Complete Works of Lewis Carroll (31 page)

"Only in the usual way," Alice said, smiling.

"That's hardly enough," he said, anxiously.
"You see the wind is so
very
strong here.
It's as strong as soup."

"Have you invented a plan for keeping one's hair from being blown off?"
Alice enquired.

"Not yet," said the Knight.
"But I've got a plan for keeping it from
falling
off."

"I should like to hear it very much."

"First you take an upright stick," said the Knight.
"Then you make your hair creep up it, Like a fruit-tree.
Now the reason hair falls off is because it hangs
down—
things never fall
upwards,
you know.
It's my own invention.
You may try it if you like."

It didn't sound a comfortable plan, Alice thought, and for a few minutes she walked on in silence, puzzling over the idea, and every now and then stopping to help the poor Knight, who certainly was
not
a good rider.

Whenever the horse stopped (which it did very often), he fell off in front; and whenever it went on again (which it generally did rather suddenly), he fell off behind.
Otherwise he kept on pretty well, except that he had a habit of now and then falling off sideways; and as he generally did this on the side on which Alice was walking, she soon found that it was the best plan not to walk
quite
close to the horse.

"I'm afraid you've not had much practice in riding," she ventured to say, as she was helping him up from his fifth tumble.

The Knight looked very much surprised, and a little offended at the remark.
"What makes you say that?"
he asked, as he scrambled back into the saddle, keeping hold of Alice's hair with one hand, to save himself from falling over on the other side "Because people don't fall off quite so often, when they've had much practice."

"I've had plenty of practice," the Knight said very gravely: "plenty of practice!"

Alice could think of nothing better to say than "Indeed?"
but she said it as heartily as she could.
They went on a little way in silence after this, the Knight with his eyes shut, muttering to himself, and Alice watching anxiously for the next tumble.

"The great art of riding," the Knight suddenly began in a loud voice, waving his right arm as he spoke "is to keep—" Here the sentence ended as suddenly as it had begun, as the Knight fell heavily on the top of his head exactly in the path where Alice was walking.
She was quite frightened this time, and said in an anxious tone, as she picked him up, "I hope no bones are broken?"

"None to speak of," the Knight said, as if he didn't mind breaking two or three of them.
"The great art of riding as I was sayin is—to keep your balance.
Like this, you know—-"

He let go the bridle, and stretched out both his arms to show Alice what he meant, and this time he fell flat on his back, right under the horse's feet.

"Plenty of practice!"
he went on repeating, all the time that Alice was getting him on his feet again.
"Plenty of practice!"

"It's too ridiculous!"
cried Alice, getting quite out of patience.
"You ought to have a wooden horse on wheels, that you ought!"

"Does that kind go smoothly?"
the Knight asked in a tone of great interest, clasping his arms round the horses' neck as he spoke, just in time to save himself from tumbling off again.

"Much more smoothly than a live horse," Alice said, with a little scream of laughter, in spite of all she could do to prevent it.

"I'll get one," the Knight said thoughtfully to himself.
"One or two—several."

There was a short silence after this; then the night went on again.
"I'm a great hand at inventing things.
Now, I daresay you noticed, the last time you picked me up, that I was looking thoughtful?"

"You
were
a little grave," said Alice.

"Well, just then I was inventing a new way of getting over a gate—would you like to hear it?"

"Very much indeed," Alice said politely.

"I'll tell you how I came to think of it," said the Knight.
"You see, I said to myself, "The only diffculty is with the feet: the
head
is high enough already.'
Now, first I put my head on the top of the gate—then the head's high enough—then I stand on my head—then the feet are high enough, you see—then I'm over you see."

"Yes, I suppose you'd be over when that was done," Alice said thoughtfully: "but don't you think it would be rather hard?"

"I haven't tried it yet," the Knight said, gravely, "so I can't tell for certain—but I'm afraid it
would
be a little hard."

He looked so vexed at the idea, that Alice changed the subject hastily.
"What a curious helmet you've got!"
she said cheerfully.
"Is that your invention too?"

The Knight looked down proudly at his helmet which hung from the saddle.
"Yes," he said, "but I've invented a better one than that—like a sugar loaf.
When I used to wear it, if I fell off the horse, it always touched the ground directly.
So I had
very
little way to fall, you see—but there
was
the danger of falling
into
it, to be sure.
That happened to me once—and the worst of it was, before I could get out again, the other White Knight came and put it on.
He thought it was his own helmet."

The Knight looked so solemn about it that Alice did not dare to laugh.
"I'm afraid you must have hurt him," she said in a trembling voice, "being on the top of his head."

"I had to kick him, of course," the Knight said very seriously.
"And then he took the helmet off again—but it took hours and hours to get me out.
I was as fast as—as lightning, you know."
"But that's a different kind of fastness," Alice objected.

The Knight shook his head.
"It was all kinds of fastness with me, I can assure you!"
he said.
He raised his hands in some excitement as he said this, and instantly rolled out of the saddle, and fell headlong into a deep ditch.

Alice ran to the side of the ditch to look for him.
She was rather startled by the fall, as for some time he had kept on very well, and she was afraid that he really
was
hurt this time.
However, though she could see nothing but the soles of his feet, she was he was talking on in his usual tone.
"All kinds of fastness," he repeated: "but it was careless of him to put another man's helmet on—with the man in it, too."

"How
can
you go on talking so quietly, head downwards?"
Alice asked, as she dragged him out by the feet, and laid him in a heap on the bank.

The Knight looked surprised at the question.
"What does it matter where my body happens to be?"
he said.
"My mind goes on working all the same.
In fact, the more head-downwards I am, the more I keep inventing new things."

"Now the cleverest thing that I ever did," he went on after a pause, "was inventing a new pudding during the meat-course."

"In time to have it cooked for the next course?"
said Alice.
"Well, that
was
quick work, certainly."
"Well, not the
next
course," the Knight said in a slow thoughtful tone: "no, certainly not the next
course.
"

"Then it would have, to be the next day.
I suppose you wouldn't have two pudding-courses in one dinner?"

"Well, not the
next
day," the Knight repeated as before: "not the next
day.
In fact," he went on, holding his head down, and his voice getting lower and lower, "I don't believe that pudding ever
was

cooked!
In fact, I don't believe that pudding ever
will
be cooked!
And yet it was a very clever pudding to invent."

"What did you mean it to be made of?"
Alice asked, hoping to cheer him up, for he seemed quite low-spirited about it.

"It began with blotting-paper," the Knight answered with a groan.

"That wouldn't be very nice, I'm afraid—-"

"Not very nice
alone,"
he interrupted, quite eagerly: "but you've no idea what a difference it makes, mixing it with other things—such as gunpowder and sealing-wax.
And here I must leave you."
Alice could only look puzzled: she was thinking of the pudding.

"You are sad," the Knight said in an anxious tone: "let me sing you a song to comfort you."

"Is it very long?"
Alice asked, for she had heard a good deal of poetry that day.

"It's long," said the Knight, "but it's very,
very

beautiful.
Everybody that hears me sing it—either it brings the
tears
into their eyes, or else—-"

"Or else what?"
said Alice, for the Knight had made a sudden pause.

"Or else it doesn't, you know.
The name of the song is called
'Haddocks' Eyes.'
"

"Oh, that's the name of the song, is it?"
Alice said, trying to feel interested.

"No, you don't understand," the Kinght said, looking a little vexed.
"That's what the name is
called.
The name really is
'The Aged Aged Man.'
"

"Then I ought to have said, 'That's what the
song
is called'?"
Alice corrected herself.

"No, you oughtn't: that's another thing.
The
song
is called
'Ways and Means':
but that's only what it's
called,
you know!"

"Well, what
is
the song, then?"
said Alice, who was by this time completely bewildered.

"I was coming to that," the Knight said.
"The song really
is
'A sitting on a Gate':
and the tune's my own invention."

So saying, he stopped his horse and let the reins fall on its neck: then, slowly beating time with one hand, and with a faint smile lighting up his gentle, foolish face, he began.

Of all the strange things that Alice saw in her journey Through the Looking-glass, this was the one that she always remembered most clearly.
Years afterwards she could bring the whole scene back again, as if it had been only yesterday—the mild blue eyes and kindly smile of the Knight—the setting sun gleaming through his hair, and shining on his armour in a blaze of light that quite dazzled her—the horse quietly moving about, with the reins hanging loose on his neck, cropping the grass at her feet—and the black shadows of the forest behind—all this she took in like a picture, as, with one hand shading her eyes, she leant against a tree, watching the strange pair, and listening, in a half-dream, to the melancholy music of the song.

"But the tune
isn't
his own invention," she said to herself: "it's
"I give thee all, I can no more.
'" She stood and listened very attentively, but no tears came into her eyes.

"I'll tell thee everything I can;