The Fourth Pig (19 page)

“In the Debateable Land

That lies between here and Fairy Land

You and I may stray, all day, hand in hand,

If we clearly understand

Well to mark the road we came by,

To know well

Trees that bend and alter, stones we put our name by.

Then we may dwell

Once more, on the kindly shore, on Middle Earth.

But the easiest, quickest way

From the Debateable Land

Is the way to Fairy Land and little Hell.”

Awkward, very, and what was I going to the Debateable Land for? “To rescue her, idiot!” At last I identified the voice with this greyish frog-like creature in the corner of the seat, a very old frog which had lost its colour and had a little round Victorian beard
under its chin. I remembered suddenly that she was imprisoned here in a small room at the very top of the Tower waiting for the horn to be blown. “I thought only princes did that,” I said stupidly.

“Not nowadays,” said the creature, “get out!” The taxi stopped with a jerk and I collected the things, armsful of things, and slid out. It was quite an ordinary street with villas in small gardens at each side; just here there was an opening between two of them, a passage, yes, probably leading to a park. Of course a park! And just as I thought that a nurse came out pushing a pram. The only difficulty was that the baby seemed to be lightly covered with green fur like mould. Looking in my purse I found nothing but leaves, round leaves of autumn yellow. But that was obvious: fairy gold the other way round: clever of me to have thought of it. And I paid.

I began to collect my things, only the essentials of a journey, as I found myself remembering, though what was the shop where I had bought them—? Yes, shoes of swiftness, seven league boots (like galoshes to put on over the top of the others in case of emergency), cloak of invisibility, cap of dazzle—a kind of temporary gorgon's head, the permanent ones being so expensive and sometimes leading to such awkward situations—invincible sword, axe of strength, flask of water and comb to throw behind when pursued by giants, whistle for calling birds or fishes—“What this?” “Magic carpet!” snapped the frog, “in carpet bag”—bridle for taming wild horses mended rather incompetently with string, magic mirror, drops of Water of Life, other drops of Lethe water for Dragon, hope the labels won't come off, putty to put in holes at bottom of sieve when necessary—a filthy parcel and so
heavy!—gloves for handling red-hot iron, dwarf-made chains for binding lions (“But shall I need them all?” “Likely as not.”), magic rope ladder of princess hair—“What's that?” “In the hat-box? The tarn-helm of course, and only
lent
you, mind.” The frog hopped slowly round: “I see you've forgotten the spiked shoes for climbing glassy hills,” he said, “left them under the seat, I suppose—you would!” “But I didn't know—” “Who put them there? You. Very well,” said the frog, “if you need them they'll take seven years to make.”

There were no porters, of course, and anyhow it is better to carry these things oneself when one can. I slung them about me, and walked down the passage way between the brick walls. Looking back I saw the opening towards the road and the backs of the villas with lace curtains and little greenhouses. However, the next time I looked back there was something inherently more probable, the stone hall with carvings of snakes that stirred all round the windows, and very horrid shadows going across them inside, the Fourth Hall of course. However, it was improbable that They would look out yet. I took out my notebook and from now on made careful notes of the way.

A boy came out of a side passage, whistling, with a spotted dog trotting after him. We began to talk; he was obviously the third son, in fact he told me his name was Jack, and when he offered to help me with my things I was delighted. And I've still no idea how he managed to steal the whistle for the birds. I stayed that night in the House in the Wood and I counted my things carefully when I came to leave it. Then I found the gold chains for lions were missing. They said I should have left them with the management and disclaimed all responsibility, and pointed out
the notice which, of course, I ought to have seen. None of the other things were obviously valuable except the tarn-helm which lived in the locked hat-box and the wishing ring which I kept firmly on my finger even when I was washing my hands.

It was my fault about the magic mirror; I shouldn't have let the girl in the train handle it, but she was so friendly—we'd shared a packet of chocolate and she'd shown me all her magic things (at least she
said
they were)—and conceivably it
was
only an accident when she dropped it. And I ought to have kept a sharp eye on the five children instead of making them paper boats; they got the comb for throwing behind when pursued. The putty parcel dropped out of its string. I ought to have tied it up better that morning. As for the magic carpet I still don't know whether it was sheer carelessness on my part, or not. Everyone said it was. The same with the bridle. No, I just don't know still.

On the other hand I was getting near the Tower. I was gradually beginning to recognise the people of the Other Side; there was a sort of oddness about them, a feeling that one didn't want to touch them, though if, finally, one did brush against one or even shake hands—for it was no use declaring war!—they actually felt quite all right. The man on the horse seemed perfectly real; he dismounted and walked with me and offered to take my things on his saddle, but I said no. “You're right to say that,” he said, “I'm Hoggi. I'm going to rescue Swanhild who was carried off by the trolls. But I've had bad luck too and been delayed.” He seemed unhappy, and so young, and he had such jolly armour! He pointed me out my Tower, but the first time I came to the wrong side, so of course there was nothing to be done. However, I saw the room at the top with very narrow windows widening
out as slot windows do, into rounds at the top and bottom. It was fairly obvious that if one were pursued one would have to crawl through those rounds, fix one's rope ladder to the iron bar out-side before one was more than half way through, and then swarm out onto it. Not very nice. It was to be hoped the ladder was long enough. Hoggi showed me the key-holes half way up and then he explained that one was to take a snapdragon flower and push it in; the flower would fit exactly onto the knob inside and allow one to turn it—he picked a snapdragon from the wall to show me. I said: “It's too small,” but he showed me how to hold it up in front of my eye and then it was exactly the right size.

We camped together that night, Hoggi and I, and made a fire and sat up late over it, talking. The end of it was I lent him things to replace his own which had got lost in the same sort of accidents as mine. I lent him sword and axe to kill the giants who were keeping Swanhild and making her catch the lice out of their long hair every evening. I was to have them back in an hour, he hoped, when he came riding by with Swanhild on his way back to the King and Queen, her father and mother. He mounted and trotted off, waving to me. Suddenly he said: “They make me do it!” I did not realise for some time what this meant, not till I had waited half a day. Presumably Hoggi was really a prisoner himself, and I hope he will get rescued some time soon. But it was a bad business for me.

I had to go back some way so as to get to the other side of the Tower, and I was terribly worried about all these things I had lost. The only thing I had gained was a certain amount of experience, and particularly the knowledge that the way to deal with the Debateable Land is to take everything that occurs to one,
however irrational and pointless, and deal with it rationally. One then gets it onto one's own side and away from the fairies. Whenever I had neglected that (for instance at the inn where I had lost the bridle in the cupboard in the wall) things had gone wrong. On the other hand, by paying attention to it I had accumulated a number of small objects, shells and envelopes and handkerchiefs (including the red one which I had stolen in the shop when it occurred to me to do so, and which I had walked off with quite easily), as well as the sixpence which I had seen the woman in front of me drop, and which I had deliberately kept for myself, and so on. I did not know what good they would ever do me except to appear normal when one was in the dark Tower or wherever it might be, but still something might come of them. They took up rather a lot of room, so that I still had to carry more things than I liked, and spent most of my time looking after them.

It suddenly occurred to me to wish I could get them insured, and then I felt the unmistakable prick that meant the magic ring had for once woken up and started functioning. I took a step on and walked up the steps out of King's Bench Walk. Of course, I thought I must consult Dick about this. When I got to Chambers he was very busy and neither very surprised (but of course I could not tell how long, by Middle Earth time, I had been away) nor very pleased to see me! I put my things down in his room—not for anyone would I have left them out of sight. The gloves for handling red-hot iron were on the table. I sat in the comer while Dick hunted through papers and various people came in and out, solicitors' clerks, I supposed. It suddenly occurred to me that solicitors' clerks very seldom have six fingers on each hand and
these with a slight web between, nor are the irises of their eyes this curious reddish colour. And as this went through my mind one of them picked up the gloves and put them in his pocket, and went out. I jumped up and said “He's got my gloves!” But Dick said “Nonsense!” And after all it obviously was nonsense by Middle Earth standards that a solicitor's clerk should pick up the gloves of a barrister's wife and walk off with them. I said I had been losing my things and wanted them insured; he said I was insured already and asked what it was—jewellery? I said no, I began to explain, but when I began on the Debateable Land he said he must just finish these papers first. The wishing ring pricked me again and I had just time to pick up my things before I found myself sitting beside a road in the Debateable Land and one of these very nasty large birds they have there, about three times as high as oneself, was stepping along towards me. Of course no one minds about the birds, for they are the thinnest possible things, scarcely paper thickness, but even if one pokes a stick through them they look at one unpleasantly. It went by. It seemed to me very awkward if I was going to re-visit Middle Earth in this patchy way, taking so much of the Other Side with me. I was very doubtful whether I had really been there, whether what I had seen had actually been Dick himself and either the Inner Temple or Middle Earth!

Things went on like this, and, as I got nearer the right side of the Tower, that wretched ring began to take me back to Middle Earth whether I really wanted to go there or not. Simply thinking about it seemed to do the trick, and I could hardly help doing that sometimes, especially in the evenings or just waking up in the mornings. Then I used to find myself at home, in the nursery
say, in the middle of a game with the children. But after the first few times I began to be rather suspicious of this. The nursery itself. Used the cuckoo out of the cuckoo clock always to have just that expression? Or was I imagining it? And—it wasn't for nothing, surely, that Lois had suggested a dressing-up game and, before I could stop her, picked up and put on my cloak of invisibility—and disappeared. At any rate to me. Avrion and Nurse seemed perfectly able to see her still. At first I had been terribly upset, but then—hadn't she, in disappearing, burst into that high thin giggling that by now I had come to associate with the fairies? Had I, for that matter, any real reason for supposing that it had been actually Lois at all?

And was this really Avrion who had, with that much too innocent look, suddenly eaten the magic apple? After all, if it had been him wouldn't the apple certainly have had some effect? I strongly suspected that the children were really the Other Side, so cleverly disguised that I couldn't tell, and that Nurse was also an imitation, as paper-thin as the birds. I made up my mind that the wishing ring had been got at by the Other Side and that the sooner I got rid of it the better.

One day I noticed that Valentine—or more probably the Other-Side-disguised-as-Valentine—had a blue-beaded cracker ring. I collected my remaining parcels and picked her up—it was extraordinarily difficult to believe it wasn't really her when it felt so like her. I cajoled her cracker ring out of her and put it on, and half took off my own wishing ring, and as I did that I caught my imitation baby watching me in a dreadful and entirely adult way. With the cracker ring firm on my finger and the other slipping off I wished myself back. As I melted off into the Debateable Land
again, I felt the soft imitation baby hands pulling and pinching mine, and then I was through, having successfully got rid of the wishing ring and having instead the blue-beaded cracker ring which might ultimately be some use. I also found that the wishing ring, perhaps influenced by the cracker ring or perhaps realising that I had seen through it and mastered it, had put me down in the rose-tangle, only a hundred yards from the right side of the Tower.

It was extremely uncomfortable getting out of the rose-tangle. I didn't dare put on the seven league boots, as, although they would have taken me out of the tangle, they would also have taken me past the Tower, even if I'd only tiptoed in them. I got a good deal scratched, and it was annoying to see the white rabbits sitting in their burrows under the great briar stocks, laughing at me. And then, I was at the Tower.

There were plenty of snapdragons to fit into the key-holes, supposing I could trust Hoggi to have told me the truth about that, but could I? At any rate I picked some and put them in my pocket. The question now was, whether the Guardians were about, looking on at me mockingly from crafty, eyeholed lairs, if, as seemed likely, the white rabbits had warned them. Well, there was no use thinking too much about that. I went up the steps and blew the horn, which made a most disconcertingly loud and unmusical noise, calculated to wake anybody. It would have been nice, at this point, to have had the traditional cloak of invisibility; however, it wasn't any good wishing for that now.