The Magician's Nephew (9 page)

“Oh, it’s
rings
, is it?” cried Jadis. She would have had her hands in Digory’s pocket before you could say knife, but Digory grabbed Polly and shouted out:

“Take care. If either of you come half an inch nearer, we two will vanish and you’ll be left here for good. Yes: I have a ring in my pocket that will take Polly and me home. And look! My hand is just ready. So keep your distance. I’m sorry about you”
(he looked at the Cabby) “and about the horse, but I can’t help that. As for you two” (he looked at Uncle Andrew and the Queen) “you’re both magicians, so you ought to enjoy living together.”

“’Old your noise, everyone,” said the Cabby. “I want to listen to the moosic.”

For the song had now changed.

THE LION WAS PACING TO AND FRO
about that empty land and singing his new song. It was softer and more lilting than the song by which he had called up the stars and the sun; a gentle, rippling music. And as he walked and sang the valley grew green with grass. It spread out from the Lion like a pool. It ran up the sides of the little hills like a wave. In a few minutes it was creeping up the lower slopes of the distant mountains, making that young world every moment softer. The light wind could now be heard ruffling the grass. Soon there were other things besides grass. The higher slopes grew dark with heather. Patches of rougher and more bristling green appeared in the valley. Digory did not know what they were until one began coming up quite close to him. It was a little, spiky thing that threw out dozens of arms and covered these arms with green and grew larger at the rate of about an inch every
two seconds. There were dozens of these things all round him now. When they were nearly as tall as himself he saw what they were. “Trees!” he exclaimed.

The nuisance of it, as Polly said afterward, was that you weren’t left in peace to watch it all. Just as Digory said “Trees!” he had to jump because Uncle Andrew had sidled up to him again and was just going to pick his pocket. It wouldn’t have done Uncle Andrew much good if he had succeeded, for he was aiming at the right-hand pocket because he still thought the green rings were “homeward” rings. But of course Digory didn’t want to lose either.

“Stop!” cried the Witch. “Stand back. No, further back. If anyone goes within ten paces of either of the children, I will knock out his brains.” She was poising in her hand the iron bar that she had torn off the lamp-post, ready to throw it. Somehow no one doubted that she would be a very good shot.

“So!” she said. “You would steal back to your own world with the boy and leave me here.”

Uncle Andrew’s temper at last got the better of his fears. “Yes, Ma’am, I would,” he said. “Most undoubtedly I would. I should be perfectly in my rights. I have been most shamefully, most abominably treated. I have done my best to show you such civilities as were in my power. And what has
been my reward? You have robbed—I must repeat the word—
robbed
a highly respectable jeweler. You have insisted on my entertaining you to an exceedingly expensive, not to say ostentatious, lunch, though I was obliged to pawn my watch and chain in order to do so (and let me tell you, Ma’am, that none of our family have been in the habit of frequenting pawnshops, except my cousin Edward, and he was in the Yeomanry). During that indigestible meal—I’m feeling the worse for it at this very moment—your behavior and conversation attracted the unfavorable attention of everyone present. I feel I have been publicly disgraced. I shall never be able to show my face in that restaurant again. You have assaulted the police. You have stolen—”

“Oh stow it, Guv’nor, do stow it,” said the Cabby. “Watchin’ and listenin’s the thing at present; not talking.”

There was certainly plenty to watch and to listen to. The tree which Digory had noticed was now a full-grown beech whose branches swayed gently above his head. They stood on cool, green grass, sprinkled with daisies and buttercups. A little way off, along the river bank, willows were growing. On the other side tangles of flowering currant, lilac, wild rose, and rhododendron closed them in. The horse was tearing up delicious mouthfuls of new grass.

All this time the Lion’s song, and his stately prowl, to and fro, backward and forward, was going on. What was rather alarming was that at each turn he came a little nearer. Polly was finding the song more and more interesting because she thought she was beginning to see the connection between the music and the things that were happening. When a line of dark firs sprang up on a ridge about a hundred yards away she felt that they were connected with a series of deep, prolonged notes which the Lion had sung a second before. And when he burst into a rapid series of lighter notes she was not surprised to see primroses suddenly appearing in every direction. Thus, with an unspeakable thrill, she felt quite certain that all the things were coming (as she said) “out of the Lion’s head.” When you listened to his song
you heard the things he was making up: when you looked round you, you saw them. This was so exciting that she had no time to be afraid. But Digory and the Cabby could not help feeling a bit nervous as each turn of the Lion’s walk brought him nearer. As for Uncle Andrew, his teeth were chattering, but his knees were shaking so that he could not run away.

Suddenly the Witch stepped boldly out toward the Lion. It was coming on, always singing, with a slow, heavy pace. It was only twelve yards away. She raised her arm and flung the iron bar straight at its head.

Nobody, least of all Jadis, could have missed at that range. The bar struck the Lion fair between the eyes. It glanced off and fell with a thud in the grass. The Lion came on. Its walk was neither slower nor faster than before; you could not tell whether it even knew it had been hit. Though its soft pads made no noise, you could feel the earth shake beneath their weight.

The Witch shrieked and ran: in a few moments she was out of sight among the trees. Uncle Andrew turned to do likewise, tripped over a root, and fell flat on his face in a little brook that ran down to join the river. The children could not move. They were not even quite sure that they wanted to. The Lion paid no attention to them. Its huge red mouth was open, but open in song not in a snarl. It passed
by them so close that they could have touched its mane. They were terribly afraid it would turn and look at them, yet in some queer way they wished it would. But for all the notice it took of them they might just as well have been invisible and unsmellable. When it had passed them and gone a few paces further it turned, passed them again, and continued its march eastward.

Uncle Andrew, coughing and spluttering, picked himself up.

“Now, Digory,” he said, “we’ve got rid of that woman, and the brute of a lion is gone. Give me your hand and put on your ring at once.”

“Keep off,” said Digory, backing away from him. “Keep clear of him, Polly. Come over here beside me. Now I warn you, Uncle Andrew, don’t come one step nearer, we’ll just vanish.”

“Do what you’re told this minute, sir,” said Uncle Andrew. “You’re an extremely disobedient, ill-behaved little boy.”

“No fear,” said Digory. “We want to stay and see what happens. I thought you wanted to know about other worlds. Don’t you like it now you’re here?”

“Like it!” exclaimed Uncle Andrew. “Just look at the state I’m in. And it was my best coat and waistcoat, too.” He certainly was a dreadful sight by now: for of course, the more dressed up you were to begin with, the worse you look after
you’ve crawled out of a smashed hansom cab and fallen into a muddy brook. “I’m not saying,” he added, “that this is not a most interesting place. If I were a younger man, now—perhaps I could get some lively young fellow to come here first. One of those big-game hunters. Something might be made of this country. The climate is delightful. I never felt such air. I believe it would have done me good if—if circumstances had been more favorable. If only we’d had a gun.”

“Guns be blowed,” said the Cabby. “I think I’ll go and see if I can give Strawberry a rub down. That horse ’as more sense than some ’umans as I could mention.” He walked back to Strawberry and began making the hissing noises that grooms make.

“Do you still think
that
Lion could be killed by a gun?” asked Digory. “He didn’t mind the iron bar much.”

“With all her faults,” said Uncle Andrew, “that’s a plucky gel, my boy. It was a spirited thing to do.” He rubbed his hands and cracked his knuckles, as if he were once more forgetting how the Witch frightened him whenever she was really there.

“It was a wicked thing to do,” said Polly. “What harm had he done her?”

“Hullo! What’s that?” said Digory. He had darted forward to examine something only a few
yards away. “I say, Polly,” he called back. “Do come and look.”

Uncle Andrew came with her; not because he wanted to see but because he wanted to keep close to the children—there might be a chance of stealing their rings. But when he saw what Digory was looking at, even he began to take an interest. It was a perfect little model of a lamp-post, about three feet high but lengthening, and thickening in proportion, as they watched it; in fact growing just as the trees had grown.

“It’s alive too—I mean, it’s lit,” said Digory. And so it was; though of course, the brightness of the sun made the little flame in the lantern hard to see unless your shadow fell on it.

“Remarkable, most remarkable,” muttered Uncle Andrew. “Even I never dreamed of Magic like this. We’re in a world where everything, even a lamp-post, comes to life and grows. Now I wonder what sort of seed a lamp-post grows from?”

“Don’t you see?” said Digory. “This is where the bar fell—the bar she tore off the lamp-post at home. It sank into the ground and now it’s coming up as a young lamp-post.” (But not so very young now; it was as tall as Digory while he said this.)

“That’s it! Stupendous, stupendous,” said Uncle Andrew, rubbing his hands harder than ever. “Ho, ho! They laughed at my Magic. That fool of a sister of mine thinks I’m a lunatic. I wonder what
they’ll say now? I have discovered a world where everything is bursting with life and growth. Columbus, now, they talk about Columbus. But what was America to this? The commercial possibilities of this country are unbounded. Bring a few old bits of scrap iron here, bury ’em, and up they come as brand new railway engines, battleships, anything you please. They’ll cost nothing, and I can sell ’em at full prices in England. I shall be a millionaire. And then the climate! I feel years younger already. I can run it as a health resort. A good sanatorium here might be worth twenty thousand a year. Of course I shall have to let a few people into the secret. The first thing is to get that brute shot.”

“You’re just like the Witch,” said Polly. “All you think of is killing things.”

“And then as regards oneself,” Uncle Andrew continued, in a happy dream. “There’s no knowing how long I might live if I settled here. And that’s a big consideration when a fellow has turned sixty. I shouldn’t be surprised if I never grew a day older in this country! Stupendous! The land of youth!”

“Oh!” cried Digory. “The land of youth! Do you think it really is?” For of course he remembered what Aunt Letty had said to the lady who brought the grapes, and that sweet hope rushed back upon him. “Uncle Andrew,” he said, “do you think there’s anything here that would cure Mother?”

“What are you talking about?” said Uncle Andrew. “This isn’t a chemist’s shop. But as I was saying—”

“You don’t care twopence about her,” said Digory savagely. “I thought you might; after all, she’s your sister as well as my Mother. Well, no matter. I’m jolly well going to ask the Lion himself if he can help me.” And he turned and walked briskly away. Polly waited for a moment and then went after him.

“Here! Stop! Come back! The boy’s gone mad,” said Uncle Andrew. He followed the children at a cautious distance behind; for he didn’t want to get too far away from the green rings or too near the Lion.

In a few minutes Digory came to the edge of the wood and there he stopped. The Lion was singing still. But now the song had once more changed. It was more like what we should call a tune, but it was also far wilder. It made you want to run and jump and climb. It made you want to shout. It made you want to rush at other people and either hug them or fight them. It made Digory hot and red in the face. It had some effect on Uncle Andrew, for Digory could hear him saying, “A spirited gel, sir. It’s a pity about her temper, but a dem fine woman all the same, a dem fine woman.” But what the song did to the two humans was nothing compared with what it was doing to the country.