were as soft as the periwinkle. Intently he listened for any sound from
+the nether world, but all was as silent below as above; the house under
+the ground seemed to be but one more empty tenement in the void. Was
+that boy asleep, or did he stand waiting at the foot of Slightly's tree,
+with his dagger in his hand?</p>
+
+<p>There was no way of knowing, save by going down. Hook let his cloak slip
+softly to the ground, and then biting his lips till a lewd blood stood
+on them, he stepped into the tree. He was a brave man; but for a moment
+he had to stop there and wipe his brow, which was dripping like a
+candle. Then silently he let himself go into the unknown.</p>
+
+<p>He arrived unmolested at the foot of the shaft, and stood still again,
+biting at his breath, which had almost left him. As his eyes became
+accustomed to the dim light various objects in<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span> the home under the trees
+took shape; but the only one on which his greedy gaze rested, long
+sought for and found at last, was the great bed. On the bed lay Peter
+fast asleep.</p>
+
+<p>Unaware of the tragedy being enacted above, Peter had continued, for a
+little time after the children left, to play gaily on his pipes: no
+doubt rather a forlorn attempt to prove to himself that he did not care.
+Then he decided not to take his medicine, so as to grieve Wendy. Then he
+lay down on the bed outside the coverlet, to vex her still more; for she
+had always tucked them inside it, because you never know that you may
+not grow chilly at the turn of the night. Then he nearly cried; but it
+struck him how indignant she would be if he laughed instead; so he
+laughed a haughty laugh and fell asleep in the middle of it.</p>
+
+<p>Sometimes, though not often, he had dreams, and they were more painful
+than the dreams of other boys. For hours he could not be separated from
+these dreams, though he wailed piteously in them. They had to do, I
+think, with the riddle of his existence. At such times it had been
+Wendy's custom to take him out of bed<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span> and sit with him on her lap,
+soothing him in dear ways of her own invention, and when he grew calmer
+to put him back to bed before he quite woke up, so that he should not
+know of the indignity to which she had subjected him. But on this
+occasion he had fallen at once into a dreamless sleep. One arm dropped
+over the edge of the bed, one leg was arched, and the unfinished part of
+his laugh was stranded on his mouth, which was open, showing the little
+pearls.</p>
+
+<p>Thus defenceless Hook found him. He stood silent at the foot of the tree
+looking across the chamber at his enemy. Did no feeling of compassion
+disturb his sombre breast? The man was not wholly evil; he loved flowers
+(I have been told) and sweet music (he was himself no mean performer on
+the harpsichord); and, let it be frankly admitted, the idyllic nature of
+the scene stirred him profoundly. Mastered by his better self he would
+have returned reluctantly up the tree, but for one thing.</p>
+
+<p>What stayed him was Peter's impertinent appearance as he slept. The open
+mouth, the drooping arm, the arched knee: they were<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span> such a
+personification of cockiness as, taken together, will never again one
+may hope be presented to eyes so sensitive to their offensiveness. They
+steeled Hook's heart. If his rage had broken him into a hundred pieces
+every one of them would have disregarded the incident, and leapt at the
+sleeper.</p>
+
+<p>Though a light from the one lamp shone dimly on the bed Hook stood in
+darkness himself, and at the first stealthy step forward he discovered
+an obstacle, the door of Slightly's tree. It did not entirely fill the
+aperture, and he had been looking over it. Feeling for the catch, he
+found to his fury that it was low down, beyond his reach. To his
+disordered brain it seemed then that the irritating quality in Peter's
+face and figure visibly increased, and he rattled the door and flung
+himself against it. Was his enemy to escape him after all.</p>
+
+<p>But what was that? The red in his eye had caught sight of Peter's
+medicine standing on a ledge within easy reach. He fathomed what it was
+straightway, and immediately he knew that the sleeper was in his power.</p>
+
+<p>Lest he should be taken alive, Hook always<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span> carried about his person a
+dreadful drug, blended by himself of all the death-dealing rings that
+had come into his possession. These he had boiled down into a yellow
+liquid quite unknown to science, which was probably the most virulent
+poison in existence.</p>
+
+<p>Five drops of this he now added to Peter's cup. His hand shook, but it
+was in exultation rather than in shame. As he did it he avoided glancing
+at the sleeper, but not lest pity should unnerve him; merely to avoid
+spilling. Then one long gloating look he cast upon his victim, and
+turning, wormed his way with difficulty up the tree. As he emerged at
+the top he looked the very spirit of evil breaking from its hole.
+Donning his hat at its most rakish angle, he wound his cloak around him,
+holding one end in front as if to conceal his person from the night, of
+which it was the blackest part, and muttering strangely to himself stole
+away through the trees.</p>
+
+<p>Peter slept on. The light guttered and went out, leaving the tenement in
+darkness; but still he slept. It must have been not less than ten
+o'clock by the crocodile, when he suddenly sat<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span> up in his bed, wakened
+by he knew not what. It was a soft cautious tapping on the door of his
+tree.</p>
+
+<p>Soft and cautious, but in that stillness it was sinister. Peter felt for
+his dagger till his hand gripped it. Then he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>'Who is that?'</p>
+
+<p>For long there was no answer: then again the knock.</p>
+
+<p>'Who are you?'</p>
+
+<p>No answer.</p>
+
+<p>He was thrilled, and he loved being thrilled. In two strides he reached
+his door. Unlike Slightly's door it filled the aperture, so that he
+could not see beyond it, nor could the one knocking see him.</p>
+
+<p>'I won't open unless you speak,' Peter cried.</p>
+
+<p>Then at last the visitor spoke, in a lovely bell-like voice.</p>
+
+<p>'Let me in, Peter.'</p>
+
+<p>It was Tink, and quickly he unbarred to her. She flew in excitedly, her
+face flushed and her dress stained with mud.</p>
+
+<p>'What is it?'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, you could never guess,' she cried, and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span> offered him three guesses.
+'Out with it!' he shouted; and in one ungrammatical sentence, as long as
+the ribbons conjurers pull from their mouths, she told of the capture of
+Wendy and the boys.</p>
+
+<p>Peter's heart bobbed up and down as he listened. Wendy bound, and on the
+pirate ship; she who loved everything to be just so!</p>
+
+<p>'I'll rescue her,' he cried, leaping at his weapons. As he leapt he
+thought of something he could do to please her. He could take his
+medicine.</p>
+
+<p>His hand closed on the fatal draught.</p>
+
+<p>'No!' shrieked Tinker Bell, who had heard Hook muttering about his deed
+as he sped through the forest.</p>
+
+<p>'Why not?'</p>
+
+<p>'It is poisoned.'</p>
+
+<p>'Poisoned? Who could have poisoned it?'</p>
+
+<p>'Hook.'</p>
+
+<p>'Don't be silly. How could Hook have got down here?'</p>
+
+<p>Alas, Tinker Bell could not explain this, for even she did not know the
+dark secret of Slightly's tree. Nevertheless Hook's words<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> had left no
+room for doubt. The cup was poisoned.</p>
+
+<p>'Besides,' said Peter, quite believing himself, 'I never fell asleep.'</p>
+
+<p>He raised the cup. No time for words now; time for deeds; and with one
+of her lightning movements Tink got between his lips and the draught,
+and drained it to the dregs.</p>
+
+<p>'Why, Tink, how dare you drink my medicine?'</p>
+
+<p>But she did not answer. Already she was reeling in the air.</p>
+
+<p>'What is the matter with you?' cried Peter, suddenly afraid.</p>
+
+<p>'It was poisoned, Peter,' she told him softly; 'and now I am going to be
+dead.'</p>
+
+<p>'O Tink, did you drink it to save me?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes.'</p>
+
+<p>'But why, Tink?'</p>
+
+<p>Her wings would scarcely carry her now, but in reply she alighted on his
+shoulder and gave his chin a loving bite. She whispered in his ear 'You
+silly ass'; and then, tottering to her chamber, lay down on the bed.</p>
+
+<p>His head almost filled the fourth wall of her<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span> little room as he knelt
+near her in distress. Every moment her light was growing fainter; and he
+knew that if it went out she would be no more. She liked his tears so
+much that she put out her beautiful finger and let them run over it.</p>
+
+<p>Her voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said.
+Then he made it out. She was saying that she thought she could get well
+again if children believed in fairies.</p>
+
+<p>Peter flung out his arms. There were no children there, and it was
+night-time; but he addressed all who might be dreaming of the Neverland,
+and who were therefore nearer to him than you think: boys and girls in
+their nighties, and naked papooses in their baskets hung from trees.</p>
+
+<p>'Do you believe?' he cried.</p>
+
+<p>Tink sat up in bed almost briskly to listen to her fate.</p>
+
+<p>She fancied she heard answers in the affirmative, and then again she
+wasn't sure.</p>
+
+<p>'What do you think?' she asked Peter.</p>
+
+<p>'If you believe,' he shouted to them, 'clap your hands; don't let Tink
+die.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span></p><p>Many clapped.</p>
+
+<p>Some didn't.</p>
+
+<p>A few little beasts hissed.</p>
+
+<p>The clapping stopped suddenly; as if countless mothers had rushed to
+their nurseries to see what on earth was happening; but already Tink was
+saved. First her voice grew strong; then she popped out of bed; then she
+was flashing through the room more merry and impudent than ever. She
+never thought of thanking those who believed, but she would have liked
+to get at the ones who had hissed.</p>
+
+<p>'And now to rescue Wendy.'</p>
+
+<p>The moon was riding in a cloudy heaven when Peter rose from his tree,
+begirt with weapons and wearing little else, to set out upon his
+perilous quest. It was not such a night as he would have chosen. He had
+hoped to fly, keeping not far from the ground so that nothing unwonted
+should escape his eyes; but in that fitful light to have flown low would
+have meant trailing his shadow through the trees, thus disturbing the
+birds and acquainting a watchful foe that he was astir.</p>
+
+<p>He regretted now that he had given the birds<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span> of the island such strange
+names that they are very wild and difficult of approach.</p>
+
+<p>There was no other course but to press forward in redskin fashion, at
+which happily he was an adept. But in what direction, for he could not
+be sure that the children had been taken to the ship? A slight fall of
+snow had obliterated all footmarks; and a deathly silence pervaded the
+island, as if for a space Nature stood still in horror of the recent
+carnage. He had taught the children something of the forest lore that he
+had himself learned from Tiger Lily and Tinker Bell, and knew that in
+their dire hour they were not likely to forget it. Slightly, if he had
+an opportunity, would blaze the trees, for instance, Curly would drop
+seeds, and Wendy would leave her handkerchief at some important place.
+But morning was needed to search for such guidance, and he could not
+wait. The upper world had called him, but would give no help.</p>
+
+<p>The crocodile passed him, but not another living thing, not a sound, not
+a movement; and yet he knew well that sudden death might be at the next
+tree, or stalking him from behind.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span></p><p>He swore this terrible oath: 'Hook or me this time.'</p>
+
+<p>Now he crawled forward like a snake; and again, erect, he darted across
+a space on which the moonlight played: one finger on his lip and his
+dagger at the ready. He was frightfully happy.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2>
+
+<h3>THE PIRATE SHIP</h3>
+
+<p>One green light squinting over Kidd's Creek, which is near the mouth of
+the pirate river, marked where the brig, the <i>Jolly Roger</i>, lay, low in
+the water; a rakish-looking craft foul to the hull, every beam in her
+detestable like ground strewn with mangled feathers. She was the
+cannibal of the seas, and scarce needed that watchful eye, for she
+floated immune in the horror of her name.</p>
+
+<p>She was wrapped in the blanket of night, through which no sound from her
+could have reached the shore. There was little sound, and none agreeable
+save the whir of the ship's sewing machine at which Smee sat, ever
+industrious and obliging, the essence of the commonplace, pathetic Smee.
+I know not why<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span> he was so infinitely pathetic, unless it were because he
+was so pathetically unaware of it; but even strong men had to turn
+hastily from looking at him, and more than once on summer evenings he
+had touched the fount of Hook's tears and made it flow. Of this, as of
+almost everything else, Smee was quite unconscious.</p>
+
+<p>A few of the pirates leant over the bulwarks drinking in the miasma of
+the night; others sprawled by barrels over games of dice and cards; and
+the exhausted four who had carried the little house lay prone on the
+deck, where even in their sleep they rolled skilfully to this side or
+that out of Hook's reach, lest he should claw them mechanically in
+passing.</p>
+
+<p>Hook trod the deck in thought. O man unfathomable. It was his hour of
+triumph. Peter had been removed for ever from his path, and all the
+other boys were on the brig, about to walk the plank. It was his
+grimmest deed since the days when he had brought Barbecue to heel; and
+knowing as we do how vain a tabernacle is man, could we be surprised had
+he now paced the deck unsteadily, bellied out by the winds of his
+success?</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p><p>But there was no elation in his gait, which kept pace with the action
+of his sombre mind. Hook was profoundly dejected.</p>
+
+<p>He was often thus when communing with himself on board ship in the
+quietude of the night. It was because he was so terribly alone. This
+inscrutable man never felt more alone than when surrounded by his dogs.
+They were socially so inferior to him.</p>
+
+<p>Hook was not his true name. To reveal who he really was would even at
+this date set the country in a blaze; but as those who read between the
+lines must already have guessed, he had been at a famous public school;
+and its traditions still clung to him like garments, with which indeed
+they are largely concerned. Thus it was offensive to him even now to
+board a ship in the same dress in which he grappled her; and he still
+adhered in his walk to the school's distinguished slouch. But above all
+he retained the passion for good form.</p>
+
+<p>Good form! However much he may have degenerated, he still knew that this
+is all that really matters.</p>
+
+<p>From far within him he heard a creaking as<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span> of rusty portals, and
+through them came a stern tap-tap-tap, like hammering in the night when
+one cannot sleep. 'Have you been good form to-day?' was their eternal
+question.</p>
+
+<p>'Fame, fame, that glittering bauble, it is mine,' he cried.</p>
+
+<p>'Is it quite good form to be distinguished at anything?' the tap-tap
+from his school replied.</p>
+
+<p>'I am the only man whom Barbecue feared,' he urged; 'and Flint himself
+feared Barbecue.'</p>
+
+<p>'Barbecue, Flint&mdash;what house?' came the cutting retort.</p>
+
+<p>Most disquieting reflection of all, was it not bad form to think about
+good form?</p>
+
+<p>His vitals were tortured by this problem. It was a claw within him
+sharper than the iron one; and as it tore him, the perspiration dripped
+down his tallow countenance and streaked his doublet. Ofttimes he drew
+his sleeve across his face, but there was no damming that trickle.</p>
+
+<p>Ah, envy not Hook.</p>
+
+<p>There came to him a presentiment of his early dissolution. It was as if
+Peter's terrible oath<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span> had boarded the ship. Hook felt a gloomy desire
+to make his dying speech, lest presently there should be no time for it.</p>
+
+<p>'Better for Hook,' he cried, 'if he had had less ambition.' It was in
+his darkest hours only that he referred to himself in the third person.</p>
+
+<p>'No little children love me.'</p>
+
+<p>Strange that he should think of this, which had never troubled him
+before; perhaps the sewing machine brought it to his mind. For long he
+muttered to himself, staring at Smee, who was hemming placidly, under
+the conviction that all children feared him.</p>
+
+<p>Feared him! Feared Smee! There was not a child on board the brig that
+night who did not already love him. He had said horrid things to them
+and hit them with the palm of his hand, because he could not hit with
+his fist; but they had only clung to him the more. Michael had tried on
+his spectacles.</p>
+
+<p>To tell poor Smee that they thought him lovable! Hook itched to do it,
+but it seemed too brutal. Instead, he revolved this mystery in his mind:
+why do they find Smee lovable?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> He pursued the problem like the
+sleuth-hound that he was. If Smee was lovable, what was it that made him
+so? A terrible answer suddenly presented itself: 'Good form?'</p>
+
+<p>Had the bo'sun good form without knowing it, which is the best form of
+all?</p>
+
+<p>He remembered that you have to prove you don't know you have it before
+you are eligible for Pop.</p>
+
+<p>With a cry of rage he raised his iron hand over Smee's head; but he did
+not tear. What arrested him was this reflection:</p>
+
+<p>'To claw a man because he is good form, what would that be?'</p>
+
+<p>'Bad form!'</p>
+
+<p>The unhappy Hook was as impotent as he was damp, and he fell forward
+like a cut flower.</p>
+
+<p>His dogs thinking him out of the way for a time, discipline instantly
+relaxed; and they broke into a bacchanalian dance, which brought him to
+his feet at once; all traces of human weakness gone, as if a bucket of
+water had passed over him.</p>
+
+<p>'Quiet, you scugs,' he cried, 'or I'll cast anchor in you'; and at once
+the din was hushed.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span> 'Are all the children chained, so that they cannot
+fly away?'</p>
+
+<p>'Ay, ay.'</p>
+
+<p>'Then hoist them up.'</p>
+
+<p>The wretched prisoners were dragged from the hold, all except Wendy, and
+ranged in line in front of him. For a time he seemed unconscious of
+their presence. He lolled at his ease, humming, not unmelodiously,
+snatches of a rude song, and fingering a pack of cards. Ever and anon
+the light from his cigar gave a touch of colour to his face.</p>
+
+<p>'Now then, bullies,' he said briskly, 'six of you walk the plank
+to-night, but I have room for two cabin boys. Which of you is it to be?'</p>
+
+<p>'Don't irritate him unnecessarily,' had been Wendy's instructions in the
+hold; so Tootles stepped forward politely. Tootles hated the idea of
+signing under such a man, but an instinct told him that it would be
+prudent to lay the responsibility on an absent person; and though a
+somewhat silly boy, he knew that mothers alone are always willing to be
+the buffer. All children know this about mothers,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span> and despise them for
+it, but make constant use of it.</p>
+
+<p>So Tootles explained prudently, 'You see, sir, I don't think my mother
+would like me to be a pirate. Would your mother like you to be a pirate,
+Slightly?'</p>
+
+<p>He winked at Slightly, who said mournfully, 'I don't think so,' as if he
+wished things had been otherwise. 'Would your mother like you to be a
+pirate, Twin?'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't think so,' said the first twin, as clever as the others. 'Nibs,
+would&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>'Stow this gab,' roared Hook, and the spokesmen were dragged back. 'You,
+boy,' he said, addressing John, 'you look as if you had a little pluck
+in you. Didst never want to be a pirate, my hearty?'</p>
+
+<p>Now John had sometimes experienced this hankering at maths. prep.; and
+he was struck by Hook's picking him out.</p>
+
+<p>'I once thought of calling myself Red-handed Jack,' he said diffidently.</p>
+
+<p>'And a good name too. We'll call you that here, bully, if you join.'</p>
+
+<p>'What do you think, Michael?' asked John.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span></p><p>'What would you call me if I join?' Michael demanded.</p>
+
+<p>'Blackbeard Joe.'</p>
+
+<p>Michael was naturally impressed. 'What do you think, John?' He wanted
+John to decide, and John wanted him to decide.</p>
+
+<p>'Shall we still be respectful subjects of the King?' John inquired.</p>
+
+<p>Through Hook's teeth came the answer: 'You would have to swear, "Down
+with the King."'</p>
+
+<p>Perhaps John had not behaved very well so far, but he shone out now.</p>
+
+<p>'Then I refuse,' he cried, banging the barrel in front of Hook.</p>
+
+<p>'And I refuse,' cried Michael.</p>
+
+<p>'Rule Britannia!' squeaked Curly.</p>
+
+<p>The infuriated pirates buffeted them in the mouth; and Hook roared out,
+'That seals your doom. Bring up their mother. Get the plank ready.'</p>
+
+<p>They were only boys, and they went white as they saw Jukes and Cecco
+preparing the fatal plank. But they tried to look brave when Wendy was
+brought up.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p><p>No words of mine can tell you how Wendy despised those pirates. To the
+boys there was at least some glamour in the pirate calling; but all that
+she saw was that the ship had not been scrubbed for years. There was not
+a porthole, on the grimy glass of which you might not have written with
+your finger 'Dirty pig'; and she had already written it on several. But
+as the boys gathered round her she had no thought, of course, save for
+them.</p>
+
+<p>'So, my beauty,' said Hook, as if he spoke in syrup, 'you are to see
+your children walk the plank.'</p>
+
+<p>Fine gentleman though he was, the intensity of his communings had soiled
+his ruff, and suddenly he knew that she was gazing at it. With a hasty
+gesture he tried to hide it, but he was too late.</p>
+
+<p>'Are they to die?' asked Wendy, with a look of such frightful contempt
+that he nearly fainted.</p>
+
+<p>'They are,' he snarled. 'Silence all,' he called gloatingly, 'for a
+mother's last words to her children.'</p>
+
+<p>At this moment Wendy was grand. 'These<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span> are my last words, dear boys,'
+she said firmly. 'I feel that I have a message to you from your real
+mothers, and it is this: "We hope our sons will die like English
+gentlemen."'</p>
+
+<p>Even the pirates were awed; and Tootles cried out hysterically, 'I am
+going to do what my mother hopes. What are you to do, Nibs?'</p>
+
+<p>'What my mother hopes. What are you to do, Twin?'</p>
+
+<p>'What my mother hopes. John, what are&mdash;&mdash;'</p>
+
+<p>But Hook had found his voice again.</p>
+
+<p>'Tie her up,' he shouted.</p>
+
+<p>It was Smee who tied her to the mast. 'See here, honey,' he whispered,
+'I'll save you if you promise to be my mother.'</p>
+
+<p>But not even for Smee would she make such a promise. 'I would almost
+rather have no children at all,' she said disdainfully.</p>
+
+<p>It is sad to know that not a boy was looking at her as Smee tied her to
+the mast; the eyes of all were on the plank: that last little walk they
+were about to take. They were no longer able to hope that they would
+walk<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> it manfully, for the capacity to think had gone from them; they
+could stare and shiver only.</p>
+
+<p>Hook smiled on them with his teeth closed, and took a step toward Wendy.
+His intention was to turn her face so that she should see the boys
+walking the plank one by one. But he never reached her, he never heard
+the cry of anguish he hoped to wring from her. He heard something else
+instead.</p>
+
+<p>It was the terrible tick-tick of the crocodile.</p>
+
+<p>They all heard it&mdash;pirates, boys, Wendy; and immediately every head was
+blown in one direction; not to the water whence the sound proceeded, but
+toward Hook. All knew that what was about to happen concerned him alone,
+and that from being actors they were suddenly become spectators.</p>
+
+<p>Very frightful was it to see the change that came over him. It was as if
+he had been clipped at every joint. He fell in a little heap.</p>
+
+<p>The sound came steadily nearer; and in advance of it came this ghastly
+thought, 'The crocodile is about to board the ship.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span></p><p>Even the iron claw hung inactive; as if knowing that it was no
+intrinsic part of what the attacking force wanted. Left so fearfully
+alone, any other man would have lain with his eyes shut where he fell:
+but the gigantic brain of Hook was still working, and under its guidance
+he crawled on his knees along the deck as far from the sound as he could
+go. The pirates respectfully cleared a passage for him, and it was only
+when he brought up against the bulwarks that he spoke.</p>
+
+<p>'Hide me,' he cried hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p>They gathered round him; all eyes averted from the thing that was coming
+aboard. They had no thought of fighting it. It was Fate.</p>
+
+<p>Only when Hook was hidden from them did curiosity loosen the limbs of
+the boys so that they could rush to the ship's side to see the crocodile
+climbing it. Then they got the strangest surprise of this Night of
+Nights; for it was no crocodile that was coming to their aid. It was
+Peter.</p>
+
+<p>He signed to them not to give vent to any cry of admiration that might
+rouse suspicion. Then he went on ticking.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2>
+
+<h3>'HOOK OR ME THIS TIME'</h3>
+
+<p>Odd things happen to all of us on our way through life without our
+noticing for a time that they have happened. Thus, to take an instance,
+we suddenly discover that we have been deaf in one ear for we don't know
+how long, but, say, half an hour. Now such an experience had come that
+night to Peter. When last we saw him he was stealing across the island
+with one finger to his lips and his dagger at the ready. He had seen the
+crocodile pass by without noticing anything peculiar about it, but by
+and by he remembered that it had not been ticking. At first he thought
+this eerie, but soon he concluded rightly that the clock had run down.</p>
+
+<p>Without giving a thought to what might be the feelings of a
+fellow-creature thus abruptly<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span> deprived of its closest companion, Peter
+at once considered how he could turn the catastrophe to his own use; and
+he decided to tick, so that wild beasts should believe he was the
+crocodile and let him pass unmolested. He ticked superbly, but with one
+unforeseen result. The crocodile was among those who heard the sound,
+and it followed him, though whether with the purpose of regaining what
+it had lost, or merely as a friend under the belief that it was again
+ticking itself, will never be certainly known, for, like all slaves to a
+fixed idea, it was a stupid beast.</p>
+
+<p>Peter reached the shore without mishap, and went straight on; his legs
+encountering the water as if quite unaware that they had entered a new
+element. Thus many animals pass from land to water, but no other human
+of whom I know. As he swam he had but one thought: 'Hook or me this
+time.' He had ticked so long that he now went on ticking without knowing
+that he was doing it. Had he known he would have stopped, for to board
+the brig by the help of the tick, though an ingenious idea, had not
+occurred to him.</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="i228" id="i228"></a><img src="images/i228.jpg" width='490' height='700' alt="HOOK OR ME THIS TIME" /></div>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>On the contrary, he thought he had scaled<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span> her side as noiseless as a
+mouse; and he was amazed to see the pirates cowering from him, with Hook
+in their midst as abject as if he had heard the crocodile.</p>
+
+<p>The crocodile! No sooner did Peter remember it than he heard the
+ticking. At first he thought the sound did come from the crocodile, and
+he looked behind him swiftly. Then he realised that he was doing it
+himself, and in a flash he understood the situation. 'How clever of me,'
+he thought at once, and signed to the boys not to burst into applause.</p>
+
+<p>It was at this moment that Ed Teynte the quartermaster emerged from the
+forecastle and came along the deck. Now, reader, time what happened by
+your watch. Peter struck true and deep. John clapped his hands on the
+ill-fated pirate's mouth to stifle the dying groan. He fell forward.
+Four boys caught him to prevent the thud. Peter gave the signal, and the
+carrion was cast overboard. There was a splash, and then silence. How
+long has it taken?</p>
+
+<p>'One!' (Slightly had begun to count.)</p>
+
+<p>None too soon, Peter, every inch of him on tiptoe, vanished into the
+cabin; for more than<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span> one pirate was screwing up his courage to look
+round. They could hear each other's distressed breathing now, which
+showed them that the more terrible sound had passed.</p>
+
+<p>'It's gone, captain,' Smee said, wiping his spectacles. 'All's still
+again.'</p>
+
+<p>Slowly Hook let his head emerge from his ruff, and listened so intently
+that he could have caught the echo of the tick. There was not a sound,
+and he drew himself up firmly to his full height.</p>
+
+<p>'Then here's to Johnny Plank,' he cried brazenly, hating the boys more
+than ever because they had seen him unbend. He broke into the villainous
+ditty:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>'Yo ho, yo ho, the frisky plank,</div>
+<div class="i1">You walks along it so,</div>
+<div>Till it goes down and you goes down</div>
+<div class="i1">To Davy Jones below!'</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>To terrorise the prisoners the more, though with a certain loss of
+dignity, he danced along an imaginary plank, grimacing at them as he
+sang; and when he finished he cried, 'Do you want a touch of the cat
+before you walk the plank?'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p><p>At that they fell on their knees. 'No, no,' they cried so piteously
+that every pirate smiled.</p>
+
+<p>'Fetch the cat, Jukes,' said Hook; 'it's in the cabin.'</p>
+
+<p>The cabin! Peter was in the cabin! The children gazed at each other.</p>
+
+<p>'Ay, ay,' said Jukes blithely, and he strode into the cabin. They
+followed him with their eyes; they scarce knew that Hook had resumed his
+song, his dogs joining in with him:</p>
+
+<div class="poem"><div class="stanza">
+<div>'Yo ho, yo ho, the scratching cat,</div>
+<div class="i1">Its tails are nine, you know,</div>
+<div>And when they're writ upon your back&mdash;</div>
+</div></div>
+
+<p>What was the last line will never be known, for of a sudden the song was
+stayed by a dreadful screech from the cabin. It wailed through the ship,
+and died away. Then was heard a crowing sound which was well understood
+by the boys, but to the pirates was almost more eerie than the screech.</p>
+
+<p>'What was that?' cried Hook.</p>
+
+<p>'Two,' said Slightly solemnly.</p>
+
+<p>The Italian Cecco hesitated for a moment<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span> and then swung into the cabin.
+He tottered out, haggard.</p>
+
+<p>'What's the matter with Bill Jukes, you dog?' hissed Hook, towering over
+him.</p>
+
+<p>'The matter wi' him is he's dead, stabbed,' replied Cecco in a hollow
+Voice.</p>
+
+<p>'Bill Jukes dead!' cried the startled pirates.</p>
+
+<p>'The cabin's as black as a pit,' Cecco said, almost gibbering, 'but
+there is something terrible in there: the thing you heard crowing.'</p>
+
+<p>The exultation of the boys, the lowering looks of the pirates, both were
+seen by Hook.</p>
+
+<p>'Cecco,' he said in his most steely voice, 'go back and fetch me out
+that doodle-doo.'</p>
+
+<p>Cecco, bravest of the brave, cowered before his captain, crying 'No,
+no'; but Hook was purring to his claw.</p>
+
+<p>'Did you say you would go, Cecco?' he said musingly.</p>
+
+<p>Cecco went, first flinging up his arms despairingly. There was no more
+singing, all listened now; and again came a death-screech and again a
+crow.</p>
+
+<p>No one spoke except Slightly. 'Three,' he said.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p><p>Hook rallied his dogs with a gesture. ''Sdeath and odds fish,' he
+thundered, 'who is to bring me that doodle-doo?'</p>
+
+<p>'Wait till Cecco comes out,' growled Starkey, and the others took up the
+cry.</p>
+
+<p>'I think I heard you volunteer, Starkey,' said Hook, purring again.</p>
+
+<p>'No, by thunder!' Starkey cried.</p>
+
+<p>'My hook thinks you did,' said Hook, crossing to him. 'I wonder if it
+would not be advisable, Starkey, to humour the hook?'</p>
+
+<p>'I'll swing before I go in there,' replied Starkey doggedly, and again
+he had the support of the crew.</p>
+
+<p>'Is it mutiny?' asked Hook more pleasantly than ever. 'Starkey's
+ringleader.'</p>
+
+<p>'Captain, mercy,' Starkey whimpered, all of a tremble now.</p>
+
+<p>'Shake hands, Starkey,' said Hook, proffering his claw.</p>
+
+<p>Starkey looked round for help, but all deserted him. As he backed Hook
+advanced, and now the red spark was in his eye. With a despairing scream
+the pirate leapt upon Long Tom and precipitated himself into the sea.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p><p>'Four,' said Slightly.</p>
+
+<p>'And now,' Hook asked courteously, 'did any other gentleman say mutiny?'
+Seizing a lantern and raising his claw with a menacing gesture, 'I'll
+bring out that doodle-doo myself,' he said, and sped into the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>'Five.' How Slightly longed to say it. He wetted his lips to be ready,
+but Hook came staggering out, without his lantern.</p>
+
+<p>'Something blew out the light,' he said a little unsteadily.</p>
+
+<p>'Something!' echoed Mullins.</p>
+
+<p>'What of Cecco?' demanded Noodler.</p>
+
+<p>'He's as dead as Jukes,' said Hook shortly.</p>
+
+<p>His reluctance to return to the cabin impressed them all unfavourably,
+and the mutinous sounds again broke forth. All pirates are
+superstitious; and Cookson cried, 'They do say the surest sign a ship's
+accurst is when there's one on board more than can be accounted for.'</p>
+
+<p>'I've heard,' muttered Mullins, 'he always boards the pirate craft at
+last. Had he a tail, captain?'</p>
+
+<p>'They say,' said another, looking viciously at<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> Hook, 'that when he
+comes it's in the likeness of the wickedest man aboard.'</p>
+
+<p>'Had he a hook, captain?' asked Cookson insolently; and one after
+another took up the cry, 'The ship's doomed.' At this the children could
+not resist raising a cheer. Hook had well-nigh forgotten his prisoners,
+but as he swung round on them now his face lit up again.</p>
+
+<p>'Lads,' he cried to his crew, 'here's a notion. Open the cabin door and
+drive them in. Let them fight the doodle-doo for their lives. If they
+kill him, we're so much the better; if he kills them, we're none the
+worse.'</p>
+
+<p>For the last time his dogs admired Hook, and devotedly they did his
+bidding. The boys, pretending to struggle, were pushed into the cabin
+and the door was closed on them.</p>
+
+<p>'Now, listen,' cried Hook, and all listened. But not one dared to face
+the door. Yes, one, Wendy, who all this time had been bound to the mast.
+It was for neither a scream nor a crow that she was watching; it was for
+the reappearance of Peter.</p>
+
+<p>She had not long to wait. In the cabin he<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span> had found the thing for which
+he had gone in search: the key that would free the children of their
+manacles; and now they all stole forth, armed with such weapons as they
+could find. First signing to them to hide, Peter cut Wendy's bonds, and
+then nothing could have been easier than for them all to fly off
+together; but one thing barred the way, an oath, 'Hook or me this time.'
+So when he had freed Wendy, he whispered to her to conceal herself with
+the others, and himself took her place by the mast, her cloak around him
+so that he should pass for her. Then he took a great breath and crowed.</p>
+
+<p>To the pirates it was a voice crying that all the boys lay slain in the
+cabin; and they were panic-stricken. Hook tried to hearten them; but
+like the dogs he had made them they showed him their fangs, and he knew
+that if he took his eyes off them now they would leap at him.</p>
+
+<p>'Lads,' he said, ready to cajole or strike as need be, but never
+quailing for an instant, 'I've thought it out. There's a Jonah abroad.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ay,' they snarled, 'a man wi' a hook.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span></p><p>'No, lads, no, it's the girl. Never was luck on a pirate ship wi' a
+woman on board. We'll right the ship when she's gone.'</p>
+
+<p>Some of them remembered that this had been a saying of Flint's. 'It's
+worth trying,' they said doubtfully.</p>
+
+<p>'Fling the girl overboard,' cried Hook; and they made a rush at the
+figure in the cloak.</p>
+
+<p>'There's none can save you now, missy,' Mullins hissed jeeringly.</p>
+
+<p>'There's one,' replied the figure.</p>
+
+<p>'Who's that?'</p>
+
+<p>'Peter Pan the avenger!' came the terrible answer; and as he spoke Peter
+flung off his cloak. Then they all knew who 'twas that had been undoing
+them in the cabin, and twice Hook essayed to speak and twice he failed.
+In that frightful moment I think his fierce heart broke.</p>
+
+<p>At last he cried, 'Cleave him to the brisket,' but without conviction.</p>
+
+<p>'Down, boys, and at them,' Peter's voice rang out; and in another moment
+the clash of arms was resounding through the ship. Had the pirates kept
+together it is certain that they would<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span> have won; but the onset came
+when they were all unstrung, and they ran hither and thither, striking
+wildly, each thinking himself the last survivor of the crew. Man to man
+they were the stronger; but they fought on the defensive only, which
+enabled the boys to hunt in pairs and choose their quarry. Some of the
+miscreants leapt into the sea; others hid in dark recesses, where they
+were found by Slightly, who did not fight, but ran about with a lantern
+which he flashed in their faces, so that they were half blinded and fell
+an easy prey to the reeking swords of the other boys. There was little
+sound to be heard but the clang of weapons, an occasional screech or
+splash, and Slightly monotonously
+counting&mdash;five&mdash;six&mdash;seven&mdash;eight&mdash;nine&mdash;ten&mdash;eleven.</p>
+
+<p>I think all were gone when a group of savage boys surrounded Hook, who
+seemed to have a charmed life, as he kept them at bay in that circle of
+fire. They had done for his dogs, but this man alone seemed to be a
+match for them all. Again and again they closed upon him, and again and
+again he hewed a clear space. He had lifted up one boy with his hook,
+and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span> was using him as a buckler, when another, who had just passed his
+sword through Mullins, sprang into the fray.</p>
+
+<p>'Put up your swords, boys,' cried the newcomer, 'this man is mine.'</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="i254" id="i254"></a><img src="images/i254.jpg" width='491' height='700' alt="THIS MAN IS MINE" /></div>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>Thus suddenly Hook found himself face to face with Peter. The others
+drew back and formed a ring round them.</p>
+
+<p>For long the two enemies looked at one another; Hook shuddering
+slightly, and Peter with the strange smile upon his face.</p>
+
+<p>'So, Pan,' said Hook at last, 'this is all your doing.'</p>
+
+<p>'Ay, James Hook,' came the stern answer, 'it is all my doing.'</p>
+
+<p>'Proud and insolent youth,' said Hook, 'prepare to meet thy doom.'</p>
+
+<p>'Dark and sinister man,' Peter answered, 'have at thee.'</p>
+
+<p>Without more words they fell to, and for a space there was no advantage
+to either blade. Peter was a superb swordsman, and parried with dazzling
+rapidity; ever and anon he followed up a feint with a lunge that got
+past his foe's defence, but his shorter reach stood him<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span> in ill stead,
+and he could not drive the steel home. Hook, scarcely his inferior in
+brilliancy, but not quite so nimble in wrist play, forced him back by
+the weight of his onset, hoping suddenly to end all with a favourite
+thrust, taught him long ago by Barbecue at Rio; but to his astonishment
+he found this thrust turned aside again and again. Then he sought to
+close and give the quietus with his iron hook, which all this time had
+been pawing the air; but Peter doubled under it and, lunging fiercely,
+pierced him in the ribs. At sight of his own blood, whose peculiar
+colour, you remember, was offensive to him, the sword fell from Hook's
+hand, and he was at Peter's mercy.</p>
+
+<p>'Now!' cried all the boys; but with a magnificent gesture Peter invited
+his opponent to pick up his sword. Hook did so instantly, but with a
+tragic feeling that Peter was showing good form.</p>
+
+<p>Hitherto he had thought it was some fiend fighting him, but darker
+suspicions assailed him now.</p>
+
+<p>'Pan, who and what art thou?' he cried huskily.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span></p><p>'I'm youth, I'm joy,' Peter answered at a venture, 'I'm a little bird
+that has broken out of the egg.'</p>
+
+<p>This, of course, was nonsense; but it was proof to the unhappy Hook that
+Peter did not know in the least who or what he was, which is the very
+pinnacle of good form.</p>
+
+<p>'To 't again,' he cried despairingly.</p>
+
+<p>He fought now like a human flail, and every sweep of that terrible sword
+would have severed in twain any man or boy who obstructed it; but Peter
+fluttered round him as if the very wind it made blew him out of the
+danger zone. And again and again he darted in and pricked.</p>
+
+<p>Hook was fighting now without hope. That passionate breast no longer
+asked for life; but for one boon it craved: to see Peter bad form before
+it was cold for ever.</p>
+
+<p>Abandoning the fight he rushed into the powder magazine and fired it.</p>
+
+<p>'In two minutes,' he cried, 'the ship will be blown to pieces.'</p>
+
+<p>Now, now, he thought, true form will show.</p>
+
+<p>But Peter issued from the powder magazine<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span> with the shell in his hands,
+and calmly flung it overboard.</p>
+
+<p>What sort of form was Hook himself showing? Misguided man though he was,
+we may be glad, without sympathising with him, that in the end he was
+true to the traditions of his race. The other boys were flying around
+him now, flouting, scornful; and as he staggered about the deck striking
+up at them impotently, his mind was no longer with them; it was
+slouching in the playing fields of long ago, or being sent up for good,
+or watching the wall-game from a famous wall. And his shoes were right,
+and his waistcoat was right, and his tie was right, and his socks were
+right.</p>
+
+<p>James Hook, thou not wholly unheroic figure, farewell.</p>
+
+<p>For we have come to his last moment.</p>
+
+<p>Seeing Peter slowly advancing upon him through the air with dagger
+poised, he sprang upon the bulwarks to cast himself into the sea. He did
+not know that the crocodile was waiting for him; for we purposely
+stopped the clock that this knowledge might be spared him: a little mark
+of respect from us at the end.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span></p><p>He had one last triumph, which I think we need not grudge him. As he
+stood on the bulwark looking over his shoulder at Peter gliding through
+the air, he invited him with a gesture to use his foot. It made Peter
+kick instead of stab.</p>
+
+<p>At last Hook had got the boon for which he craved.</p>
+
+<p>'Bad form,' he cried jeeringly, and went content to the crocodile.</p>
+
+<p>Thus perished James Hook.</p>
+
+<p>'Seventeen,' Slightly sang out; but he was not quite correct in his
+figures. Fifteen paid the penalty for their crimes that night; but two
+reached the shore: Starkey to be captured by the redskins, who made him
+nurse for all their papooses, a melancholy come-down for a pirate; and
+Smee, who henceforth wandered about the world in his spectacles, making
+a precarious living by saying he was the only man that Jas. Hook had
+feared.</p>
+
+<p>Wendy, of course, had stood by taking no part in the fight, though
+watching Peter with glistening eyes; but now that all was over she
+became prominent again. She praised them<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span> equally, and shuddered
+delightfully when Michael showed her the place where he had killed one;
+and then she took them into Hook's cabin and pointed to his watch which
+was hanging on a nail. It said 'half-past one'!</p>
+
+<p>The lateness of the hour was almost the biggest thing of all. She got
+them to bed in the pirates' bunks pretty quickly, you may be sure; all
+but Peter, who strutted up and down on deck, until at last he fell
+asleep by the side of Long Tom. He had one of his dreams that night, and
+cried in his sleep for a long time, and Wendy held him tight.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2>
+
+<h3>THE RETURN HOME</h3>
+
+<p>By two bells that morning they were all stirring their stumps; for there
+was a big sea running; and Tootles, the bo'sun, was among them, with a
+rope's end in his hand and chewing tobacco. They all donned pirate
+clothes cut off at the knee, shaved smartly, and tumbled up, with the
+true nautical roll and hitching their trousers.</p>
+
+<p>It need not be said who was the captain. Nibs and John were first and
+second mate. There was a woman aboard. The rest were tars before the
+mast, and lived in the fo'c'sle. Peter had already lashed himself to the
+wheel; but he piped all hands and delivered a short address to them;
+said he hoped they would do their duty like gallant hearties, but that
+he knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span> they were the scum of Rio and the Gold Coast, and if they
+snapped at him he would tear them. His bluff strident words struck the
+note sailors understand, and they cheered him lustily. Then a few sharp
+orders were given, and they turned the ship round, and nosed her for the
+mainland.</p>
+
+<p>Captain Pan calculated, after consulting the ship's chart, that if this
+weather lasted they should strike the Azores about the 21st of June,
+after which it would save time to fly.</p>
+
+<p>Some of them wanted it to be an honest ship and others were in favour of
+keeping it a pirate; but the captain treated them as dogs, and they
+dared not express their wishes to him even in a round robin. Instant
+obedience was the only safe thing. Slightly got a dozen for looking
+perplexed when told to take soundings. The general feeling was that
+Peter was honest just now to lull Wendy's suspicions, but that there
+might be a change when the new suit was ready, which, against her will,
+she was making for him out of some of Hook's wickedest garments. It was
+afterwards whispered among them that on the first night he wore this
+suit he sat long in the cabin with Hook's cigar-holder in his mouth<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span> and
+one hand clenched, all but the forefinger, which he bent and held
+threateningly aloft like a hook.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of watching the ship, however, we must now return to that
+desolate home from which three of our characters had taken heartless
+flight so long ago. It seems a shame to have neglected No. 14 all this
+time; and yet we may be sure that Mrs. Darling does not blame us. If we
+had returned sooner to look with sorrowful sympathy at her, she would
+probably have cried, 'Don't be silly; what do I matter? Do go back and
+keep an eye on the children.' So long as mothers are like this their
+children will take advantage of them; and they may lay to that.</p>
+
+<p>Even now we venture into that familiar nursery only because its lawful
+occupants are on their way home; we are merely hurrying on in advance of
+them to see that their beds are properly aired and that Mr. and Mrs.
+Darling do not go out for the evening. We are no more than servants. Why
+on earth should their beds be properly aired, seeing that they left them
+in such a thankless hurry? Would it<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span> not serve them jolly well right if
+they came back and found that their parents were spending the week-end
+in the country? It would be the moral lesson they have been in need of
+ever since we met them; but if we contrived things in this way Mrs.
+Darling would never forgive us.</p>
+
+<p>One thing I should like to do immensely, and that is to tell her, in the
+way authors have, that the children are coming back, that indeed they
+will be here on Thursday week. This would spoil so completely the
+surprise to which Wendy and John and Michael are looking forward. They
+have been planning it out on the ship: mother's rapture, father's shout
+of joy, Nana's leap through the air to embrace them first, when what
+they ought to be preparing for is a good hiding. How delicious to spoil
+it all by breaking the news in advance; so that when they enter grandly
+Mrs. Darling may not even offer Wendy her mouth, and Mr. Darling may
+exclaim pettishly, 'Dash it all, here are those boys again.' However, we
+should get no thanks even for this. We are beginning to know Mrs.
+Darling by this time, and may be sure that she<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span> would upbraid us for
+depriving the children of their little pleasure.</p>
+
+<p>'But, my dear madam, it is ten days till Thursday week; so that by
+telling you what's what, we can save you ten days of unhappiness.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, but at what a cost! By depriving the children of ten minutes of
+delight.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, if you look at it in that way.'</p>
+
+<p>'What other way is there in which to look at it?'</p>
+
+<p>You see, the woman had no proper spirit. I had meant to say
+extraordinarily nice things about her; but I despise her, and not one of
+them will I say now. She does not really need to be told to have things
+ready, for they are ready. All the beds are aired, and she never leaves
+the house, and observe, the window is open. For all the use we are to
+her, we might go back to the ship. However, as we are here we may as
+well stay and look on. That is all we are, lookers-on. Nobody really
+wants us. So let us watch and say jaggy things, in the hope that some of
+them will hurt.</p>
+
+<p>The only change to be seen in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>night-nursery is that between nine
+and six the kennel is no longer there. When the children flew away, Mr.
+Darling felt in his bones that all the blame was his for having chained
+Nana up, and that from first to last she had been wiser than he. Of
+course, as we have seen, he was quite a simple man; indeed he might have
+passed for a boy again if he had been able to take his baldness off; but
+he had also a noble sense of justice and a lion courage to do what
+seemed right to him; and having thought the matter out with anxious care
+after the flight of the children, he went down on all fours and crawled
+into the kennel. To all Mrs. Darling's dear invitations to him to come
+out he replied sadly but firmly:</p>
+
+<p>'No, my own one, this is the place for me.'</p>
+
+<p>In the bitterness of his remorse he swore that he would never leave the
+kennel until his children came back. Of course this was a pity; but
+whatever Mr. Darling did he had to do in excess; otherwise he soon gave
+up doing it. And there never was a more humble man than the once proud
+George Darling, as he sat in the kennel of an evening talking with his
+wife of their children and all their pretty ways.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span></p><p>Very touching was his deference to Nana. He would not let her come into
+the kennel, but on all other matters he followed her wishes implicitly.</p>
+
+<p>Every morning the kennel was carried with Mr. Darling in it to a cab,
+which conveyed him to his office, and he returned home in the same way
+at six. Something of the strength of character of the man will be seen
+if we remember how sensitive he was to the opinion of neighbours: this
+man whose every movement now attracted surprised attention. Inwardly he
+must have suffered torture; but he preserved a calm exterior even when
+the young criticised his little home, and he always lifted his hat
+courteously to any lady who looked inside.</p>
+
+<p>It may have been quixotic, but it was magnificent. Soon the inward
+meaning of it leaked out, and the great heart of the public was touched.
+Crowds followed the cab, cheering it lustily; charming girls scaled it
+to get his autograph; interviews appeared in the better class of papers,
+and society invited him to dinner and added, 'Do come in the kennel.'</p>
+
+<p>On that eventful Thursday week Mrs. Darling<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span> was in the night-nursery
+awaiting George's return home: a very sad-eyed woman. Now that we look
+at her closely and remember the gaiety of her in the old days, all gone
+now just because she has lost her babes, I find I won't be able to say
+nasty things about her after all. If she was too fond of her rubbishy
+children she couldn't help it. Look at her in her chair, where she has
+fallen asleep. The corner of her mouth, where one looks first, is almost
+withered up. Her hand moves restlessly on her breast as if she had a
+pain there. Some like Peter best and some like Wendy best, but I like
+her best. Suppose, to make her happy, we whisper to her in her sleep
+that the brats are coming back. They are really within two miles of the
+window now, and flying strong, but all we need whisper is that they are
+on the way. Let's.</p>
+
+<p>It is a pity we did it, for she has started up, calling their names; and
+there is no one in the room but Nana.</p>
+
+<p>'O Nana, I dreamt my dear ones had come back.'</p>
+
+<p>Nana had filmy eyes, but all she could do was to put her paw gently on
+her mistress's lap; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span> they were sitting together thus when the kennel
+was brought back. As Mr. Darling puts his head out at it to kiss his
+wife, we see that his face is more worn than of yore, but has a softer
+expression.</p>
+
+<p>He gave his hat to Liza, who took it scornfully; for she had no
+imagination, and was quite incapable of understanding the motives of
+such a man. Outside, the crowd who had accompanied the cab home were
+still cheering, and he was naturally not unmoved.</p>
+
+<p>'Listen to them,' he said; 'it is very gratifying.'</p>
+
+<p>'Lot of little boys,' sneered Liza.</p>
+
+<p>'There were several adults to-day,' he assured her with a faint flush;
+but when she tossed her head he had not a word of reproof for her.
+Social success had not spoilt him; it had made him sweeter. For some
+time he sat half out of the kennel, talking with Mrs. Darling of this
+success, and pressing her hand reassuringly when she said she hoped his
+head would not be turned by it.</p>
+
+<p>'But if I had been a weak man,' he said. 'Good heavens, if I had been a
+weak man!'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span></p><p>'And, George,' she said timidly, 'you are as full of remorse as ever,
+aren't you?'</p>
+
+<p>'Full of remorse as ever, dearest! See my punishment: living in a
+kennel.'</p>
+
+<p>'But it is punishment, isn't it, George? You are sure you are not
+enjoying it?'</p>
+
+<p>'My love!'</p>
+
+<p>You may be sure she begged his pardon; and then, feeling drowsy, he
+curled round in the kennel.</p>
+
+<p>'Won't you play me to sleep,' he asked, 'on the nursery piano?' and as
+she was crossing to the day nursery he added thoughtlessly, 'And shut
+that window. I feel a draught.'</p>
+
+<p>'O George, never ask me to do that. The window must always be left open
+for them, always, always.'</p>
+
+<p>Now it was his turn to beg her pardon; and she went into the day nursery
+and played, and soon he was asleep; and while he slept, Wendy and John
+and Michael flew into the room.</p>
+
+<p>Oh no. We have written it so, because that was the charming arrangement
+planned by them before we left the ship; but something must<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span> have
+happened since then, for it is not they who have flown in, it is Peter
+and Tinker Bell.</p>
+
+<p>Peter's first words tell all.</p>
+
+<p>'Quick, Tink,' he whispered, 'close the window; bar it. That's right.
+Now you and I must get away by the door; and when Wendy comes she will
+think her mother has barred her out; and she will have to go back with
+me.'</p>
+
+<p>Now I understand what had hitherto puzzled me, why when Peter had
+exterminated the pirates he did not return to the island and leave Tink
+to escort the children to the mainland. This trick had been in his head
+all the time.</p>
+
+<p>Instead of feeling that he was behaving badly he danced with glee; then
+he peeped into the day-nursery to see who was playing. He whispered to
+Tink, 'It's Wendy's mother. She is a pretty lady, but not so pretty as
+my mother. Her mouth is full of thimbles, but not so full as my mother's
+was.'</p>
+
+<p>Of course he knew nothing whatever about his mother; but he sometimes
+bragged about her.</p>
+
+<p>He did not know the tune, which was 'Home,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span> Sweet Home,' but he knew it
+was saying, 'Come back, Wendy, Wendy, Wendy'; and he cried exultantly,
+'You will never see Wendy again, lady, for the window is barred.'</p>
+
+<p>He peeped in again to see why the music had stopped; and now he saw that
+Mrs. Darling had laid her head on the box, and that two tears were
+sitting on her eyes.</p>
+
+<p>'She wants me to unbar the window,' thought Peter, 'but I won't, not I.'</p>
+
+<p>He peeped again, and the tears were still there, or another two had
+taken their place.</p>
+
+<p>'She's awfully fond of Wendy,' he said to himself. He was angry with her
+now for not seeing why she could not have Wendy.</p>
+
+<p>The reason was so simple: 'I'm fond of her too. We can't both have her,
+lady.'</p>
+
+<p>But the lady would not make the best of it, and he was unhappy. He
+ceased to look at her, but even then she would not let go of him. He
+skipped about and made funny faces, but when he stopped it was just as
+if she were inside him, knocking.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, all right,' he said at last, and gulped. Then he unbarred the
+window. 'Come on,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span> Tink,' he cried, with a frightful sneer at the laws
+of nature; 'we don't want any silly mothers'; and he flew away.</p>
+
+<p>Thus Wendy and John and Michael found the window open for them after
+all, which of course was more than they deserved. They alighted on the
+floor, quite unashamed of themselves; and the youngest one had already
+forgotten his home.</p>
+
+<p>'John,' he said, looking around him doubtfully, 'I think I have been
+here before.'</p>
+
+<p>'Of course you have, you silly. There is your old bed.'</p>
+
+<p>'So it is,' Michael said, but not with much conviction.</p>
+
+<p>'I say,' cried John, 'the kennel!' and he dashed across to look into it.</p>
+
+<p>'Perhaps Nana is inside it,' Wendy said.</p>
+
+<p>But John whistled. 'Hullo,' he said, 'there's a man inside it.'</p>
+
+<p>'It's father!' exclaimed Wendy.</p>
+
+<p>'Let me see father,' Michael begged eagerly, and he took a good look.
+'He is not so big as the pirate I killed,' he said with such frank
+disappointment that I am glad Mr. Darling was<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span> asleep; it would have
+been sad if those had been the first words he heard his little Michael
+say.</p>
+
+<p>Wendy and John had been taken aback somewhat at finding their father in
+the kennel.</p>
+
+<p>'Surely,' said John, like one who had lost faith in his memory, 'he used
+not to sleep in the kennel?'</p>
+
+<p>'John,' Wendy said falteringly, 'perhaps we don't remember the old life
+as well as we thought we did.'</p>
+
+<p>A chill fell upon them; and serve them right.</p>
+
+<p>'It is very careless of mother,' said that young scoundrel John, 'not to
+be here when we come back.'</p>
+
+<p>It was then that Mrs. Darling began playing again.</p>
+
+<p>'It's mother!' cried Wendy, peeping.</p>
+
+<p>'So it is!' said John.</p>
+
+<p>'Then are you not really our mother, Wendy?' asked Michael, who was
+surely sleepy.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh dear!' exclaimed Wendy, with her first real twinge of remorse, 'it
+was quite time we came back.'</p>
+
+<p>'Let us creep in,' John suggested, 'and put our hands over her eyes.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span></p><p>But Wendy, who saw that they must break the joyous news more gently,
+had a better plan.</p>
+
+<p>'Let us all slip into our beds, and be there when she comes in, just as
+if we had never been away.'</p>
+
+<p>And so when Mrs. Darling went back to the night-nursery to see if her
+husband was asleep, all the beds were occupied. The children waited for
+her cry of joy, but it did not come. She saw them, but she did not
+believe they were there. You see, she saw them in their beds so often in
+her dreams that she thought this was just the dream hanging around her
+still.</p>
+
+<p>She sat down in the chair by the fire, where in the old days she had
+nursed them.</p>
+
+<p>They could not understand this, and a cold fear fell upon all the three
+of them.</p>
+
+<p>'Mother!' Wendy cried.</p>
+
+<p>'That's Wendy,' she said, but still she was sure it was the dream.</p>
+
+<p>'Mother!'</p>
+
+<p>'That's John,' she said.</p>
+
+<p>'Mother!' cried Michael. He knew her now.</p>
+
+<p>'That's Michael,' she said, and she stretched<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span> out her arms for the
+three little selfish children they would never envelop again. Yes, they
+did, they went round Wendy and John and Michael, who had slipped out of
+bed and run to her.</p>
+
+<p>'George, George,' she cried when she could speak; and Mr. Darling woke
+to share her bliss, and Nana came rushing in. There could not have been
+a lovelier sight; but there was none to see it except a strange boy who
+was staring in at the window. He had ecstasies innumerable that other
+children can never know; but he was looking through the window at the
+one joy from which he must be for ever barred.</p>
+
+<hr />
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span></p>
+
+<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2>
+
+<h3>WHEN WENDY GREW UP</h3>
+
+<p>I hope you want to know what became of the other boys. They were waiting
+below to give Wendy time to explain about them; and when they had
+counted five hundred they went up. They went up by the stair, because
+they thought this would make a better impression. They stood in a row in
+front of Mrs. Darling, with their hats off, and wishing they were not
+wearing their pirate clothes. They said nothing, but their eyes asked
+her to have them. They ought to have looked at Mr. Darling also, but
+they forgot about him.</p>
+
+<p>Of course Mrs. Darling said at once that she would have them; but Mr.
+Darling was curiously<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span> depressed, and they saw that he considered six a
+rather large number.</p>
+
+<p>'I must say,' he said to Wendy, 'that you don't do things by halves,' a
+grudging remark which the twins thought was pointed at them.</p>
+
+<p>The first twin was the proud one, and he asked, flushing, 'Do you think
+we should be too much of a handful, sir? Because if so we can go away.'</p>
+
+<p>'Father!' Wendy cried, shocked; but still the cloud was on him. He knew
+he was behaving unworthily, but he could not help it.</p>
+
+<p>'We could lie doubled up,' said Nibs.</p>
+
+<p>'I always cut their hair myself,' said Wendy.</p>
+
+<p>'George!' Mrs. Darling exclaimed, pained to see her dear one showing
+himself in such an unfavourable light.</p>
+
+<p>Then he burst into tears, and the truth came out. He was as glad to have
+them as she was, he said, but he thought they should have asked his
+consent as well as hers, instead of treating him as a cypher in his own
+house.</p>
+
+<p>'I don't think he is a cypher,' Tootles cried instantly. 'Do you think
+he is a cypher, Curly?'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span></p><p>'No, I don't. Do you think he is a cypher, Slightly?'</p>
+
+<p>'Rather not. Twin, what do you think?'</p>
+
+<p>It turned out that not one of them thought him a cypher; and he was
+absurdly gratified, and said he would find space for them all in the
+drawing-room if they fitted in.</p>
+
+<p>'We'll fit in, sir,' they assured him.</p>
+
+<p>'Then follow the leader,' he cried gaily. 'Mind you, I am not sure that
+we have a drawing-room, but we pretend we have, and it's all the same.
+Hoop la!'</p>
+
+<p>He went off dancing through the house, and they all cried 'Hoop la!' and
+danced after him, searching for the drawing-room; and I forget whether
+they found it, but at any rate they found corners, and they all fitted
+in.</p>
+
+<p>As for Peter, he saw Wendy once again before he flew away. He did not
+exactly come to the window, but he brushed against it in passing, so
+that she could open it if she liked and call to him. That was what she
+did.</p>
+
+<p>'Hullo, Wendy, good-bye,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>'Oh dear, are you going away?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p><p>'You don't feel, Peter,' she said falteringly, 'that you would like to
+say anything to my parents about a very sweet subject?'</p>
+
+<p>'No.'</p>
+
+<p>'About me, Peter?'</p>
+
+<p>'No.'</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Darling came to the window, for at present she was keeping a sharp
+eye on Wendy. She told Peter that she had adopted all the other boys,
+and would like to adopt him also.</p>
+
+<p>'Would you send me to school?' he inquired craftily.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes.'</p>
+
+<p>'And then to an office?'</p>
+
+<p>'I suppose so.'</p>
+
+<p>'Soon I should be a man?'</p>
+
+<p>'Very soon.'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't want to go to school and learn solemn things,' he told her
+passionately. 'I don't want to be a man. O Wendy's mother, if I was to
+wake up and feel there was a beard!'</p>
+
+<p>'Peter,' said Wendy the comforter, 'I should love you in a beard'; and
+Mrs. Darling stretched out her arms to him, but he repulsed her.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span></p><p>'Keep back, lady, no one is going to catch me and make me a man.'</p>
+
+<p>'But where are you going to live?'</p>
+
+<p>'With Tink in the house we built for Wendy. The fairies are to put it
+high up among the tree tops where they sleep at nights.'</p>
+
+<p>'How lovely,' cried Wendy so longingly that Mrs. Darling tightened her
+grip.</p>
+
+<p>'I thought all the fairies were dead,' Mrs. Darling said.</p>
+
+<p>'There are always a lot of young ones,' explained Wendy, who was now
+quite an authority, 'because you see when a new baby laughs for the
+first time a new fairy is born, and as there are always new babies there
+are always new fairies. They live in nests on the tops of trees; and the
+mauve ones are boys and the white ones are girls, and the blue ones are
+just little sillies who are not sure what they are.'</p>
+
+<p>'I shall have such fun,' said Peter, with one eye on Wendy.</p>
+
+<p>'It will be rather lonely in the evening,' she said, 'sitting by the
+fire.'</p>
+
+<p>'I shall have Tink.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span></p><p>'Tink can't go a twentieth part of the way round,' she reminded him a
+little tartly.</p>
+
+<p>'Sneaky tell-tale!' Tink called out from somewhere round the corner.</p>
+
+<p>'It doesn't matter,' Peter said.</p>
+
+<p>'O Peter, you know it matters.'</p>
+
+<p>'Well, then, come with me to the little house.'</p>
+
+<p>'May I, mummy?'</p>
+
+<p>'Certainly not. I have got you home again, and I mean to keep you.'</p>
+
+<p>'But he does so need a mother.'</p>
+
+<p>'So do you, my love.'</p>
+
+<p>'Oh, all right,' Peter said, as if he had asked her from politeness
+merely; but Mrs. Darling saw his mouth twitch, and she made this
+handsome offer: to let Wendy go to him for a week every year to do his
+spring cleaning. Wendy would have preferred a more permanent
+arrangement; and it seemed to her that spring would be long in coming;
+but this promise sent Peter away quite gay again. He had no sense of
+time, and was so full of adventures that all I have told you about him
+is only a halfpenny-worth of them. I suppose it was because Wendy knew<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>
+this that her last words to him were these rather plaintive ones:</p>
+
+<p>'You won't forget me, Peter, will you, before spring-cleaning time
+comes?'</p>
+
+<p>Of course Peter promised; and then he flew away. He took Mrs. Darling's
+kiss with him. The kiss that had been for no one else Peter took quite
+easily. Funny. But she seemed satisfied.</p>
+
+<p>Of course all the boys went to school; and most of them got into Class
+<span class="smaller">III.</span>, but Slightly was put first into Class <span class="smaller">IV.</span> and then into Class <span class="smaller">V.</span>
+Class <span class="smaller">I.</span> is the top class. Before they had attended school a week they
+saw what goats they had been not to remain on the island; but it was too
+late now, and soon they settled down to being as ordinary as you or me
+or Jenkins minor. It is sad to have to say that the power to fly
+gradually left them. At first Nana tied their feet to the bed-posts so
+that they should not fly away in the night; and one of their diversions
+by day was to pretend to fall off 'buses; but by and by they ceased to
+tug at their bonds in bed, and found that they hurt themselves when they
+let go of the 'bus. In<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> time they could not even fly after their hats.
+Want of practice, they called it; but what it really meant was that they
+no longer believed.</p>
+
+<p>Michael believed longer than the other boys, though they jeered at him;
+so he was with Wendy when Peter came for her at the end of the first
+year. She flew away with Peter in the frock she had woven from leaves
+and berries in the Neverland, and her one fear was that he might notice
+how short it had become; but he never noticed, he had so much to say
+about himself.</p>
+
+<p>She had looked forward to thrilling talks with him about old times, but
+new adventures had crowded the old ones from his mind.</p>
+
+<p>'Who is Captain Hook?' he asked with interest when she spoke of the arch
+enemy.</p>
+
+<p>'Don't you remember,' she asked, amazed, 'how you killed him and saved
+all our lives?'</p>
+
+<p>'I forget them after I kill them,' he replied carelessly.</p>
+
+<p>When she expressed a doubtful hope that Tinker Bell would be glad to see
+her he said, 'Who is Tinker Bell?'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span></p><p>'O Peter,' she said, shocked; but even when she explained he could not
+remember.</p>
+
+<p>'There are such a lot of them,' he said. 'I expect she is no more.'</p>
+
+<p>I expect he was right, for fairies don't live long, but they are so
+little that a short time seems a good while to them.</p>
+
+<p>Wendy was pained too to find that the past year was but as yesterday to
+Peter; it had seemed such a long year of waiting to her. But he was
+exactly as fascinating as ever, and they had a lovely spring cleaning in
+the little house on the tree tops.</p>
+
+<p>Next year he did not come for her. She waited in a new frock because the
+old one simply would not meet; but he never came.</p>
+
+<p>'Perhaps he is ill,' Michael said.</p>
+
+<p>'You know he is never ill.'</p>
+
+<p>Michael came close to her and whispered, with a shiver, 'Perhaps there
+is no such person, Wendy!' and then Wendy would have cried if Michael
+had not been crying.</p>
+
+<p>Peter came next spring cleaning; and the strange thing was that he never
+knew he had missed a year.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p><p>That was the last time the girl Wendy ever saw him. For a little longer
+she tried for his sake not to have growing pains; and she felt she was
+untrue to him when she got a prize for general knowledge. But the years
+came and went without bringing the careless boy; and when they met again
+Wendy was a married woman, and Peter was no more to her than a little
+dust in the box in which she had kept her toys. Wendy was grown up. You
+need not be sorry for her. She was one of the kind that likes to grow
+up. In the end she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than other
+girls.</p>
+
+<p>All the boys were grown up and done for by this time; so it is scarcely
+worth while saying anything more about them. You may see the twins and
+Nibs and Curly any day going to an office, each carrying a little bag
+and an umbrella. Michael is an engine-driver. Slightly married a lady of
+title, and so he became a lord. You see that judge in a wig coming out
+at the iron door? That used to be Tootles. The bearded man who doesn't
+know any story to tell his children was once John.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span></p><p>Wendy was married in white with a pink sash. It is strange to think
+that Peter did not alight in the church and forbid the banns.</p>
+
+<p>Years rolled on again, and Wendy had a daughter. This ought not to be
+written in ink but in a golden splash.</p>
+
+<p>She was called Jane, and always had an odd inquiring look, as if from
+the moment she arrived on the mainland she wanted to ask questions. When
+she was old enough to ask them they were mostly about Peter Pan. She
+loved to hear of Peter, and Wendy told her all she could remember in the
+very nursery from which the famous flight had taken place. It was Jane's
+nursery now, for her father had bought it at the three per cents. from
+Wendy's father, who was no longer fond of stairs. Mrs. Darling was now
+dead and forgotten.</p>
+
+<p>There were only two beds in the nursery now, Jane's and her nurse's; and
+there was no kennel, for Nana also had passed away. She died of old age,
+and at the end she had been rather difficult to get on with; being very
+firmly convinced that no one knew how to look after children except
+herself.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span></p><p>Once a week Jane's nurse had her evening off; and then it was Wendy's
+part to put Jane to bed. That was the time for stories. It was Jane's
+invention to raise the sheet over her mother's head and her own, thus
+making a tent, and in the awful darkness to whisper:</p>
+
+<p>'What do we see now?'</p>
+
+<p>'I don't think I see anything to-night,' says Wendy, with a feeling that
+if Nana were here she would object to further conversation.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, you do,' says Jane, 'you see when you were a little girl.'</p>
+
+<p>'That is a long time ago, sweetheart,' says Wendy. 'Ah me, how time
+flies!'</p>
+
+<p>'Does it fly,' asks the artful child, 'the way you flew when you were a
+little girl?'</p>
+
+<p>'The way I flew! Do you know, Jane, I sometimes wonder whether I ever
+did really fly.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, you did.'</p>
+
+<p>'The dear old days when I could fly!'</p>
+
+<p>'Why can't you fly now, mother?'</p>
+
+<p>'Because I am grown up, dearest. When people grow up they forget the
+way.'</p>
+
+<p>'Why do they forget the way?'</p>
+
+<p>'Because they are no longer gay and innocent<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span> and heartless. It is only
+the gay and innocent and heartless who can fly.'</p>
+
+<p>'What is gay and innocent and heartless? I do wish I was gay and
+innocent and heartless.'</p>
+
+<p>Or perhaps Wendy admits that she does see something. 'I do believe,' she
+says, 'that it is this nursery.'</p>
+
+<p>'I do believe it is,' says Jane. 'Go on.'</p>
+
+<p>They are now embarked on the great adventure of the night when Peter
+flew in looking for his shadow.</p>
+
+<p>'The foolish fellow,' says Wendy, 'tried to stick it on with soap, and
+when he could not he cried, and that woke me, and I sewed it on for
+him.'</p>
+
+<p>'You have missed a bit,' interrupts Jane, who now knows the story better
+than her mother. 'When you saw him sitting on the floor crying what did
+you say?'</p>
+
+<p>'I sat up in bed and I said, "Boy, why are you crying?"'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, that was it,' says Jane, with a big breath.</p>
+
+<p>'And then he flew us all away to the Neverland and the fairies and the
+pirates and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> the redskins and the mermaids' lagoon, and the home under
+the ground, and the little house.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes! which did you like best of all?'</p>
+
+<p>'I think I liked the home under the ground best of all.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, so do I. What was the last thing Peter ever said to you?'</p>
+
+<p>'The last thing he ever said to me was, "Just always be waiting for me,
+and then some night you will hear me crowing."'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes.'</p>
+
+<p>'But, alas, he forgot all about me.' Wendy said it with a smile. She was
+as grown up as that.</p>
+
+<p>'What did his crow sound like?' Jane asked one evening.</p>
+
+<p>'It was like this,' Wendy said, trying to imitate Peter's crow.</p>
+
+<p>'No, it wasn't,' Jane said gravely, 'it was like this'; and she did it
+ever so much better than her mother.</p>
+
+<p>Wendy was a little startled. 'My darling, how can you know?'</p>
+
+<p>'I often hear it when I am sleeping,' Jane said.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p><p>'Ah yes, many girls hear it when they are sleeping, but I was the only
+one who heard it awake.'</p>
+
+<p>'Lucky you,' said Jane.</p>
+
+<p>And then one night came the tragedy. It was the spring of the year, and
+the story had been told for the night, and Jane was now asleep in her
+bed. Wendy was sitting on the floor, very close to the fire, so as to
+see to darn, for there was no other light in the nursery; and while she
+sat darning she heard a crow. Then the window blew open as of old, and
+Peter dropped on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>He was exactly the same as ever, and Wendy saw at once that he still had
+all his first teeth.</p>
+
+<p>He was a little boy, and she was grown up. She huddled by the fire not
+daring to move, helpless and guilty, a big woman.</p>
+
+<p>'Hullo, Wendy,' he said, not noticing any difference, for he was
+thinking chiefly of himself; and in the dim light her white dress might
+have been the night-gown in which he had seen her first.</p>
+
+<p>'Hullo, Peter,' she replied faintly, squeezing<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span> herself as small as
+possible. Something inside her was crying 'Woman, woman, let go of me.'</p>
+
+<p>'Hullo, where is John?' he asked, suddenly missing the third bed.</p>
+
+<p>'John is not here now,' she gasped.</p>
+
+<p>'Is Michael asleep?' he asked, with a careless glance at Jane.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes,' she answered; and now she felt that she was untrue to Jane as
+well as to Peter.</p>
+
+<p>'That is not Michael,' she said quickly, lest a judgment should fall on
+her.</p>
+
+<p>Peter looked. 'Hullo, is it a new one?'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes.'</p>
+
+<p>'Boy or girl?'</p>
+
+<p>'Girl.'</p>
+
+<p>Now surely he would understand; but not a bit of it.</p>
+
+<p>'Peter,' she said, faltering, 'are you expecting me to fly away with
+you?'</p>
+
+<p>'Of course that is why I have come.' He added a little sternly, 'Have
+you forgotten that this is spring-cleaning time?'</p>
+
+<p>She knew it was useless to say that he had let many spring-cleaning
+times pass.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span></p><p>'I can't come,' she said apologetically, 'I have forgotten how to fly.'</p>
+
+<p>'I'll soon teach you again.'</p>
+
+<p>'O Peter, don't waste the fairy dust on me.'</p>
+
+<p>She had risen; and now at last a fear assailed him. 'What is it?' he
+cried, shrinking.</p>
+
+<p>'I will turn up the light,' she said, 'and then you can see for
+yourself.'</p>
+
+<p>For almost the only time in his life that I know of, Peter was afraid.
+'Don't turn up the light,' he cried.</p>
+
+<p>She let her hands play in the hair of the tragic boy. She was not a
+little girl heart-broken about him; she was a grown woman smiling at it
+all, but they were wet smiles.</p>
+
+<p>Then she turned up the light, and Peter saw. He gave a cry of pain; and
+when the tall beautiful creature stooped to lift him in her arms he drew
+back sharply.</p>
+
+<p>'What is it?' he cried again.</p>
+
+<p>She had to tell him.</p>
+
+<p>'I am old, Peter. I am ever so much more than twenty. I grew up long
+ago.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span></p><p>'You promised not to!'</p>
+
+<p>'I couldn't help it. I am a married woman, Peter.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, you're not.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, and the little girl in the bed is my baby.'</p>
+
+<p>'No, she's not.'</p>
+
+<p>But he supposed she was; and he took a step towards the sleeping child
+with his dagger upraised. Of course he did not strike. He sat down on
+the floor instead and sobbed; and Wendy did not know how to comfort him,
+though she could have done it so easily once. She was only a woman now,
+and she ran out of the room to try to think.</p>
+
+<p>Peter continued to cry, and soon his sobs woke Jane. She sat up in bed,
+and was interested at once.</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<div class="center"><a name="i288" id="i288"></a><img src="images/i288.jpg" width='494' height='700' alt="PETER AND JANE" /></div>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p>'Boy,' she said, 'why are you crying?'</p>
+
+<p>Peter rose and bowed to her, and she bowed to him from the bed.</p>
+
+<p>'Hullo,' he said.</p>
+
+<p>'Hullo,' said Jane.</p>
+
+<p>'My name is Peter Pan,' he told her.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, I know.'</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span></p><p>'I came back for my mother,' he explained; 'to take her to the
+Neverland.'</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, I know,' Jane said, 'I been waiting for you.'</p>
+
+<p>When Wendy returned diffidently she found Peter sitting on the bed-post
+crowing gloriously, while Jane in her nighty was flying round the room
+in solemn ecstasy.</p>
+
+<p>'She is my mother,' Peter explained; and Jane descended and stood by his
+side, with the look on her face that he liked to see on ladies when they
+gazed at him.</p>
+
+<p>'He does so need a mother,' Jane said.</p>
+
+<p>'Yes, I know,' Wendy admitted rather forlornly; 'no one knows it so well
+as I.'</p>
+
+<p>'Good-bye,' said Peter to Wendy; and he rose in the air, and the
+shameless Jane rose with him; it was already her easiest way of moving
+about.</p>
+
+<p>Wendy rushed to the window.</p>
+
+<p>'No, no,' she cried.</p>
+
+<p>'It is just for spring-cleaning time,' Jane said; 'he wants me always to
+do his spring cleaning.'</p>
+
+<p>'If only I could go with you,' Wendy sighed.</p>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span></p><p>'You see you can't fly,' said Jane.</p>
+
+<p>Of course in the end Wendy let them fly away together. Our last glimpse
+of her shows her at the window, watching them receding into the sky
+until they were as small as stars.</p>
+
+<p>As you look at Wendy you may see her hair becoming white, and her figure
+little again, for all this happened long ago. Jane is now a common
+grown-up, with a daughter called Margaret; and every spring-cleaning
+time, except when he forgets, Peter comes for Margaret and takes her to
+the Neverland, where she tells him stories about himself, to which he
+listens eagerly. When Margaret grows up she will have a daughter, who is
+to be Peter's mother in turn; and thus it will go on, so long as
+children are gay and innocent and heartless.</p>
+
+<p class="tbrk">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<h4>THE END</h4>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Peter and Wendy, by James Matthew Barrie
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+</body>
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@@ -0,0 +1,6745 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Peter and Wendy, by James Matthew Barrie
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Peter and Wendy
+
+Author: James Matthew Barrie
+
+Illustrator: F. D. Bedford
+
+Release Date: September 18, 2008 [EBook #26654]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PETER AND WENDY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Chris Curnow, Lindy Walsh, Martin Pettit The
+Internet Archive for help with the illustrations and the
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+PETER AND WENDY
+
+[Illustration: THE NEVER NEVER LAND]
+
+[Illustration: PETER AND WENDY
+
+BY J. M. BARRIE
+
+ILLUSTRATED BY F. D. BEDFORD
+
+NEW YORK
+
+CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS]
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+                                 PAGE
+CHAPTER I
+
+PETER BREAKS THROUGH                1
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE SHADOW                         17
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+COME AWAY, COME AWAY!              34
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE FLIGHT                         58
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE ISLAND COME TRUE               75
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE LITTLE HOUSE                   94
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE HOME UNDER THE GROUND         110
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE MERMAIDS' LAGOON              122
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE NEVER BIRD                    144
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE HAPPY HOME                    150
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+WENDY'S STORY                     162
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE CHILDREN ARE CARRIED OFF      176
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+DO YOU BELIEVE IN FAIRIES?        185
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE PIRATE SHIP                   201
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+'HOOK OR ME THIS TIME'            214
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE RETURN HOME                   232
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+WHEN WENDY GREW UP                248
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+PETER BREAKS THROUGH
+
+
+All children, except one, grow up. They soon know that they will grow
+up, and the way Wendy knew was this. One day when she was two years old
+she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with
+it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for
+Mrs. Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, 'Oh, why can't you
+remain like this for ever!' This was all that passed between them on the
+subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always
+know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end.
+
+Of course they lived at 14, and until Wendy came her mother was the
+chief one. She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet
+mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the
+other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there
+is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that
+Wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the
+right-hand corner.
+
+The way Mr. Darling won her was this: the many gentlemen who had been
+boys when she was a girl discovered simultaneously that they loved her,
+and they all ran to her house to propose to her except Mr. Darling, who
+took a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her. He got all of her,
+except the innermost box and the kiss. He never knew about the box, and
+in time he gave up trying for the kiss. Wendy thought Napoleon could
+have got it, but I can picture him trying, and then going off in a
+passion, slamming the door.
+
+Mr. Darling used to boast to Wendy that her mother not only loved him
+but respected him. He was one of those deep ones who know about stocks
+and shares. Of course no one really knows, but he quite seemed to know,
+and he often said stocks were up and shares were down in a way that
+would have made any woman respect him.
+
+Mrs. Darling was married in white, and at first she kept the books
+perfectly, almost gleefully, as if it were a game, not so much as a
+brussels sprout was missing; but by and by whole cauliflowers dropped
+out, and instead of them there were pictures of babies without faces.
+She drew them when she should have been totting up. They were Mrs.
+Darling's guesses.
+
+Wendy came first, then John, then Michael.
+
+For a week or two after Wendy came it was doubtful whether they would be
+able to keep her, as she was another mouth to feed. Mr. Darling was
+frightfully proud of her, but he was very honourable, and he sat on the
+edge of Mrs. Darling's bed, holding her hand and calculating expenses,
+while she looked at him imploringly. She wanted to risk it, come what
+might, but that was not his way; his way was with a pencil and a piece
+of paper, and if she confused him with suggestions he had to begin at
+the beginning again.
+
+'Now don't interrupt,' he would beg of her. 'I have one pound seventeen
+here, and two and six at the office; I can cut off my coffee at the
+office, say ten shillings, making two nine and six, with your eighteen
+and three makes three nine seven, with five naught naught in my
+cheque-book makes eight nine seven,--who is that moving?--eight nine
+seven, dot and carry seven--don't speak, my own--and the pound you lent
+to that man who came to the door--quiet, child--dot and carry
+child--there, you've done it!--did I say nine nine seven? yes, I said
+nine nine seven; the question is, can we try it for a year on nine nine
+seven?'
+
+'Of course we can, George,' she cried. But she was prejudiced in Wendy's
+favour, and he was really the grander character of the two.
+
+'Remember mumps,' he warned her almost threateningly, and off he went
+again. 'Mumps one pound, that is what I have put down, but I daresay it
+will be more like thirty shillings--don't speak--measles one five,
+German measles half a guinea, makes two fifteen six--don't waggle your
+finger--whooping-cough, say fifteen shillings'--and so on it went, and
+it added up differently each time; but at last Wendy just got through,
+with mumps reduced to twelve six, and the two kinds of measles treated
+as one.
+
+There was the same excitement over John, and Michael had even a narrower
+squeak; but both were kept, and soon you might have seen the three of
+them going in a row to Miss Fulsom's Kindergarten school, accompanied by
+their nurse.
+
+Mrs. Darling loved to have everything just so, and Mr. Darling had a
+passion for being exactly like his neighbours; so, of course, they had a
+nurse. As they were poor, owing to the amount of milk the children
+drank, this nurse was a prim Newfoundland dog, called Nana, who had
+belonged to no one in particular until the Darlings engaged her. She had
+always thought children important, however, and the Darlings had become
+acquainted with her in Kensington Gardens, where she spent most of her
+spare time peeping into perambulators, and was much hated by careless
+nursemaids, whom she followed to their homes and complained of to their
+mistresses. She proved to be quite a treasure of a nurse. How thorough
+she was at bath-time; and up at any moment of the night if one of her
+charges made the slightest cry. Of course her kennel was in the nursery.
+She had a genius for knowing when a cough is a thing to have no patience
+with and when it needs stocking round your throat. She believed to her
+last day in old-fashioned remedies like rhubarb leaf, and made sounds of
+contempt over all this new-fangled talk about germs, and so on. It was a
+lesson in propriety to see her escorting the children to school, walking
+sedately by their side when they were well behaved, and butting them
+back into line if they strayed. On John's footer days she never once
+forgot his sweater, and she usually carried an umbrella in her mouth in
+case of rain. There is a room in the basement of Miss Fulsom's school
+where the nurses wait. They sat on forms, while Nana lay on the floor,
+but that was the only difference. They affected to ignore her as of an
+inferior social status to themselves, and she despised their light talk.
+She resented visits to the nursery from Mrs. Darling's friends, but if
+they did come she first whipped off Michael's pinafore and put him into
+the one with blue braiding, and smoothed out Wendy and made a dash at
+John's hair.
+
+No nursery could possibly have been conducted more correctly, and Mr.
+Darling knew it, yet he sometimes wondered uneasily whether the
+neighbours talked.
+
+He had his position in the city to consider.
+
+Nana also troubled him in another way. He had sometimes a feeling that
+she did not admire him. 'I know she admires you tremendously, George,'
+Mrs. Darling would assure him, and then she would sign to the children
+to be specially nice to father. Lovely dances followed, in which the
+only other servant, Liza, was sometimes allowed to join. Such a midget
+she looked in her long skirt and maid's cap, though she had sworn, when
+engaged, that she would never see ten again. The gaiety of those romps!
+And gayest of all was Mrs. Darling, who would pirouette so wildly that
+all you could see of her was the kiss, and then if you had dashed at her
+you might have got it. There never was a simpler happier family until
+the coming of Peter Pan.
+
+Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children's
+minds. It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children
+are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next
+morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have
+wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you
+can't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it
+very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You
+would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of
+your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up,
+making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as
+if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight.
+When you wake in the morning, the naughtinesses and evil passions with
+which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom
+of your mind; and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your
+prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.
+
+I don't know whether you have ever seen a map of a person's mind.
+Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can
+become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a
+child's mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the
+time. There are zigzag lines on it, just like your temperature on a
+card, and these are probably roads in the island; for the Neverland is
+always more or less an island, with astonishing splashes of colour here
+and there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing, and
+savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are mostly tailors, and caves
+through which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers, and a
+hut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked nose.
+It would be an easy map if that were all; but there is also first day at
+school, religion, fathers, the round pond, needlework, murders,
+hangings, verbs that take the dative, chocolate pudding day, getting
+into braces, say ninety-nine, three-pence for pulling out your tooth
+yourself, and so on; and either these are part of the island or they are
+another map showing through, and it is all rather confusing, especially
+as nothing will stand still.
+
+Of course the Neverlands vary a good deal. John's, for instance, had a
+lagoon with flamingoes flying over it at which John was shooting, while
+Michael, who was very small, had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it.
+John lived in a boat turned upside down on the sands, Michael in a
+wigwam, Wendy in a house of leaves deftly sewn together. John had no
+friends, Michael had friends at night, Wendy had a pet wolf forsaken by
+its parents; but on the whole the Neverlands have a family resemblance,
+and if they stood still in a row you could say of them that they have
+each other's nose, and so forth. On these magic shores children at play
+are for ever beaching their coracles. We too have been there; we can
+still hear the sound of the surf, though we shall land no more.
+
+Of all delectable islands the Neverland is the snuggest and most
+compact; not large and sprawly, you know, with tedious distances between
+one adventure and another, but nicely crammed. When you play at it by
+day with the chairs and table-cloth, it is not in the least alarming,
+but in the two minutes before you go to sleep it becomes very nearly
+real. That is why there are night-lights.
+
+Occasionally in her travels through her children's minds Mrs. Darling
+found things she could not understand, and of these quite the most
+perplexing was the word Peter. She knew of no Peter, and yet he was here
+and there in John and Michael's minds, while Wendy's began to be
+scrawled all over with him. The name stood out in bolder letters than
+any of the other words, and as Mrs. Darling gazed she felt that it had
+an oddly cocky appearance.
+
+'Yes, he is rather cocky,' Wendy admitted with regret. Her mother had
+been questioning her.
+
+'But who is he, my pet?'
+
+'He is Peter Pan, you know, mother.'
+
+At first Mrs. Darling did not know, but after thinking back into her
+childhood she just remembered a Peter Pan who was said to live with the
+fairies. There were odd stories about him; as that when children died he
+went part of the way with them, so that they should not be frightened.
+She had believed in him at the time, but now that she was married and
+full of sense she quite doubted whether there was any such person.
+
+'Besides,' she said to Wendy, 'he would be grown up by this time.'
+
+'Oh no, he isn't grown up,' Wendy assured her confidently, 'and he is
+just my size.' She meant that he was her size in both mind and body; she
+didn't know how she knew it, she just knew it.
+
+Mrs. Darling consulted Mr. Darling, but he smiled pooh-pooh. 'Mark my
+words,' he said, 'it is some nonsense Nana has been putting into their
+heads; just the sort of idea a dog would have. Leave it alone, and it
+will blow over.'
+
+But it would not blow over; and soon the troublesome boy gave Mrs.
+Darling quite a shock.
+
+Children have the strangest adventures without being troubled by them.
+For instance, they may remember to mention, a week after the event
+happened, that when they were in the wood they met their dead father and
+had a game with him. It was in this casual way that Wendy one morning
+made a disquieting revelation. Some leaves of a tree had been found on
+the nursery floor, which certainly were not there when the children
+went to bed, and Mrs. Darling was puzzling over them when Wendy said
+with a tolerant smile:
+
+'I do believe it is that Peter again!'
+
+'Whatever do you mean, Wendy?'
+
+'It is so naughty of him not to wipe,' Wendy said, sighing. She was a
+tidy child.
+
+She explained in quite a matter-of-fact way that she thought Peter
+sometimes came to the nursery in the night and sat on the foot of her
+bed and played on his pipes to her. Unfortunately she never woke, so she
+didn't know how she knew, she just knew.
+
+'What nonsense you talk, precious. No one can get into the house without
+knocking.'
+
+'I think he comes in by the window,' she said.
+
+'My love, it is three floors up.'
+
+'Were not the leaves at the foot of the window, mother?'
+
+It was quite true; the leaves had been found very near the window.
+
+Mrs. Darling did not know what to think, for it all seemed so natural to
+Wendy that you could not dismiss it by saying she had been dreaming.
+
+'My child,' the mother cried, 'why did you not tell me of this before?'
+
+'I forgot,' said Wendy lightly. She was in a hurry to get her breakfast.
+
+Oh, surely she must have been dreaming.
+
+But, on the other hand, there were the leaves. Mrs. Darling examined
+them carefully; they were skeleton leaves, but she was sure they did not
+come from any tree that grew in England. She crawled about the floor,
+peering at it with a candle for marks of a strange foot. She rattled the
+poker up the chimney and tapped the walls. She let down a tape from the
+window to the pavement, and it was a sheer drop of thirty feet, without
+so much as a spout to climb up by.
+
+Certainly Wendy had been dreaming.
+
+But Wendy had not been dreaming, as the very next night showed, the
+night on which the extraordinary adventures of these children may be
+said to have begun.
+
+On the night we speak of all the children were once more in bed. It
+happened to be Nana's evening off, and Mrs. Darling had bathed them and
+sung to them till one by one they had let go her hand and slid away
+into the land of sleep.
+
+All were looking so safe and cosy that she smiled at her fears now and
+sat down tranquilly by the fire to sew.
+
+It was something for Michael, who on his birthday was getting into
+shirts. The fire was warm, however, and the nursery dimly lit by three
+night-lights, and presently the sewing lay on Mrs. Darling's lap. Then
+her head nodded, oh, so gracefully. She was asleep. Look at the four of
+them, Wendy and Michael over there, John here, and Mrs. Darling by the
+fire. There should have been a fourth night-light.
+
+While she slept she had a dream. She dreamt that the Neverland had come
+too near and that a strange boy had broken through from it. He did not
+alarm her, for she thought she had seen him before in the faces of many
+women who have no children. Perhaps he is to be found in the faces of
+some mothers also. But in her dream he had rent the film that obscures
+the Neverland, and she saw Wendy and John and Michael peeping through
+the gap.
+
+The dream by itself would have been a trifle, but while she was
+dreaming the window of the nursery blew open, and a boy did drop on the
+floor. He was accompanied by a strange light, no bigger than your fist,
+which darted about the room like a living thing; and I think it must
+have been this light that wakened Mrs. Darling.
+
+She started up with a cry, and saw the boy, and somehow she knew at once
+that he was Peter Pan. If you or I or Wendy had been there we should
+have seen that he was very like Mrs. Darling's kiss. He was a lovely
+boy, clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that ooze out of trees; but
+the most entrancing thing about him was that he had all his first teeth.
+When he saw she was a grown-up, he gnashed the little pearls at her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+THE SHADOW
+
+
+Mrs. Darling screamed, and, as if in answer to a bell, the door opened,
+and Nana entered, returned from her evening out. She growled and sprang
+at the boy, who leapt lightly through the window. Again Mrs. Darling
+screamed, this time in distress for him, for she thought he was killed,
+and she ran down into the street to look for his little body, but it was
+not there; and she looked up, and in the black night she could see
+nothing but what she thought was a shooting star.
+
+She returned to the nursery, and found Nana with something in her mouth,
+which proved to be the boy's shadow. As he leapt at the window Nana had
+closed it quickly, too late to catch him, but his shadow had not had
+time to get out; slam went the window and snapped it off.
+
+You may be sure Mrs. Darling examined the shadow carefully, but it was
+quite the ordinary kind.
+
+Nana had no doubt of what was the best thing to do with this shadow. She
+hung it out at the window, meaning 'He is sure to come back for it; let
+us put it where he can get it easily without disturbing the children.'
+
+But unfortunately Mrs. Darling could not leave it hanging out at the
+window; it looked so like the washing and lowered the whole tone of the
+house. She thought of showing it to Mr. Darling, but he was totting up
+winter greatcoats for John and Michael, with a wet towel round his head
+to keep his brain clear, and it seemed a shame to trouble him; besides,
+she knew exactly what he would say: 'It all comes of having a dog for a
+nurse.'
+
+She decided to roll the shadow up and put it away carefully in a drawer,
+until a fitting opportunity came for telling her husband. Ah me!
+
+The opportunity came a week later, on that never-to-be-forgotten
+Friday. Of course it was a Friday.
+
+'I ought to have been specially careful on a Friday,' she used to say
+afterwards to her husband, while perhaps Nana was on the other side of
+her, holding her hand.
+
+'No, no,' Mr. Darling always said, 'I am responsible for it all. I,
+George Darling, did it. _Mea culpa, mea culpa._' He had had a classical
+education.
+
+They sat thus night after night recalling that fatal Friday, till every
+detail of it was stamped on their brains and came through on the other
+side like the faces on a bad coinage.
+
+'If only I had not accepted that invitation to dine at 27,' Mrs. Darling
+said.
+
+'If only I had not poured my medicine into Nana's bowl,' said Mr.
+Darling.
+
+'If only I had pretended to like the medicine,' was what Nana's wet eyes
+said.
+
+'My liking for parties, George.'
+
+'My fatal gift of humour, dearest.'
+
+'My touchiness about trifles, dear master and mistress.'
+
+Then one or more of them would break down altogether; Nana at the
+thought, 'It's true, it's true, they ought not to have had a dog for a
+nurse.' Many a time it was Mr. Darling who put the handkerchief to
+Nana's eyes.
+
+'That fiend!' Mr. Darling would cry, and Nana's bark was the echo of it,
+but Mrs. Darling never upbraided Peter; there was something in the
+right-hand corner of her mouth that wanted her not to call Peter names.
+
+They would sit there in the empty nursery, recalling fondly every
+smallest detail of that dreadful evening. It had begun so uneventfully,
+so precisely like a hundred other evenings, with Nana putting on the
+water for Michael's bath and carrying him to it on her back.
+
+'I won't go to bed,' he had shouted, like one who still believed that he
+had the last word on the subject, 'I won't, I won't. Nana, it isn't six
+o'clock yet. Oh dear, oh dear, I shan't love you any more, Nana. I tell
+you I won't be bathed, I won't, I won't!'
+
+Then Mrs. Darling had come in, wearing her white evening-gown. She had
+dressed early because Wendy so loved to see her in her evening-gown,
+with the necklace George had given her. She was wearing Wendy's
+bracelet on her arm; she had asked for the loan of it. Wendy so loved to
+lend her bracelet to her mother.
+
+She had found her two older children playing at being herself and father
+on the occasion of Wendy's birth, and John was saying:
+
+'I am happy to inform you, Mrs. Darling, that you are now a mother,' in
+just such a tone as Mr. Darling himself may have used on the real
+occasion.
+
+Wendy had danced with joy, just as the real Mrs. Darling must have done.
+
+Then John was born, with the extra pomp that he conceived due to the
+birth of a male, and Michael came from his bath to ask to be born also,
+but John said brutally that they did not want any more.
+
+Michael had nearly cried. 'Nobody wants me,' he said, and of course the
+lady in evening-dress could not stand that.
+
+'I do,' she said, 'I so want a third child.'
+
+'Boy or girl?' asked Michael, not too hopefully.
+
+'Boy.'
+
+Then he had leapt into her arms. Such a little thing for Mr. and Mrs.
+Darling and Nana to recall now, but not so little if that was to be
+Michael's last night in the nursery.
+
+They go on with their recollections.
+
+'It was then that I rushed in like a tornado, wasn't it?' Mr. Darling
+would say, scorning himself; and indeed he had been like a tornado.
+
+Perhaps there was some excuse for him. He, too, had been dressing for
+the party, and all had gone well with him until he came to his tie. It
+is an astounding thing to have to tell, but this man, though he knew
+about stocks and shares, had no real mastery of his tie. Sometimes the
+thing yielded to him without a contest, but there were occasions when it
+would have been better for the house if he had swallowed his pride and
+used a made-up tie.
+
+This was such an occasion. He came rushing into the nursery with the
+crumpled little brute of a tie in his hand.
+
+'Why, what is the matter, father dear?'
+
+'Matter!' he yelled; he really yelled. 'This tie, it will not tie.' He
+became dangerously sarcastic. 'Not round my neck! Round the bed-post! Oh
+yes, twenty times have I made it up round the bed-post, but round my
+neck, no! Oh dear no! begs to be excused!'
+
+He thought Mrs. Darling was not sufficiently impressed, and he went on
+sternly, 'I warn you of this, mother, that unless this tie is round my
+neck we don't go out to dinner to-night, and if I don't go out to dinner
+to-night, I never go to the office again, and if I don't go to the
+office again, you and I starve, and our children will be flung into the
+streets.'
+
+Even then Mrs. Darling was placid. 'Let me try, dear,' she said, and
+indeed that was what he had come to ask her to do; and with her nice
+cool hands she tied his tie for him, while the children stood around to
+see their fate decided. Some men would have resented her being able to
+do it so easily, but Mr. Darling was far too fine a nature for that; he
+thanked her carelessly, at once forgot his rage, and in another moment
+was dancing round the room with Michael on his back.
+
+'How wildly we romped!' says Mrs. Darling now, recalling it.
+
+'Our last romp!' Mr. Darling groaned.
+
+'O George, do you remember Michael suddenly said to me, "How did you
+get to know me, mother?"'
+
+'I remember!'
+
+'They were rather sweet, don't you think, George?'
+
+'And they were ours, ours, and now they are gone.'
+
+The romp had ended with the appearance of Nana, and most unluckily Mr.
+Darling collided against her, covering his trousers with hairs. They
+were not only new trousers, but they were the first he had ever had with
+braid on them, and he had to bite his lip to prevent the tears coming.
+Of course Mrs. Darling brushed him, but he began to talk again about its
+being a mistake to have a dog for a nurse.
+
+'George, Nana is a treasure.'
+
+'No doubt, but I have an uneasy feeling at times that she looks upon the
+children as puppies.'
+
+'Oh no, dear one, I feel sure she knows they have souls.'
+
+'I wonder,' Mr. Darling said thoughtfully, 'I wonder.' It was an
+opportunity, his wife felt, for telling him about the boy. At first he
+pooh-poohed the story, but he became thoughtful when she showed him the
+shadow.
+
+'It is nobody I know,' he said, examining it carefully, 'but he does
+look a scoundrel.'
+
+'We were still discussing it, you remember,' says Mr. Darling, 'when
+Nana came in with Michael's medicine. You will never carry the bottle in
+your mouth again, Nana, and it is all my fault.
+
+Strong man though he was, there is no doubt that he had behaved rather
+foolishly over the medicine. If he had a weakness, it was for thinking
+that all his life he had taken medicine boldly; and so now, when Michael
+dodged the spoon in Nana's mouth, he had said reprovingly, 'Be a man,
+Michael.'
+
+'Won't; won't,' Michael cried naughtily. Mrs. Darling left the room to
+get a chocolate for him, and Mr. Darling thought this showed want of
+firmness.
+
+'Mother, don't pamper him,' he called after her. 'Michael, when I was
+your age I took medicine without a murmur. I said "Thank you, kind
+parents, for giving me bottles to make me well."'
+
+He really thought this was true, and Wendy, who was now in her
+night-gown, believed it also, and she said, to encourage Michael, 'That
+medicine you sometimes take, father, is much nastier, isn't it?'
+
+'Ever so much nastier,' Mr. Darling said bravely, 'and I would take it
+now as an example to you, Michael, if I hadn't lost the bottle.'
+
+He had not exactly lost it; he had climbed in the dead of night to the
+top of the wardrobe and hidden it there. What he did not know was that
+the faithful Liza had found it, and put it back on his wash-stand.
+
+'I know where it is, father,' Wendy cried, always glad to be of service.
+'I'll bring it,' and she was off before he could stop her. Immediately
+his spirits sank in the strangest way.
+
+'John,' he said, shuddering, 'it's most beastly stuff. It's that nasty,
+sticky, sweet kind.'
+
+'It will soon be over, father,' John said cheerily, and then in rushed
+Wendy with the medicine in a glass.
+
+'I have been as quick as I could,' she panted.
+
+'You have been wonderfully quick,' her father retorted, with a
+vindictive politeness that was quite thrown away upon her. 'Michael
+first,' he said doggedly.
+
+'Father first,' said Michael, who was of a suspicious nature.
+
+'I shall be sick, you know,' Mr. Darling said threateningly.
+
+'Come on, father,' said John.
+
+'Hold your tongue, John,' his father rapped out.
+
+Wendy was quite puzzled. 'I thought you took it quite easily, father.'
+
+'That is not the point,' he retorted. 'The point is, that there is more
+in my glass than in Michael's spoon.' His proud heart was nearly
+bursting. 'And it isn't fair; I would say it though it were with my last
+breath; it isn't fair.'
+
+'Father, I am waiting,' said Michael coldly.
+
+'It's all very well to say you are waiting; so am I waiting.'
+
+'Father's a cowardy custard.'
+
+'So are you a cowardy custard.'
+
+'I'm not frightened.'
+
+'Neither am I frightened.'
+
+'Well, then, take it.'
+
+'Well, then, you take it.'
+
+Wendy had a splendid idea. 'Why not both take it at the same time?'
+
+'Certainly,' said Mr. Darling. 'Are you ready, Michael?'
+
+Wendy gave the words, one, two, three, and Michael took his medicine,
+but Mr. Darling slipped his behind his back.
+
+There was a yell of rage from Michael, and 'O father!' Wendy exclaimed.
+
+'What do you mean by "O father"?' Mr. Darling demanded. 'Stop that row,
+Michael. I meant to take mine, but I--I missed it.'
+
+It was dreadful the way all the three were looking at him, just as if
+they did not admire him. 'Look here, all of you,' he said entreatingly,
+as soon as Nana had gone into the bathroom, 'I have just thought of a
+splendid joke. I shall pour my medicine into Nana's bowl, and she will
+drink it, thinking it is milk!'
+
+It was the colour of milk; but the children did not have their father's
+sense of humour, and they looked at him reproachfully as he poured the
+medicine into Nana's bowl. 'What fun,' he said doubtfully, and they did
+not dare expose him when Mrs. Darling and Nana returned.
+
+'Nana, good dog,' he said, patting her, 'I have put a little milk into
+your bowl, Nana.'
+
+Nana wagged her tail, ran to the medicine, and began lapping it. Then
+she gave Mr. Darling such a look, not an angry look: she showed him the
+great red tear that makes us so sorry for noble dogs, and crept into her
+kennel.
+
+Mr. Darling was frightfully ashamed of himself, but he would not give
+in. In a horrid silence Mrs. Darling smelt the bowl. 'O George,' she
+said, 'it's your medicine!'
+
+'It was only a joke,' he roared, while she comforted her boys, and Wendy
+hugged Nana. 'Much good,' he said bitterly, 'my wearing myself to the
+bone trying to be funny in this house.'
+
+And still Wendy hugged Nana. 'That's right,' he shouted. 'Coddle her!
+Nobody coddles me. Oh dear no! I am only the breadwinner, why should I
+be coddled, why, why, why!'
+
+'George,' Mrs. Darling entreated him, 'not so loud; the servants will
+hear you.' Somehow they had got into the way of calling Liza the
+servants.
+
+'Let them,' he answered recklessly. 'Bring in the whole world. But I
+refuse to allow that dog to lord it in my nursery for an hour longer.'
+
+The children wept, and Nana ran to him beseechingly, but he waved her
+back. He felt he was a strong man again. 'In vain, in vain,' he cried;
+'the proper place for you is the yard, and there you go to be tied up
+this instant.'
+
+'George, George,' Mrs. Darling whispered, 'remember what I told you
+about that boy.'
+
+Alas, he would not listen. He was determined to show who was master in
+that house, and when commands would not draw Nana from the kennel, he
+lured her out of it with honeyed words, and seizing her roughly, dragged
+her from the nursery. He was ashamed of himself, and yet he did it. It
+was all owing to his too affectionate nature, which craved for
+admiration. When he had tied her up in the back-yard, the wretched
+father went and sat in the passage, with his knuckles to his eyes.
+
+In the meantime Mrs. Darling had put the children to bed in unwonted
+silence and lit their night-lights. They could hear Nana barking, and
+John whimpered, 'It is because he is chaining her up in the yard,' but
+Wendy was wiser.
+
+'That is not Nana's unhappy bark,' she said, little guessing what was
+about to happen; 'that is her bark when she smells danger.'
+
+Danger!
+
+'Are you sure, Wendy?'
+
+'Oh yes.'
+
+Mrs. Darling quivered and went to the window. It was securely fastened.
+She looked out, and the night was peppered with stars. They were
+crowding round the house, as if curious to see what was to take place
+there, but she did not notice this, nor that one or two of the smaller
+ones winked at her. Yet a nameless fear clutched at her heart and made
+her cry, 'Oh, how I wish that I wasn't going to a party to-night!'
+
+Even Michael, already half asleep, knew that she was perturbed, and he
+asked, 'Can anything harm us, mother, after the night-lights are lit?'
+
+'Nothing, precious,' she said; 'they are the eyes a mother leaves behind
+her to guard her children.'
+
+She went from bed to bed singing enchantments over them, and little
+Michael flung his arms round her. 'Mother,' he cried, 'I'm glad of you.'
+They were the last words she was to hear from him for a long time.
+
+[Illustration: PETER FLEW IN]
+
+No. 27 was only a few yards distant, but there had been a slight fall of
+snow, and Father and Mother Darling picked their way over it deftly not
+to soil their shoes. They were already the only persons in the street,
+and all the stars were watching them. Stars are beautiful, but they may
+not take an active part in anything, they must just look on for ever. It
+is a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no
+star now knows what it was. So the older ones have become glassy-eyed
+and seldom speak (winking is the star language), but the little ones
+still wonder. They are not really friendly to Peter, who has a
+mischievous way of stealing up behind them and trying to blow them out;
+but they are so fond of fun that they were on his side to-night, and
+anxious to get the grown-ups out of the way. So as soon as the door of
+27 closed on Mr. and Mrs. Darling there was a commotion in the
+firmament, and the smallest of all the stars in the Milky Way screamed
+out:
+
+'Now, Peter!'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+COME AWAY, COME AWAY!
+
+
+For a moment after Mr. and Mrs. Darling left the house the night-lights
+by the beds of the three children continued to burn clearly. They were
+awfully nice little night-lights, and one cannot help wishing that they
+could have kept awake to see Peter; but Wendy's light blinked and gave
+such a yawn that the other two yawned also, and before they could close
+their mouths all the three went out.
+
+There was another light in the room now, a thousand times brighter than
+the night-lights, and in the time we have taken to say this, it has been
+in all the drawers in the nursery, looking for Peter's shadow, rummaged
+the wardrobe and turned every pocket inside out. It was not really a
+light; it made this light by flashing about so quickly, but when it came
+to rest for a second you saw it was a fairy, no longer than your hand,
+but still growing. It was a girl called Tinker Bell exquisitely gowned
+in a skeleton leaf, cut low and square, through which her figure could
+be seen to the best advantage. She was slightly inclined to
+_embonpoint_.
+
+A moment after the fairy's entrance the window was blown open by the
+breathing of the little stars, and Peter dropped in. He had carried
+Tinker Bell part of the way, and his hand was still messy with the fairy
+dust.
+
+'Tinker Bell,' he called softly, after making sure that the children
+were asleep, 'Tink, where are you?' She was in a jug for the moment, and
+liking it extremely; she had never been in a jug before.
+
+'Oh, do come out of that jug, and tell me, do you know where they put my
+shadow?'
+
+The loveliest tinkle as of golden bells answered him. It is the fairy
+language. You ordinary children can never hear it, but if you were to
+hear it you would know that you had heard it once before.
+
+Tink said that the shadow was in the big box. She meant the chest of
+drawers, and Peter jumped at the drawers, scattering their contents to
+the floor with both hands, as kings toss ha'pence to the crowd. In a
+moment he had recovered his shadow, and in his delight he forgot that he
+had shut Tinker Bell up in the drawer.
+
+If he thought at all, but I don't believe he ever thought, it was that
+he and his shadow, when brought near each other, would join like drops
+of water; and when they did not he was appalled. He tried to stick it on
+with soap from the bathroom, but that also failed. A shudder passed
+through Peter, and he sat on the floor and cried.
+
+His sobs woke Wendy, and she sat up in bed. She was not alarmed to see a
+stranger crying on the nursery floor; she was only pleasantly
+interested.
+
+'Boy,' she said courteously, 'why are you crying?'
+
+Peter could be exceedingly polite also, having learned the grand manner
+at fairy ceremonies, and he rose and bowed to her beautifully. She was
+much pleased, and bowed beautifully to him from the bed.
+
+'What's your name?' he asked.
+
+'Wendy Moira Angela Darling,' she replied with some satisfaction. 'What
+is your name?'
+
+'Peter Pan.'
+
+She was already sure that he must be Peter, but it did seem a
+comparatively short name.
+
+'Is that all?'
+
+'Yes,' he said rather sharply. He felt for the first time that it was a
+shortish name.
+
+'I'm so sorry,' said Wendy Moira Angela.
+
+'It doesn't matter,' Peter gulped.
+
+She asked where he lived.
+
+'Second to the right,' said Peter, 'and then straight on till morning.'
+
+'What a funny address!'
+
+Peter had a sinking. For the first time he felt that perhaps it was a
+funny address.
+
+'No, it isn't,' he said.
+
+'I mean,' Wendy said nicely, remembering that she was hostess, 'is that
+what they put on the letters?'
+
+He wished she had not mentioned letters.
+
+'Don't get any letters,' he said contemptuously.
+
+'But your mother gets letters?'
+
+'Don't have a mother,' he said. Not only had he no mother, but he had
+not the slightest desire to have one. He thought them very overrated
+persons. Wendy, however, felt at once that she was in the presence of a
+tragedy.
+
+'O Peter, no wonder you were crying,' she said, and got out of bed and
+ran to him.
+
+'I wasn't crying about mothers,' he said rather indignantly. 'I was
+crying because I can't get my shadow to stick on. Besides, I wasn't
+crying.'
+
+'It has come off?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+Then Wendy saw the shadow on the floor, looking so draggled, and she was
+frightfully sorry for Peter. 'How awful!' she said, but she could not
+help smiling when she saw that he had been trying to stick it on with
+soap. How exactly like a boy!
+
+Fortunately she knew at once what to do 'It must be sewn on,' she said,
+just a little patronisingly.
+
+'What's sewn?' he asked.
+
+'You're dreadfully ignorant.'
+
+'No, I'm not.'
+
+But she was exulting in his ignorance. 'I shall sew it on for you, my
+little man,' she said, though he was as tall as herself; and she got out
+her housewife, and sewed the shadow on to Peter's foot.
+
+'I daresay it will hurt a little,' she warned him.
+
+'Oh, I shan't cry,' said Peter, who was already of opinion that he had
+never cried in his life. And he clenched his teeth and did not cry; and
+soon his shadow was behaving properly, though still a little creased.
+
+'Perhaps I should have ironed it,' Wendy said thoughtfully; but Peter,
+boylike, was indifferent to appearances, and he was now jumping about in
+the wildest glee. Alas, he had already forgotten that he owed his bliss
+to Wendy. He thought he had attached the shadow himself. 'How clever I
+am,' he crowed rapturously, 'oh, the cleverness of me!'
+
+It is humiliating to have to confess that this conceit of Peter was one
+of his most fascinating qualities. To put it with brutal frankness,
+there never was a cockier boy.
+
+But for the moment Wendy was shocked. 'You conceit,' she exclaimed, with
+frightful sarcasm; 'of course I did nothing!'
+
+'You did a little,' Peter said carelessly, and continued to dance.
+
+'A little!' she replied with hauteur; 'if I am no use I can at least
+withdraw'; and she sprang in the most dignified way into bed and covered
+her face with the blankets.
+
+To induce her to look up he pretended to be going away, and when this
+failed he sat on the end of the bed and tapped her gently with his foot.
+'Wendy,' he said, 'don't withdraw. I can't help crowing, Wendy, when I'm
+pleased with myself.' Still she would not look up, though she was
+listening eagerly. 'Wendy,' he continued, in a voice that no woman has
+ever yet been able to resist, 'Wendy, one girl is more use than twenty
+boys.'
+
+Now Wendy was every inch a woman, though there were not very many
+inches, and she peeped out of the bedclothes.
+
+'Do you really think so, Peter?'
+
+'Yes, I do.'
+
+'I think it's perfectly sweet of you,' she declared, 'and I'll get up
+again'; and she sat with him on the side of the bed. She also said she
+would give him a kiss if he liked, but Peter did not know what she
+meant, and he held out his hand expectantly.
+
+'Surely you know what a kiss is?' she asked, aghast.
+
+'I shall know when you give it to me,' he replied stiffly; and not to
+hurt his feelings she gave him a thimble.
+
+'Now,' said he, 'shall I give you a kiss?' and she replied with a slight
+primness, 'If you please.' She made herself rather cheap by inclining
+her face toward him, but he merely dropped an acorn button into her
+hand; so she slowly returned her face to where it had been before, and
+said nicely that she would wear his kiss on the chain round her neck. It
+was lucky that she did put it on that chain, for it was afterwards to
+save her life.
+
+When people in our set are introduced, it is customary for them to ask
+each other's age, and so Wendy, who always liked to do the correct
+thing, asked Peter how old he was. It was not really a happy question to
+ask him; it was like an examination paper that asks grammar, when what
+you want to be asked is Kings of England.
+
+'I don't know,' he replied uneasily, 'but I am quite young.' He really
+knew nothing about it; he had merely suspicions, but he said at a
+venture, 'Wendy, I ran away the day I was born.'
+
+Wendy was quite surprised, but interested; and she indicated in the
+charming drawing-room manner, by a touch on her night-gown, that he
+could sit nearer her.
+
+'It was because I heard father and mother,' he explained in a low voice,
+'talking about what I was to be when I became a man.' He was
+extraordinarily agitated now. 'I don't want ever to be a man,' he said
+with passion. 'I want always to be a little boy and to have fun. So I
+ran away to Kensington Gardens and lived a long long time among the
+fairies.'
+
+She gave him a look of the most intense admiration, and he thought it
+was because he had run away, but it was really because he knew fairies.
+Wendy had lived such a home life that to know fairies struck her as
+quite delightful. She poured out questions about them, to his surprise,
+for they were rather a nuisance to him, getting in his way and so on,
+and indeed he sometimes had to give them a hiding. Still, he liked them
+on the whole, and he told her about the beginning of fairies.
+
+'You see, Wendy, when the first baby laughed for the first time, its
+laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about,
+and that was the beginning of fairies.'
+
+Tedious talk this, but being a stay-at-home she liked it.
+
+'And so,' he went on good-naturedly, 'there ought to be one fairy for
+every boy and girl.'
+
+'Ought to be? Isn't there?'
+
+'No. You see children know such a lot now, they soon don't believe in
+fairies, and every time a child says, 'I don't believe in fairies,'
+there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead.
+
+Really, he thought they had now talked enough about fairies, and it
+struck him that Tinker Bell was keeping very quiet. 'I can't think where
+she has gone to,' he said, rising, and he called Tink by name. Wendy's
+heart went flutter with a sudden thrill.
+
+'Peter,' she cried, clutching him, 'you don't mean to tell me that there
+is a fairy in this room!'
+
+'She was here just now,' he said a little impatiently. 'You don't hear
+her, do you?' and they both listened.
+
+'The only sound I hear,' said Wendy, 'is like a tinkle of bells.'
+
+'Well, that's Tink, that's the fairy language. I think I hear her too.'
+
+The sound came from the chest of drawers, and Peter made a merry face.
+No one could ever look quite so merry as Peter, and the loveliest of
+gurgles was his laugh. He had his first laugh still.
+
+'Wendy,' he whispered gleefully, 'I do believe I shut her up in the
+drawer!'
+
+He let poor Tink out of the drawer, and she flew about the nursery
+screaming with fury. 'You shouldn't say such things,' Peter retorted.
+'Of course I'm very sorry, but how could I know you were in the drawer?'
+
+Wendy was not listening to him. 'O Peter,' she cried, 'if she would
+only stand still and let me see her!'
+
+'They hardly ever stand still,' he said, but for one moment Wendy saw
+the romantic figure come to rest on the cuckoo clock. 'O the lovely!'
+she cried, though Tink's face was still distorted with passion.
+
+'Tink,' said Peter amiably, 'this lady says she wishes you were her
+fairy.'
+
+Tinker Bell answered insolently.
+
+'What does she say, Peter?'
+
+He had to translate. 'She is not very polite. She says you are a great
+ugly girl, and that she is my fairy.'
+
+He tried to argue with Tink. 'You know you can't be my fairy, Tink,
+because I am a gentleman and you are a lady.'
+
+To this Tink replied in these words, 'You silly ass,' and disappeared
+into the bathroom. 'She is quite a common fairy,' Peter explained
+apologetically; 'she is called Tinker Bell because she mends the pots
+and kettles.'
+
+They were together in the armchair by this time, and Wendy plied him
+with more questions.
+
+'If you don't live in Kensington Gardens now----'
+
+'Sometimes I do still.'
+
+'But where do you live mostly now?'
+
+'With the lost boys.'
+
+'Who are they?'
+
+'They are the children who fall out of their perambulators when the
+nurse is looking the other way. If they are not claimed in seven days
+they are sent far away to the Neverland to defray expenses. I'm
+captain.'
+
+'What fun it must be!'
+
+'Yes,' said cunning Peter, 'but we are rather lonely. You see we have no
+female companionship.'
+
+'Are none of the others girls?'
+
+'Oh no; girls, you know, are much too clever to fall out of their
+prams.'
+
+This flattered Wendy immensely. 'I think,' she said, 'it is perfectly
+lovely the way you talk about girls; John there just despises us.'
+
+For reply Peter rose and kicked John out of bed, blankets and all; one
+kick. This seemed to Wendy rather forward for a first meeting, and she
+told him with spirit that he was not captain in her house. However,
+John continued to sleep so placidly on the floor that she allowed him to
+remain there. 'And I know you meant to be kind,' she said, relenting,
+'so you may give me a kiss.'
+
+For the moment she had forgotten his ignorance about kisses. 'I thought
+you would want it back,' he said a little bitterly, and offered to
+return her the thimble.
+
+'Oh dear,' said the nice Wendy, 'I don't mean a kiss, I mean a thimble.'
+
+'What's that?'
+
+'It's like this.' She kissed him.
+
+'Funny!' said Peter gravely. 'Now shall I give you a thimble?'
+
+'If you wish to,' said Wendy, keeping her head erect this time.
+
+Peter thimbled her, and almost immediately she screeched. 'What is it,
+Wendy?'
+
+'It was exactly as if some one were pulling my hair.'
+
+'That must have been Tink. I never knew her so naughty before.'
+
+And indeed Tink was darting about again, using offensive language.
+
+'She says she will do that to you, Wendy, every time I give you a
+thimble.'
+
+'But why?'
+
+'Why, Tink?'
+
+Again Tink replied, 'You silly ass.' Peter could not understand why, but
+Wendy understood; and she was just slightly disappointed when he
+admitted that he came to the nursery window not to see her but to listen
+to stories.
+
+'You see I don't know any stories. None of the lost boys know any
+stories.'
+
+'How perfectly awful,' Wendy said.
+
+'Do you know,' Peter asked, 'why swallows build in the eaves of houses?
+It is to listen to the stories. O Wendy, your mother was telling you
+such a lovely story.'
+
+'Which story was it?'
+
+'About the prince who couldn't find the lady who wore the glass
+slipper.'
+
+'Peter,' said Wendy excitedly, 'that was Cinderella, and he found her,
+and they lived happy ever after.'
+
+Peter was so glad that he rose from the floor, where they had been
+sitting, and hurried to the window. 'Where are you going?' she cried
+with misgiving.
+
+'To tell the other boys.'
+
+'Don't go, Peter,' she entreated, 'I know such lots of stories.'
+
+Those were her precise words, so there can be no denying that it was she
+who first tempted him.
+
+He came back, and there was a greedy look in his eyes now which ought to
+have alarmed her, but did not.
+
+'Oh, the stories I could tell to the boys!' she cried, and then Peter
+gripped her and began to draw her toward the window.
+
+'Let me go!' she ordered him.
+
+'Wendy, do come with me and tell the other boys.'
+
+Of course she was very pleased to be asked, but she said, 'Oh dear, I
+can't. Think of mummy! Besides, I can't fly.'
+
+'I'll teach you.'
+
+'Oh, how lovely to fly.'
+
+'I'll teach you how to jump on the wind's back, and then away we go.'
+
+'Oo!' she exclaimed rapturously.
+
+'Wendy, Wendy, when you are sleeping in your silly bed you might be
+flying about with me saying funny things to the stars.'
+
+'Oo!'
+
+'And, Wendy, there are mermaids.'
+
+'Mermaids! With tails?'
+
+'Such long tails.'
+
+'Oh,' cried Wendy, 'to see a mermaid!'
+
+He had become frightfully cunning. 'Wendy,' he said, 'how we should all
+respect you.'
+
+She was wriggling her body in distress. It was quite as if she were
+trying to remain on the nursery floor.
+
+But he had no pity for her.
+
+'Wendy,' he said, the sly one, 'you could tuck us in at night.'
+
+'Oo!'
+
+'None of us has ever been tucked in at night.'
+
+'Oo,' and her arms went out to him.
+
+'And you could darn our clothes, and make pockets for us. None of us has
+any pockets.'
+
+How could she resist. 'Of course it's awfully fascinating!' she cried.
+'Peter, would you teach John and Michael to fly too?'
+
+'If you like,' he said indifferently; and she ran to John and Michael
+and shook them. 'Wake up,' she cried, 'Peter Pan has come and he is to
+teach us to fly.'
+
+John rubbed his eyes. 'Then I shall get up,' he said. Of course he was
+on the floor already. 'Hallo,' he said, 'I am up!'
+
+Michael was up by this time also, looking as sharp as a knife with six
+blades and a saw, but Peter suddenly signed silence. Their faces assumed
+the awful craftiness of children listening for sounds from the grown-up
+world. All was as still as salt. Then everything was right. No, stop!
+Everything was wrong. Nana, who had been barking distressfully all the
+evening, was quiet now. It was her silence they had heard.
+
+'Out with the light! Hide! Quick!' cried John, taking command for the
+only time throughout the whole adventure. And thus when Liza entered,
+holding Nana, the nursery seemed quite its old self, very dark; and you
+could have sworn you heard its three wicked inmates breathing
+angelically as they slept. They were really doing it artfully from
+behind the window curtains.
+
+Liza was in a bad temper, for she was mixing the Christmas puddings in
+the kitchen, and had been drawn away from them, with a raisin still on
+her cheek, by Nana's absurd suspicions. She thought the best way of
+getting a little quiet was to take Nana to the nursery for a moment, but
+in custody of course.
+
+'There, you suspicious brute,' she said, not sorry that Nana was in
+disgrace, 'they are perfectly safe, aren't they? Every one of the little
+angels sound asleep in bed. Listen to their gentle breathing.'
+
+Here Michael, encouraged by his success, breathed so loudly that they
+were nearly detected. Nana knew that kind of breathing, and she tried to
+drag herself out of Liza's clutches.
+
+But Liza was dense. 'No more of it, Nana,' she said sternly, pulling her
+out of the room. 'I warn you if you bark again I shall go straight for
+master and missus and bring them home from the party, and then, oh,
+won't master whip you, just.'
+
+She tied the unhappy dog up again, but do you think Nana ceased to bark?
+Bring master and missus home from the party! Why, that was just what
+she wanted. Do you think she cared whether she was whipped so long as
+her charges were safe? Unfortunately Liza returned to her puddings, and
+Nana, seeing that no help would come from her, strained and strained at
+the chain until at last she broke it. In another moment she had burst
+into the dining-room of 27 and flung up her paws to heaven, her most
+expressive way of making a communication. Mr. and Mrs. Darling knew at
+once that something terrible was happening in their nursery, and without
+a good-bye to their hostess they rushed into the street.
+
+But it was now ten minutes since three scoundrels had been breathing
+behind the curtains; and Peter Pan can do a great deal in ten minutes.
+
+We now return to the nursery.
+
+'It's all right,' John announced, emerging from his hiding-place. 'I
+say, Peter, can you really fly?'
+
+Instead of troubling to answer him Peter flew round the room, taking the
+mantelpiece on the way.
+
+'How topping!' said John and Michael.
+
+'How sweet!' cried Wendy.
+
+'Yes, I'm sweet, oh, I am sweet!' said Peter, forgetting his manners
+again.
+
+It looked delightfully easy, and they tried it first from the floor and
+then from the beds, but they always went down instead of up.
+
+'I say, how do you do it?' asked John, rubbing his knee. He was quite a
+practical boy.
+
+'You just think lovely wonderful thoughts,' Peter explained, 'and they
+lift you up in the air.'
+
+He showed them again.
+
+'You're so nippy at it,' John said; 'couldn't you do it very slowly
+once?'
+
+Peter did it both slowly and quickly. 'I've got it now, Wendy!' cried
+John, but soon he found he had not. Not one of them could fly an inch,
+though even Michael was in words of two syllables, and Peter did not
+know A from Z.
+
+Of course Peter had been trifling with them, for no one can fly unless
+the fairy dust has been blown on him. Fortunately, as we have mentioned,
+one of his hands was messy with it, and he blew some on each of them,
+with the most superb results.
+
+'Now just wriggle your shoulders this way,' he said, 'and let go.'
+
+They were all on their beds, and gallant Michael let go first. He did
+not quite mean to let go, but he did it, and immediately he was borne
+across the room.
+
+'I flewed!' he screamed while still in mid-air.
+
+John let go and met Wendy near the bathroom.
+
+'Oh, lovely!'
+
+'Oh, ripping!'
+
+'Look at me!'
+
+'Look at me!'
+
+'Look at me!'
+
+They were not nearly so elegant as Peter, they could not help kicking a
+little, but their heads were bobbing against the ceiling, and there is
+almost nothing so delicious as that. Peter gave Wendy a hand at first,
+but had to desist, Tink was so indignant.
+
+Up and down they went, and round and round. Heavenly was Wendy's word.
+
+'I say,' cried John, 'why shouldn't we all go out!'
+
+Of course it was to this that Peter had been luring them.
+
+Michael was ready: he wanted to see how long it took him to do a billion
+miles. But Wendy hesitated.
+
+'Mermaids!' said Peter again.
+
+'Oo!'
+
+'And there are pirates.'
+
+'Pirates,' cried John, seizing his Sunday hat, 'let us go at once.'
+
+It was just at this moment that Mr. and Mrs. Darling hurried with Nana
+out of 27. They ran into the middle of the street to look up at the
+nursery window; and, yes, it was still shut, but the room was ablaze
+with light, and most heart-gripping sight of all, they could see in
+shadow on the curtain three little figures in night attire circling
+round and round, not on the floor but in the air.
+
+Not three figures, four!
+
+In a tremble they opened the street door. Mr. Darling would have rushed
+upstairs, but Mrs. Darling signed to him to go softly. She even tried to
+make her heart go softly.
+
+Will they reach the nursery in time? If so, how delightful for them,
+and we shall all breathe a sigh of relief, but there will be no story.
+On the other hand, if they are not in time, I solemnly promise that it
+will all come right in the end.
+
+They would have reached the nursery in time had it not been that the
+little stars were watching them. Once again the stars blew the window
+open, and that smallest star of all called out:
+
+'Cave, Peter!'
+
+Then Peter knew that there was not a moment to lose. 'Come,' he cried
+imperiously, and soared out at once into the night, followed by John and
+Michael and Wendy.
+
+Mr. and Mrs. Darling and Nana rushed into the nursery too late. The
+birds were flown.
+
+[Illustration: THE BIRDS WERE FLOWN]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+THE FLIGHT
+
+
+'Second to the right, and straight on till morning.'
+
+That, Peter had told Wendy, was the way to the Neverland; but even
+birds, carrying maps and consulting them at windy corners, could not
+have sighted it with these instructions. Peter, you see, just said
+anything that came into his head.
+
+At first his companions trusted him implicitly, and so great were the
+delights of flying that they wasted time circling round church spires or
+any other tall objects on the way that took their fancy.
+
+John and Michael raced, Michael getting a start.
+
+They recalled with contempt that not so long ago they had thought
+themselves fine fellows for being able to fly round a room.
+
+Not so long ago. But how long ago? They were flying over the sea before
+this thought began to disturb Wendy seriously. John thought it was their
+second sea and their third night.
+
+Sometimes it was dark and sometimes light, and now they were very cold
+and again too warm. Did they really feel hungry at times, or were they
+merely pretending, because Peter had such a jolly new way of feeding
+them? His way was to pursue birds who had food in their mouths suitable
+for humans and snatch it from them; then the birds would follow and
+snatch it back; and they would all go chasing each other gaily for
+miles, parting at last with mutual expressions of good-will. But Wendy
+noticed with gentle concern that Peter did not seem to know that this
+was rather an odd way of getting your bread and butter, nor even that
+there are other ways.
+
+Certainly they did not pretend to be sleepy, they were sleepy; and that
+was a danger, for the moment they popped off, down they fell. The awful
+thing was that Peter thought this funny.
+
+'There he goes again!' he would cry gleefully, as Michael suddenly
+dropped like a stone.
+
+'Save him, save him!' cried Wendy, looking with horror at the cruel sea
+far below. Eventually Peter would dive through the air, and catch
+Michael just before he could strike the sea, and it was lovely the way
+he did it; but he always waited till the last moment, and you felt it
+was his cleverness that interested him and not the saving of human life.
+Also he was fond of variety, and the sport that engrossed him one moment
+would suddenly cease to engage him, so there was always the possibility
+that the next time you fell he would let you go.
+
+He could sleep in the air without falling, by merely lying on his back
+and floating, but this was, partly at least, because he was so light
+that if you got behind him and blew he went faster.
+
+'Do be more polite to him,' Wendy whispered to John, when they were
+playing 'Follow my Leader.'
+
+'Then tell him to stop showing off,' said John.
+
+When playing Follow my Leader, Peter would fly close to the water and
+touch each shark's tail in passing, just as in the street you may run
+your finger along an iron railing. They could not follow him in this
+with much success, so perhaps it was rather like showing off, especially
+as he kept looking behind to see how many tails they missed.
+
+'You must be nice to him,' Wendy impressed on her brothers. 'What could
+we do if he were to leave us?'
+
+'We could go back,' Michael said.
+
+'How could we ever find our way back without him?'
+
+'Well, then, we could go on,' said John.
+
+'That is the awful thing, John. We should have to go on, for we don't
+know how to stop.'
+
+This was true; Peter had forgotten to show them how to stop.
+
+John said that if the worst came to the worst, all they had to do was to
+go straight on, for the world was round, and so in time they must come
+back to their own window.
+
+'And who is to get food for us, John?'
+
+'I nipped a bit out of that eagle's mouth pretty neatly, Wendy.'
+
+'After the twentieth try,' Wendy reminded him. 'And even though we
+became good at picking up food, see how we bump against clouds and
+things if he is not near to give us a hand.'
+
+Indeed they were constantly bumping. They could now fly strongly, though
+they still kicked far too much; but if they saw a cloud in front of
+them, the more they tried to avoid it, the more certainly did they bump
+into it. If Nana had been with them, she would have had a bandage round
+Michael's forehead by this time.
+
+Peter was not with them for the moment, and they felt rather lonely up
+there by themselves. He could go so much faster than they that he would
+suddenly shoot out of sight, to have some adventure in which they had no
+share. He would come down laughing over something fearfully funny he had
+been saying to a star, but he had already forgotten what it was, or he
+would come up with mermaid scales still sticking to him, and yet not be
+able to say for certain what had been happening. It was really rather
+irritating to children who had never seen a mermaid.
+
+'And if he forgets them, so quickly,' Wendy argued, 'how can we expect
+that he will go on remembering us?'
+
+Indeed, sometimes when he returned he did not remember them, at least
+not well. Wendy was sure of it. She saw recognition come into his eyes
+as he was about to pass them the time of day and go on; once even she
+had to tell him her name.
+
+'I'm Wendy,' she said agitatedly.
+
+He was very sorry. 'I say, Wendy,' he whispered to her, 'always if you
+see me forgetting you, just keep on saying "I'm Wendy," and then I'll
+remember.'
+
+Of course this was rather unsatisfactory. However, to make amends he
+showed them how to lie out flat on a strong wind that was going their
+way, and this was such a pleasant change that they tried it several
+times and found they could sleep thus with security. Indeed they would
+have slept longer, but Peter tired quickly of sleeping, and soon he
+would cry in his captain voice, 'We get off here.' So with occasional
+tiffs, but on the whole rollicking, they drew near the Neverland; for
+after many moons they did reach it, and, what is more, they had been
+going pretty straight all the time, not perhaps so much owing to the
+guidance of Peter or Tink as because the island was out looking for
+them. It is only thus that any one may sight those magic shores.
+
+'There it is,' said Peter calmly.
+
+'Where, where?'
+
+'Where all the arrows are pointing.'
+
+Indeed a million golden arrows were pointing out the island to the
+children, all directed by their friend the sun, who wanted them to be
+sure of their way before leaving them for the night.
+
+[Illustration: "LET HIM KEEP WHO CAN"]
+
+Wendy and John and Michael stood on tiptoe in the air to get their first
+sight of the island. Strange to say, they all recognised it at once, and
+until fear fell upon them they hailed it, not as something long dreamt
+of and seen at last, but as a familiar friend to whom they were
+returning home for the holidays.
+
+'John, there's the lagoon.'
+
+'Wendy, look at the turtles burying their eggs in the sand.'
+
+'I say, John, I see your flamingo with the broken leg.'
+
+'Look, Michael, there's your cave.'
+
+'John, what's that in the brushwood?'
+
+'It's a wolf with her whelps. Wendy, I do believe that's your little
+whelp.'
+
+'There's my boat, John, with her sides stove in.'
+
+'No, it isn't. Why, we burned your boat.'
+
+'That's her, at any rate. I say, John, I see the smoke of the redskin
+camp.'
+
+'Where? Show me, and I'll tell you by the way the smoke curls whether
+they are on the war-path.'
+
+'There, just across the Mysterious River.'
+
+'I see now. Yes, they are on the war-path right enough.'
+
+Peter was a little annoyed with them for knowing so much; but if he
+wanted to lord it over them his triumph was at hand, for have I not told
+you that anon fear fell upon them?
+
+It came as the arrows went, leaving the island in gloom.
+
+In the old days at home the Neverland had always begun to look a little
+dark and threatening by bedtime. Then unexplored patches arose in it and
+spread; black shadows moved about in them; the roar of the beasts of
+prey was quite different now, and above all, you lost the certainty that
+you would win. You were quite glad that the night-lights were in. You
+even liked Nana to say that this was just the mantelpiece over here, and
+that the Neverland was all make-believe.
+
+Of course the Neverland had been make-believe in those days; but it was
+real now, and there were no night-lights, and it was getting darker
+every moment, and where was Nana?
+
+They had been flying apart, but they huddled close to Peter now. His
+careless manner had gone at last, his eyes were sparkling, and a tingle
+went through them every time they touched his body. They were now over
+the fearsome island, flying so low that sometimes a tree grazed their
+feet. Nothing horrid was visible in the air, yet their progress had
+become slow and laboured, exactly as if they were pushing their way
+through hostile forces. Sometimes they hung in the air until Peter had
+beaten on it with his fists.
+
+'They don't want us to land,' he explained.
+
+'Who are they?' Wendy whispered, shuddering.
+
+But he could not or would not say. Tinker Bell had been asleep on his
+shoulder, but now he wakened her and sent her on in front.
+
+Sometimes he poised himself in the air, listening intently with his hand
+to his ear, and again he would stare down with eyes so bright that they
+seemed to bore two holes to earth. Having done these things, he went on
+again.
+
+His courage was almost appalling. 'Do you want an adventure now,' he
+said casually to John, 'or would you like to have your tea first?'
+
+Wendy said 'tea first' quickly, and Michael pressed her hand in
+gratitude, but the braver John hesitated.
+
+'What kind of adventure?' he asked cautiously.
+
+'There's a pirate asleep in the pampas just beneath us,' Peter told
+him. 'If you like, we'll go down and kill him.'
+
+'I don't see him,' John said after a long pause.
+
+'I do.'
+
+'Suppose,' John said a little huskily, 'he were to wake up.'
+
+Peter spoke indignantly. 'You don't think I would kill him while he was
+sleeping! I would wake him first, and then kill him. That's the way I
+always do.'
+
+'I say! Do you kill many?'
+
+'Tons.'
+
+John said 'how ripping,' but decided to have tea first. He asked if
+there were many pirates on the island just now, and Peter said he had
+never known so many.
+
+'Who is captain now?'
+
+'Hook,' answered Peter; and his face became very stern as he said that
+hated word.
+
+'Jas. Hook?'
+
+'Ay.'
+
+Then indeed Michael began to cry, and even John could speak in gulps
+only, for they knew Hook's reputation.
+
+'He was Blackbeard's bo'sun,' John whispered huskily. 'He is the worst
+of them all. He is the only man of whom Barbecue was afraid.'
+
+'That's him,' said Peter.
+
+'What is he like? Is he big?'
+
+'He is not so big as he was.'
+
+'How do you mean?'
+
+'I cut off a bit of him.'
+
+'You!'
+
+'Yes, me,' said Peter sharply.
+
+'I wasn't meaning to be disrespectful.'
+
+'Oh, all right'
+
+'But, I say, what bit?'
+
+'His right hand.'
+
+'Then he can't fight now?'
+
+'Oh, can't he just!'
+
+'Left-hander?'
+
+'He has an iron hook instead of a right hand, and he claws with it.'
+
+'Claws!'
+
+'I say, John,' said Peter.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Say, "Ay, ay, sir."'
+
+'Ay, ay, sir.'
+
+'There is one thing,' Peter continued, 'that every boy who serves under
+me has to promise, and so must you.'
+
+John paled.
+
+'It is this, if we meet Hook in open fight, you must leave him to me.'
+
+'I promise,' John said loyally.
+
+For the moment they were feeling less eerie, because Tink was flying
+with them, and in her light they could distinguish each other.
+Unfortunately she could not fly so slowly as they, and so she had to go
+round and round them in a circle in which they moved as in a halo. Wendy
+quite liked it, until Peter pointed out the drawback.
+
+'She tells me,' he said, 'that the pirates sighted us before the
+darkness came, and got Long Tom out.'
+
+'The big gun?'
+
+'Yes. And of course they must see her light, and if they guess we are
+near it they are sure to let fly.'
+
+'Wendy!'
+
+'John!'
+
+'Michael!'
+
+'Tell her to go away at once, Peter,' the three cried simultaneously,
+but he refused.
+
+'She thinks we have lost the way,' he replied stiffly, 'and she is
+rather frightened. You don't think I would send her away all by herself
+when she is frightened!'
+
+For a moment the circle of light was broken, and something gave Peter a
+loving little pinch.
+
+'Then tell her,' Wendy begged, 'to put out her light.'
+
+'She can't put it out. That is about the only thing fairies can't do. It
+just goes out of itself when she falls asleep, same as the stars.'
+
+'Then tell her to sleep at once,' John almost ordered.
+
+'She can't sleep except when she's sleepy. It is the only other thing
+fairies can't do.'
+
+'Seems to me,' growled John, 'these are the only two things worth
+doing.'
+
+Here he got a pinch, but not a loving one.
+
+'If only one of us had a pocket,' Peter said, 'we could carry her in
+it.' However, they had set off in such a hurry that there was not a
+pocket between the four of them.
+
+He had a happy idea. John's hat!
+
+Tink agreed to travel by hat if it was carried in the hand. John
+carried it, though she had hoped to be carried by Peter. Presently Wendy
+took the hat, because John said it struck against his knee as he flew;
+and this, as we shall see, led to mischief, for Tinker Bell hated to be
+under an obligation to Wendy.
+
+In the black topper the light was completely hidden, and they flew on in
+silence. It was the stillest silence they had ever known, broken once by
+a distant lapping, which Peter explained was the wild beasts drinking at
+the ford, and again by a rasping sound that might have been the branches
+of trees rubbing together, but he said it was the redskins sharpening
+their knives.
+
+Even these noises ceased. To Michael the loneliness was dreadful. 'If
+only something would make a sound!' he cried.
+
+As if in answer to his request, the air was rent by the most tremendous
+crash he had ever heard. The pirates had fired Long Tom at them.
+
+The roar of it echoed through the mountains, and the echoes seemed to
+cry savagely, 'Where are they, where are they, where are they?'
+
+Thus sharply did the terrified three learn the difference between an
+island of make-believe and the same island come true.
+
+When at last the heavens were steady again, John and Michael found
+themselves alone in the darkness. John was treading the air
+mechanically, and Michael without knowing how to float was floating.
+
+'Are you shot?' John whispered tremulously.
+
+'I haven't tried yet,' Michael whispered back.
+
+We know now that no one had been hit. Peter, however, had been carried
+by the wind of the shot far out to sea, while Wendy was blown upwards
+with no companion but Tinker Bell.
+
+It would have been well for Wendy if at that moment she had dropped the
+hat.
+
+I don't know whether the idea came suddenly to Tink, or whether she had
+planned it on the way, but she at once popped out of the hat and began
+to lure Wendy to her destruction.
+
+Tink was not all bad: or, rather, she was all bad just now, but, on the
+other hand, sometimes she was all good. Fairies have to be one thing or
+the other, because being so small they unfortunately have room for one
+feeling only at a time. They are, however, allowed to change, only it
+must be a complete change. At present she was full of jealousy of Wendy.
+What she said in her lovely tinkle Wendy could not of course understand,
+and I believe some of it was bad words, but it sounded kind, and she
+flew back and forward, plainly meaning 'Follow me, and all will be
+well.'
+
+What else could poor Wendy do? She called to Peter and John and Michael,
+and got only mocking echoes in reply. She did not yet know that Tink
+hated her with the fierce hatred of a very woman. And so, bewildered,
+and now staggering in her flight, she followed Tink to her doom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+THE ISLAND COME TRUE
+
+
+Feeling that Peter was on his way back, the Neverland had again woke
+into life. We ought to use the pluperfect and say wakened, but woke is
+better and was always used by Peter.
+
+In his absence things are usually quiet on the island. The fairies take
+an hour longer in the morning, the beasts attend to their young, the
+redskins feed heavily for six days and nights, and when pirates and lost
+boys meet they merely bite their thumbs at each other. But with the
+coming of Peter, who hates lethargy, they are all under way again: if
+you put your ear to the ground now, you would hear the whole island
+seething with life.
+
+On this evening the chief forces of the island were disposed as
+follows. The lost boys were out looking for Peter, the pirates were out
+looking for the lost boys, the redskins were out looking for the
+pirates, and the beasts were out looking for the redskins. They were
+going round and round the island, but they did not meet because all were
+going at the same rate.
+
+All wanted blood except the boys, who liked it as a rule, but to-night
+were out to greet their captain. The boys on the island vary, of course,
+in numbers, according as they get killed and so on; and when they seem
+to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out; but
+at this time there were six of them, counting the twins as two. Let us
+pretend to lie here among the sugar-cane and watch them as they steal by
+in single file, each with his hand on his dagger.
+
+They are forbidden by Peter to look in the least like him, and they wear
+the skins of bears slain by themselves, in which they are so round and
+furry that when they fall they roll. They have therefore become very
+sure-footed.
+
+The first to pass is Tootles, not the least brave but the most
+unfortunate of all that gallant band. He had been in fewer adventures
+than any of them, because the big things constantly happened just when
+he had stepped round the corner; all would be quiet, he would take the
+opportunity of going off to gather a few sticks for firewood, and then
+when he returned the others would be sweeping up the blood. This
+ill-luck had given a gentle melancholy to his countenance, but instead
+of souring his nature had sweetened it, so that he was quite the
+humblest of the boys. Poor kind Tootles, there is danger in the air for
+you to-night. Take care lest an adventure is now offered you, which, if
+accepted, will plunge you in deepest woe. Tootles, the fairy Tink who is
+bent on mischief this night is looking for a tool, and she thinks you
+the most easily tricked of the boys. 'Ware Tinker Bell.
+
+Would that he could hear us, but we are not really on the island, and he
+passes by, biting his knuckles.
+
+Next comes Nibs, the gay and debonair, followed by Slightly, who cuts
+whistles out of the trees and dances ecstatically to his own tunes.
+Slightly is the most conceited of the boys. He thinks he remembers the
+days before he was lost, with their manners and customs, and this has
+given his nose an offensive tilt. Curly is fourth; he is a pickle, and
+so often has he had to deliver up his person when Peter said sternly,
+'Stand forth the one who did this thing,' that now at the command he
+stands forth automatically whether he has done it or not. Last come the
+Twins, who cannot be described because we should be sure to be
+describing the wrong one. Peter never quite knew what twins were, and
+his band were not allowed to know anything he did not know, so these two
+were always vague about themselves, and did their best to give
+satisfaction by keeping close together in an apologetic sort of way.
+
+The boys vanish in the gloom, and after a pause, but not a long pause,
+for things go briskly on the island, come the pirates on their track. We
+hear them before they are seen, and it is always the same dreadful song:
+
+
+     'Avast belay, yo ho, heave to,
+       A-pirating we go,
+     And if we're parted by a shot
+       We're sure to meet below!'
+
+
+A more villainous-looking lot never hung in a row on Execution dock.
+Here, a little in advance, ever and again with his head to the ground
+listening, his great arms bare, pieces of eight in his ears as
+ornaments, is the handsome Italian Cecco, who cut his name in letters of
+blood on the back of the governor of the prison at Gao. That gigantic
+black behind him has had many names since he dropped the one with which
+dusky mothers still terrify their children on the banks of the
+Guadjo-mo. Here is Bill Jukes, every inch of him tattooed, the same Bill
+Jukes who got six dozen on the _Walrus_ from Flint before he would drop
+the bag of moidores; and Cookson, said to be Black Murphy's brother (but
+this was never proved); and Gentleman Starkey, once an usher in a public
+school and still dainty in his ways of killing; and Skylights (Morgan's
+Skylights); and the Irish bo'sun Smee, an oddly genial man who stabbed,
+so to speak, without offence, and was the only Nonconformist in Hook's
+crew; and Noodler, whose hands were fixed on backwards; and Robt.
+Mullins and Alf Mason and many another ruffian long known and feared on
+the Spanish Main.
+
+In the midst of them, the blackest and largest jewel in that dark
+setting, reclined James Hook, or as he wrote himself, Jas. Hook, of whom
+it is said he was the only man that the Sea-Cook feared. He lay at his
+ease in a rough chariot drawn and propelled by his men, and instead of a
+right hand he had the iron hook with which ever and anon he encouraged
+them to increase their pace. As dogs this terrible man treated and
+addressed them, and as dogs they obeyed him. In person he was cadaverous
+and blackavized, and his hair was dressed in long curls, which at a
+little distance looked like black candles, and gave a singularly
+threatening expression to his handsome countenance. His eyes were of the
+blue of the forget-me-not, and of a profound melancholy, save when he
+was plunging his hook into you, at which time two red spots appeared in
+them and lit them up horribly. In manner, something of the grand
+seigneur still clung to him, so that he even ripped you up with an air,
+and I have been told that he was a _raconteur_ of repute. He was never
+more sinister than when he was most polite, which is probably the truest
+test of breeding; and the elegance of his diction, even when he was
+swearing, no less than the distinction of his demeanour, showed him one
+of a different caste from his crew. A man of indomitable courage, it was
+said of him that the only thing he shied at was the sight of his own
+blood, which was thick and of an unusual colour. In dress he somewhat
+aped the attire associated with the name of Charles II., having heard it
+said in some earlier period of his career that he bore a strange
+resemblance to the ill-fated Stuarts; and in his mouth he had a holder
+of his own contrivance which enabled him to smoke two cigars at once.
+But undoubtedly the grimmest part of him was his iron claw.
+
+Let us now kill a pirate, to show Hook's method. Skylights will do. As
+they pass, Skylights lurches clumsily against him, ruffling his lace
+collar; the hook shoots forth, there is a tearing sound and one screech,
+then the body is kicked aside, and the pirates pass on. He has not even
+taken the cigars from his mouth.
+
+Such is the terrible man against whom Peter Pan is pitted. Which will
+win?
+
+On the trail of the pirates, stealing noiselessly down the war-path,
+which is not visible to inexperienced eyes, come the redskins, every
+one of them with his eyes peeled. They carry tomahawks and knives, and
+their naked bodies gleam with paint and oil. Strung around them are
+scalps, of boys as well as of pirates, for these are the Piccaninny
+tribe, and not to be confused with the softer-hearted Delawares or the
+Hurons. In the van, on all fours, is Great Big Little Panther, a brave
+of so many scalps that in his present position they somewhat impede his
+progress. Bringing up the rear, the place of greatest danger, comes
+Tiger Lily, proudly erect, a princess in her own right. She is the most
+beautiful of dusky Dianas and the belle of the Piccaninnies, coquettish,
+cold and amorous by turns; there is not a brave who would not have the
+wayward thing to wife, but she staves off the altar with a hatchet.
+Observe how they pass over fallen twigs without making the slightest
+noise. The only sound to be heard is their somewhat heavy breathing. The
+fact is that they are all a little fat just now after the heavy gorging,
+but in time they will work this off. For the moment, however, it
+constitutes their chief danger.
+
+The redskins disappear as they have come like shadows, and soon their
+place is taken by the beasts, a great and motley procession: lions,
+tigers, bears, and the innumerable smaller savage things that flee from
+them, for every kind of beast, and, more particularly; all the
+man-eaters, live cheek by jowl on the favoured island. Their tongues are
+hanging out, they are hungry to-night.
+
+When they have passed, comes the last figure of all, a gigantic
+crocodile. We shall see for whom she is looking presently.
+
+The crocodile passes, but soon the boys appear again, for the procession
+must continue indefinitely until one of the parties stops or changes its
+pace. Then quickly they will be on top of each other.
+
+All are keeping a sharp look-out in front, but none suspects that the
+danger may be creeping up from behind. This shows how real the island
+was.
+
+The first to fall out of the moving circle was the boys. They flung
+themselves down on the sward, close to their underground home.
+
+'I do wish Peter would come back,' every one of them said nervously,
+though in height and still more in breadth they were all larger than
+their captain.
+
+'I am the only one who is not afraid of the pirates,' Slightly said, in
+the tone that prevented his being a general favourite; but perhaps some
+distant sound disturbed him, for he added hastily, 'but I wish he would
+come back, and tell us whether he has heard anything more about
+Cinderella.'
+
+They talked of Cinderella, and Tootles was confident that his mother
+must have been very like her.
+
+It was only in Peter's absence that they could speak of mothers, the
+subject being forbidden by him as silly.
+
+'All I remember about my mother,' Nibs told them, 'is that she often
+said to father, "Oh, how I wish I had a cheque-book of my own." I don't
+know what a cheque-book is, but I should just love to give my mother
+one.'
+
+While they talked they heard a distant sound. You or I, not being wild
+things of the woods, would have heard nothing, but they heard it, and it
+was the grim song:
+
+
+     'Yo ho, yo ho, the pirate life,
+       The flag o' skull and bones,
+     A merry hour, a hempen rope,
+       And hey for Davy Jones.'
+
+
+At once the lost boys--but where are they? They are no longer there.
+Rabbits could not have disappeared more quickly.
+
+I will tell you where they are. With the exception of Nibs, who has
+darted away to reconnoitre, they are already in their home under the
+ground, a very delightful residence of which we shall see a good deal
+presently. But how have they reached it? for there is no entrance to be
+seen, not so much as a pile of brushwood, which if removed would
+disclose the mouth of a cave. Look closely, however, and you may note
+that there are here seven large trees, each having in its hollow trunk a
+hole as large as a boy. These are the seven entrances to the home under
+the ground, for which Hook has been searching in vain these many moons.
+Will he find it to-night?
+
+As the pirates advanced, the quick eye of Starkey sighted Nibs
+disappearing through the wood, and at once his pistol flashed out. But
+an iron claw gripped his shoulder.
+
+'Captain, let go,' he cried, writhing.
+
+Now for the first time we hear the voice of Hook. It was a black voice.
+'Put back that pistol first,' it said threateningly.
+
+'It was one of those boys you hate. I could have shot him dead.'
+
+'Ay, and the sound would have brought Tiger Lily's redskins upon us. Do
+you want to lose your scalp?'
+
+'Shall I after him, captain,' asked pathetic Smee, 'and tickle him with
+Johnny Corkscrew?' Smee had pleasant names for everything, and his
+cutlass was Johnny Corkscrew, because he wriggled it in the wound. One
+could mention many lovable traits in Smee. For instance, after killing,
+it was his spectacles he wiped instead of his weapon.
+
+'Johnny's a silent fellow,' he reminded Hook.
+
+'Not now, Smee,' Hook said darkly. 'He is only one, and I want to
+mischief all the seven. Scatter and look for them.'
+
+The pirates disappeared among the trees, and in a moment their captain
+and Smee were alone. Hook heaved a heavy sigh; and I know not why it
+was, perhaps it was because of the soft beauty of the evening, but
+there came over him a desire to confide to his faithful bo'sun the story
+of his life. He spoke long and earnestly, but what it was all about
+Smee, who was rather stupid, did not know in the least.
+
+Anon he caught the word Peter.
+
+'Most of all,' Hook was saying passionately, 'I want their captain,
+Peter Pan. 'Twas he cut off my arm.' He brandished the hook
+threateningly. 'I've waited long to shake his hand with this. Oh, I'll
+tear him.'
+
+'And yet,' said Smee, 'I have often heard you say that hook was worth a
+score of hands, for combing the hair and other homely uses.'
+
+'Ay,' the captain answered, 'if I was a mother I would pray to have my
+children born with this instead of that,' and he cast a look of pride
+upon his iron hand and one of scorn upon the other. Then again he
+frowned.
+
+'Peter flung my arm,' he said, wincing, 'to a crocodile that happened to
+be passing by.'
+
+'I have often,' said Smee, 'noticed your strange dread of crocodiles.'
+
+'Not of crocodiles,' Hook corrected him, 'but of that one crocodile.' He
+lowered his voice. 'It liked my arm so much, Smee, that it has followed
+me ever since, from sea to sea and from land to land, licking its lips
+for the rest of me.'
+
+'In a way,' said Smee, 'it's a sort of compliment.'
+
+'I want no such compliments,' Hook barked petulantly. 'I want Peter Pan,
+who first gave the brute its taste for me.'
+
+He sat down on a large mushroom, and now there was a quiver in his
+voice. 'Smee,' he said huskily, 'that crocodile would have had me before
+this, but by a lucky chance it swallowed a clock which goes tick tick
+inside it, and so before it can reach me I hear the tick and bolt.' He
+laughed, but in a hollow way.
+
+'Some day,' said Smee, 'the clock will run down, and then he'll get
+you.'
+
+Hook wetted his dry lips. 'Ay,' he said, 'that's the fear that haunts
+me.'
+
+Since sitting down he had felt curiously warm. 'Smee,' he said, 'this
+seat is hot.' He jumped up. 'Odds bobs, hammer and tongs I'm burning.'
+
+They examined the mushroom, which was of a size and solidity unknown on
+the mainland; they tried to pull it up, and it came away at once in
+their hands, for it had no root. Stranger still, smoke began at once to
+ascend. The pirates looked at each other. 'A chimney!' they both
+exclaimed.
+
+They had indeed discovered the chimney of the home under the ground. It
+was the custom of the boys to stop it with a mushroom when enemies were
+in the neighbourhood.
+
+Not only smoke came out of it. There came also children's voices, for so
+safe did the boys feel in their hiding-place that they were gaily
+chattering. The pirates listened grimly, and then replaced the mushroom.
+They looked around them and noted the holes in the seven trees.
+
+'Did you hear them say Peter Pan's from home?' Smee whispered, fidgeting
+with Johnny Corkscrew.
+
+Hook nodded. He stood for a long time lost in thought, and at last a
+curdling smile lit up his swarthy face. Smee had been waiting for it.
+'Unrip your plan, captain,' he cried eagerly.
+
+'To return to the ship,' Hook replied slowly through his teeth, 'and
+cook a large rich cake of a jolly thickness with green sugar on it.
+There can be but one room below, for there is but one chimney. The silly
+moles had not the sense to see that they did not need a door apiece.
+That shows they have no mother. We will leave the cake on the shore of
+the mermaids' lagoon. These boys are always swimming about there,
+playing with the mermaids. They will find the cake and they will gobble
+it up, because, having no mother, they don't know how dangerous 'tis to
+eat rich damp cake.' He burst into laughter, not hollow laughter now,
+but honest laughter. 'Aha, they will die.'
+
+Smee had listened with growing admiration.
+
+'It's the wickedest, prettiest policy ever I heard of,' he cried, and in
+their exultation they danced and sang:
+
+
+     'Avast, belay, when I appear,
+       By fear they're overtook;
+     Nought's left upon your bones when you
+       Have shaken claws with Cook.'
+
+
+They began the verse, but they never finished it, for another sound
+broke in and stilled them. It was at first such a tiny sound that a leaf
+might have fallen on it and smothered it, but as it came nearer it was
+more distinct.
+
+Tick tick tick tick.
+
+Hook stood shuddering, one foot in the air.
+
+'The crocodile,' he gasped, and bounded away, followed by his bo'sun.
+
+It was indeed the crocodile. It had passed the redskins, who were now on
+the trail of the other pirates. It oozed on after Hook.
+
+Once more the boys emerged into the open; but the dangers of the night
+were not yet over, for presently Nibs rushed breathless into their
+midst, pursued by a pack of wolves. The tongues of the pursuers were
+hanging out; the baying of them was horrible.
+
+'Save me, save me!' cried Nibs, falling on the ground.
+
+'But what can we do, what can we do?'
+
+It was a high compliment to Peter that at that dire moment their
+thoughts turned to him.
+
+'What would Peter do?' they cried simultaneously.
+
+Almost in the same breath they added, 'Peter would look at them through
+his legs.'
+
+And then, 'Let us do what Peter would do.'
+
+It is quite the most successful way of defying wolves, and as one boy
+they bent and looked through their legs. The next moment is the long
+one; but victory came quickly, for as the boys advanced upon them in
+this terrible attitude, the wolves dropped their tails and fled.
+
+Now Nibs rose from the ground, and the others thought that his staring
+eyes still saw the wolves. But it was not wolves he saw.
+
+'I have seen a wonderfuller thing,' he cried, as they gathered round him
+eagerly. 'A great white bird. It is flying this way.'
+
+'What kind of a bird, do you think?'
+
+'I don't know,' Nibs said, awestruck, 'but it looks so weary, and as it
+flies it moans, "Poor Wendy."'
+
+'Poor Wendy?'
+
+'I remember,' said Slightly instantly, 'there are birds called Wendies.'
+
+'See, it comes,' cried Curly, pointing to Wendy in the heavens.
+
+Wendy was now almost overhead, and they could hear her plaintive cry.
+But more distinct came the shrill voice of Tinker Bell. The jealous
+fairy had now cast off all disguise of friendship, and was darting at
+her victim from every direction, pinching savagely each time she
+touched.
+
+'Hullo, Tink,' cried the wondering boys.
+
+Tink's reply rang out: 'Peter wants you to shoot the Wendy.'
+
+It was not in their nature to question when Peter ordered. 'Let us do
+what Peter wishes,' cried the simple boys. 'Quick, bows and arrows.'
+
+All but Tootles popped down their trees. He had a bow and arrow with
+him, and Tink noted it, and rubbed her little hands.
+
+'Quick, Tootles, quick,' she screamed. 'Peter will be so pleased.'
+
+Tootles excitedly fitted the arrow to his bow. 'Out of the way, Tink,'
+he shouted; and then he fired, and Wendy fluttered to the ground with an
+arrow in her breast.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+THE LITTLE HOUSE
+
+
+Foolish Tootles was standing like a conqueror over Wendy's body when the
+other boys sprang, armed, from their trees.
+
+'You are too late,' he cried proudly, 'I have shot the Wendy. Peter will
+be so pleased with me.'
+
+Overhead Tinker Bell shouted 'Silly ass!' and darted into hiding. The
+others did not hear her. They had crowded round Wendy, and as they
+looked a terrible silence fell upon the wood. If Wendy's heart had been
+beating they would all have heard it.
+
+Slightly was the first to speak. 'This is no bird,' he said in a scared
+voice. 'I think it must be a lady.'
+
+'A lady?' said Tootles, and fell a-trembling.
+
+'And we have killed her,' Nibs said hoarsely.
+
+They all whipped off their caps.
+
+'Now I see,' Curly said; 'Peter was bringing her to us.' He threw
+himself sorrowfully on the ground.
+
+'A lady to take care of us at last,' said one of the twins, 'and you
+have killed her.'
+
+They were sorry for him, but sorrier for themselves, and when he took a
+step nearer them they turned from him.
+
+Tootles' face was very white, but there was a dignity about him now that
+had never been there before.
+
+'I did it,' he said, reflecting. 'When ladies used to come to me in
+dreams, I said, "Pretty mother, pretty mother." But when at last she
+really came, I shot her.'
+
+He moved slowly away.
+
+'Don't go,' they called in pity.
+
+'I must,' he answered, shaking; 'I am so afraid of Peter.'
+
+It was at this tragic moment that they heard a sound which made the
+heart of every one of them rise to his mouth. They heard Peter crow.
+
+'Peter!' they cried, for it was always thus that he signalled his
+return.
+
+'Hide her,' they whispered, and gathered hastily around Wendy. But
+Tootles stood aloof.
+
+Again came that ringing crow, and Peter dropped in front of them.
+'Greeting, boys,' he cried, and mechanically they saluted, and then
+again was silence.
+
+He frowned.
+
+'I am back,' he said hotly, 'why do you not cheer?'
+
+They opened their mouths, but the cheers would not come. He overlooked
+it in his haste to tell the glorious tidings.
+
+'Great news, boys,' he cried, 'I have brought at last a mother for you
+all.'
+
+Still no sound, except a little thud from Tootles as he dropped on his
+knees.
+
+'Have you not seen her?' asked Peter, becoming troubled. 'She flew this
+way.'
+
+'Ah me,' one voice said, and another said, 'Oh, mournful day.'
+
+Tootles rose. 'Peter,' he said quietly, 'I will show her to you'; and
+when the others would still have hidden her he said, 'Back, twins, let
+Peter see.'
+
+So they all stood back, and let him see, and after he had looked for a
+little time he did not know what to do next.
+
+'She is dead,' he said uncomfortably. 'Perhaps she is frightened at
+being dead.'
+
+He thought of hopping off in a comic sort of way till he was out of
+sight of her, and then never going near the spot any more. They would
+all have been glad to follow if he had done this.
+
+But there was the arrow. He took it from her heart and faced his band.
+
+'Whose arrow?' he demanded sternly.
+
+'Mine, Peter,' said Tootles on his knees.
+
+'Oh, dastard hand,' Peter said, and he raised the arrow to use it as a
+dagger.
+
+Tootles did not flinch. He bared his breast.
+
+'Strike, Peter,' he said firmly, 'strike true.'
+
+Twice did Peter raise the arrow, and twice did his hand fall. 'I cannot
+strike,' he said with awe, 'there is something stays my hand.'
+
+All looked at him in wonder, save Nibs, who fortunately looked at Wendy.
+
+'It is she,' he cried, 'the Wendy lady; see, her arm.'
+
+Wonderful to relate, Wendy had raised her arm. Nibs bent over her and
+listened reverently. 'I think she said "Poor Tootles,"' he whispered.
+
+'She lives,' Peter said briefly.
+
+Slightly cried instantly, 'The Wendy lady lives.'
+
+Then Peter knelt beside her and found his button. You remember she had
+put it on a chain that she wore round her neck.
+
+'See,' he said, 'the arrow struck against this. It is the kiss I gave
+her. It has saved her life.'
+
+'I remember kisses,' Slightly interposed quickly, 'let me see it. Ay,
+that's a kiss.'
+
+Peter did not hear him. He was begging Wendy to get better quickly, so
+that he could show her the mermaids. Of course she could not answer yet,
+being still in a frightful faint; but from overhead came a wailing note.
+
+'Listen to Tink,' said Curly, 'she is crying because the Wendy lives.'
+
+Then they had to tell Peter of Tink's crime, and almost never had they
+seen him look so stern.
+
+'Listen, Tinker Bell,' he cried; 'I am your friend no more. Begone from
+me for ever.'
+
+She flew on to his shoulder and pleaded, but he brushed her off. Not
+until Wendy again raised her arm did he relent sufficiently to say,
+'Well, not for ever, but for a whole week.'
+
+Do you think Tinker Bell was grateful to Wendy for raising her arm? Oh
+dear no, never wanted to pinch her so much. Fairies indeed are strange,
+and Peter, who understood them best, often cuffed them.
+
+But what to do with Wendy in her present delicate state of health?
+
+'Let us carry her down into the house,' Curly suggested.
+
+'Ay,' said Slightly, 'that is what one does with ladies.'
+
+'No, no,' Peter said, 'you must not touch her. It would not be
+sufficiently respectful.'
+
+'That,' said Slightly, 'is what I was thinking.'
+
+'But if she lies there,' Tootles said, 'she will die.'
+
+'Ay, she will die,' Slightly admitted, 'but there is no way out.'
+
+'Yes, there is,' cried Peter. 'Let us build a little house round her.'
+
+They were all delighted. 'Quick,' he ordered them, 'bring me each of you
+the best of what we have. Gut our house. Be sharp.'
+
+In a moment they were as busy as tailors the night before a wedding.
+They skurried this way and that, down for bedding, up for firewood, and
+while they were at it, who should appear but John and Michael. As they
+dragged along the ground they fell asleep standing, stopped, woke up,
+moved another step and slept again.
+
+'John, John,' Michael would cry, 'wake up. Where is Nana, John, and
+mother?'
+
+And then John would rub his eyes and mutter, 'It is true, we did fly.'
+
+You may be sure they were very relieved to find Peter.
+
+'Hullo, Peter,' they said.
+
+'Hullo,' replied Peter amicably, though he had quite forgotten them. He
+was very busy at the moment measuring Wendy with his feet to see how
+large a house she would need. Of course he meant to leave room for
+chairs and a table. John and Michael watched him.
+
+'Is Wendy asleep?' they asked.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'John,' Michael proposed, 'let us wake her and get her to make supper
+for us'; but as he said it some of the other boys rushed on carrying
+branches for the building of the house.
+
+'Look at them!' he cried.
+
+'Curly,' said Peter in his most captainy voice, 'see that these boys
+help in the building of the house.'
+
+'Ay, ay, sir.'
+
+'Build a house?' exclaimed John.
+
+'For the Wendy,' said Curly.
+
+'For Wendy?' John said, aghast. 'Why, she is only a girl.'
+
+'That,' explained Curly, 'is why we are her servants.'
+
+'You? Wendy's servants!'
+
+'Yes,' said Peter, 'and you also. Away with them.'
+
+The astounded brothers were dragged away to hack and hew and carry.
+'Chairs and a fender first,' Peter ordered. 'Then we shall build the
+house round them.'
+
+'Ay,' said Slightly, 'that is how a house is built; it all comes back to
+me.'
+
+Peter thought of everything. 'Slightly,' he ordered, 'fetch a doctor.'
+
+'Ay, ay,' said Slightly at once, and disappeared, scratching his head.
+But he knew Peter must be obeyed, and he returned in a moment, wearing
+John's hat and looking solemn.
+
+'Please, sir,' said Peter, going to him, 'are you a doctor?'
+
+The difference between him and the other boys at such a time was that
+they knew it was make-believe, while to him make-believe and true were
+exactly the same thing. This sometimes troubled them, as when they had
+to make-believe that they had had their dinners.
+
+If they broke down in their make-believe he rapped them on the knuckles.
+
+'Yes, my little man,' anxiously replied Slightly, who had chapped
+knuckles.
+
+'Please, sir,' Peter explained, 'a lady lies very ill.'
+
+She was lying at their feet, but Slightly had the sense not to see her.
+
+'Tut, tut, tut,' he said, 'where does she lie?'
+
+'In yonder glade.'
+
+'I will put a glass thing in her mouth,' said Slightly; and he
+made-believe to do it, while Peter waited. It was an anxious moment when
+the glass thing was withdrawn.
+
+'How is she?' inquired Peter.
+
+'Tut, tut, tut,' said Slightly, 'this has cured her.'
+
+'I am glad,' Peter cried.
+
+'I will call again in the evening,' Slightly said; 'give her beef tea
+out of a cup with a spout to it'; but after he had returned the hat to
+John he blew big breaths, which was his habit on escaping from a
+difficulty.
+
+In the meantime the wood had been alive with the sound of axes; almost
+everything needed for a cosy dwelling already lay at Wendy's feet.
+
+'If only we knew,' said one, 'the kind of house she likes best.'
+
+'Peter,' shouted another, 'she is moving in her sleep.'
+
+'Her mouth opens,' cried a third, looking respectfully into it. 'Oh,
+lovely!'
+
+'Perhaps she is going to sing in her sleep,' said Peter. 'Wendy, sing
+the kind of house you would like to have.'
+
+Immediately, without opening her eyes, Wendy began to sing:
+
+
+     'I wish I had a pretty house,
+       The littlest ever seen,
+     With funny little red walls
+       And roof of mossy green.'
+
+
+They gurgled with joy at this, for by the greatest good luck the
+branches they had brought were sticky with red sap, and all the ground
+was carpeted with moss. As they rattled up the little house they broke
+into song themselves:
+
+
+     'We've built the little walls and roof
+       And made a lovely door,
+     So tell us, mother Wendy,
+       What are you wanting more?'
+
+
+To this she answered rather greedily:
+
+
+     'Oh, really next I think I'll have
+       Gay windows all about,
+     With roses peeping in, you know,
+       And babies peeping out.'
+
+
+With a blow of their fists they made windows, and large yellow leaves
+were the blinds. But roses----?
+
+'Roses,' cried Peter sternly.
+
+Quickly they made-believe to grow the loveliest roses up the walls.
+
+Babies?
+
+To prevent Peter ordering babies they hurried into song again:
+
+
+     'We've made the roses peeping out,
+       The babes are at the door,
+     We cannot make ourselves, you know,
+       'Cos we've been made before.'
+
+
+Peter, seeing this to be a good idea, at once pretended that it was his
+own. The house was quite beautiful, and no doubt Wendy was very cosy
+within, though, of course, they could no longer see her. Peter strode up
+and down, ordering finishing touches. Nothing escaped his eagle eye.
+Just when it seemed absolutely finished,
+
+'There's no knocker on the door,' he said.
+
+They were very ashamed, but Tootles gave the sole of his shoe, and it
+made an excellent knocker.
+
+Absolutely finished now, they thought.
+
+Not a bit of it. 'There's no chimney,' Peter said; 'we must have a
+chimney.'
+
+'It certainly does need a chimney,' said John importantly. This gave
+Peter an idea. He snatched the hat off John's head, knocked out the
+bottom, and put the hat on the roof. The little house was so pleased to
+have such a capital chimney that, as if to say thank you, smoke
+immediately began to come out of the hat.
+
+Now really and truly it was finished. Nothing remained to do but to
+knock.
+
+'All look your best,' Peter warned them; 'first impressions are awfully
+important.'
+
+He was glad no one asked him what first impressions are; they were all
+too busy looking their best.
+
+He knocked politely; and now the wood was as still as the children, not
+a sound to be heard except from Tinker Bell, who was watching from a
+branch and openly sneering.
+
+What the boys were wondering was, would any one answer the knock? If a
+lady, what would she be like?
+
+The door opened and a lady came out. It was Wendy. They all whipped off
+their hats.
+
+She looked properly surprised, and this was just how they had hoped she
+would look.
+
+'Where am I?' she said.
+
+Of course Slightly was the first to get his word in. 'Wendy lady,' he
+said rapidly, 'for you we built this house.'
+
+'Oh, say you're pleased,' cried Nibs.
+
+'Lovely, darling house,' Wendy said, and they were the very words they
+had hoped she would say.
+
+'And we are your children,' cried the twins.
+
+Then all went on their knees, and holding out their arms cried, 'O Wendy
+lady, be our mother.'
+
+'Ought I?' Wendy said, all shining. 'Of course it's frightfully
+fascinating, but you see I am only a little girl. I have no real
+experience.'
+
+'That doesn't matter,' said Peter, as if he were the only person present
+who knew all about it, though he was really the one who knew least.
+'What we need is just a nice motherly person.'
+
+'Oh dear!' Wendy said, 'you see I feel that is exactly what I am.'
+
+'It is, it is,' they all cried; 'we saw it at once.'
+
+'Very well,' she said, 'I will do my best. Come inside at once, you
+naughty children; I am sure your feet are damp. And before I put you to
+bed I have just time to finish the story of Cinderella.'
+
+In they went; I don't know how there was room for them, but you can
+squeeze very tight in the Neverland. And that was the first of the many
+joyous evenings they had with Wendy. By and by she tucked them up in the
+great bed in the home under the trees, but she herself slept that night
+in the little house, and Peter kept watch outside with drawn sword, for
+the pirates could be heard carousing far away and the wolves were on the
+prowl. The little house looked so cosy and safe in the darkness, with a
+bright light showing through its blinds, and the chimney smoking
+beautifully, and Peter standing on guard. After a time he fell asleep,
+and some unsteady fairies had to climb over him on their way home from
+an orgy. Any of the other boys obstructing the fairy path at night they
+would have mischiefed, but they just tweaked Peter's nose and passed on.
+
+[Illustration: PETER ON GUARD]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+THE HOME UNDER THE GROUND
+
+
+One of the first things Peter did next day was to measure Wendy and John
+and Michael for hollow trees. Hook, you remember, had sneered at the
+boys for thinking they needed a tree apiece, but this was ignorance, for
+unless your tree fitted you it was difficult to go up and down, and no
+two of the boys were quite the same size. Once you fitted, you drew in
+your breath at the top, and down you went at exactly the right speed,
+while to ascend you drew in and let out alternately, and so wriggled up.
+Of course, when you have mastered the action you are able to do these
+things without thinking of them, and then nothing can be more graceful.
+
+But you simply must fit, and Peter measures you for your tree as
+carefully as for a suit of clothes: the only difference being that the
+clothes are made to fit you, while you have to be made to fit the tree.
+Usually it is done quite easily, as by your wearing too many garments or
+too few; but if you are bumpy in awkward places or the only available
+tree is an odd shape, Peter does some things to you, and after that you
+fit. Once you fit, great care must be taken to go on fitting, and this,
+as Wendy was to discover to her delight, keeps a whole family in perfect
+condition.
+
+Wendy and Michael fitted their trees at the first try, but John had to
+be altered a little.
+
+After a few days' practice they could go up and down as gaily as buckets
+in a well. And how ardently they grew to love their home under the
+ground; especially Wendy. It consisted of one large room, as all houses
+should do, with a floor in which you could dig if you wanted to go
+fishing, and in this floor grew stout mushrooms of a charming colour,
+which were used as stools. A Never tree tried hard to grow in the centre
+of the room, but every morning they sawed the trunk through, level with
+the floor. By tea-time it was always about two feet high, and then they
+put a door on top of it, the whole thus becoming a table; as soon as
+they cleared away, they sawed off the trunk again, and thus there was
+more room to play. There was an enormous fireplace which was in almost
+any part of the room where you cared to light it, and across this Wendy
+stretched strings, made of fibre, from which she suspended her washing.
+The bed was tilted against the wall by day, and let down at 6.30, when
+it filled nearly half the room; and all the boys except Michael slept in
+it, lying like sardines in a tin. There was a strict rule against
+turning round until one gave the signal, when all turned at once.
+Michael should have used it also; but Wendy would have a baby, and he
+was the littlest, and you know what women are, and the short and the
+long of it is that he was hung up in a basket.
+
+It was rough and simple, and not unlike what baby bears would have made
+of an underground house in the same circumstances. But there was one
+recess in the wall, no larger than a bird-cage, which was the private
+apartment of Tinker Bell. It could be shut off from the rest of the
+home by a tiny curtain, which Tink, who was most fastidious, always kept
+drawn when dressing or undressing. No woman, however large, could have
+had a more exquisite boudoir and bedchamber combined. The couch, as she
+always called it, was a genuine Queen Mab, with club legs; and she
+varied the bedspreads according to what fruit-blossom was in season. Her
+mirror was a Puss-in-boots, of which there are now only three,
+unchipped, known to the fairy dealers; the wash-stand was Pie-crust and
+reversible, the chest of drawers an authentic Charming the Sixth, and
+the carpet and rugs of the best (the early) period of Margery and Robin.
+There was a chandelier from Tiddly winks for the look of the thing, but
+of course she lit the residence herself. Tink was very contemptuous of
+the rest of the house, as indeed was perhaps inevitable; and her
+chamber, though beautiful, looked rather conceited, having the
+appearance of a nose permanently turned up.
+
+I suppose it was all especially entrancing to Wendy, because those
+rampagious boys of hers gave her so much to do. Really there were whole
+weeks when, except perhaps with a stocking in the evening, she was never
+above ground. The cooking, I can tell you, kept her nose to the pot.
+Their chief food was roasted breadfruit, yams, cocoa-nuts, baked pig,
+mammee-apples, tappa rolls and bananas, washed down with calabashes of
+poe-poe; but you never exactly knew whether there would be a real meal
+or just a make-believe, it all depended upon Peter's whim. He could eat,
+really eat, if it was part of a game, but he could not stodge just to
+feel stodgy, which is what most children like better than anything else;
+the next best thing being to talk about it. Make-believe was so real to
+him that during a meal of it you could see him getting rounder. Of
+course it was trying, but you simply had to follow his lead, and if you
+could prove to him that you were getting loose for your tree he let you
+stodge.
+
+Wendy's favourite time for sewing and darning was after they had all
+gone to bed. Then, as she expressed it, she had a breathing time for
+herself; and she occupied it in making new things for them, and putting
+double pieces on the knees, for they were all most frightfully hard on
+their knees.
+
+When she sat down to a basketful of their stockings, every heel with a
+hole in it, she would fling up her arms and exclaim, 'Oh dear, I am sure
+I sometimes think spinsters are to be envied.'
+
+Her face beamed when she exclaimed this.
+
+You remember about her pet wolf. Well, it very soon discovered that she
+had come to the island and it found her out, and they just ran into each
+other's arms. After that it followed her about everywhere.
+
+As time wore on did she think much about the beloved parents she had
+left behind her? This is a difficult question, because it is quite
+impossible to say how time does wear on in the Neverland, where it is
+calculated by moons and suns, and there are ever so many more of them
+than on the mainland. But I am afraid that Wendy did not really worry
+about her father and mother; she was absolutely confident that they
+would always keep the window open for her to fly back by, and this gave
+her complete ease of mind. What did disturb her at times was that John
+remembered his parents vaguely only, as people he had once known, while
+Michael was quite willing to believe that she was really his mother.
+These things scared her a little, and nobly anxious to do her duty, she
+tried to fix the old life in their minds by setting them examination
+papers on it, as like as possible to the ones she used to do at school.
+The other boys thought this awfully interesting, and insisted on
+joining, and they made slates for themselves, and sat round the table,
+writing and thinking hard about the questions she had written on another
+slate and passed round. They were the most ordinary questions--'What was
+the colour of Mother's eyes? Which was taller, Father or Mother? Was
+Mother blonde or brunette? Answer all three questions if possible.' '(A)
+Write an essay of not less than 40 words on How I spent my last
+Holidays, or The Caracters of Father and Mother compared. Only one of
+these to be attempted.' Or '(1) Describe Mother's laugh; (2) Describe
+Father's laugh; (3) Describe Mother's Party Dress; (4) Describe the
+Kennel and its Inmate.'
+
+They were just everyday questions like these, and when you could not
+answer them you were told to make a cross; and it was really dreadful
+what a number of crosses even John made. Of course the only boy who
+replied to every question was Slightly, and no one could have been more
+hopeful of coming out first, but his answers were perfectly ridiculous,
+and he really came out last: a melancholy thing.
+
+Peter did not compete. For one thing he despised all mothers except
+Wendy, and for another he was the only boy on the island who could
+neither write nor spell; not the smallest word. He was above all that
+sort of thing.
+
+By the way, the questions were all written in the past tense. What was
+the colour of Mother's eyes, and so on. Wendy, you see, had been
+forgetting too.
+
+Adventures, of course, as we shall see, were of daily occurrence; but
+about this time Peter invented, with Wendy's help, a new game that
+fascinated him enormously, until he suddenly had no more interest in it,
+which, as you have been told, was what always happened with his games.
+It consisted in pretending not to have adventures, in doing the sort of
+thing John and Michael had been doing all their lives: sitting on
+stools flinging balls in the air, pushing each other, going out for
+walks and coming back without having killed so much as a grizzly. To see
+Peter doing nothing on a stool was a great sight; he could not help
+looking solemn at such times, to sit still seemed to him such a comic
+thing to do. He boasted that he had gone a walk for the good of his
+health. For several suns these were the most novel of all adventures to
+him; and John and Michael had to pretend to be delighted also; otherwise
+he would have treated them severely.
+
+He often went out alone, and when he came back you were never absolutely
+certain whether he had had an adventure or not. He might have forgotten
+it so completely that he said nothing about it; and then when you went
+out you found the body; and, on the other hand, he might say a great
+deal about it, and yet you could not find the body. Sometimes he came
+home with his head bandaged, and then Wendy cooed over him and bathed it
+in lukewarm water, while he told a dazzling tale. But she was never
+quite sure, you know. There were, however, many adventures which she
+knew to be true because she was in them herself, and there were still
+more that were at least partly true, for the other boys were in them and
+said they were wholly true. To describe them all would require a book as
+large as an English-Latin, Latin-English Dictionary, and the most we can
+do is to give one as a specimen of an average hour on the island. The
+difficulty is which one to choose. Should we take the brush with the
+redskins at Slightly Gulch? It was a sanguinary affair, and especially
+interesting as showing one of Peter's peculiarities, which was that in
+the middle of a fight he would suddenly change sides. At the Gulch, when
+victory was still in the balance, sometimes leaning this way and
+sometimes that, he called out, 'I'm redskin to-day; what are you,
+Tootles?' And Tootles answered, 'Redskin; what are you, Nibs?' and Nibs
+said,'Redskin; what are you, Twin?' and so on; and they were all
+redskin; and of course this would have ended the fight had not the real
+redskins, fascinated by Peter's methods, agreed to be lost boys for that
+once, and so at it they all went again, more fiercely than ever.
+
+The extraordinary upshot of this adventure was--but we have not decided
+yet that this is the adventure we are to narrate. Perhaps a better one
+would be the night attack by the redskins on the house under the ground,
+when several of them stuck in the hollow trees and had to be pulled out
+like corks. Or we might tell how Peter saved Tiger Lily's life in the
+Mermaids' Lagoon, and so made her his ally.
+
+Or we could tell of that cake the pirates cooked so that the boys might
+eat it and perish; and how they placed it in one cunning spot after
+another; but always Wendy snatched it from the hands of her children, so
+that in time it lost its succulence, and became as hard as a stone, and
+was used as a missile, and Hook fell over it in the dark.
+
+Or suppose we tell of the birds that were Peter's friends, particularly
+of the Never bird that built in a tree overhanging the lagoon, and how
+the nest fell into the water, and still the bird sat on her eggs, and
+Peter gave orders that she was not to be disturbed. That is a pretty
+story, and the end shows how grateful a bird can be; but if we tell it
+we must also tell the whole adventure of the lagoon, which would of
+course be telling two adventures rather than just one. A shorter
+adventure, and quite as exciting, was Tinker Bell's attempt, with the
+help of some street fairies, to have the sleeping Wendy conveyed on a
+great floating leaf to the mainland. Fortunately the leaf gave way and
+Wendy woke, thinking it was bath-time, and swam back. Or again, we might
+choose Peter's defiance of the lions, when he drew a circle round him on
+the ground with an arrow and defied them to cross it; and though he
+waited for hours, with the other boys and Wendy looking on breathlessly
+from trees, not one of them dared to accept his challenge.
+
+Which of these adventures shall we choose? The best way will be to toss
+for it.
+
+I have tossed, and the lagoon has won. This almost makes one wish that
+the gulch or the cake or Tink's leaf had won. Of course I could do it
+again, and make it best out of three; however, perhaps fairest to stick
+to the lagoon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+THE MERMAIDS' LAGOON
+
+
+If you shut your eyes and are a lucky one, you may see at times a
+shapeless pool of lovely pale colours suspended in the darkness; then if
+you squeeze your eyes tighter, the pool begins to take shape, and the
+colours become so vivid that with another squeeze they must go on fire.
+But just before they go on fire you see the lagoon. This is the nearest
+you ever get to it on the mainland, just one heavenly moment; if there
+could be two moments you might see the surf and hear the mermaids
+singing.
+
+The children often spent long summer days on this lagoon, swimming or
+floating most of the time, playing the mermaid games in the water, and
+so forth. You must not think from this that the mermaids were on
+friendly terms with them; on the contrary, it was among Wendy's lasting
+regrets that all the time she was on the island she never had a civil
+word from one of them. When she stole softly to the edge of the lagoon
+she might see them by the score, especially on Marooners' Rock, where
+they loved to bask, combing out their hair in a lazy way that quite
+irritated her; or she might even swim, on tiptoe as it were, to within a
+yard of them, but then they saw her and dived, probably splashing her
+with their tails, not by accident, but intentionally.
+
+[Illustration: SUMMER DAYS ON THE LAGOON]
+
+They treated all the boys in the same way, except of course Peter, who
+chatted with them on Marooners' Rock by the hour, and sat on their tails
+when they got cheeky. He gave Wendy one of their combs.
+
+The most haunting time at which to see them is at the turn of the moon,
+when they utter strange wailing cries; but the lagoon is dangerous for
+mortals then, and until the evening of which we have now to tell, Wendy
+had never seen the lagoon by moonlight, less from fear, for of course
+Peter would have accompanied her, than because she had strict rules
+about every one being in bed by seven. She was often at the lagoon,
+however, on sunny days after rain, when the mermaids come up in
+extraordinary numbers to play with their bubbles. The bubbles of many
+colours made in rainbow water they treat as balls, hitting them gaily
+from one to another with their tails, and trying to keep them in the
+rainbow till they burst. The goals are at each end of the rainbow, and
+the keepers only are allowed to use their hands. Sometimes hundreds of
+mermaids will be playing in the lagoon at a time, and it is quite a
+pretty sight.
+
+But the moment the children tried to join in they had to play by
+themselves, for the mermaids immediately disappeared. Nevertheless we
+have proof that they secretly watched the interlopers, and were not
+above taking an idea from them; for John introduced a new way of hitting
+the bubble, with the head instead of the hand, and the mermaid
+goal-keepers adopted it. This is the one mark that John has left on the
+Neverland.
+
+It must also have been rather pretty to see the children resting on a
+rock for half an hour after their midday meal. Wendy insisted on their
+doing this, and it had to be a real rest even though the meal was
+make-believe. So they lay there in the sun, and their bodies glistened
+in it, while she sat beside them and looked important.
+
+It was one such day, and they were all on Marooners' Rock. The rock was
+not much larger than their great bed, but of course they all knew how
+not to take up much room, and they were dozing, or at least lying with
+their eyes shut, and pinching occasionally when they thought Wendy was
+not looking. She was very busy, stitching.
+
+While she stitched a change came to the lagoon. Little shivers ran over
+it, and the sun went away and shadows stole across the water, turning it
+cold. Wendy could no longer see to thread her needle, and when she
+looked up, the lagoon that had always hitherto been such a laughing
+place seemed formidable and unfriendly.
+
+It was not, she knew, that night had come, but something as dark as
+night had come. No, worse than that. It had not come, but it had sent
+that shiver through the sea to say that it was coming. What was it?
+
+There crowded upon her all the stories she had been told of Marooners'
+Rock, so called because evil captains put sailors on it and leave them
+there to drown. They drown when the tide rises, for then it is
+submerged.
+
+Of course she should have roused the children at once; not merely
+because of the unknown that was stalking toward them, but because it was
+no longer good for them to sleep on a rock grown chilly. But she was a
+young mother and she did not know this; she thought you simply must
+stick to your rule about half an hour after the midday meal. So, though
+fear was upon her, and she longed to hear male voices, she would not
+waken them. Even when she heard the sound of muffled oars, though her
+heart was in her mouth, she did not waken them. She stood over them to
+let them have their sleep out. Was it not brave of Wendy?
+
+It was well for those boys then that there was one among them who could
+sniff danger even in his sleep. Peter sprang erect, as wide awake at
+once as a dog, and with one warning cry he roused the others.
+
+He stood motionless, one hand to his ear.
+
+'Pirates!' he cried. The others came closer to him. A strange smile was
+playing about his face, and Wendy saw it and shuddered. While that smile
+was on his face no one dared address him; all they could do was to stand
+ready to obey. The order came sharp and incisive.
+
+'Dive!'
+
+There was a gleam of legs, and instantly the lagoon seemed deserted.
+Marooners' Rock stood alone in the forbidding waters, as if it were
+itself marooned.
+
+The boat drew nearer. It was the pirate dinghy, with three figures in
+her, Smee and Starkey, and the third a captive, no other than Tiger
+Lily. Her hands and ankles were tied, and she knew what was to be her
+fate. She was to be left on the rock to perish, an end to one of her
+race more terrible than death by fire or torture, for is it not written
+in the book of the tribe that there is no path through water to the
+happy hunting-ground? Yet her face was impassive; she was the daughter
+of a chief, she must die as a chief's daughter, it is enough.
+
+They had caught her boarding the pirate ship with a knife in her mouth.
+No watch was kept on the ship, it being Hook's boast that the wind of
+his name guarded the ship for a mile around. Now her fate would help to
+guard it also. One more wail would go the round in that wind by night.
+
+In the gloom that they brought with them the two pirates did not see the
+rock till they crashed into it.
+
+'Luff, you lubber,' cried an Irish voice that was Smee's; 'here's the
+rock. Now, then, what we have to do is to hoist the redskin on to it and
+leave her there to drown.'
+
+It was the work of one brutal moment to land the beautiful girl on the
+rock; she was too proud to offer a vain resistance.
+
+Quite near the rock, but out of sight, two heads were bobbing up and
+down, Peter's and Wendy's. Wendy was crying, for it was the first
+tragedy she had seen. Peter had seen many tragedies, but he had
+forgotten them all. He was less sorry than Wendy for Tiger Lily: it was
+two against one that angered him, and he meant to save her. An easy way
+would have been to wait until the pirates had gone, but he was never
+one to choose the easy way.
+
+There was almost nothing he could not do, and he now imitated the voice
+of Hook.
+
+'Ahoy there, you lubbers,' he called. It was a marvellous imitation.
+
+'The captain,' said the pirates, staring at each other in surprise.
+
+'He must be swimming out to us,' Starkey said, when they had looked for
+him in vain.
+
+'We are putting the redskin on the rock,' Smee called out.
+
+'Set her free,' came the astonishing answer.
+
+'Free!'
+
+'Yes, cut her bonds and let her go.'
+
+'But, captain----'
+
+'At once, d'ye hear,' cried Peter, 'or I'll plunge my hook in you.'
+
+'This is queer,' Smee gasped.
+
+'Better do what the captain orders,' said Starkey nervously.
+
+'Ay, ay,' Smee said, and he cut Tiger Lily's cords. At once like an eel
+she slid between Starkey's legs into the water.
+
+Of course Wendy was very elated over Peter's cleverness; but she knew
+that he would be elated also and very likely crow and thus betray
+himself, so at once her hand went out to cover his mouth. But it was
+stayed even in the act, for 'Boat ahoy!' rang over the lagoon in Hook's
+voice, and this time it was not Peter who had spoken.
+
+Peter may have been about to crow, but his face puckered in a whistle of
+surprise instead.
+
+'Boat ahoy!' again came the cry.
+
+Now Wendy understood. The real Hook was also in the water.
+
+He was swimming to the boat, and as his men showed a light to guide him
+he had soon reached them. In the light of the lantern Wendy saw his hook
+grip the boat's side; she saw his evil swarthy face as he rose dripping
+from the water, and, quaking, she would have liked to swim away, but
+Peter would not budge. He was tingling with life and also top-heavy with
+conceit. 'Am I not a wonder, oh, I am a wonder!' he whispered to her;
+and though she thought so also, she was really glad for the sake of his
+reputation that no one heard him except herself.
+
+He signed to her to listen.
+
+The two pirates were very curious to know what had brought their captain
+to them, but he sat with his head on his hook in a position of profound
+melancholy.
+
+'Captain, is all well?' they asked timidly, but he answered with a
+hollow moan.
+
+'He sighs,' said Smee.
+
+'He sighs again,' said Starkey.
+
+'And yet a third time he sighs,' said Smee.
+
+'What's up, captain?'
+
+Then at last he spoke passionately.
+
+'The game's up,' he cried, 'those boys have found a mother.'
+
+Affrighted though she was, Wendy swelled with pride.
+
+'O evil day,' cried Starkey.
+
+'What's a mother?' asked the ignorant Smee.
+
+Wendy was so shocked that she exclaimed, 'He doesn't know!' and always
+after this she felt that if you could have a pet pirate Smee would be
+her one.
+
+Peter pulled her beneath the water, for Hook had started up, crying,
+'What was that?'
+
+'I heard nothing,' said Starkey, raising the lantern over the waters,
+and as the pirates looked they saw a strange sight. It was the nest I
+have told you of, floating on the lagoon, and the Never bird was sitting
+on it.
+
+'See,' said Hook in answer to Smee's question, 'that is a mother. What a
+lesson. The nest must have fallen into the water, but would the mother
+desert her eggs? No.'
+
+There was a break in his voice, as if for a moment he recalled innocent
+days when--but he brushed away this weakness with his hook.
+
+Smee, much impressed, gazed at the bird as the nest was borne past, but
+the more suspicious Starkey said, 'If she is a mother, perhaps she is
+hanging about here to help Peter.'
+
+Hook winced. 'Ay,' he said, 'that is the fear that haunts me.'
+
+He was roused from this dejection by Smee's eager voice.
+
+'Captain,' said Smee, 'could we not kidnap these boys' mother and make
+her our mother?'
+
+'It is a princely scheme,' cried Hook, and at once it took practical
+shape in his great brain. 'We will seize the children and carry them to
+the boat: the boys we will make walk the plank, and Wendy shall be our
+mother.'
+
+Again Wendy forgot herself.
+
+'Never!' she cried, and bobbed.
+
+'What was that?'
+
+But they could see nothing. They thought it must have been but a leaf in
+the wind. 'Do you agree, my bullies?' asked Hook.
+
+'There is my hand on it,' they both said.
+
+'And there is my hook. Swear.'
+
+'They all swore. By this time they were on the rock, and suddenly Hook
+remembered Tiger Lily.
+
+'Where is the redskin?' he demanded abruptly.
+
+He had a playful humour at moments, and they thought this was one of the
+moments.
+
+'That is all right, captain,' Smee answered complacently; 'we let her
+go.'
+
+'Let her go!' cried Hook.
+
+''Twas your own orders,' the bo'sun faltered.
+
+'You called over the water to us to let her go,' said Starkey.
+
+'Brimstone and gall,' thundered Hook, 'what cozening is here?' His face
+had gone black with rage, but he saw that they believed their words,
+and he was startled. 'Lads,' he said, shaking a little, 'I gave no such
+order.'
+
+'It is passing queer,' Smee said, and they all fidgeted uncomfortably.
+Hook raised his voice, but there was a quiver in it.
+
+'Spirit that haunts this dark lagoon to-night,' he cried, 'dost hear
+me?'
+
+Of course Peter should have kept quiet, but of course he did not. He
+immediately answered in Hook's voice:
+
+'Odds, bobs, hammer and tongs, I hear you.'
+
+In that supreme moment Hook did not blanch, even at the gills, but Smee
+and Starkey clung to each other in terror.
+
+'Who are you, stranger, speak?' Hook demanded.
+
+'I am James Hook,' replied the voice, 'captain of the _Jolly Roger_.'
+
+'You are not; you are not,' Hook cried hoarsely.
+
+'Brimstone and gall,' the voice retorted, 'say that again, and I'll cast
+anchor in you.'
+
+Hook tried a more ingratiating manner. 'If you are Hook,' he said
+almost humbly, 'come tell me, who am I?'
+
+'A codfish,' replied the voice, 'only a codfish.'
+
+'A codfish!' Hook echoed blankly; and it was then, but not till then,
+that his proud spirit broke. He saw his men draw back from him.
+
+'Have we been captained all this time by a codfish!' they muttered. 'It
+is lowering to our pride.'
+
+They were his dogs snapping at him, but, tragic figure though he had
+become, he scarcely heeded them. Against such fearful evidence it was
+not their belief in him that he needed, it was his own. He felt his ego
+slipping from him. 'Don't desert me, bully,' he whispered hoarsely to
+it.
+
+In his dark nature there was a touch of the feminine, as in all the
+great pirates, and it sometimes gave him intuitions. Suddenly he tried
+the guessing game.
+
+'Hook,' he called, 'have you another voice?'
+
+Now Peter could never resist a game, and he answered blithely in his own
+voice, 'I have.'
+
+'And another name?'
+
+'Ay, ay.'
+
+'Vegetable?' asked Hook.
+
+'No.'
+
+'Mineral?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Animal?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Man?'
+
+'No!' This answer rang out scornfully.
+
+'Boy?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Ordinary boy?'
+
+'No!'
+
+'Wonderful boy?'
+
+To Wendy's pain the answer that rang out this time was 'Yes.'
+
+'Are you in England?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'Are you here?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+Hook was completely puzzled. 'You ask him some questions,' he said to
+the others, wiping his damp brow.
+
+Smee reflected. 'I can't think of a thing,' he said regretfully.
+
+'Can't guess, can't guess,' crowed Peter. 'Do you give it up?'
+
+Of course in his pride he was carrying the game too far, and the
+miscreants saw their chance.
+
+'Yes, yes,' they answered eagerly.
+
+'Well, then,' he cried, 'I am Peter Pan.'
+
+Pan!
+
+In a moment Hook was himself again, and Smee and Starkey were his
+faithful henchmen.
+
+'Now we have him,' Hook shouted. 'Into the water, Smee. Starkey, mind
+the boat. Take him dead or alive.'
+
+He leaped as he spoke, and simultaneously came the gay voice of Peter.
+
+'Are you ready, boys?'
+
+'Ay, ay,' from various parts of the lagoon.
+
+'Then lam into the pirates.'
+
+The fight was short and sharp. First to draw blood was John, who
+gallantly climbed into the boat and held Starkey. There was a fierce
+struggle, in which the cutlass was torn from the pirate's grasp. He
+wriggled overboard and John leapt after him. The dinghy drifted away.
+
+Here and there a head bobbed up in the water, and there was a flash of
+steel followed by a cry or a whoop. In the confusion some struck at
+their own side. The corkscrew of Smee got Tootles in the fourth rib, but
+he was himself pinked in turn by Curly. Farther from the rock Starkey
+was pressing Slightly and the twins hard.
+
+Where all this time was Peter? He was seeking bigger game.
+
+The others were all brave boys, and they must not be blamed for backing
+from the pirate captain. His iron claw made a circle of dead water round
+him, from which they fled like affrighted fishes.
+
+But there was one who did not fear him: there was one prepared to enter
+that circle.
+
+Strangely, it was not in the water that they met. Hook rose to the rock
+to breathe, and at the same moment Peter scaled it on the opposite side.
+The rock was slippery as a ball, and they had to crawl rather than
+climb. Neither knew that the other was coming. Each feeling for a grip
+met the other's arm: in surprise they raised their heads; their faces
+were almost touching; so they met.
+
+Some of the greatest heroes have confessed that just before they fell to
+they had a sinking. Had it been so with Peter at that moment I would
+admit it. After all, this was the only man that the Sea-Cook had feared.
+But Peter had no sinking, he had one feeling only, gladness; and he
+gnashed his pretty teeth with joy. Quick as thought he snatched a knife
+from Hook's belt and was about to drive it home, when he saw that he was
+higher up the rock than his foe. It would not have been fighting fair.
+He gave the pirate a hand to help him up.
+
+It was then that Hook bit him.
+
+Not the pain of this but its unfairness was what dazed Peter. It made
+him quite helpless. He could only stare, horrified. Every child is
+affected thus the first time he is treated unfairly. All he thinks he
+has a right to when he comes to you to be yours is fairness. After you
+have been unfair to him he will love you again, but he will never
+afterwards be quite the same boy. No one ever gets over the first
+unfairness; no one except Peter. He often met it, but he always forgot
+it. I suppose that was the real difference between him and all the rest.
+
+So when he met it now it was like the first time; and he could just
+stare, helpless. Twice the iron hand clawed him.
+
+A few minutes afterwards the other boys saw Hook in the water striking
+wildly for the ship; no elation on his pestilent face now, only white
+fear, for the crocodile was in dogged pursuit of him. On ordinary
+occasions the boys would have swum alongside cheering; but now they were
+uneasy, for they had lost both Peter and Wendy, and were scouring the
+lagoon for them, calling them by name. They found the dinghy and went
+home in it, shouting 'Peter, Wendy' as they went, but no answer came
+save mocking laughter from the mermaids. 'They must be swimming back or
+flying,' the boys concluded. They were not very anxious, they had such
+faith in Peter. They chuckled, boylike, because they would be late for
+bed; and it was all mother Wendy's fault!
+
+When their voices died away there came cold silence over the lagoon, and
+then a feeble cry.
+
+'Help, help!'
+
+Two small figures were beating against the rock; the girl had fainted
+and lay on the boy's arm. With a last effort Peter pulled her up the
+rock and then lay down beside her. Even as he also fainted he saw that
+the water was rising. He knew that they would soon be drowned, but he
+could do no more.
+
+As they lay side by side a mermaid caught Wendy by the feet, and began
+pulling her softly into the water. Peter, feeling her slip from him,
+woke with a start, and was just in time to draw her back. But he had to
+tell her the truth.
+
+'We are on the rock, Wendy,' he said, 'but it is growing smaller. Soon
+the water will be over it.'
+
+She did not understand even now.
+
+'We must go,' she said, almost brightly.
+
+'Yes,' he answered faintly.
+
+'Shall we swim or fly, Peter?'
+
+He had to tell her.
+
+'Do you think you could swim or fly as far as the island, Wendy, without
+my help?'
+
+She had to admit that she was too tired.
+
+He moaned.
+
+'What is it?' she asked, anxious about him at once.
+
+'I can't help you, Wendy. Hook wounded me. I can neither fly nor swim.'
+
+'Do you mean we shall both be drowned?'
+
+'Look how the water is rising.'
+
+They put their hands over their eyes to shut out the sight. They thought
+they would soon be no more. As they sat thus something brushed against
+Peter as light as a kiss, and stayed there, as if saying timidly, 'Can I
+be of any use?'
+
+It was the tail of a kite, which Michael had made some days before. It
+had torn itself out of his hand and floated away.
+
+'Michael's kite,' Peter said without interest, but next moment he had
+seized the tail, and was pulling the kite toward him.
+
+'It lifted Michael off the ground,' he cried; 'why should it not carry
+you?'
+
+'Both of us!'
+
+'It can't lift two; Michael and Curly tried.'
+
+'Let us draw lots,' Wendy said bravely.
+
+'And you a lady; never.' Already he had tied the tail round her. She
+clung to him; she refused to go without him; but with a 'Good-bye,
+Wendy,' he pushed her from the rock; and in a few minutes she was borne
+out of his sight. Peter was alone on the lagoon.
+
+The rock was very small now; soon it would be submerged. Pale rays of
+light tiptoed across the waters; and by and by there was to be heard a
+sound at once the most musical and the most melancholy in the world: the
+mermaids calling to the moon.
+
+Peter was not quite like other boys; but he was afraid at last. A tremor
+ran through him, like a shudder passing over the sea; but on the sea one
+shudder follows another till there are hundreds of them, and Peter felt
+just the one. Next moment he was standing erect on the rock again, with
+that smile on his face and a drum beating within him. It was saying, 'To
+die will be an awfully big adventure.'
+
+[Illustration: "TO DIE WILL BE AN AWFULLY BIG ADVENTURE"]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+THE NEVER BIRD
+
+
+The last sounds Peter heard before he was quite alone were the mermaids
+retiring one by one to their bedchambers under the sea. He was too far
+away to hear their doors shut; but every door in the coral caves where
+they live rings a tiny bell when it opens or closes (as in all the
+nicest houses on the mainland), and he heard the bells.
+
+Steadily the waters rose till they were nibbling at his feet; and to
+pass the time until they made their final gulp, he watched the only
+thing moving on the lagoon. He thought it was a piece of floating paper,
+perhaps part of the kite, and wondered idly how long it would take to
+drift ashore.
+
+Presently he noticed as an odd thing that it was undoubtedly out upon
+the lagoon with some definite purpose, for it was fighting the tide, and
+sometimes winning; and when it won, Peter, always sympathetic to the
+weaker side, could not help clapping; it was such a gallant piece of
+paper.
+
+It was not really a piece of paper; it was the Never bird, making
+desperate efforts to reach Peter on her nest. By working her wings, in a
+way she had learned since the nest fell into the water, she was able to
+some extent to guide her strange craft, but by the time Peter recognised
+her she was very exhausted. She had come to save him, to give him her
+nest, though there were eggs in it. I rather wonder at the bird, for
+though he had been nice to her, he had also sometimes tormented her. I
+can suppose only that, like Mrs. Darling and the rest of them, she was
+melted because he had all his first teeth.
+
+She called out to him what she had come for, and he called out to her
+what was she doing there; but of course neither of them understood the
+other's language. In fanciful stories people can talk to the birds
+freely, and I wish for the moment I could pretend that this was such a
+story, and say that Peter replied intelligently to the Never bird; but
+truth is best, and I want to tell only what really happened. Well, not
+only could they not understand each other, but they forgot their
+manners.
+
+'I--want--you--to--get--into--the--nest,' the bird called, speaking as
+slowly and distinctly as possible, 'and--then--you--can--drift--ashore,
+but--I--am--too--tired--to--bring--it--any--nearer--so--you--must--
+try--to--swim--to--it.'
+
+'What are you quacking about?' Peter answered. 'Why don't you let the
+nest drift as usual?'
+
+'I--want--you--' the bird said, and repeated it all over.
+
+Then Peter tried slow and distinct.
+
+'What--are--you--quacking--about?' and so on.
+
+The Never bird became irritated; they have very short tempers.
+
+'You dunderheaded little jay,' she screamed, 'why don't you do as I tell
+you?'
+
+Peter felt that she was calling him names, and at a venture he retorted
+hotly:
+
+'So are you!'
+
+Then rather curiously they both snapped out the same remark:
+
+'Shut up!'
+
+'Shut up!'
+
+Nevertheless the bird was determined to save him if she could, and by
+one last mighty effort she propelled the nest against the rock. Then up
+she flew; deserting her eggs, so as to make her meaning clear.
+
+Then at last he understood, and clutched the nest and waved his thanks
+to the bird as she fluttered overhead. It was not to receive his thanks,
+however, that she hung there in the sky; it was not even to watch him
+get into the nest; it was to see what he did with her eggs.
+
+There were two large white eggs, and Peter lifted them up and reflected.
+The bird covered her face with her wings, so as not to see the last of
+her eggs; but she could not help peeping between the feathers.
+
+I forget whether I have told you that there was a stave on the rock,
+driven into it by some buccaneers of long ago to mark the site of
+buried treasure. The children had discovered the glittering hoard, and
+when in mischievous mood used to fling showers of moidores, diamonds,
+pearls and pieces of eight to the gulls, who pounced upon them for food,
+and then flew away, raging at the scurvy trick that had been played upon
+them. The stave was still there, and on it Starkey had hung his hat, a
+deep tarpaulin, watertight, with a broad brim. Peter put the eggs into
+this hat and set it on the lagoon. It floated beautifully.
+
+The Never bird saw at once what he was up to, and screamed her
+admiration of him; and, alas, Peter crowed his agreement with her. Then
+he got into the nest, reared the stave in it as a mast, and hung up his
+shirt for a sail. At the same moment the bird fluttered down upon the
+hat and once more sat snugly on her eggs. She drifted in one direction,
+and he was borne off in another, both cheering.
+
+Of course when Peter landed he beached his barque in a place where the
+bird would easily find it; but the hat was such a great success that she
+abandoned the nest. It drifted about till it went to pieces, and often
+Starkey came to the shore of the lagoon, and with many bitter feelings
+watched the bird sitting on his hat. As we shall not see her again, it
+may be worth mentioning here that all Never birds now build in that
+shape of nest, with a broad brim on which the youngsters take an airing.
+
+Great were the rejoicings when Peter reached the home under the ground
+almost as soon as Wendy, who had been carried hither and thither by the
+kite. Every boy had adventures to tell; but perhaps the biggest
+adventure of all was that they were several hours late for bed. This so
+inflated them that they did various dodgy things to get staying up still
+longer, such as demanding bandages; but Wendy, though glorying in having
+them all home again safe and sound, was scandalised by the lateness of
+the hour, and cried, 'To bed, to bed,' in a voice that had to be obeyed.
+Next day, however, she was awfully tender, and gave out bandages to
+every one; and they played till bed-time at limping about and carrying
+their arms in slings.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+THE HAPPY HOME
+
+
+One important result of the brush on the lagoon was that it made the
+redskins their friends. Peter had saved Tiger Lily from a dreadful fate,
+and now there was nothing she and her braves would not do for him. All
+night they sat above, keeping watch over the home under the ground and
+awaiting the big attack by the pirates which obviously could not be much
+longer delayed. Even by day they hung about, smoking the pipe of peace,
+and looking almost as if they wanted tit-bits to eat.
+
+They called Peter the Great White Father, prostrating themselves before
+him; and he liked this tremendously, so that it was not really good for
+him.
+
+'The great white father,' he would say to them in a very lordly manner,
+as they grovelled at his feet, 'is glad to see the Piccaninny warriors
+protecting his wigwam from the pirates.'
+
+'Me Tiger Lily,' that lovely creature would reply. 'Peter Pan save me,
+me his velly nice friend. Me no let pirates hurt him.'
+
+She was far too pretty to cringe in this way, but Peter thought it his
+due, and he would answer condescendingly, 'It is good. Peter Pan has
+spoken.'
+
+Always when he said, 'Peter Pan has spoken,' it meant that they must now
+shut up, and they accepted it humbly in that spirit; but they were by no
+means so respectful to the other boys, whom they looked upon as just
+ordinary braves. They said 'How-do?' to them, and things like that; and
+what annoyed the boys was that Peter seemed to think this all right.
+
+Secretly Wendy sympathised with them a little, but she was far too loyal
+a housewife to listen to any complaints against father. 'Father knows
+best,' she always said, whatever her private opinion must be. Her
+private opinion was that the redskins should not call her a squaw.
+
+We have now reached the evening that was to be known among them as the
+Night of Nights, because of its adventures and their upshot. The day, as
+if quietly gathering its forces, had been almost uneventful, and now the
+redskins in their blankets were at their posts above, while, below, the
+children were having their evening meal; all except Peter, who had gone
+out to get the time. The way you got the time on the island was to find
+the crocodile, and then stay near him till the clock struck.
+
+This meal happened to be a make-believe tea, and they sat round the
+board, guzzling in their greed; and really, what with their chatter and
+recriminations, the noise, as Wendy said, was positively deafening. To
+be sure, she did not mind noise, but she simply would not have them
+grabbing things, and then excusing themselves by saying that Tootles had
+pushed their elbow. There was a fixed rule that they must never hit back
+at meals, but should refer the matter of dispute to Wendy by raising the
+right arm politely and saying, 'I complain of so-and-so'; but what
+usually happened was that they forgot to do this or did it too much.
+
+'Silence,' cried Wendy when for the twentieth time she had told them
+that they were not all to speak at once. 'Is your calabash empty,
+Slightly darling?'
+
+'Not quite empty, mummy,' Slightly said, after looking into an imaginary
+mug.
+
+'He hasn't even begun to drink his milk,' Nibs interposed.
+
+This was telling, and Slightly seized his chance.
+
+'I complain of Nibs,' he cried promptly.
+
+John, however, had held up his hand first.
+
+'Well, John?'
+
+'May I sit in Peter's chair, as he is not here?'
+
+'Sit in father's chair, John!' Wendy was scandalised. 'Certainly not.'
+
+'He is not really our father,' John answered. 'He didn't even know how a
+father does till I showed him.'
+
+This was grumbling. 'We complain of John,' cried the twins.
+
+Tootles held up his hand. He was so much the humblest of them, indeed he
+was the only humble one, that Wendy was specially gentle with him.
+
+'I don't suppose,' Tootles said diffidently, 'that I could be father.'
+
+'No, Tootles.'
+
+Once Tootles began, which was not very often, he had a silly way of
+going on.
+
+'As I can't be father,' he said heavily, 'I don't suppose, Michael, you
+would let me be baby?'
+
+'No, I won't,' Michael rapped out. He was already in his basket.
+
+'As I can't be baby,' Tootles said, getting heavier and heavier, 'do you
+think I could be a twin?'
+
+'No, indeed,' replied the twins; 'it's awfully difficult to be a twin.'
+
+'As I can't be anything important,' said Tootles, 'would any of you like
+to see me do a trick?'
+
+'No,' they all replied.
+
+Then at last he stopped. 'I hadn't really any hope,' he said.
+
+The hateful telling broke out again.
+
+'Slightly is coughing on the table.'
+
+'The twins began with mammee-apples.'
+
+'Curly is taking both tappa rolls and yams.'
+
+'Nibs is speaking with his mouth full.'
+
+'I complain of the twins.'
+
+'I complain of Curly.'
+
+'I complain of Nibs.'
+
+'Oh dear, oh dear,' cried Wendy, 'I'm sure I sometimes think that
+children are more trouble than they are worth.'
+
+She told them to clear away, and sat down to her work-basket: a heavy
+load of stockings and every knee with a hole in it as usual.
+
+'Wendy,' remonstrated Michael, 'I'm too big for a cradle.'
+
+'I must have somebody in a cradle,' she said almost tartly, 'and you are
+the littlest. A cradle is such a nice homely thing to have about a
+house.'
+
+While she sewed they played around her; such a group of happy faces and
+dancing limbs lit up by that romantic fire. It had become a very
+familiar scene this in the home under the ground, but we are looking on
+it for the last time.
+
+There was a step above, and Wendy, you may be sure, was the first to
+recognise it.
+
+'Children, I hear your father's step. He likes you to meet him at the
+door.'
+
+Above, the redskins crouched before Peter.
+
+'Watch well, braves. I have spoken.'
+
+And then, as so often before, the gay children dragged him from his
+tree. As so often before, but never again.
+
+He had brought nuts for the boys as well as the correct time for Wendy.
+
+'Peter, you just spoil them, you know,' Wendy simpered.
+
+'Ah, old lady,' said Peter, hanging up his gun.
+
+'It was me told him mothers are called old lady,' Michael whispered to
+Curly.
+
+'I complain of Michael,' said Curly instantly.
+
+The first twin came to Peter. 'Father, we want to dance.'
+
+'Dance away, my little man,' said Peter, who was in high good humour.
+
+'But we want you to dance.'
+
+Peter was really the best dancer among them, but he pretended to be
+scandalised.
+
+'Me! My old bones would rattle.'
+
+'And mummy too.'
+
+'What,' cried Wendy, 'the mother of such an armful, dance!'
+
+'But on a Saturday night,' Slightly insinuated.
+
+It was not really Saturday night, at least it may have been, for they
+had long lost count of the days; but always if they wanted to do
+anything special they said this was Saturday night, and then they did
+it.
+
+'Of course it is Saturday night, Peter,' Wendy said, relenting.
+
+'People of our figure, Wendy.'
+
+'But it is only among our own progeny.'
+
+'True, true.'
+
+So they were told they could dance, but they must put on their nighties
+first.
+
+'Ah, old lady,' Peter said aside to Wendy, warming himself by the fire
+and looking down at her as she sat turning a heel, 'there is nothing
+more pleasant, of an evening for you and me when the day's toil is over
+than to rest by the fire with the little ones near by.'
+
+'It is sweet, Peter, isn't it?' Wendy said, frightfully gratified.
+'Peter, I think Curly has your nose.'
+
+'Michael takes after you.'
+
+She went to him and put her hand on his shoulder.
+
+'Dear Peter,' she said, 'with such a large family, of course, I have now
+passed my best, but you don't want to change me, do you?'
+
+'No, Wendy.'
+
+Certainly he did not want a change, but he looked at her uncomfortably;
+blinking, you know, like one not sure whether he was awake or asleep.
+
+'Peter, what is it?'
+
+'I was just thinking,' he said, a little scared. 'It is only
+make-believe, isn't it, that I am their father?'
+
+'Oh yes,' Wendy said primly.
+
+'You see,' he continued apologetically, 'it would make me seem so old to
+be their real father.'
+
+'But they are ours, Peter, yours and mine.'
+
+'But not really, Wendy?' he asked anxiously.
+
+'Not if you don't wish it,' she replied; and she distinctly heard his
+sigh of relief. 'Peter,' she asked, trying to speak firmly, 'what are
+your exact feelings for me?'
+
+'Those of a devoted son, Wendy.'
+
+'I thought so,' she said, and went and sat by herself at the extreme end
+of the room.
+
+'You are so queer,' he said, frankly puzzled, 'and Tiger Lily is just
+the same. There is something she wants to be to me, but she says it is
+not my mother.'
+
+'No, indeed, it is not,' Wendy replied with frightful emphasis. Now we
+know why she was prejudiced against the redskins.
+
+'Then what is it?'
+
+'It isn't for a lady to tell.'
+
+'Oh, very well,' Peter said, a little nettled. 'Perhaps Tinker Bell will
+tell me.'
+
+'Oh yes, Tinker Bell will tell you,' Wendy retorted scornfully. 'She is
+an abandoned little creature.'
+
+Here Tink, who was in her boudoir, eavesdropping, squeaked out something
+impudent.
+
+'She says she glories in being abandoned,' Peter interpreted.
+
+He had a sudden idea. 'Perhaps Tink wants to be my mother?'
+
+'You silly ass!' cried Tinker Bell in a passion.
+
+She had said it so often that Wendy needed no translation.
+
+'I almost agree with her,' Wendy snapped. Fancy Wendy snapping. But she
+had been much tried, and she little knew what was to happen before the
+night was out. If she had known she would not have snapped.
+
+None of them knew. Perhaps it was best not to know. Their ignorance gave
+them one more glad hour; and as it was to be their last hour on the
+island, let us rejoice that there were sixty glad minutes in it. They
+sang and danced in their night-gowns. Such a deliciously creepy song it
+was, in which they pretended to be frightened at their own shadows;
+little witting that so soon shadows would close in upon them, from whom
+they would shrink in real fear. So uproariously gay was the dance, and
+how they buffeted each other on the bed and out of it! It was a pillow
+fight rather than a dance, and when it was finished, the pillows
+insisted on one bout more, like partners who know that they may never
+meet again. The stories they told, before it was time for Wendy's
+good-night story! Even Slightly tried to tell a story that night, but
+the beginning was so fearfully dull that it appalled even himself, and
+he said gloomily:
+
+'Yes, it is a dull beginning. I say, let us pretend that it is the end.'
+
+And then at last they all got into bed for Wendy's story, the story they
+loved best, the story Peter hated. Usually when she began to tell this
+story he left the room or put his hands over his ears; and possibly if
+he had done either of those things this time they might all still be on
+the island. But to-night he remained on his stool; and we shall see what
+happened.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+WENDY'S STORY
+
+
+'Listen, then,' said Wendy, settling down to her story, with Michael at
+her feet and seven boys in the bed. 'There was once a gentleman----'
+
+'I had rather he had been a lady,' Curly said.
+
+'I wish he had been a white rat,' said Nibs.
+
+'Quiet,' their mother admonished them. 'There was a lady also, and----'
+
+'O mummy,' cried the first twin, 'you mean that there is a lady also,
+don't you? She is not dead, is she?'
+
+'Oh no.'
+
+'I am awfully glad she isn't dead,' said Tootles. 'Are you glad, John?'
+
+'Of course I am.'
+
+'Are you glad, Nibs?'
+
+'Rather.'
+
+'Are you glad, Twins?'
+
+'We are just glad.'
+
+'Oh dear,' sighed Wendy.
+
+'Little less noise there,' Peter called out, determined that she should
+have fair play, however beastly a story it might be in his opinion.
+
+'The gentleman's name,' Wendy continued, 'was Mr. Darling, and her name
+was Mrs. Darling.'
+
+'I knew them,' John said, to annoy the others.
+
+'I think I knew them,' said Michael rather doubtfully.
+
+'They were married, you know,' explained Wendy, 'and what do you think
+they had?'
+
+'White rats,' cried Nibs, inspired.
+
+'No.'
+
+'It's awfully puzzling,' said Tootles, who knew the story by heart.
+
+'Quiet, Tootles. They had three descendants.'
+
+'What is descendants?'
+
+'Well, you are one, Twin.
+
+'Do you hear that, John? I am a descendant.'
+
+'Descendants are only children,' said John.
+
+'Oh dear, oh dear,' sighed Wendy. 'Now these three children had a
+faithful nurse called Nana; but Mr. Darling was angry with her and
+chained her up in the yard; and so all the children flew away.'
+
+'It's an awfully good story,' said Nibs.
+
+'They flew away,' Wendy continued, 'to the Neverland, where the lost
+children are.'
+
+'I just thought they did,' Curly broke in excitedly. 'I don't know how
+it is, but I just thought they did.'
+
+'O Wendy,' cried Tootles, 'was one of the lost children called Tootles?'
+
+'Yes, he was.'
+
+'I am in a story. Hurrah, I am in a story, Nibs.'
+
+'Hush. Now I want you to consider the feelings of the unhappy parents
+with all their children flown away.'
+
+'Oo!' they all moaned, though they were not really considering the
+feelings of the unhappy parents one jot.
+
+'Think of the empty beds!'
+
+'Oo!'
+
+'It's awfully sad,' the first twin said cheerfully.
+
+'I don't see how it can have a happy ending,' said the second twin. 'Do
+you, Nibs?'
+
+'I'm frightfully anxious.'
+
+'If you knew how great is a mother's love,' Wendy told them
+triumphantly, 'you would have no fear.' She had now come to the part
+that Peter hated.
+
+'I do like a mother's love,' said Tootles, hitting Nibs with a pillow.
+'Do you like a mother's love, Nibs?'
+
+'I do just,' said Nibs, hitting back.
+
+'You see,' Wendy said complacently, 'our heroine knew that the mother
+would always leave the window open for her children to fly back by; so
+they stayed away for years and had a lovely time.'
+
+'Did they ever go back?'
+
+'Let us now,' said Wendy, bracing herself for her finest effort, 'take a
+peep into the future'; and they all gave themselves the twist that makes
+peeps into the future easier. 'Years have rolled by; and who is this
+elegant lady of uncertain age alighting at London Station?'
+
+'O Wendy, who is she?' cried Nibs, every bit as excited as if he didn't
+know.
+
+'Can it be--yes--no--it is--the fair Wendy!'
+
+'Oh!'
+
+'And who are the two noble portly figures accompanying her, now grown to
+man's estate? Can they be John and Michael? They are!'
+
+'Oh!'
+
+'"See, dear brothers," says Wendy, pointing upwards, '"there is the
+window still standing open. Ah, now we are rewarded for our sublime
+faith in a mother's love." So up they flew to their mummy and daddy; and
+pen cannot describe the happy scene, over which we draw a veil.'
+
+That was the story, and they were as pleased with it as the fair
+narrator herself. Everything just as it should be, you see. Off we skip
+like the most heartless things in the world, which is what children are,
+but so attractive; and we have an entirely selfish time; and then when
+we have need of special attention we nobly return for it, confident that
+we shall be embraced instead of smacked.
+
+So great indeed was their faith in a mother's love that they felt they
+could afford to be callous for a bit longer.
+
+But there was one there who knew better; and when Wendy finished he
+uttered a hollow groan.
+
+'What is it, Peter?' she cried, running to him, thinking he was ill. She
+felt him solicitously, lower down than his chest. 'Where is it, Peter?'
+
+'It isn't that kind of pain,' Peter replied darkly.
+
+'Then what kind is it?'
+
+'Wendy, you are wrong about mothers.'
+
+They all gathered round him in affright, so alarming was his agitation;
+and with a fine candour he told them what he had hitherto concealed.
+
+'Long ago,' he said, 'I thought like you that my mother would always
+keep the window open for me; so I stayed away for moons and moons and
+moons, and then flew back; but the window was barred, for mother had
+forgotten all about me, and there was another little boy sleeping in my
+bed.'
+
+I am not sure that this was true, but Peter thought it was true; and it
+scared them.
+
+'Are you sure mothers are like that?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+So this was the truth about mothers. The toads!
+
+Still it is best to be careful; and no one knows so quickly as a child
+when he should give in. 'Wendy, let us go home,' cried John and Michael
+together.
+
+'Yes,' she said, clutching them.
+
+'Not to-night?' asked the lost boys bewildered. They knew in what they
+called their hearts that one can get on quite well without a mother, and
+that it is only the mothers who think you can't.
+
+'At once,' Wendy replied resolutely, for the horrible thought had come
+to her: 'Perhaps mother is in half mourning by this time.'
+
+This dread made her forgetful of what must be Peter's feelings, and she
+said to him rather sharply, 'Peter, will you make the necessary
+arrangements?'
+
+'If you wish it,', he replied, as coolly as if she had asked him to pass
+the nuts.
+
+[Illustration: WENDY'S STORY]
+
+Not so much as a sorry-to-lose-you between them! If she did not mind the
+parting, he was going to show her, was Peter, that neither did he.
+
+But of course he cared very much; and he was so full of wrath against
+grown-ups, who, as usual, were spoiling everything, that as soon as he
+got inside his tree he breathed intentionally quick short breaths at the
+rate of about five to a second. He did this because there is a saying in
+the Neverland that, every time you breathe, a grown-up dies; and Peter
+was killing them off vindictively as fast as possible.
+
+Then having given the necessary instructions to the redskins he returned
+to the home, where an unworthy scene had been enacted in his absence.
+Panic-stricken at the thought of losing Wendy the lost boys had advanced
+upon her threateningly.
+
+'It will be worse than before she came,' they cried.
+
+'We shan't let her go.'
+
+'Let's keep her prisoner.'
+
+'Ay, chain her up.'
+
+In her extremity an instinct told her to which of them to turn.
+
+'Tootles,' she cried, 'I appeal to you.'
+
+Was it not strange? she appealed to Tootles, quite the silliest one.
+
+Grandly, however, did Tootles respond. For that one moment he dropped
+his silliness and spoke with dignity.
+
+'I am just Tootles,' he said, 'and nobody minds me. But the first who
+does not behave to Wendy like an English gentleman I will blood him
+severely.'
+
+He drew his hanger; and for that instant his sun was at noon. The others
+held back uneasily. Then Peter returned, and they saw at once that they
+would get no support from him. He would keep no girl in the Neverland
+against her will.
+
+'Wendy,' he said, striding up and down, 'I have asked the redskins to
+guide you through the wood, as flying tires you so.'
+
+'Thank you, Peter.'
+
+'Then,' he continued, in the short sharp voice of one accustomed to be
+obeyed, 'Tinker Bell will take you across the sea. Wake her, Nibs.'
+
+Nibs had to knock twice before he got an answer, though Tink had really
+been sitting up in bed listening for some time.
+
+'Who are you? How dare you? Go away,' she cried.
+
+'You are to get up, Tink,' Nibs called, 'and take Wendy on a journey.'
+
+Of course Tink had been delighted to hear that Wendy was going; but she
+was jolly well determined not to be her courier, and she said so in
+still more offensive language. Then she pretended to be asleep again.
+
+'She says she won't,' Nibs exclaimed, aghast at such insubordination,
+whereupon Peter went sternly toward the young lady's chamber.
+
+'Tink,' he rapped out, 'if you don't get up and dress at once I will
+open the curtains, and then we shall all see you in your _negligee_.'
+
+This made her leap to the floor. 'Who said I wasn't getting up?' she
+cried.
+
+In the meantime the boys were gazing very forlornly at Wendy, now
+equipped with John and Michael for the journey. By this time they were
+dejected, not merely because they were about to lose her, but also
+because they felt that she was going off to something nice to which they
+had not been invited. Novelty was beckoning to them as usual.
+
+Crediting them with a nobler feeling Wendy melted.
+
+'Dear ones,' she said, 'if you will all come with me I feel almost sure
+I can get my father and mother to adopt you.'
+
+The invitation was meant specially for Peter; but each of the boys was
+thinking exclusively of himself, and at once they jumped with joy.
+
+'But won't they think us rather a handful?' Nibs asked in the middle of
+his jump.
+
+'Oh no,' said Wendy, rapidly thinking it out, 'it will only mean having
+a few beds in the drawing-room; they can be hidden behind screens on
+first Thursdays.'
+
+'Peter, can we go?' they all cried imploringly. They took it for granted
+that if they went he would go also, but really they scarcely cared. Thus
+children are ever ready, when novelty knocks, to desert their dearest
+ones.
+
+'All right,' Peter replied with a bitter smile; and immediately they
+rushed to get their things.
+
+'And now, Peter,' Wendy said, thinking she had put everything right, 'I
+am going to give you your medicine before you go.' She loved to give
+them medicine, and undoubtedly gave them too much. Of course it was
+only water, but it was out of a calabash, and she always shook the
+calabash and counted the drops, which gave it a certain medicinal
+quality. On this occasion, however, she did not give Peter his draught,
+for just as she had prepared it, she saw a look on his face that made
+her heart sink.
+
+'Get your things, Peter,' she cried, shaking.
+
+'No,' he answered, pretending indifference, 'I am not going with you,
+Wendy.'
+
+'Yes, Peter.'
+
+'No.'
+
+To show that her departure would leave him unmoved, he skipped up and
+down the room, playing gaily on his heartless pipes. She had to run
+about after him, though it was rather undignified.
+
+'To find your mother,' she coaxed.
+
+Now, if Peter had ever quite had a mother, he no longer missed her. He
+could do very well without one. He had thought them out, and remembered
+only their bad points.
+
+'No, no,' he told Wendy decisively; 'perhaps she would say I was old,
+and I just want always to be a little boy and to have fun.'
+
+'But, Peter----'
+
+'No.'
+
+And so the others had to be told.
+
+'Peter isn't coming.'
+
+Peter not coming! They gazed blankly at him, their sticks over their
+backs, and on each stick a bundle. Their first thought was that if Peter
+was not going he had probably changed his mind about letting them go.
+
+But he was far too proud for that. 'If you find your mothers,' he said
+darkly, 'I hope you will like them.'
+
+The awful cynicism of this made an uncomfortable impression, and most of
+them began to look rather doubtful. After all, their faces said, were
+they not noodles to want to go?
+
+'Now then,' cried Peter, 'no fuss, no blubbering; good-bye, Wendy'; and
+he held out his hand cheerily, quite as if they must really go now, for
+he had something important to do.
+
+She had to take his hand, as there was no indication that he would
+prefer a thimble.
+
+'You will remember about changing your flannels, Peter?' she said,
+lingering over him. She was always so particular about their flannels.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And you will take your medicine?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+That seemed to be everything; and an awkward pause followed. Peter,
+however, was not the kind that breaks down before people. 'Are you
+ready, Tinker Bell?' he called out.
+
+'Ay, ay.'
+
+'Then lead the way.'
+
+Tink darted up the nearest tree; but no one followed her, for it was at
+this moment that the pirates made their dreadful attack upon the
+redskins. Above, where all had been so still, the air was rent with
+shrieks and the clash of steel. Below, there was dead silence. Mouths
+opened and remained open. Wendy fell on her knees, but her arms were
+extended toward Peter. All arms were extended to him, as if suddenly
+blown in his direction; they were beseeching him mutely not to desert
+them. As for Peter, he seized his sword, the same he thought he had
+slain Barbecue with; and the lust of battle was in his eye.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+THE CHILDREN ARE CARRIED OFF
+
+
+The pirate attack had been a complete surprise: a sure proof that the
+unscrupulous Hook had conducted it improperly, for to surprise redskins
+fairly is beyond the wit of the white man.
+
+By all the unwritten laws of savage warfare it is always the redskin who
+attacks, and with the wiliness of his race he does it just before the
+dawn, at which time he knows the courage of the whites to be at its
+lowest ebb. The white men have in the meantime made a rude stockade on
+the summit of yonder undulating ground, at the foot of which a stream
+runs; for it is destruction to be too far from water. There they await
+the onslaught, the inexperienced ones clutching their revolvers and
+treading on twigs, but the old hands sleeping tranquilly until just
+before the dawn. Through the long black night the savage scouts wriggle,
+snake-like, among the grass without stirring a blade. The brushwood
+closes behind them as silently as sand into which a mole has dived. Not
+a sound is to be heard, save when they give vent to a wonderful
+imitation of the lonely call of the coyote. The cry is answered by other
+braves; and some of them do it even better than the coyotes, who are not
+very good at it. So the chill hours wear on, and the long suspense is
+horribly trying to the paleface who has to live through it for the first
+time; but to the trained hand those ghastly calls and still ghastlier
+silences are but an intimation of how the night is marching.
+
+That this was the usual procedure was so well known to Hook that in
+disregarding it he cannot be excused on the plea of ignorance.
+
+The Piccaninnies, on their part, trusted implicitly to his honour, and
+their whole action of the night stands out in marked contrast to his.
+They left nothing undone that was consistent with the reputation of
+their tribe. With that alertness of the senses which is at once the
+marvel and despair of civilised peoples, they knew that the pirates were
+on the island from the moment one of them trod on a dry stick; and in an
+incredibly short space of time the coyote cries began. Every foot of
+ground between the spot where Hook had landed his forces and the home
+under the trees was stealthily examined by braves wearing their
+mocassins with the heels in front. They found only one hillock with a
+stream at its base, so that Hook had no choice; here he must establish
+himself and wait for just before the dawn. Everything being thus mapped
+out with almost diabolical cunning, the main body of the redskins folded
+their blankets around them, and in the phlegmatic manner that is to them
+the pearl of manhood squatted above the children's home, awaiting the
+cold moment when they should deal pale death.
+
+Here dreaming, though wide-awake, of the exquisite tortures to which
+they were to put him at break of day, those confiding savages were found
+by the treacherous Hook. From the accounts afterwards supplied by such
+of the scouts as escaped the carnage, he does not seem even to have
+paused at the rising ground, though it is certain that in that grey
+light he must have seen it: no thought of waiting to be attacked appears
+from first to last to have visited his subtle mind; he would not even
+hold off till the night was nearly spent; on he pounded with no policy
+but to fall to. What could the bewildered scouts do, masters as they
+were of every warlike artifice save this one, but trot helplessly after
+him, exposing themselves fatally to view, the while they gave pathetic
+utterance to the coyote cry.
+
+Around the brave Tiger Lily were a dozen of her stoutest warriors, and
+they suddenly saw the perfidious pirates bearing down upon them. Fell
+from their eyes then the film through which they had looked at victory.
+No more would they torture at the stake. For them the happy
+hunting-grounds now. They knew it; but as their fathers' sons they
+acquitted themselves. Even then they had time to gather in a phalanx
+that would have been hard to break had they risen quickly, but this they
+were forbidden to do by the traditions of their race. It is written that
+the noble savage must never express surprise in the presence of the
+white. Thus terrible as the sudden appearance of the pirates must have
+been to them, they remained stationary for a moment, not a muscle
+moving; as if the foe had come by invitation. Then, indeed, the
+tradition gallantly upheld, they seized their weapons, and the air was
+torn with the warcry; but it was now too late.
+
+It is no part of ours to describe what was a massacre rather than a
+fight. Thus perished many of the flower of the Piccaninny tribe. Not all
+unavenged did they die, for with Lean Wolf fell Alf Mason, to disturb
+the Spanish Main no more; and among others who bit the dust were Geo.
+Scourie, Chas. Turley, and the Alsatian Foggerty. Turley fell to the
+tomahawk of the terrible Panther, who ultimately cut a way through the
+pirates with Tiger Lily and a small remnant of the tribe.
+
+To what extent Hook is to blame for his tactics on this occasion is for
+the historian to decide. Had he waited on the rising ground till the
+proper hour he and his men would probably have been butchered; and in
+judging him it is only fair to take this into account. What he should
+perhaps have done was to acquaint his opponents that he proposed to
+follow a new method. On the other hand this, as destroying the element
+of surprise, would have made his strategy of no avail, so that the whole
+question is beset with difficulties. One cannot at least withhold a
+reluctant admiration for the wit that had conceived so bold a scheme,
+and the fell genius with which it was carried out.
+
+What were his own feelings about himself at that triumphant moment? Fain
+would his dogs have known, as breathing heavily and wiping their
+cutlasses, they gathered at a discreet distance from his hook, and
+squinted through their ferret eyes at this extraordinary man. Elation
+must have been in his heart, but his face did not reflect it: ever a
+dark and solitary enigma, he stood aloof from his followers in spirit as
+in substance.
+
+The night's work was not yet over, for it was not the redskins he had
+come out to destroy; they were but the bees to be smoked, so that he
+should get at the honey. It was Pan he wanted, Pan and Wendy and their
+band, but chiefly Pan.
+
+Peter was such a small boy that one tends to wonder at the man's hatred
+of him. True he had flung Hook's arm to the crocodile; but even this and
+the increased insecurity of life to which it led, owing to the
+crocodile's pertinacity, hardly account for a vindictiveness so
+relentless and malignant. The truth is that there was a something about
+Peter which goaded the pirate captain to frenzy. It was not his courage,
+it was not his engaging appearance, it was not--. There is no beating
+about the bush, for we know quite well what it was, and have got to
+tell. It was Peter's cockiness.
+
+This had got on Hook's nerves; it made his iron claw twitch, and at
+night it disturbed him like an insect. While Peter lived, the tortured
+man felt that he was a lion in a cage into which a sparrow had come.
+
+The question now was how to get down the trees, or how to get his dogs
+down? He ran his greedy eyes over them, searching for the thinnest ones.
+They wriggled uncomfortably, for they knew he would not scruple to ram
+them down with poles.
+
+In the meantime, what of the boys? We have seen them at the first clang
+of weapons, turned as it were into stone figures, open-mouthed, all
+appealing with outstretched arms to Peter; and we return to them as
+their mouths close, and their arms fall to their sides. The pandemonium
+above has ceased almost as suddenly as it arose, passed like a fierce
+gust of wind; but they know that in the passing it has determined their
+fate.
+
+Which side had won?
+
+The pirates, listening avidly at the mouths of the trees, heard the
+question put by every boy, and alas, they also heard Peter's answer.
+
+'If the redskins have won,' he said, 'they will beat the tom-tom; it is
+always their sign of victory.'
+
+Now Smee had found the tom-tom, and was at that moment sitting on it.
+'You will never hear the tom-tom again,' he muttered, but inaudibly of
+course, for strict silence had been enjoined. To his amazement Hook
+signed to him to beat the tom-tom; and slowly there came to Smee an
+understanding of the dreadful wickedness of the order. Never, probably,
+had this simple man admired Hook so much.
+
+Twice Smee beat upon the instrument, and then stopped to listen
+gleefully.
+
+'The tom-tom,' the miscreants heard Peter cry; 'an Indian victory!'
+
+The doomed children answered with a cheer that was music to the black
+hearts above, and almost immediately they repeated their goodbyes to
+Peter. This puzzled the pirates, but all their other feelings were
+swallowed by a base delight that the enemy were about to come up the
+trees. They smirked at each other and rubbed their hands. Rapidly and
+silently Hook gave his orders: one man to each tree, and the others to
+arrange themselves in a line two yards apart.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+DO YOU BELIEVE IN FAIRIES?
+
+
+The more quickly this horror is disposed of the better. The first to
+emerge from his tree was Curly. He rose out of it into the arms of
+Cecco, who flung him to Smee, who flung him to Starkey, who flung him to
+Bill Jukes, who flung him to Noodler, and so he was tossed from one to
+another till he fell at the feet of the black pirate. All the boys were
+plucked from their trees in this ruthless manner; and several of them
+were in the air at a time, like bales of goods flung from hand to hand.
+
+[Illustration: FLUNG LIKE BALES]
+
+A different treatment was accorded to Wendy, who came last. With
+ironical politeness Hook raised his hat to her, and, offering her his
+arm, escorted her to the spot where the others were being gagged. He
+did it with such an air, he was so frightfully _distingue_, that she was
+too fascinated to cry out. She was only a little girl.
+
+Perhaps it is tell-tale to divulge that for a moment Hook entranced her,
+and we tell on her only because her slip led to strange results. Had she
+haughtily unhanded him (and we should have loved to write it of her),
+she would have been hurled through the air like the others, and then
+Hook would probably not have been present at the tying of the children;
+and had he not been at the tying he would not have discovered Slightly's
+secret, and without the secret he could not presently have made his foul
+attempt on Peter's life.
+
+They were tied to prevent their flying away, doubled up with their knees
+close to their ears; and for the trussing of them the black pirate had
+cut a rope into nine equal pieces. All went well until Slightly's turn
+came, when he was found to be like those irritating parcels that use up
+all the string in going round and leave no tags with which to tie a
+knot. The pirates kicked him in their rage, just as you kick the parcel
+(though in fairness you should kick the string); and strange to say it
+was Hook who told them to belay their violence. His lip was curled with
+malicious triumph. While his dogs were merely sweating because every
+time they tried to pack the unhappy lad tight in one part he bulged out
+in another, Hook's master mind had gone far beneath Slightly's surface,
+probing not for effects but for causes; and his exultation showed that
+he had found them. Slightly, white to the gills, knew that Hook had
+surprised his secret, which was this, that no boy so blown out could use
+a tree wherein an average man need stick. Poor Slightly, most wretched
+of all the children now, for he was in a panic about Peter, bitterly
+regretted what he had done. Madly addicted to the drinking of water when
+he was hot, he had swelled in consequence to his present girth, and
+instead of reducing himself to fit his tree he had, unknown to the
+others, whittled his tree to make it fit him.
+
+Sufficient of this Hook guessed to persuade him that Peter at last lay
+at his mercy; but no word of the dark design that now formed in the
+subterranean caverns of his mind crossed his lips; he merely signed that
+the captives were to be conveyed to the ship, and that he would be
+alone.
+
+How to convey them? Hunched up in their ropes they might indeed be
+rolled down hill like barrels, but most of the way lay through a morass.
+Again Hook's genius surmounted difficulties. He indicated that the
+little house must be used as a conveyance. The children were flung into
+it, four stout pirates raised it on their shoulders, the others fell in
+behind, and singing the hateful pirate chorus the strange procession set
+off through the wood. I don't know whether any of the children were
+crying; if so, the singing drowned the sound; but as the little house
+disappeared in the forest, a brave though tiny jet of smoke issued from
+its chimney as if defying Hook.
+
+Hook saw it, and it did Peter a bad service. It dried up any trickle of
+pity for him that may have remained in the pirate's infuriated breast.
+
+The first thing he did on finding himself alone in the fast falling
+night was to tiptoe to Slightly's tree, and make sure that it provided
+him with a passage. Then for long he remained brooding; his hat of ill
+omen on the sward, so that a gentle breeze which had arisen might play
+refreshingly through his hair. Dark as were his thoughts his blue eyes
+were as soft as the periwinkle. Intently he listened for any sound from
+the nether world, but all was as silent below as above; the house under
+the ground seemed to be but one more empty tenement in the void. Was
+that boy asleep, or did he stand waiting at the foot of Slightly's tree,
+with his dagger in his hand?
+
+There was no way of knowing, save by going down. Hook let his cloak slip
+softly to the ground, and then biting his lips till a lewd blood stood
+on them, he stepped into the tree. He was a brave man; but for a moment
+he had to stop there and wipe his brow, which was dripping like a
+candle. Then silently he let himself go into the unknown.
+
+He arrived unmolested at the foot of the shaft, and stood still again,
+biting at his breath, which had almost left him. As his eyes became
+accustomed to the dim light various objects in the home under the trees
+took shape; but the only one on which his greedy gaze rested, long
+sought for and found at last, was the great bed. On the bed lay Peter
+fast asleep.
+
+Unaware of the tragedy being enacted above, Peter had continued, for a
+little time after the children left, to play gaily on his pipes: no
+doubt rather a forlorn attempt to prove to himself that he did not care.
+Then he decided not to take his medicine, so as to grieve Wendy. Then he
+lay down on the bed outside the coverlet, to vex her still more; for she
+had always tucked them inside it, because you never know that you may
+not grow chilly at the turn of the night. Then he nearly cried; but it
+struck him how indignant she would be if he laughed instead; so he
+laughed a haughty laugh and fell asleep in the middle of it.
+
+Sometimes, though not often, he had dreams, and they were more painful
+than the dreams of other boys. For hours he could not be separated from
+these dreams, though he wailed piteously in them. They had to do, I
+think, with the riddle of his existence. At such times it had been
+Wendy's custom to take him out of bed and sit with him on her lap,
+soothing him in dear ways of her own invention, and when he grew calmer
+to put him back to bed before he quite woke up, so that he should not
+know of the indignity to which she had subjected him. But on this
+occasion he had fallen at once into a dreamless sleep. One arm dropped
+over the edge of the bed, one leg was arched, and the unfinished part of
+his laugh was stranded on his mouth, which was open, showing the little
+pearls.
+
+Thus defenceless Hook found him. He stood silent at the foot of the tree
+looking across the chamber at his enemy. Did no feeling of compassion
+disturb his sombre breast? The man was not wholly evil; he loved flowers
+(I have been told) and sweet music (he was himself no mean performer on
+the harpsichord); and, let it be frankly admitted, the idyllic nature of
+the scene stirred him profoundly. Mastered by his better self he would
+have returned reluctantly up the tree, but for one thing.
+
+What stayed him was Peter's impertinent appearance as he slept. The open
+mouth, the drooping arm, the arched knee: they were such a
+personification of cockiness as, taken together, will never again one
+may hope be presented to eyes so sensitive to their offensiveness. They
+steeled Hook's heart. If his rage had broken him into a hundred pieces
+every one of them would have disregarded the incident, and leapt at the
+sleeper.
+
+Though a light from the one lamp shone dimly on the bed Hook stood in
+darkness himself, and at the first stealthy step forward he discovered
+an obstacle, the door of Slightly's tree. It did not entirely fill the
+aperture, and he had been looking over it. Feeling for the catch, he
+found to his fury that it was low down, beyond his reach. To his
+disordered brain it seemed then that the irritating quality in Peter's
+face and figure visibly increased, and he rattled the door and flung
+himself against it. Was his enemy to escape him after all.
+
+But what was that? The red in his eye had caught sight of Peter's
+medicine standing on a ledge within easy reach. He fathomed what it was
+straightway, and immediately he knew that the sleeper was in his power.
+
+Lest he should be taken alive, Hook always carried about his person a
+dreadful drug, blended by himself of all the death-dealing rings that
+had come into his possession. These he had boiled down into a yellow
+liquid quite unknown to science, which was probably the most virulent
+poison in existence.
+
+Five drops of this he now added to Peter's cup. His hand shook, but it
+was in exultation rather than in shame. As he did it he avoided glancing
+at the sleeper, but not lest pity should unnerve him; merely to avoid
+spilling. Then one long gloating look he cast upon his victim, and
+turning, wormed his way with difficulty up the tree. As he emerged at
+the top he looked the very spirit of evil breaking from its hole.
+Donning his hat at its most rakish angle, he wound his cloak around him,
+holding one end in front as if to conceal his person from the night, of
+which it was the blackest part, and muttering strangely to himself stole
+away through the trees.
+
+Peter slept on. The light guttered and went out, leaving the tenement in
+darkness; but still he slept. It must have been not less than ten
+o'clock by the crocodile, when he suddenly sat up in his bed, wakened
+by he knew not what. It was a soft cautious tapping on the door of his
+tree.
+
+Soft and cautious, but in that stillness it was sinister. Peter felt for
+his dagger till his hand gripped it. Then he spoke.
+
+'Who is that?'
+
+For long there was no answer: then again the knock.
+
+'Who are you?'
+
+No answer.
+
+He was thrilled, and he loved being thrilled. In two strides he reached
+his door. Unlike Slightly's door it filled the aperture, so that he
+could not see beyond it, nor could the one knocking see him.
+
+'I won't open unless you speak,' Peter cried.
+
+Then at last the visitor spoke, in a lovely bell-like voice.
+
+'Let me in, Peter.'
+
+It was Tink, and quickly he unbarred to her. She flew in excitedly, her
+face flushed and her dress stained with mud.
+
+'What is it?'
+
+'Oh, you could never guess,' she cried, and offered him three guesses.
+'Out with it!' he shouted; and in one ungrammatical sentence, as long as
+the ribbons conjurers pull from their mouths, she told of the capture of
+Wendy and the boys.
+
+Peter's heart bobbed up and down as he listened. Wendy bound, and on the
+pirate ship; she who loved everything to be just so!
+
+'I'll rescue her,' he cried, leaping at his weapons. As he leapt he
+thought of something he could do to please her. He could take his
+medicine.
+
+His hand closed on the fatal draught.
+
+'No!' shrieked Tinker Bell, who had heard Hook muttering about his deed
+as he sped through the forest.
+
+'Why not?'
+
+'It is poisoned.'
+
+'Poisoned? Who could have poisoned it?'
+
+'Hook.'
+
+'Don't be silly. How could Hook have got down here?'
+
+Alas, Tinker Bell could not explain this, for even she did not know the
+dark secret of Slightly's tree. Nevertheless Hook's words had left no
+room for doubt. The cup was poisoned.
+
+'Besides,' said Peter, quite believing himself, 'I never fell asleep.'
+
+He raised the cup. No time for words now; time for deeds; and with one
+of her lightning movements Tink got between his lips and the draught,
+and drained it to the dregs.
+
+'Why, Tink, how dare you drink my medicine?'
+
+But she did not answer. Already she was reeling in the air.
+
+'What is the matter with you?' cried Peter, suddenly afraid.
+
+'It was poisoned, Peter,' she told him softly; 'and now I am going to be
+dead.'
+
+'O Tink, did you drink it to save me?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'But why, Tink?'
+
+Her wings would scarcely carry her now, but in reply she alighted on his
+shoulder and gave his chin a loving bite. She whispered in his ear 'You
+silly ass'; and then, tottering to her chamber, lay down on the bed.
+
+His head almost filled the fourth wall of her little room as he knelt
+near her in distress. Every moment her light was growing fainter; and he
+knew that if it went out she would be no more. She liked his tears so
+much that she put out her beautiful finger and let them run over it.
+
+Her voice was so low that at first he could not make out what she said.
+Then he made it out. She was saying that she thought she could get well
+again if children believed in fairies.
+
+Peter flung out his arms. There were no children there, and it was
+night-time; but he addressed all who might be dreaming of the Neverland,
+and who were therefore nearer to him than you think: boys and girls in
+their nighties, and naked papooses in their baskets hung from trees.
+
+'Do you believe?' he cried.
+
+Tink sat up in bed almost briskly to listen to her fate.
+
+She fancied she heard answers in the affirmative, and then again she
+wasn't sure.
+
+'What do you think?' she asked Peter.
+
+'If you believe,' he shouted to them, 'clap your hands; don't let Tink
+die.'
+
+Many clapped.
+
+Some didn't.
+
+A few little beasts hissed.
+
+The clapping stopped suddenly; as if countless mothers had rushed to
+their nurseries to see what on earth was happening; but already Tink was
+saved. First her voice grew strong; then she popped out of bed; then she
+was flashing through the room more merry and impudent than ever. She
+never thought of thanking those who believed, but she would have liked
+to get at the ones who had hissed.
+
+'And now to rescue Wendy.'
+
+The moon was riding in a cloudy heaven when Peter rose from his tree,
+begirt with weapons and wearing little else, to set out upon his
+perilous quest. It was not such a night as he would have chosen. He had
+hoped to fly, keeping not far from the ground so that nothing unwonted
+should escape his eyes; but in that fitful light to have flown low would
+have meant trailing his shadow through the trees, thus disturbing the
+birds and acquainting a watchful foe that he was astir.
+
+He regretted now that he had given the birds of the island such strange
+names that they are very wild and difficult of approach.
+
+There was no other course but to press forward in redskin fashion, at
+which happily he was an adept. But in what direction, for he could not
+be sure that the children had been taken to the ship? A slight fall of
+snow had obliterated all footmarks; and a deathly silence pervaded the
+island, as if for a space Nature stood still in horror of the recent
+carnage. He had taught the children something of the forest lore that he
+had himself learned from Tiger Lily and Tinker Bell, and knew that in
+their dire hour they were not likely to forget it. Slightly, if he had
+an opportunity, would blaze the trees, for instance, Curly would drop
+seeds, and Wendy would leave her handkerchief at some important place.
+But morning was needed to search for such guidance, and he could not
+wait. The upper world had called him, but would give no help.
+
+The crocodile passed him, but not another living thing, not a sound, not
+a movement; and yet he knew well that sudden death might be at the next
+tree, or stalking him from behind.
+
+He swore this terrible oath: 'Hook or me this time.'
+
+Now he crawled forward like a snake; and again, erect, he darted across
+a space on which the moonlight played: one finger on his lip and his
+dagger at the ready. He was frightfully happy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV
+
+THE PIRATE SHIP
+
+
+One green light squinting over Kidd's Creek, which is near the mouth of
+the pirate river, marked where the brig, the _Jolly Roger_, lay, low in
+the water; a rakish-looking craft foul to the hull, every beam in her
+detestable like ground strewn with mangled feathers. She was the
+cannibal of the seas, and scarce needed that watchful eye, for she
+floated immune in the horror of her name.
+
+She was wrapped in the blanket of night, through which no sound from her
+could have reached the shore. There was little sound, and none agreeable
+save the whir of the ship's sewing machine at which Smee sat, ever
+industrious and obliging, the essence of the commonplace, pathetic Smee.
+I know not why he was so infinitely pathetic, unless it were because he
+was so pathetically unaware of it; but even strong men had to turn
+hastily from looking at him, and more than once on summer evenings he
+had touched the fount of Hook's tears and made it flow. Of this, as of
+almost everything else, Smee was quite unconscious.
+
+A few of the pirates leant over the bulwarks drinking in the miasma of
+the night; others sprawled by barrels over games of dice and cards; and
+the exhausted four who had carried the little house lay prone on the
+deck, where even in their sleep they rolled skilfully to this side or
+that out of Hook's reach, lest he should claw them mechanically in
+passing.
+
+Hook trod the deck in thought. O man unfathomable. It was his hour of
+triumph. Peter had been removed for ever from his path, and all the
+other boys were on the brig, about to walk the plank. It was his
+grimmest deed since the days when he had brought Barbecue to heel; and
+knowing as we do how vain a tabernacle is man, could we be surprised had
+he now paced the deck unsteadily, bellied out by the winds of his
+success?
+
+But there was no elation in his gait, which kept pace with the action
+of his sombre mind. Hook was profoundly dejected.
+
+He was often thus when communing with himself on board ship in the
+quietude of the night. It was because he was so terribly alone. This
+inscrutable man never felt more alone than when surrounded by his dogs.
+They were socially so inferior to him.
+
+Hook was not his true name. To reveal who he really was would even at
+this date set the country in a blaze; but as those who read between the
+lines must already have guessed, he had been at a famous public school;
+and its traditions still clung to him like garments, with which indeed
+they are largely concerned. Thus it was offensive to him even now to
+board a ship in the same dress in which he grappled her; and he still
+adhered in his walk to the school's distinguished slouch. But above all
+he retained the passion for good form.
+
+Good form! However much he may have degenerated, he still knew that this
+is all that really matters.
+
+From far within him he heard a creaking as of rusty portals, and
+through them came a stern tap-tap-tap, like hammering in the night when
+one cannot sleep. 'Have you been good form to-day?' was their eternal
+question.
+
+'Fame, fame, that glittering bauble, it is mine,' he cried.
+
+'Is it quite good form to be distinguished at anything?' the tap-tap
+from his school replied.
+
+'I am the only man whom Barbecue feared,' he urged; 'and Flint himself
+feared Barbecue.'
+
+'Barbecue, Flint--what house?' came the cutting retort.
+
+Most disquieting reflection of all, was it not bad form to think about
+good form?
+
+His vitals were tortured by this problem. It was a claw within him
+sharper than the iron one; and as it tore him, the perspiration dripped
+down his tallow countenance and streaked his doublet. Ofttimes he drew
+his sleeve across his face, but there was no damming that trickle.
+
+Ah, envy not Hook.
+
+There came to him a presentiment of his early dissolution. It was as if
+Peter's terrible oath had boarded the ship. Hook felt a gloomy desire
+to make his dying speech, lest presently there should be no time for it.
+
+'Better for Hook,' he cried, 'if he had had less ambition.' It was in
+his darkest hours only that he referred to himself in the third person.
+
+'No little children love me.'
+
+Strange that he should think of this, which had never troubled him
+before; perhaps the sewing machine brought it to his mind. For long he
+muttered to himself, staring at Smee, who was hemming placidly, under
+the conviction that all children feared him.
+
+Feared him! Feared Smee! There was not a child on board the brig that
+night who did not already love him. He had said horrid things to them
+and hit them with the palm of his hand, because he could not hit with
+his fist; but they had only clung to him the more. Michael had tried on
+his spectacles.
+
+To tell poor Smee that they thought him lovable! Hook itched to do it,
+but it seemed too brutal. Instead, he revolved this mystery in his mind:
+why do they find Smee lovable? He pursued the problem like the
+sleuth-hound that he was. If Smee was lovable, what was it that made him
+so? A terrible answer suddenly presented itself: 'Good form?'
+
+Had the bo'sun good form without knowing it, which is the best form of
+all?
+
+He remembered that you have to prove you don't know you have it before
+you are eligible for Pop.
+
+With a cry of rage he raised his iron hand over Smee's head; but he did
+not tear. What arrested him was this reflection:
+
+'To claw a man because he is good form, what would that be?'
+
+'Bad form!'
+
+The unhappy Hook was as impotent as he was damp, and he fell forward
+like a cut flower.
+
+His dogs thinking him out of the way for a time, discipline instantly
+relaxed; and they broke into a bacchanalian dance, which brought him to
+his feet at once; all traces of human weakness gone, as if a bucket of
+water had passed over him.
+
+'Quiet, you scugs,' he cried, 'or I'll cast anchor in you'; and at once
+the din was hushed. 'Are all the children chained, so that they cannot
+fly away?'
+
+'Ay, ay.'
+
+'Then hoist them up.'
+
+The wretched prisoners were dragged from the hold, all except Wendy, and
+ranged in line in front of him. For a time he seemed unconscious of
+their presence. He lolled at his ease, humming, not unmelodiously,
+snatches of a rude song, and fingering a pack of cards. Ever and anon
+the light from his cigar gave a touch of colour to his face.
+
+'Now then, bullies,' he said briskly, 'six of you walk the plank
+to-night, but I have room for two cabin boys. Which of you is it to be?'
+
+'Don't irritate him unnecessarily,' had been Wendy's instructions in the
+hold; so Tootles stepped forward politely. Tootles hated the idea of
+signing under such a man, but an instinct told him that it would be
+prudent to lay the responsibility on an absent person; and though a
+somewhat silly boy, he knew that mothers alone are always willing to be
+the buffer. All children know this about mothers, and despise them for
+it, but make constant use of it.
+
+So Tootles explained prudently, 'You see, sir, I don't think my mother
+would like me to be a pirate. Would your mother like you to be a pirate,
+Slightly?'
+
+He winked at Slightly, who said mournfully, 'I don't think so,' as if he
+wished things had been otherwise. 'Would your mother like you to be a
+pirate, Twin?'
+
+'I don't think so,' said the first twin, as clever as the others. 'Nibs,
+would----'
+
+'Stow this gab,' roared Hook, and the spokesmen were dragged back. 'You,
+boy,' he said, addressing John, 'you look as if you had a little pluck
+in you. Didst never want to be a pirate, my hearty?'
+
+Now John had sometimes experienced this hankering at maths. prep.; and
+he was struck by Hook's picking him out.
+
+'I once thought of calling myself Red-handed Jack,' he said diffidently.
+
+'And a good name too. We'll call you that here, bully, if you join.'
+
+'What do you think, Michael?' asked John.
+
+'What would you call me if I join?' Michael demanded.
+
+'Blackbeard Joe.'
+
+Michael was naturally impressed. 'What do you think, John?' He wanted
+John to decide, and John wanted him to decide.
+
+'Shall we still be respectful subjects of the King?' John inquired.
+
+Through Hook's teeth came the answer: 'You would have to swear, "Down
+with the King."'
+
+Perhaps John had not behaved very well so far, but he shone out now.
+
+'Then I refuse,' he cried, banging the barrel in front of Hook.
+
+'And I refuse,' cried Michael.
+
+'Rule Britannia!' squeaked Curly.
+
+The infuriated pirates buffeted them in the mouth; and Hook roared out,
+'That seals your doom. Bring up their mother. Get the plank ready.'
+
+They were only boys, and they went white as they saw Jukes and Cecco
+preparing the fatal plank. But they tried to look brave when Wendy was
+brought up.
+
+No words of mine can tell you how Wendy despised those pirates. To the
+boys there was at least some glamour in the pirate calling; but all that
+she saw was that the ship had not been scrubbed for years. There was not
+a porthole, on the grimy glass of which you might not have written with
+your finger 'Dirty pig'; and she had already written it on several. But
+as the boys gathered round her she had no thought, of course, save for
+them.
+
+'So, my beauty,' said Hook, as if he spoke in syrup, 'you are to see
+your children walk the plank.'
+
+Fine gentleman though he was, the intensity of his communings had soiled
+his ruff, and suddenly he knew that she was gazing at it. With a hasty
+gesture he tried to hide it, but he was too late.
+
+'Are they to die?' asked Wendy, with a look of such frightful contempt
+that he nearly fainted.
+
+'They are,' he snarled. 'Silence all,' he called gloatingly, 'for a
+mother's last words to her children.'
+
+At this moment Wendy was grand. 'These are my last words, dear boys,'
+she said firmly. 'I feel that I have a message to you from your real
+mothers, and it is this: "We hope our sons will die like English
+gentlemen."'
+
+Even the pirates were awed; and Tootles cried out hysterically, 'I am
+going to do what my mother hopes. What are you to do, Nibs?'
+
+'What my mother hopes. What are you to do, Twin?'
+
+'What my mother hopes. John, what are----'
+
+But Hook had found his voice again.
+
+'Tie her up,' he shouted.
+
+It was Smee who tied her to the mast. 'See here, honey,' he whispered,
+'I'll save you if you promise to be my mother.'
+
+But not even for Smee would she make such a promise. 'I would almost
+rather have no children at all,' she said disdainfully.
+
+It is sad to know that not a boy was looking at her as Smee tied her to
+the mast; the eyes of all were on the plank: that last little walk they
+were about to take. They were no longer able to hope that they would
+walk it manfully, for the capacity to think had gone from them; they
+could stare and shiver only.
+
+Hook smiled on them with his teeth closed, and took a step toward Wendy.
+His intention was to turn her face so that she should see the boys
+walking the plank one by one. But he never reached her, he never heard
+the cry of anguish he hoped to wring from her. He heard something else
+instead.
+
+It was the terrible tick-tick of the crocodile.
+
+They all heard it--pirates, boys, Wendy; and immediately every head was
+blown in one direction; not to the water whence the sound proceeded, but
+toward Hook. All knew that what was about to happen concerned him alone,
+and that from being actors they were suddenly become spectators.
+
+Very frightful was it to see the change that came over him. It was as if
+he had been clipped at every joint. He fell in a little heap.
+
+The sound came steadily nearer; and in advance of it came this ghastly
+thought, 'The crocodile is about to board the ship.'
+
+Even the iron claw hung inactive; as if knowing that it was no
+intrinsic part of what the attacking force wanted. Left so fearfully
+alone, any other man would have lain with his eyes shut where he fell:
+but the gigantic brain of Hook was still working, and under its guidance
+he crawled on his knees along the deck as far from the sound as he could
+go. The pirates respectfully cleared a passage for him, and it was only
+when he brought up against the bulwarks that he spoke.
+
+'Hide me,' he cried hoarsely.
+
+They gathered round him; all eyes averted from the thing that was coming
+aboard. They had no thought of fighting it. It was Fate.
+
+Only when Hook was hidden from them did curiosity loosen the limbs of
+the boys so that they could rush to the ship's side to see the crocodile
+climbing it. Then they got the strangest surprise of this Night of
+Nights; for it was no crocodile that was coming to their aid. It was
+Peter.
+
+He signed to them not to give vent to any cry of admiration that might
+rouse suspicion. Then he went on ticking.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV
+
+'HOOK OR ME THIS TIME'
+
+
+Odd things happen to all of us on our way through life without our
+noticing for a time that they have happened. Thus, to take an instance,
+we suddenly discover that we have been deaf in one ear for we don't know
+how long, but, say, half an hour. Now such an experience had come that
+night to Peter. When last we saw him he was stealing across the island
+with one finger to his lips and his dagger at the ready. He had seen the
+crocodile pass by without noticing anything peculiar about it, but by
+and by he remembered that it had not been ticking. At first he thought
+this eerie, but soon he concluded rightly that the clock had run down.
+
+Without giving a thought to what might be the feelings of a
+fellow-creature thus abruptly deprived of its closest companion, Peter
+at once considered how he could turn the catastrophe to his own use; and
+he decided to tick, so that wild beasts should believe he was the
+crocodile and let him pass unmolested. He ticked superbly, but with one
+unforeseen result. The crocodile was among those who heard the sound,
+and it followed him, though whether with the purpose of regaining what
+it had lost, or merely as a friend under the belief that it was again
+ticking itself, will never be certainly known, for, like all slaves to a
+fixed idea, it was a stupid beast.
+
+Peter reached the shore without mishap, and went straight on; his legs
+encountering the water as if quite unaware that they had entered a new
+element. Thus many animals pass from land to water, but no other human
+of whom I know. As he swam he had but one thought: 'Hook or me this
+time.' He had ticked so long that he now went on ticking without knowing
+that he was doing it. Had he known he would have stopped, for to board
+the brig by the help of the tick, though an ingenious idea, had not
+occurred to him.
+
+[Illustration: HOOK OR ME THIS TIME]
+
+On the contrary, he thought he had scaled her side as noiseless as a
+mouse; and he was amazed to see the pirates cowering from him, with Hook
+in their midst as abject as if he had heard the crocodile.
+
+The crocodile! No sooner did Peter remember it than he heard the
+ticking. At first he thought the sound did come from the crocodile, and
+he looked behind him swiftly. Then he realised that he was doing it
+himself, and in a flash he understood the situation. 'How clever of me,'
+he thought at once, and signed to the boys not to burst into applause.
+
+It was at this moment that Ed Teynte the quartermaster emerged from the
+forecastle and came along the deck. Now, reader, time what happened by
+your watch. Peter struck true and deep. John clapped his hands on the
+ill-fated pirate's mouth to stifle the dying groan. He fell forward.
+Four boys caught him to prevent the thud. Peter gave the signal, and the
+carrion was cast overboard. There was a splash, and then silence. How
+long has it taken?
+
+'One!' (Slightly had begun to count.)
+
+None too soon, Peter, every inch of him on tiptoe, vanished into the
+cabin; for more than one pirate was screwing up his courage to look
+round. They could hear each other's distressed breathing now, which
+showed them that the more terrible sound had passed.
+
+'It's gone, captain,' Smee said, wiping his spectacles. 'All's still
+again.'
+
+Slowly Hook let his head emerge from his ruff, and listened so intently
+that he could have caught the echo of the tick. There was not a sound,
+and he drew himself up firmly to his full height.
+
+'Then here's to Johnny Plank,' he cried brazenly, hating the boys more
+than ever because they had seen him unbend. He broke into the villainous
+ditty:
+
+
+     'Yo ho, yo ho, the frisky plank,
+       You walks along it so,
+     Till it goes down and you goes down
+       To Davy Jones below!'
+
+
+To terrorise the prisoners the more, though with a certain loss of
+dignity, he danced along an imaginary plank, grimacing at them as he
+sang; and when he finished he cried, 'Do you want a touch of the cat
+before you walk the plank?'
+
+At that they fell on their knees. 'No, no,' they cried so piteously
+that every pirate smiled.
+
+'Fetch the cat, Jukes,' said Hook; 'it's in the cabin.'
+
+The cabin! Peter was in the cabin! The children gazed at each other.
+
+'Ay, ay,' said Jukes blithely, and he strode into the cabin. They
+followed him with their eyes; they scarce knew that Hook had resumed his
+song, his dogs joining in with him:
+
+
+     'Yo ho, yo ho, the scratching cat,
+       Its tails are nine, you know,
+     And when they're writ upon your back--
+
+
+What was the last line will never be known, for of a sudden the song was
+stayed by a dreadful screech from the cabin. It wailed through the ship,
+and died away. Then was heard a crowing sound which was well understood
+by the boys, but to the pirates was almost more eerie than the screech.
+
+'What was that?' cried Hook.
+
+'Two,' said Slightly solemnly.
+
+The Italian Cecco hesitated for a moment and then swung into the cabin.
+He tottered out, haggard.
+
+'What's the matter with Bill Jukes, you dog?' hissed Hook, towering over
+him.
+
+'The matter wi' him is he's dead, stabbed,' replied Cecco in a hollow
+Voice.
+
+'Bill Jukes dead!' cried the startled pirates.
+
+'The cabin's as black as a pit,' Cecco said, almost gibbering, 'but
+there is something terrible in there: the thing you heard crowing.'
+
+The exultation of the boys, the lowering looks of the pirates, both were
+seen by Hook.
+
+'Cecco,' he said in his most steely voice, 'go back and fetch me out
+that doodle-doo.'
+
+Cecco, bravest of the brave, cowered before his captain, crying 'No,
+no'; but Hook was purring to his claw.
+
+'Did you say you would go, Cecco?' he said musingly.
+
+Cecco went, first flinging up his arms despairingly. There was no more
+singing, all listened now; and again came a death-screech and again a
+crow.
+
+No one spoke except Slightly. 'Three,' he said.
+
+Hook rallied his dogs with a gesture. ''Sdeath and odds fish,' he
+thundered, 'who is to bring me that doodle-doo?'
+
+'Wait till Cecco comes out,' growled Starkey, and the others took up the
+cry.
+
+'I think I heard you volunteer, Starkey,' said Hook, purring again.
+
+'No, by thunder!' Starkey cried.
+
+'My hook thinks you did,' said Hook, crossing to him. 'I wonder if it
+would not be advisable, Starkey, to humour the hook?'
+
+'I'll swing before I go in there,' replied Starkey doggedly, and again
+he had the support of the crew.
+
+'Is it mutiny?' asked Hook more pleasantly than ever. 'Starkey's
+ringleader.'
+
+'Captain, mercy,' Starkey whimpered, all of a tremble now.
+
+'Shake hands, Starkey,' said Hook, proffering his claw.
+
+Starkey looked round for help, but all deserted him. As he backed Hook
+advanced, and now the red spark was in his eye. With a despairing scream
+the pirate leapt upon Long Tom and precipitated himself into the sea.
+
+'Four,' said Slightly.
+
+'And now,' Hook asked courteously, 'did any other gentleman say mutiny?'
+Seizing a lantern and raising his claw with a menacing gesture, 'I'll
+bring out that doodle-doo myself,' he said, and sped into the cabin.
+
+'Five.' How Slightly longed to say it. He wetted his lips to be ready,
+but Hook came staggering out, without his lantern.
+
+'Something blew out the light,' he said a little unsteadily.
+
+'Something!' echoed Mullins.
+
+'What of Cecco?' demanded Noodler.
+
+'He's as dead as Jukes,' said Hook shortly.
+
+His reluctance to return to the cabin impressed them all unfavourably,
+and the mutinous sounds again broke forth. All pirates are
+superstitious; and Cookson cried, 'They do say the surest sign a ship's
+accurst is when there's one on board more than can be accounted for.'
+
+'I've heard,' muttered Mullins, 'he always boards the pirate craft at
+last. Had he a tail, captain?'
+
+'They say,' said another, looking viciously at Hook, 'that when he
+comes it's in the likeness of the wickedest man aboard.'
+
+'Had he a hook, captain?' asked Cookson insolently; and one after
+another took up the cry, 'The ship's doomed.' At this the children could
+not resist raising a cheer. Hook had well-nigh forgotten his prisoners,
+but as he swung round on them now his face lit up again.
+
+'Lads,' he cried to his crew, 'here's a notion. Open the cabin door and
+drive them in. Let them fight the doodle-doo for their lives. If they
+kill him, we're so much the better; if he kills them, we're none the
+worse.'
+
+For the last time his dogs admired Hook, and devotedly they did his
+bidding. The boys, pretending to struggle, were pushed into the cabin
+and the door was closed on them.
+
+'Now, listen,' cried Hook, and all listened. But not one dared to face
+the door. Yes, one, Wendy, who all this time had been bound to the mast.
+It was for neither a scream nor a crow that she was watching; it was for
+the reappearance of Peter.
+
+She had not long to wait. In the cabin he had found the thing for which
+he had gone in search: the key that would free the children of their
+manacles; and now they all stole forth, armed with such weapons as they
+could find. First signing to them to hide, Peter cut Wendy's bonds, and
+then nothing could have been easier than for them all to fly off
+together; but one thing barred the way, an oath, 'Hook or me this time.'
+So when he had freed Wendy, he whispered to her to conceal herself with
+the others, and himself took her place by the mast, her cloak around him
+so that he should pass for her. Then he took a great breath and crowed.
+
+To the pirates it was a voice crying that all the boys lay slain in the
+cabin; and they were panic-stricken. Hook tried to hearten them; but
+like the dogs he had made them they showed him their fangs, and he knew
+that if he took his eyes off them now they would leap at him.
+
+'Lads,' he said, ready to cajole or strike as need be, but never
+quailing for an instant, 'I've thought it out. There's a Jonah abroad.'
+
+'Ay,' they snarled, 'a man wi' a hook.'
+
+'No, lads, no, it's the girl. Never was luck on a pirate ship wi' a
+woman on board. We'll right the ship when she's gone.'
+
+Some of them remembered that this had been a saying of Flint's. 'It's
+worth trying,' they said doubtfully.
+
+'Fling the girl overboard,' cried Hook; and they made a rush at the
+figure in the cloak.
+
+'There's none can save you now, missy,' Mullins hissed jeeringly.
+
+'There's one,' replied the figure.
+
+'Who's that?'
+
+'Peter Pan the avenger!' came the terrible answer; and as he spoke Peter
+flung off his cloak. Then they all knew who 'twas that had been undoing
+them in the cabin, and twice Hook essayed to speak and twice he failed.
+In that frightful moment I think his fierce heart broke.
+
+At last he cried, 'Cleave him to the brisket,' but without conviction.
+
+'Down, boys, and at them,' Peter's voice rang out; and in another moment
+the clash of arms was resounding through the ship. Had the pirates kept
+together it is certain that they would have won; but the onset came
+when they were all unstrung, and they ran hither and thither, striking
+wildly, each thinking himself the last survivor of the crew. Man to man
+they were the stronger; but they fought on the defensive only, which
+enabled the boys to hunt in pairs and choose their quarry. Some of the
+miscreants leapt into the sea; others hid in dark recesses, where they
+were found by Slightly, who did not fight, but ran about with a lantern
+which he flashed in their faces, so that they were half blinded and fell
+an easy prey to the reeking swords of the other boys. There was little
+sound to be heard but the clang of weapons, an occasional screech or
+splash, and Slightly monotonously counting--five--six--seven--eight--
+nine--ten--eleven.
+
+I think all were gone when a group of savage boys surrounded Hook, who
+seemed to have a charmed life, as he kept them at bay in that circle of
+fire. They had done for his dogs, but this man alone seemed to be a
+match for them all. Again and again they closed upon him, and again and
+again he hewed a clear space. He had lifted up one boy with his hook,
+and was using him as a buckler, when another, who had just passed his
+sword through Mullins, sprang into the fray.
+
+'Put up your swords, boys,' cried the newcomer, 'this man is mine.'
+
+[Illustration: "THIS MAN IS MINE!"]
+
+Thus suddenly Hook found himself face to face with Peter. The others
+drew back and formed a ring round them.
+
+For long the two enemies looked at one another; Hook shuddering
+slightly, and Peter with the strange smile upon his face.
+
+'So, Pan,' said Hook at last, 'this is all your doing.'
+
+'Ay, James Hook,' came the stern answer, 'it is all my doing.'
+
+'Proud and insolent youth,' said Hook, 'prepare to meet thy doom.'
+
+'Dark and sinister man,' Peter answered, 'have at thee.'
+
+Without more words they fell to, and for a space there was no advantage
+to either blade. Peter was a superb swordsman, and parried with dazzling
+rapidity; ever and anon he followed up a feint with a lunge that got
+past his foe's defence, but his shorter reach stood him in ill stead,
+and he could not drive the steel home. Hook, scarcely his inferior in
+brilliancy, but not quite so nimble in wrist play, forced him back by
+the weight of his onset, hoping suddenly to end all with a favourite
+thrust, taught him long ago by Barbecue at Rio; but to his astonishment
+he found this thrust turned aside again and again. Then he sought to
+close and give the quietus with his iron hook, which all this time had
+been pawing the air; but Peter doubled under it and, lunging fiercely,
+pierced him in the ribs. At sight of his own blood, whose peculiar
+colour, you remember, was offensive to him, the sword fell from Hook's
+hand, and he was at Peter's mercy.
+
+'Now!' cried all the boys; but with a magnificent gesture Peter invited
+his opponent to pick up his sword. Hook did so instantly, but with a
+tragic feeling that Peter was showing good form.
+
+Hitherto he had thought it was some fiend fighting him, but darker
+suspicions assailed him now.
+
+'Pan, who and what art thou?' he cried huskily.
+
+'I'm youth, I'm joy,' Peter answered at a venture, 'I'm a little bird
+that has broken out of the egg.'
+
+This, of course, was nonsense; but it was proof to the unhappy Hook that
+Peter did not know in the least who or what he was, which is the very
+pinnacle of good form.
+
+'To 't again,' he cried despairingly.
+
+He fought now like a human flail, and every sweep of that terrible sword
+would have severed in twain any man or boy who obstructed it; but Peter
+fluttered round him as if the very wind it made blew him out of the
+danger zone. And again and again he darted in and pricked.
+
+Hook was fighting now without hope. That passionate breast no longer
+asked for life; but for one boon it craved: to see Peter bad form before
+it was cold for ever.
+
+Abandoning the fight he rushed into the powder magazine and fired it.
+
+'In two minutes,' he cried, 'the ship will be blown to pieces.'
+
+Now, now, he thought, true form will show.
+
+But Peter issued from the powder magazine with the shell in his hands,
+and calmly flung it overboard.
+
+What sort of form was Hook himself showing? Misguided man though he was,
+we may be glad, without sympathising with him, that in the end he was
+true to the traditions of his race. The other boys were flying around
+him now, flouting, scornful; and as he staggered about the deck striking
+up at them impotently, his mind was no longer with them; it was
+slouching in the playing fields of long ago, or being sent up for good,
+or watching the wall-game from a famous wall. And his shoes were right,
+and his waistcoat was right, and his tie was right, and his socks were
+right.
+
+James Hook, thou not wholly unheroic figure, farewell.
+
+For we have come to his last moment.
+
+Seeing Peter slowly advancing upon him through the air with dagger
+poised, he sprang upon the bulwarks to cast himself into the sea. He did
+not know that the crocodile was waiting for him; for we purposely
+stopped the clock that this knowledge might be spared him: a little mark
+of respect from us at the end.
+
+He had one last triumph, which I think we need not grudge him. As he
+stood on the bulwark looking over his shoulder at Peter gliding through
+the air, he invited him with a gesture to use his foot. It made Peter
+kick instead of stab.
+
+At last Hook had got the boon for which he craved.
+
+'Bad form,' he cried jeeringly, and went content to the crocodile.
+
+Thus perished James Hook.
+
+'Seventeen,' Slightly sang out; but he was not quite correct in his
+figures. Fifteen paid the penalty for their crimes that night; but two
+reached the shore: Starkey to be captured by the redskins, who made him
+nurse for all their papooses, a melancholy come-down for a pirate; and
+Smee, who henceforth wandered about the world in his spectacles, making
+a precarious living by saying he was the only man that Jas. Hook had
+feared.
+
+Wendy, of course, had stood by taking no part in the fight, though
+watching Peter with glistening eyes; but now that all was over she
+became prominent again. She praised them equally, and shuddered
+delightfully when Michael showed her the place where he had killed one;
+and then she took them into Hook's cabin and pointed to his watch which
+was hanging on a nail. It said 'half-past one'!
+
+The lateness of the hour was almost the biggest thing of all. She got
+them to bed in the pirates' bunks pretty quickly, you may be sure; all
+but Peter, who strutted up and down on deck, until at last he fell
+asleep by the side of Long Tom. He had one of his dreams that night, and
+cried in his sleep for a long time, and Wendy held him tight.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI
+
+THE RETURN HOME
+
+
+By two bells that morning they were all stirring their stumps; for there
+was a big sea running; and Tootles, the bo'sun, was among them, with a
+rope's end in his hand and chewing tobacco. They all donned pirate
+clothes cut off at the knee, shaved smartly, and tumbled up, with the
+true nautical roll and hitching their trousers.
+
+It need not be said who was the captain. Nibs and John were first and
+second mate. There was a woman aboard. The rest were tars before the
+mast, and lived in the fo'c'sle. Peter had already lashed himself to the
+wheel; but he piped all hands and delivered a short address to them;
+said he hoped they would do their duty like gallant hearties, but that
+he knew they were the scum of Rio and the Gold Coast, and if they
+snapped at him he would tear them. His bluff strident words struck the
+note sailors understand, and they cheered him lustily. Then a few sharp
+orders were given, and they turned the ship round, and nosed her for the
+mainland.
+
+Captain Pan calculated, after consulting the ship's chart, that if this
+weather lasted they should strike the Azores about the 21st of June,
+after which it would save time to fly.
+
+Some of them wanted it to be an honest ship and others were in favour of
+keeping it a pirate; but the captain treated them as dogs, and they
+dared not express their wishes to him even in a round robin. Instant
+obedience was the only safe thing. Slightly got a dozen for looking
+perplexed when told to take soundings. The general feeling was that
+Peter was honest just now to lull Wendy's suspicions, but that there
+might be a change when the new suit was ready, which, against her will,
+she was making for him out of some of Hook's wickedest garments. It was
+afterwards whispered among them that on the first night he wore this
+suit he sat long in the cabin with Hook's cigar-holder in his mouth and
+one hand clenched, all but the forefinger, which he bent and held
+threateningly aloft like a hook.
+
+Instead of watching the ship, however, we must now return to that
+desolate home from which three of our characters had taken heartless
+flight so long ago. It seems a shame to have neglected No. 14 all this
+time; and yet we may be sure that Mrs. Darling does not blame us. If we
+had returned sooner to look with sorrowful sympathy at her, she would
+probably have cried, 'Don't be silly; what do I matter? Do go back and
+keep an eye on the children.' So long as mothers are like this their
+children will take advantage of them; and they may lay to that.
+
+Even now we venture into that familiar nursery only because its lawful
+occupants are on their way home; we are merely hurrying on in advance of
+them to see that their beds are properly aired and that Mr. and Mrs.
+Darling do not go out for the evening. We are no more than servants. Why
+on earth should their beds be properly aired, seeing that they left them
+in such a thankless hurry? Would it not serve them jolly well right if
+they came back and found that their parents were spending the week-end
+in the country? It would be the moral lesson they have been in need of
+ever since we met them; but if we contrived things in this way Mrs.
+Darling would never forgive us.
+
+One thing I should like to do immensely, and that is to tell her, in the
+way authors have, that the children are coming back, that indeed they
+will be here on Thursday week. This would spoil so completely the
+surprise to which Wendy and John and Michael are looking forward. They
+have been planning it out on the ship: mother's rapture, father's shout
+of joy, Nana's leap through the air to embrace them first, when what
+they ought to be preparing for is a good hiding. How delicious to spoil
+it all by breaking the news in advance; so that when they enter grandly
+Mrs. Darling may not even offer Wendy her mouth, and Mr. Darling may
+exclaim pettishly, 'Dash it all, here are those boys again.' However, we
+should get no thanks even for this. We are beginning to know Mrs.
+Darling by this time, and may be sure that she would upbraid us for
+depriving the children of their little pleasure.
+
+'But, my dear madam, it is ten days till Thursday week; so that by
+telling you what's what, we can save you ten days of unhappiness.'
+
+'Yes, but at what a cost! By depriving the children of ten minutes of
+delight.'
+
+'Oh, if you look at it in that way.'
+
+'What other way is there in which to look at it?'
+
+You see, the woman had no proper spirit. I had meant to say
+extraordinarily nice things about her; but I despise her, and not one of
+them will I say now. She does not really need to be told to have things
+ready, for they are ready. All the beds are aired, and she never leaves
+the house, and observe, the window is open. For all the use we are to
+her, we might go back to the ship. However, as we are here we may as
+well stay and look on. That is all we are, lookers-on. Nobody really
+wants us. So let us watch and say jaggy things, in the hope that some of
+them will hurt.
+
+The only change to be seen in the night-nursery is that between nine
+and six the kennel is no longer there. When the children flew away, Mr.
+Darling felt in his bones that all the blame was his for having chained
+Nana up, and that from first to last she had been wiser than he. Of
+course, as we have seen, he was quite a simple man; indeed he might have
+passed for a boy again if he had been able to take his baldness off; but
+he had also a noble sense of justice and a lion courage to do what
+seemed right to him; and having thought the matter out with anxious care
+after the flight of the children, he went down on all fours and crawled
+into the kennel. To all Mrs. Darling's dear invitations to him to come
+out he replied sadly but firmly:
+
+'No, my own one, this is the place for me.'
+
+In the bitterness of his remorse he swore that he would never leave the
+kennel until his children came back. Of course this was a pity; but
+whatever Mr. Darling did he had to do in excess; otherwise he soon gave
+up doing it. And there never was a more humble man than the once proud
+George Darling, as he sat in the kennel of an evening talking with his
+wife of their children and all their pretty ways.
+
+Very touching was his deference to Nana. He would not let her come into
+the kennel, but on all other matters he followed her wishes implicitly.
+
+Every morning the kennel was carried with Mr. Darling in it to a cab,
+which conveyed him to his office, and he returned home in the same way
+at six. Something of the strength of character of the man will be seen
+if we remember how sensitive he was to the opinion of neighbours: this
+man whose every movement now attracted surprised attention. Inwardly he
+must have suffered torture; but he preserved a calm exterior even when
+the young criticised his little home, and he always lifted his hat
+courteously to any lady who looked inside.
+
+It may have been quixotic, but it was magnificent. Soon the inward
+meaning of it leaked out, and the great heart of the public was touched.
+Crowds followed the cab, cheering it lustily; charming girls scaled it
+to get his autograph; interviews appeared in the better class of papers,
+and society invited him to dinner and added, 'Do come in the kennel.'
+
+On that eventful Thursday week Mrs. Darling was in the night-nursery
+awaiting George's return home: a very sad-eyed woman. Now that we look
+at her closely and remember the gaiety of her in the old days, all gone
+now just because she has lost her babes, I find I won't be able to say
+nasty things about her after all. If she was too fond of her rubbishy
+children she couldn't help it. Look at her in her chair, where she has
+fallen asleep. The corner of her mouth, where one looks first, is almost
+withered up. Her hand moves restlessly on her breast as if she had a
+pain there. Some like Peter best and some like Wendy best, but I like
+her best. Suppose, to make her happy, we whisper to her in her sleep
+that the brats are coming back. They are really within two miles of the
+window now, and flying strong, but all we need whisper is that they are
+on the way. Let's.
+
+It is a pity we did it, for she has started up, calling their names; and
+there is no one in the room but Nana.
+
+'O Nana, I dreamt my dear ones had come back.'
+
+Nana had filmy eyes, but all she could do was to put her paw gently on
+her mistress's lap; and they were sitting together thus when the kennel
+was brought back. As Mr. Darling puts his head out at it to kiss his
+wife, we see that his face is more worn than of yore, but has a softer
+expression.
+
+He gave his hat to Liza, who took it scornfully; for she had no
+imagination, and was quite incapable of understanding the motives of
+such a man. Outside, the crowd who had accompanied the cab home were
+still cheering, and he was naturally not unmoved.
+
+'Listen to them,' he said; 'it is very gratifying.'
+
+'Lot of little boys,' sneered Liza.
+
+'There were several adults to-day,' he assured her with a faint flush;
+but when she tossed her head he had not a word of reproof for her.
+Social success had not spoilt him; it had made him sweeter. For some
+time he sat half out of the kennel, talking with Mrs. Darling of this
+success, and pressing her hand reassuringly when she said she hoped his
+head would not be turned by it.
+
+'But if I had been a weak man,' he said. 'Good heavens, if I had been a
+weak man!'
+
+'And, George,' she said timidly, 'you are as full of remorse as ever,
+aren't you?'
+
+'Full of remorse as ever, dearest! See my punishment: living in a
+kennel.'
+
+'But it is punishment, isn't it, George? You are sure you are not
+enjoying it?'
+
+'My love!'
+
+You may be sure she begged his pardon; and then, feeling drowsy, he
+curled round in the kennel.
+
+'Won't you play me to sleep,' he asked, 'on the nursery piano?' and as
+she was crossing to the day nursery he added thoughtlessly, 'And shut
+that window. I feel a draught.'
+
+'O George, never ask me to do that. The window must always be left open
+for them, always, always.'
+
+Now it was his turn to beg her pardon; and she went into the day nursery
+and played, and soon he was asleep; and while he slept, Wendy and John
+and Michael flew into the room.
+
+Oh no. We have written it so, because that was the charming arrangement
+planned by them before we left the ship; but something must have
+happened since then, for it is not they who have flown in, it is Peter
+and Tinker Bell.
+
+Peter's first words tell all.
+
+'Quick, Tink,' he whispered, 'close the window; bar it. That's right.
+Now you and I must get away by the door; and when Wendy comes she will
+think her mother has barred her out; and she will have to go back with
+me.'
+
+Now I understand what had hitherto puzzled me, why when Peter had
+exterminated the pirates he did not return to the island and leave Tink
+to escort the children to the mainland. This trick had been in his head
+all the time.
+
+Instead of feeling that he was behaving badly he danced with glee; then
+he peeped into the day-nursery to see who was playing. He whispered to
+Tink, 'It's Wendy's mother. She is a pretty lady, but not so pretty as
+my mother. Her mouth is full of thimbles, but not so full as my mother's
+was.'
+
+Of course he knew nothing whatever about his mother; but he sometimes
+bragged about her.
+
+He did not know the tune, which was 'Home, Sweet Home,' but he knew it
+was saying, 'Come back, Wendy, Wendy, Wendy'; and he cried exultantly,
+'You will never see Wendy again, lady, for the window is barred.'
+
+He peeped in again to see why the music had stopped; and now he saw that
+Mrs. Darling had laid her head on the box, and that two tears were
+sitting on her eyes.
+
+'She wants me to unbar the window,' thought Peter, 'but I won't, not I.'
+
+He peeped again, and the tears were still there, or another two had
+taken their place.
+
+'She's awfully fond of Wendy,' he said to himself. He was angry with her
+now for not seeing why she could not have Wendy.
+
+The reason was so simple: 'I'm fond of her too. We can't both have her,
+lady.'
+
+But the lady would not make the best of it, and he was unhappy. He
+ceased to look at her, but even then she would not let go of him. He
+skipped about and made funny faces, but when he stopped it was just as
+if she were inside him, knocking.
+
+'Oh, all right,' he said at last, and gulped. Then he unbarred the
+window. 'Come on, Tink,' he cried, with a frightful sneer at the laws
+of nature; 'we don't want any silly mothers'; and he flew away.
+
+Thus Wendy and John and Michael found the window open for them after
+all, which of course was more than they deserved. They alighted on the
+floor, quite unashamed of themselves; and the youngest one had already
+forgotten his home.
+
+'John,' he said, looking around him doubtfully, 'I think I have been
+here before.'
+
+'Of course you have, you silly. There is your old bed.'
+
+'So it is,' Michael said, but not with much conviction.
+
+'I say,' cried John, 'the kennel!' and he dashed across to look into it.
+
+'Perhaps Nana is inside it,' Wendy said.
+
+But John whistled. 'Hullo,' he said, 'there's a man inside it.'
+
+'It's father!' exclaimed Wendy.
+
+'Let me see father,' Michael begged eagerly, and he took a good look.
+'He is not so big as the pirate I killed,' he said with such frank
+disappointment that I am glad Mr. Darling was asleep; it would have
+been sad if those had been the first words he heard his little Michael
+say.
+
+Wendy and John had been taken aback somewhat at finding their father in
+the kennel.
+
+'Surely,' said John, like one who had lost faith in his memory, 'he used
+not to sleep in the kennel?'
+
+'John,' Wendy said falteringly, 'perhaps we don't remember the old life
+as well as we thought we did.'
+
+A chill fell upon them; and serve them right.
+
+'It is very careless of mother,' said that young scoundrel John, 'not to
+be here when we come back.'
+
+It was then that Mrs. Darling began playing again.
+
+'It's mother!' cried Wendy, peeping.
+
+'So it is!' said John.
+
+'Then are you not really our mother, Wendy?' asked Michael, who was
+surely sleepy.
+
+'Oh dear!' exclaimed Wendy, with her first real twinge of remorse, 'it
+was quite time we came back.'
+
+'Let us creep in,' John suggested, 'and put our hands over her eyes.'
+
+But Wendy, who saw that they must break the joyous news more gently,
+had a better plan.
+
+'Let us all slip into our beds, and be there when she comes in, just as
+if we had never been away.'
+
+And so when Mrs. Darling went back to the night-nursery to see if her
+husband was asleep, all the beds were occupied. The children waited for
+her cry of joy, but it did not come. She saw them, but she did not
+believe they were there. You see, she saw them in their beds so often in
+her dreams that she thought this was just the dream hanging around her
+still.
+
+She sat down in the chair by the fire, where in the old days she had
+nursed them.
+
+They could not understand this, and a cold fear fell upon all the three
+of them.
+
+'Mother!' Wendy cried.
+
+'That's Wendy,' she said, but still she was sure it was the dream.
+
+'Mother!'
+
+'That's John,' she said.
+
+'Mother!' cried Michael. He knew her now.
+
+'That's Michael,' she said, and she stretched out her arms for the
+three little selfish children they would never envelop again. Yes, they
+did, they went round Wendy and John and Michael, who had slipped out of
+bed and run to her.
+
+'George, George,' she cried when she could speak; and Mr. Darling woke
+to share her bliss, and Nana came rushing in. There could not have been
+a lovelier sight; but there was none to see it except a strange boy who
+was staring in at the window. He had ecstasies innumerable that other
+children can never know; but he was looking through the window at the
+one joy from which he must be for ever barred.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII
+
+WHEN WENDY GREW UP
+
+
+I hope you want to know what became of the other boys. They were waiting
+below to give Wendy time to explain about them; and when they had
+counted five hundred they went up. They went up by the stair, because
+they thought this would make a better impression. They stood in a row in
+front of Mrs. Darling, with their hats off, and wishing they were not
+wearing their pirate clothes. They said nothing, but their eyes asked
+her to have them. They ought to have looked at Mr. Darling also, but
+they forgot about him.
+
+Of course Mrs. Darling said at once that she would have them; but Mr.
+Darling was curiously depressed, and they saw that he considered six a
+rather large number.
+
+'I must say,' he said to Wendy, 'that you don't do things by halves,' a
+grudging remark which the twins thought was pointed at them.
+
+The first twin was the proud one, and he asked, flushing, 'Do you think
+we should be too much of a handful, sir? Because if so we can go away.'
+
+'Father!' Wendy cried, shocked; but still the cloud was on him. He knew
+he was behaving unworthily, but he could not help it.
+
+'We could lie doubled up,' said Nibs.
+
+'I always cut their hair myself,' said Wendy.
+
+'George!' Mrs. Darling exclaimed, pained to see her dear one showing
+himself in such an unfavourable light.
+
+Then he burst into tears, and the truth came out. He was as glad to have
+them as she was, he said, but he thought they should have asked his
+consent as well as hers, instead of treating him as a cypher in his own
+house.
+
+'I don't think he is a cypher,' Tootles cried instantly. 'Do you think
+he is a cypher, Curly?'
+
+'No, I don't. Do you think he is a cypher, Slightly?'
+
+'Rather not. Twin, what do you think?'
+
+It turned out that not one of them thought him a cypher; and he was
+absurdly gratified, and said he would find space for them all in the
+drawing-room if they fitted in.
+
+'We'll fit in, sir,' they assured him.
+
+'Then follow the leader,' he cried gaily. 'Mind you, I am not sure that
+we have a drawing-room, but we pretend we have, and it's all the same.
+Hoop la!'
+
+He went off dancing through the house, and they all cried 'Hoop la!' and
+danced after him, searching for the drawing-room; and I forget whether
+they found it, but at any rate they found corners, and they all fitted
+in.
+
+As for Peter, he saw Wendy once again before he flew away. He did not
+exactly come to the window, but he brushed against it in passing, so
+that she could open it if she liked and call to him. That was what she
+did.
+
+'Hullo, Wendy, good-bye,' he said.
+
+'Oh dear, are you going away?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'You don't feel, Peter,' she said falteringly, 'that you would like to
+say anything to my parents about a very sweet subject?'
+
+'No.'
+
+'About me, Peter?'
+
+'No.'
+
+Mrs. Darling came to the window, for at present she was keeping a sharp
+eye on Wendy. She told Peter that she had adopted all the other boys,
+and would like to adopt him also.
+
+'Would you send me to school?' he inquired craftily.
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'And then to an office?'
+
+'I suppose so.'
+
+'Soon I should be a man?'
+
+'Very soon.'
+
+'I don't want to go to school and learn solemn things,' he told her
+passionately. 'I don't want to be a man. O Wendy's mother, if I was to
+wake up and feel there was a beard!'
+
+'Peter,' said Wendy the comforter, 'I should love you in a beard'; and
+Mrs. Darling stretched out her arms to him, but he repulsed her.
+
+'Keep back, lady, no one is going to catch me and make me a man.'
+
+'But where are you going to live?'
+
+'With Tink in the house we built for Wendy. The fairies are to put it
+high up among the tree tops where they sleep at nights.'
+
+'How lovely,' cried Wendy so longingly that Mrs. Darling tightened her
+grip.
+
+'I thought all the fairies were dead,' Mrs. Darling said.
+
+'There are always a lot of young ones,' explained Wendy, who was now
+quite an authority, 'because you see when a new baby laughs for the
+first time a new fairy is born, and as there are always new babies there
+are always new fairies. They live in nests on the tops of trees; and the
+mauve ones are boys and the white ones are girls, and the blue ones are
+just little sillies who are not sure what they are.'
+
+'I shall have such fun,' said Peter, with one eye on Wendy.
+
+'It will be rather lonely in the evening,' she said, 'sitting by the
+fire.'
+
+'I shall have Tink.'
+
+'Tink can't go a twentieth part of the way round,' she reminded him a
+little tartly.
+
+'Sneaky tell-tale!' Tink called out from somewhere round the corner.
+
+'It doesn't matter,' Peter said.
+
+'O Peter, you know it matters.'
+
+'Well, then, come with me to the little house.'
+
+'May I, mummy?'
+
+'Certainly not. I have got you home again, and I mean to keep you.'
+
+'But he does so need a mother.'
+
+'So do you, my love.'
+
+'Oh, all right,' Peter said, as if he had asked her from politeness
+merely; but Mrs. Darling saw his mouth twitch, and she made this
+handsome offer: to let Wendy go to him for a week every year to do his
+spring cleaning. Wendy would have preferred a more permanent
+arrangement; and it seemed to her that spring would be long in coming;
+but this promise sent Peter away quite gay again. He had no sense of
+time, and was so full of adventures that all I have told you about him
+is only a halfpenny-worth of them. I suppose it was because Wendy knew
+this that her last words to him were these rather plaintive ones:
+
+'You won't forget me, Peter, will you, before spring-cleaning time
+comes?'
+
+Of course Peter promised; and then he flew away. He took Mrs. Darling's
+kiss with him. The kiss that had been for no one else Peter took quite
+easily. Funny. But she seemed satisfied.
+
+Of course all the boys went to school; and most of them got into Class
+III., but Slightly was put first into Class IV. and then into Class V.
+Class I. is the top class. Before they had attended school a week they
+saw what goats they had been not to remain on the island; but it was too
+late now, and soon they settled down to being as ordinary as you or me
+or Jenkins minor. It is sad to have to say that the power to fly
+gradually left them. At first Nana tied their feet to the bed-posts so
+that they should not fly away in the night; and one of their diversions
+by day was to pretend to fall off 'buses; but by and by they ceased to
+tug at their bonds in bed, and found that they hurt themselves when they
+let go of the 'bus. In time they could not even fly after their hats.
+Want of practice, they called it; but what it really meant was that they
+no longer believed.
+
+Michael believed longer than the other boys, though they jeered at him;
+so he was with Wendy when Peter came for her at the end of the first
+year. She flew away with Peter in the frock she had woven from leaves
+and berries in the Neverland, and her one fear was that he might notice
+how short it had become; but he never noticed, he had so much to say
+about himself.
+
+She had looked forward to thrilling talks with him about old times, but
+new adventures had crowded the old ones from his mind.
+
+'Who is Captain Hook?' he asked with interest when she spoke of the arch
+enemy.
+
+'Don't you remember,' she asked, amazed, 'how you killed him and saved
+all our lives?'
+
+'I forget them after I kill them,' he replied carelessly.
+
+When she expressed a doubtful hope that Tinker Bell would be glad to see
+her he said, 'Who is Tinker Bell?'
+
+'O Peter,' she said, shocked; but even when she explained he could not
+remember.
+
+'There are such a lot of them,' he said. 'I expect she is no more.'
+
+I expect he was right, for fairies don't live long, but they are so
+little that a short time seems a good while to them.
+
+Wendy was pained too to find that the past year was but as yesterday to
+Peter; it had seemed such a long year of waiting to her. But he was
+exactly as fascinating as ever, and they had a lovely spring cleaning in
+the little house on the tree tops.
+
+Next year he did not come for her. She waited in a new frock because the
+old one simply would not meet; but he never came.
+
+'Perhaps he is ill,' Michael said.
+
+'You know he is never ill.'
+
+Michael came close to her and whispered, with a shiver, 'Perhaps there
+is no such person, Wendy!' and then Wendy would have cried if Michael
+had not been crying.
+
+Peter came next spring cleaning; and the strange thing was that he never
+knew he had missed a year.
+
+That was the last time the girl Wendy ever saw him. For a little longer
+she tried for his sake not to have growing pains; and she felt she was
+untrue to him when she got a prize for general knowledge. But the years
+came and went without bringing the careless boy; and when they met again
+Wendy was a married woman, and Peter was no more to her than a little
+dust in the box in which she had kept her toys. Wendy was grown up. You
+need not be sorry for her. She was one of the kind that likes to grow
+up. In the end she grew up of her own free will a day quicker than other
+girls.
+
+All the boys were grown up and done for by this time; so it is scarcely
+worth while saying anything more about them. You may see the twins and
+Nibs and Curly any day going to an office, each carrying a little bag
+and an umbrella. Michael is an engine-driver. Slightly married a lady of
+title, and so he became a lord. You see that judge in a wig coming out
+at the iron door? That used to be Tootles. The bearded man who doesn't
+know any story to tell his children was once John.
+
+Wendy was married in white with a pink sash. It is strange to think
+that Peter did not alight in the church and forbid the banns.
+
+Years rolled on again, and Wendy had a daughter. This ought not to be
+written in ink but in a golden splash.
+
+She was called Jane, and always had an odd inquiring look, as if from
+the moment she arrived on the mainland she wanted to ask questions. When
+she was old enough to ask them they were mostly about Peter Pan. She
+loved to hear of Peter, and Wendy told her all she could remember in the
+very nursery from which the famous flight had taken place. It was Jane's
+nursery now, for her father had bought it at the three per cents. from
+Wendy's father, who was no longer fond of stairs. Mrs. Darling was now
+dead and forgotten.
+
+There were only two beds in the nursery now, Jane's and her nurse's; and
+there was no kennel, for Nana also had passed away. She died of old age,
+and at the end she had been rather difficult to get on with; being very
+firmly convinced that no one knew how to look after children except
+herself.
+
+Once a week Jane's nurse had her evening off; and then it was Wendy's
+part to put Jane to bed. That was the time for stories. It was Jane's
+invention to raise the sheet over her mother's head and her own, thus
+making a tent, and in the awful darkness to whisper:
+
+'What do we see now?'
+
+'I don't think I see anything to-night,' says Wendy, with a feeling that
+if Nana were here she would object to further conversation.
+
+'Yes, you do,' says Jane, 'you see when you were a little girl.'
+
+'That is a long time ago, sweetheart,' says Wendy. 'Ah me, how time
+flies!'
+
+'Does it fly,' asks the artful child, 'the way you flew when you were a
+little girl?'
+
+'The way I flew! Do you know, Jane, I sometimes wonder whether I ever
+did really fly.'
+
+'Yes, you did.'
+
+'The dear old days when I could fly!'
+
+'Why can't you fly now, mother?'
+
+'Because I am grown up, dearest. When people grow up they forget the
+way.'
+
+'Why do they forget the way?'
+
+'Because they are no longer gay and innocent and heartless. It is only
+the gay and innocent and heartless who can fly.'
+
+'What is gay and innocent and heartless? I do wish I was gay and
+innocent and heartless.'
+
+Or perhaps Wendy admits that she does see something. 'I do believe,' she
+says, 'that it is this nursery.'
+
+'I do believe it is,' says Jane. 'Go on.'
+
+They are now embarked on the great adventure of the night when Peter
+flew in looking for his shadow.
+
+'The foolish fellow,' says Wendy, 'tried to stick it on with soap, and
+when he could not he cried, and that woke me, and I sewed it on for
+him.'
+
+'You have missed a bit,' interrupts Jane, who now knows the story better
+than her mother. 'When you saw him sitting on the floor crying what did
+you say?'
+
+'I sat up in bed and I said, "Boy, why are you crying?"'
+
+'Yes, that was it,' says Jane, with a big breath.
+
+'And then he flew us all away to the Neverland and the fairies and the
+pirates and the redskins and the mermaids' lagoon, and the home under
+the ground, and the little house.'
+
+'Yes! which did you like best of all?'
+
+'I think I liked the home under the ground best of all.'
+
+'Yes, so do I. What was the last thing Peter ever said to you?'
+
+'The last thing he ever said to me was, "Just always be waiting for me,
+and then some night you will hear me crowing."'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'But, alas, he forgot all about me.' Wendy said it with a smile. She was
+as grown up as that.
+
+'What did his crow sound like?' Jane asked one evening.
+
+'It was like this,' Wendy said, trying to imitate Peter's crow.
+
+'No, it wasn't,' Jane said gravely, 'it was like this'; and she did it
+ever so much better than her mother.
+
+Wendy was a little startled. 'My darling, how can you know?'
+
+'I often hear it when I am sleeping,' Jane said.
+
+'Ah yes, many girls hear it when they are sleeping, but I was the only
+one who heard it awake.'
+
+'Lucky you,' said Jane.
+
+And then one night came the tragedy. It was the spring of the year, and
+the story had been told for the night, and Jane was now asleep in her
+bed. Wendy was sitting on the floor, very close to the fire, so as to
+see to darn, for there was no other light in the nursery; and while she
+sat darning she heard a crow. Then the window blew open as of old, and
+Peter dropped on the floor.
+
+He was exactly the same as ever, and Wendy saw at once that he still had
+all his first teeth.
+
+He was a little boy, and she was grown up. She huddled by the fire not
+daring to move, helpless and guilty, a big woman.
+
+'Hullo, Wendy,' he said, not noticing any difference, for he was
+thinking chiefly of himself; and in the dim light her white dress might
+have been the night-gown in which he had seen her first.
+
+'Hullo, Peter,' she replied faintly, squeezing herself as small as
+possible. Something inside her was crying 'Woman, woman, let go of me.'
+
+'Hullo, where is John?' he asked, suddenly missing the third bed.
+
+'John is not here now,' she gasped.
+
+'Is Michael asleep?' he asked, with a careless glance at Jane.
+
+'Yes,' she answered; and now she felt that she was untrue to Jane as
+well as to Peter.
+
+'That is not Michael,' she said quickly, lest a judgment should fall on
+her.
+
+Peter looked. 'Hullo, is it a new one?'
+
+'Yes.'
+
+'Boy or girl?'
+
+'Girl.'
+
+Now surely he would understand; but not a bit of it.
+
+'Peter,' she said, faltering, 'are you expecting me to fly away with
+you?'
+
+'Of course that is why I have come.' He added a little sternly, 'Have
+you forgotten that this is spring-cleaning time?'
+
+She knew it was useless to say that he had let many spring-cleaning
+times pass.
+
+'I can't come,' she said apologetically, 'I have forgotten how to fly.'
+
+'I'll soon teach you again.'
+
+'O Peter, don't waste the fairy dust on me.'
+
+She had risen; and now at last a fear assailed him. 'What is it?' he
+cried, shrinking.
+
+'I will turn up the light,' she said, 'and then you can see for
+yourself.'
+
+For almost the only time in his life that I know of, Peter was afraid.
+'Don't turn up the light,' he cried.
+
+She let her hands play in the hair of the tragic boy. She was not a
+little girl heart-broken about him; she was a grown woman smiling at it
+all, but they were wet smiles.
+
+Then she turned up the light, and Peter saw. He gave a cry of pain; and
+when the tall beautiful creature stooped to lift him in her arms he drew
+back sharply.
+
+'What is it?' he cried again.
+
+She had to tell him.
+
+'I am old, Peter. I am ever so much more than twenty. I grew up long
+ago.'
+
+'You promised not to!'
+
+'I couldn't help it. I am a married woman, Peter.'
+
+'No, you're not.'
+
+'Yes, and the little girl in the bed is my baby.'
+
+'No, she's not.'
+
+But he supposed she was; and he took a step towards the sleeping child
+with his dagger upraised. Of course he did not strike. He sat down on
+the floor instead and sobbed; and Wendy did not know how to comfort him,
+though she could have done it so easily once. She was only a woman now,
+and she ran out of the room to try to think.
+
+Peter continued to cry, and soon his sobs woke Jane. She sat up in bed,
+and was interested at once.
+
+[Illustration: PETER AND JANE]
+
+'Boy,' she said, 'why are you crying?'
+
+Peter rose and bowed to her, and she bowed to him from the bed.
+
+'Hullo,' he said.
+
+'Hullo,' said Jane.
+
+'My name is Peter Pan,' he told her.
+
+'Yes, I know.'
+
+'I came back for my mother,' he explained; 'to take her to the
+Neverland.'
+
+'Yes, I know,' Jane said, 'I been waiting for you.'
+
+When Wendy returned diffidently she found Peter sitting on the bed-post
+crowing gloriously, while Jane in her nighty was flying round the room
+in solemn ecstasy.
+
+'She is my mother,' Peter explained; and Jane descended and stood by his
+side, with the look on her face that he liked to see on ladies when they
+gazed at him.
+
+'He does so need a mother,' Jane said.
+
+'Yes, I know,' Wendy admitted rather forlornly; 'no one knows it so well
+as I.'
+
+'Good-bye,' said Peter to Wendy; and he rose in the air, and the
+shameless Jane rose with him; it was already her easiest way of moving
+about.
+
+Wendy rushed to the window.
+
+'No, no,' she cried.
+
+'It is just for spring-cleaning time,' Jane said; 'he wants me always to
+do his spring cleaning.'
+
+'If only I could go with you,' Wendy sighed.
+
+'You see you can't fly,' said Jane.
+
+Of course in the end Wendy let them fly away together. Our last glimpse
+of her shows her at the window, watching them receding into the sky
+until they were as small as stars.
+
+As you look at Wendy you may see her hair becoming white, and her figure
+little again, for all this happened long ago. Jane is now a common
+grown-up, with a daughter called Margaret; and every spring-cleaning
+time, except when he forgets, Peter comes for Margaret and takes her to
+the Neverland, where she tells him stories about himself, to which he
+listens eagerly. When Margaret grows up she will have a daughter, who is
+to be Peter's mother in turn; and thus it will go on, so long as
+children are gay and innocent and heartless.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Peter and Wendy, by James Matthew Barrie
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