for a moment like a wild beast, began screaming “Off with her head!
Off with——”
“Nonsense!” said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the Queen
was silent.
The King laid his hand upon her arm, and timidly said “Consider,
my dear: she is only a child!”
The Queen turned angrily away from him, and said to the Knave
“Turn them over!”
The Knave did so, very carefully, with one foot.
“Get up!” said the Queen in a shrill, loud voice, and the three
gardeners instantly jumped up, and began bowing to the King, the
Queen, the royal children, and everybody else.
“Leave off that!” screamed the Queen. “You make me giddy.” And
then, turning to the rose-tree, she went on “What have you been
doing here?”
“May it please your Majesty,” said Two, in a very humble tone,
going down on one knee as he spoke, “we were trying—”
“I see!” said the Queen, who had meanwhile been examining the
roses. “Off with their heads!” and the procession moved on, three
of the soldiers remaining behind to execute the unfortunate
gardeners, who ran to Alice for protection.
“You sha’n’t be beheaded!” said Alice, and she put them into a
large flower-pot that stood near. The three soldiers wandered about
for a minute or two, looking for them, and then quietly marched off
after the others.
“Are their heads off?” shouted the Queen.
“Their heads are gone, if it please your Majesty!” the soldiers
shouted in reply.
“That’s right!” shouted the Queen. “Can you play croquet?”
The soldiers were silent, and looked at Alice, as the question
was evidently meant for her.
“Yes!” shouted Alice.
“Come on, then!” roared the Queen, and Alice joined the
procession, wondering very much what would happen next.
“It’s—it’s a very fine day!” said a timid voice at her side. She
was walking by the White Rabbit, who was peeping anxiously into her
face.
“Very,” said Alice. “Where’s the Duchess?”
“Hush! Hush!” said the Rabbit in a low hurried tone. He looked
anxiously over his shoulder as he spoke, and then raised himselfanxiously over his shoulder as he spoke, and then raised himself
upon tiptoe, put his mouth close to her ear, and whispered “She’s
under sentence of execution.”
“What for?” said Alice.
“Did you say ‘What a pity!’?” the Rabbit asked.
“No, I didn’t,” said Alice. “I don’t think it’s at all a pity. I
said ‘What for?’”
“She boxed the Queen’s ears—” the Rabbit began. Alice gave a
little scream of laughter. “Oh, hush!” the Rabbit whispered in a
frightened tone. “The Queen will hear you! You see she came rather
late, and the Queen said—”
“Get to your places!” shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder,
and people began running about in all directions, tumbling up
against each other: however, they got settled down in a minute or
two, and the game began.
Alice thought she had never seen such a curious croquet-ground
in her life: it was all ridges and furrows: the croquet balls were
live hedgehogs, and the mallets live flamingoes, and the soldiers
had to double themselves up and stand on their hands and feet, to
make the arches.
The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her
flamingo: she succeeded in getting its body tucked away,
comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down, but
generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened out,
and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it would
twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a puzzled
expression that she could not help bursting out laughing; and when
she had got its head down, and was going to begin again, it was
very provoking to find that the hedgehog had unrolled itself, and
was in the act of crawling away: besides all this, there was
generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever she wanted to send
the hedgehog to, and, as the doubled-up soldiers were always
getting up and walking off to other parts of the ground, Alice soon
came to the conclusion that it was a very difficult game
indeed.
The players all played at once, without waiting for turns,indeed.
The players all played at once, without waiting for turns,
quarreling all the while, and fighting for the hedgehogs; and in a
very short time the Queen was in a furious passion, and went
stamping about, and shouting “Off with his head!” or “Off with her
head!” about once in a minute.
Alice began to feel very uneasy: to be sure, she had not as yet
had any dispute with the Queen, but she knew that it might happen
any minute, “and then,” thought she, “what would become of me?
They’re dreadfully fond of beheading people here: the great wonder
is, that there’s any one left alive!”
She was looking about for some way of escape, and wondering
whether she could get away without being seen, when she noticed a
curious appearance in the air: it puzzled her very much at first,
but after watching it a minute or two she made it out to be a grin,
and she said to herself “It’s the Cheshire-Cat: now I shall have
somebody to talk to.”
“How are you getting on?” said the Cat, as soon as there was
mouth enough for it to speak with.
Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and then nodded. “It’s no
use speaking to it,” she thought, “till its ears have come, or at
least one of them.” In another minute the whole head appeared, and
then Alice put down her flamingo, and began an account of the game,
feeling very glad she had someone to listen to her. The Cat seemed
to think that there was enough of it now in sight, and no more of
it appeared.
“I don’t think they play at all fairly,” Alice began, in rather
a complaining tone, “and they all quarrel so dreadfully one ca’n’t
hear oneself speak—and they don’t seem to have any rules in
particular: at least, if there are, nobody attends to them—and
you’ve no idea how confusing it is all the things being alive: for
instance, there’s the arch I’ve got to go through next walking
about at the other end of the ground—and I should have croqueted
the Queen’s hedgehog just now, only it ran away when it saw mine
coming!”
“How do you like the Queen?” said the Cat in a low voice.