Cross Purposes and The Shadows | Page 6

if you ask a plain question, he must give you a plain answer, for they
are not allowed to tell downright lies in Fairyland."
"Don't ask him, Richard; you know you gave him a dreadful blow."
"I gave him what he deserved, and he owes me the same.--Hallo! which
is the way out?"
He wouldn't say if you please, because then it would not have been a
plain question.
"Down-stairs," hissed the owl, without ever lifting his eyes from the
book, which all the time he read upside down, so learned was he.
"On your honour, as a respectable old owl?" asked Richard.
"No," hissed the owl; and Richard was almost sure that he was not
really an owl. So he stood staring at him for a few moments, when all
at once, without lifting his eyes from the book, the owl said, "I will sing
a song," and began:--
"Nobody knows the world but me. When they're all in bed, I sit up to
see I'm a better student than students all, For I never read till the
darkness fall; And I never read without my glasses, And that is how my
wisdom passes. Howlowlwhoolhoolwoolool.
"I can see the wind. Now who can do that? I see the dreams that he has
in his hat; I see him snorting them out as he goes-- Out at his stupid old
trumpet-nose. Ten thousand things that you couldn't think I write them
down with pen and ink. Howlowlwhooloolwhitit that's wit.
"You may call it learning--'tis mother-wit. No one else sees the
lady-moon sit On the sea, her nest, all night, but the owl, Hatching the
boats and the long-legged fowl. When the oysters gape to sing by rote,

She crams a pearl down each stupid throat. Howlowlwhitit that's wit,
there's a fowl!"
And so singing, he threw the book in Richard's face, spread out his
great, silent, soft wings, and sped away into the depths of the tree.
When the book struck Richard, he found that it was only a lump of wet
moss.
While talking to the owl he had spied a hollow behind one of the
branches. Judging this to be the way the owl meant, he went to see, and
found a rude, ill-defined staircase going down into the very heart of the
trunk. But so large was the tree that this could not have hurt it in the
least. Down this stair, then, Richard scrambled as best he could,
followed by Alice--not of her own will, she gave him clearly to
understand, but because she could do no better. Down, down they went,
slipping and falling sometimes, but never very far, because the stair
went round and round. It caught Richard when he slipped, and he
caught Alice when she did. They had begun to fear that there was no
end to the stair, it went round and round so steadily, when, creeping
through a crack, they found themselves in a great hall, supported by
thousands of pillars of gray stone. Where the little light came from they
could not tell. This hall they began to cross in a straight line, hoping to
reach one side, and intending to walk along it till they came to some
opening. They kept straight by going from pillar to pillar, as they had
done before by the trees. Any honest plan will do in Fairyland, if you
only stick to it. And no plan will do if you do not stick to it.
It was very silent, and Alice disliked the silence more than the
dimness,--so much, indeed, that she longed to hear Richard's voice. But
she had always been so cross to him when he had spoken, that he
thought it better to let her speak first; and she was too proud to do that.
She would not even let him walk alongside of her, but always went
slower when he wanted to wait for her; so that at last he strode on alone.
And Alice followed. But by degrees the horror of silence grew upon her,
and she felt at last as if there was no one in the universe but herself.
The hall went on widening around her; their footsteps made no noise;
the silence grew so intense that it seemed on the point of taking shape.

At last she could bear it no longer. She ran after Richard, got up with
him, and laid hold of his arm.
He had been thinking for some time what an obstinate, disagreeable girl
Alice was, and wishing he had her safe home to be rid of her, when,
feeling a hand, and looking round, he saw that it was the disagreeable
girl. She soon began to be companionable after a fashion, for she began
to think, putting everything together, that Richard