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diff --git a/78131-0.txt b/78131-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7a48582 --- /dev/null +++ b/78131-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4317 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78131 *** + + + + + +---------------------------+ + | THE UNIFORM EDITION OF | + | THE PLAYS OF J. M. BARRIE | + +---------------------------+ + +PETER PAN + +OR + +THE BOY WHO WOULD NOT +GROW UP + + + + +_THE WORKS OF J. M. BARRIE._ + + +_NOVELS, STORIES, PLAYS, AND SKETCHES._ + +_Uniform Edition._ + + AULD LICHT IDYLLS, BETTER DEAD. + WHEN A MAN’S SINGLE. + A WINDOW IN THRUMS, AN EDINBURGH ELEVEN. + THE LITTLE MINISTER. + SENTIMENTAL TOMMY. + MY LADY NICOTINE, MARGARET OGILVY. + TOMMY AND GRIZEL. + THE LITTLE WHITE BIRD. + PETER AND WENDY. + + _Also_ + + HALF HOURS, DER TAG. + ECHOES OF THE WAR. + + +_PLAYS._ + +_Uniform Edition._ + + PETER PAN. + MARY ROSE. + DEAR BRUTUS. + A KISS FOR CINDERELLA. + ALICE SIT-BY-THE-FIRE. + WHAT EVERY WOMAN KNOWS. + QUALITY STREET. + THE ADMIRABLE CRICHTON. + ECHOES OF THE WAR. + + _Containing_: The Old Lady Shows Her Medals--The New Word--Barbara’s + Wedding--A Well-Remembered Voice. + + HALF HOURS. + + _Containing_: Pantaloon--The Twelve-Pound Look--Rosalind--The Will. + + +_Others in Preparation._ + +_INDIVIDUAL EDITIONS._ + + COURAGE. + PETER PAN IN KENSINGTON GARDENS. + Illustrated by ARTHUR RACKHAM. + PETER AND WENDY. + Illustrated by F. D. BEDFORD. + PETER PAN AND WENDY. + Illustrated by MISS ATTWELL. + TOMMY AND GRIZEL. + Illustrated by BERNARD PARTRIDGE. + MARGARET OGILVY. + +⁂ For particulars concerning _The Thistle Edition_ of the Works of J. +M. Barrie, sold only by subscription, send for circular. + + +NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS + + + + +THE PLAYS OF +J. M. BARRIE + + +PETER PAN + +OR + +THE BOY WHO WOULD NOT +GROW UP + + +CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS +NEW YORK : : : : : : : : 1928 + + + + +COPYRIGHT, 1928, BY +J. M. BARRIE + +Printed in the United States of America + +_All rights reserved under the International Copyright Act. +Performance forbidden and right of representation reserved. +Application for the right of performing this play must be +made to Charles Frohman, Inc., Empire Theatre, New York._ + +[Illustration] + + + + +TO THE FIVE + +A DEDICATION + + +Some disquieting confessions must be made in printing at last the play +of _Peter Pan_; among them this, that I have no recollection of having +written it. Of that, however, anon. What I want to do first is to give +Peter to the Five without whom he never would have existed. I hope, +my dear sirs, that in memory of what we have been to each other you +will accept this dedication with your friend’s love. The play of Peter +is streaky with you still, though none may see this save ourselves. A +score of Acts had to be left out, and you were in them all. We first +brought Peter down, didn’t we, with a blunt-headed arrow in Kensington +Gardens? I seem to remember that we believed we had killed him, though +he was only winded, and that after a spasm of exultation in our +prowess the more soft-hearted among us wept and all of us thought of +the police. There was not one of you who would not have sworn as an +eye-witness to this occurence; no doubt I was abetting, but you used to +provide corroboration that was never given to you by me. As for myself, +I suppose I always knew that I made Peter by rubbing the five of you +violently together, as savages with two sticks produce a flame. That is +all he is, the spark I got from you. + +We had good sport of him before we clipped him small to make him fit +the boards. Some of you were not born when the story began and yet +were hefty figures before we saw that the game was up. Do you remember +a garden at Burpham and the initiation there of No. 4 when he was six +weeks old, and three of you grudged letting him in so young? Have you, +No. 3, forgotten the white violets at the Cistercian abbey in which +we cassocked our first fairies (all little friends of St. Benedict), +or your cry to the Gods, ‘Do I just kill one pirate all the time?’ Do +you remember Marooners’ Hut in the haunted groves of Waverley, and the +St. Bernard dog in a tiger’s mask who so frequently attacked you, and +the literary record of that summer, _The Boy Castaways_, which is +so much the best and the rarest of this author’s works? What was it +that made us eventually give to the public in the thin form of a play +that which had been woven for ourselves alone? Alas, I know what it +was, I was losing my grip. One by one as you swung monkey-wise from +branch to branch in the wood of make-believe you reached the tree of +knowledge. Sometimes you swung back into the wood, as the unthinking +may at a cross-road take a familiar path that no longer leads to home; +or you perched ostentatiously on its boughs to please me, pretending +that you still belonged; soon you knew it only as the vanished wood, +for it vanishes if one needs to look for it. A time came when I saw +that No. 1, the most gallant of you all, ceased to believe that he was +ploughing woods incarnadine, and with an apologetic eye for me derided +the lingering faith of No. 2; when even No. 3 questioned gloomily +whether he did not really spend his nights in bed. There were still two +who knew no better, but their day was dawning. In these circumstances, +I suppose, was begun the writing of the play of Peter. That was a +quarter of a century ago, and I clutch my brows in vain to remember +whether it was a last desperate throw to retain the five of you for a +little longer, or merely a cold decision to turn you into bread and +butter. + +This brings us back to my uncomfortable admission that I have no +recollection of writing the play of _Peter Pan_, now being published +for the first time so long after he made his bow upon the stage. You +had played it until you tired of it, and tossed it in the air and gored +it and left it derelict in the mud and went on your way singing other +songs; and then I stole back and sewed some of the gory fragments +together with a pen-nib. That is what must have happened, but I cannot +remember doing it. I remember writing the story of _Peter and Wendy_ +many years after the production of the play, but I might have cribbed +that from some typed copy. I can haul back to mind the writing of +almost every other essay of mine, however forgotten by the pretty +public; but this play of Peter, no. Even my beginning as an amateur +playwright, that noble mouthful, _Bandelero the Bandit_, I remember +every detail of its composition in my school days at Dumfries. Not less +vivid is my first little piece, produced by Mr. Toole. It was called +_Ibsen’s Ghost_, and was a parody of the mightiest craftsman that ever +wrote for our kind friends in front. To save the management the cost +of typing I wrote out the ‘parts,’ after being told what parts were, +and I can still recall my first words, spoken so plaintively by a now +famous actress,--‘To run away from my second husband just as I ran +away from my first, it feels quite like old times.’ On the first night +a man in the pit found _Ibsen’s Ghost_ so diverting that he had to be +removed in hysterics. After that no one seems to have thought of it at +all. But what a man to carry about with one! How odd, too, that these +trifles should adhere to the mind that cannot remember the long job of +writing Peter. It does seem almost suspicious, especially as I have +not the original MS. of _Peter Pan_ (except a few stray pages), with +which to support my claim. I have indeed another MS., lately made, but +that ‘proves nothing.’ I know not whether I lost that original MS. or +destroyed it or happily gave it away. I talk of dedicating the play to +you, but how can I prove it is mine? How ought I to act if some other +hand, who could also have made a copy, thinks it worth while to contest +the cold rights? Cold they are to me now as that laughter of yours in +which Peter came into being long before he was caught and written down. +There is Peter still, but to me he lies sunk in the gay Black Lake. + +Any one of you five brothers has a better claim to the authorship than +most, and I would not fight you for it, but you should have launched +your case long ago in the days when you most admired me, which were in +the first year of the play, owing to a rumour’s reaching you that my +spoils were one-and-sixpence a night. This was untrue, but it did give +me a standing among you. You watched for my next play with peeled eyes, +not for entertainment but lest it contained some chance witticism of +yours that could be challenged as collaboration; indeed I believe there +still exists a legal document, full of the Aforesaid and Henceforward +to be called Part-Author, in which for some such snatching I was tied +down to pay No. 2 one halfpenny daily throughout the run of the piece. + +During the rehearsals of Peter (and it is evidence in my favour +that I was admitted to them) a depressed man in overalls, carrying +a mug of tea or a paint-pot, used often to appear by my side in the +shadowy stalls and say to me, ‘The gallery boys won’t stand it.’ He +then mysteriously faded away as if he were the theatre ghost. This +hopelessness of his is what all dramatists are said to feel at such +times, so perhaps he was the author. Again, a large number of children +whom I have seen playing Peter in their homes with careless mastership, +constantly putting in better words, could have thrown it off with ease. +It was for such as they that after the first production I had to add +something to the play at the request of parents (who thus showed that +they thought me the responsible person) about no one being able to fly +until the fairy dust had been blown on him; so many children having +gone home and tried it from their beds and needed surgical attention. + +Notwithstanding other possibilities, I think I wrote Peter, and if so +it must have been in the usual inky way. Some of it, I like to think, +was done in that native place which is the dearest spot on earth to me, +though my last heart-beats shall be with my beloved solitary London +that was so hard to reach. I must have sat at a table with that great +dog waiting for me to stop, not complaining, for he knew it was thus we +made our living, but giving me a look when he found he was to be in the +play, with his sex changed. In after years when the actor who was Nana +had to go to the wars he first taught his wife how to take his place as +the dog till he came back, and I am glad that I see nothing funny in +this; it seems to me to belong to the play. I offer this obtuseness on +my part as my first proof that I am the author. + +Some say that we are different people at different periods of our +lives, changing not through effort of will, which is a brave affair, +but in the easy course of nature every ten years or so. I suppose +this theory might explain my present trouble, but I don’t hold with +it; I think one remains the same person throughout, merely passing, +as it were, in these lapses of time from one room to another, but all +in the same house. If we unlock the rooms of the far past we can peer +in and see ourselves, busily occupied in beginning to become you and +me. Thus, if I am the author in question the way he is to go should +already be showing in the occupant of my first compartment, at whom +I now take the liberty to peep. Here he is at the age of seven or so +with his fellow-conspirator Robb, both in glengarry bonnets. They are +giving an entertainment in a tiny old washing-house that still stands. +The charge for admission is preens, a bool, or a peerie (I taught you a +good deal of Scotch, so possibly you can follow that), and apparently +the culminating Act consists in our trying to put each other into the +boiler, though some say that I also addressed the spell-bound audience. +This washing-house is not only the theatre of my first play, but has a +still closer connection with Peter. It is the original of the little +house the Lost Boys built in the Never Land for Wendy, the chief +difference being that it never wore John’s hat as a chimney. If Robb +had owned such a hat I have no doubt that it would have been placed on +the washing-house. + +Here is that boy again some four years older, and the reading he is +munching feverishly is about desert islands; he calls them wrecked +islands. He buys his sanguinary tales surreptitiously in penny +numbers. I see a change coming over him; he is blanching as he reads +in the high-class magazine, _Chatterbox_, a fulmination against such +literature, and sees that unless his greed for islands is quenched +he is for ever lost. With gloaming he steals out of the house, his +library bulging beneath his palpitating waistcoat. I follow like his +shadow, as indeed I am, and watch him dig a hole in a field at Pathhead +farm and bury his islands in it; it was ages ago, but I could walk +straight to that hole in the field now and delve for the remains. I +peep into the next compartment. There he is again, ten years older, an +undergraduate now and craving to be a real explorer, one of those who +do things instead of prating of them, but otherwise unaltered; he might +be painted at twenty on top of a mast, in his hand a spy-glass through +which he rakes the horizon for an elusive strand. I go from room to +room, and he is now a man, real exploration abandoned (though only +because no one would have him). Soon he is even concocting other plays, +and quaking a little lest some low person counts how many islands there +are in them. I note that with the years the islands grow more sinister, +but it is only because he has now to write with the left hand, the +right having given out; evidently one thinks more darkly down the left +arm. Go to the keyhole of the compartment where he and I join up, and +you may see us wondering whether they would stand one more island. +This journey through the house may not convince any one that I wrote +Peter, but it does suggest me as a likely person. I pause to ask myself +whether I read _Chatterbox_ again, suffered the old agony, and buried +that MS. of the play in a hole in a field. + +Of course this is over-charged. Perhaps we do change; except a little +something in us which is no larger than a mote in the eye, and that, +like it, dances in front of us beguiling us all our days. I cannot cut +the hair by which it hangs. + +The strongest evidence that I am the author is to be found, I think, +in a now melancholy volume, the aforementioned _The Boy Castaways_; so +you must excuse me for parading that work here. Officer of the Court, +call _The Boy Castaways_. The witness steps forward and proves to be +a book you remember well though you have not glanced at it these many +years. I pulled it out of a bookcase just now not without difficulty, +for its recent occupation has been to support the shelf above. I +suppose, though I am uncertain, that it was I and not you who hammered +it into that place of utility. It is a little battered and bent after +the manner of those who shoulder burdens, and ought (to our shame) +to remind us of the witnesses who sometimes get an hour off from the +cells to give evidence before his Lordship. I have said that it is +the rarest of my printed works, as it must be, for the only edition +was limited to two copies, of which one (there was always some devilry +in any matter connected with Peter) instantly lost itself in railway +carriage. This is the survivor. The idlers in court may have assumed +that it is a handwritten screed, and are impressed by its bulk. It is +printed by Constable’s (how handsomely you did us, dear Blaikie), it +contains thirty-five illustrations and is bound in cloth with a picture +stamped on the cover of the three eldest of you ‘setting out to be +wrecked.’ This record is supposed to be edited by the youngest of the +three, and I must have granted him that honour to make up for his being +so often lifted bodily out of our adventures by his nurse, who kept +breaking into them for the fell purpose of giving him a midday rest. +No. 4 rested so much at this period that he was merely an honorary +member of the band, waving his foot to you for luck when you set off +with bow and arrow to shoot his dinner for him; and one may rummage the +book in vain for any trace of No. 5. Here is the title-page, except +that you are numbered instead of named-- + +THE BOY +CASTAWAYS +OF BLACK LAKE ISLAND + +Being a record of the Terrible +Adventures of Three Brothers +in the summer of 1901 +faithfully set forth +by No. 3. + +LONDON +Published by J. M. Barrie +in the Gloucester Road +1901 + +There is a long preface by No. 3 in which we gather your ages at this +first flight. ‘No. 1 was eight and a month, No. 2 was approaching his +seventh lustrum, and I was a good bit past four.’ Of his two elders, +while commending their fearless dispositions, the editor complains that +they wanted to do all the shooting and carried the whole equipment of +arrows inside their shirts. He is attractively modest about himself, +‘Of No. 3 I prefer to say nothing, hoping that the tale as it is +unwound will show that he was a boy of deeds rather than of words,’ a +quality which he hints did not unduly protrude upon the brows of Nos. +1 and 2. His preface ends on a high note, ‘I should say that the work +was in the first instance compiled as a record simply at which we could +whet our memories, and that it is now published for No. 4’s benefit. If +it teaches him by example lessons in fortitude and manly endurance we +shall consider that we were not wrecked in vain.’ + +Published to whet your memories. Does it whet them? Do you hear once +more, like some long-forgotten whistle beneath your window (Robb at +dawn calling me to the fishing!) the not quite mortal blows that still +echo in some of the chapter headings?--‘Chapter II, No. 1 teaches +Wilkinson (his master) a Stern Lesson--We Run away to Sea. Chapter +III, A Fearful Hurricane--Wreck of the “Anna Pink”--We go crazy from +Want of Food--Proposal to eat No. 3--Land Ahoy.’ Such are two chapters +out of sixteen. Are these again your javelins cutting tunes in the +blue haze of the pines; do you sweat as you scale the dreadful Valley +of Rolling Stones, and cleanse your hands of pirate blood by scouring +them carelessly in Mother Earth? Can you still make a fire (you could +do it once, Mr. Seton-Thompson taught us in, surely an odd place, the +Reform Club) by rubbing those sticks together? Was it the travail of +hut-building that subsequently advised Peter to find a ‘home under the +ground’? The bottle and mugs in that lurid picture, ‘Last night on +the Island,’ seem to suggest that you had changed from Lost Boys into +pirates, which was probably also a tendency of Peter’s. Listen again +to our stolen saw-mill, man’s proudest invention; when he made the +saw-mill he beat the birds for music in a wood. + +The illustrations (full-paged) in _The Boy Castaways_ are all +photographs taken by myself; some of them indeed of phenomena that had +to be invented afterwards, for you were always off doing the wrong +things when I pressed the button. I see that we combined instruction +with amusement; perhaps we had given our kingly word to that effect. +How otherwise account for such wording to the pictures as these: ‘It +is undoubtedly,’ says No. 1 in a fir tree that is bearing unwonted +fruit, recently tied to it, ‘the _Cocos nucifera_, for observe the +slender columns supporting the crown of leaves which fall with a grace +that no art can imitate.’ ‘Truly,’ continues No. 1 under the same +tree in another forest as he leans upon his trusty gun, ‘though the +perils of these happenings are great, yet would I rejoice to endure +still greater privations to be thus rewarded by such wondrous studies +of Nature.’ He is soon back to the practical, however, ‘recognising +the Mango (_Magnifera indica_) by its lancet-shaped leaves and the +cucumber-shaped fruit.’ No. 1 was certainly the right sort of voyager +to be wrecked with, though if my memory fails me not, No. 2, to whom +these strutting observations were addressed, sometimes protested +because none of them was given to him. No. 3 being the author is in +surprisingly few of the pictures, but this, you may remember, was +because the lady already darkly referred to used to pluck him from our +midst for his siesta at 12 o’clock, which was the hour that best suited +the camera. With a skill on which he has never been complimented the +photographer sometimes got No. 3 nominally included in a wild-life +picture when he was really in a humdrum house kicking on the sofa. +Thus in a scene representing Nos. 1 and 2 sitting scowling outside the +hut it is untruly written that they scowled because ‘their brother was +within singing and playing on a barbaric instrument. The music,’ the +unseen No. 3 is represented as saying (obviously forestalling No. 1), +‘is rude and to a cultured ear discordant, but the songs like those of +the Arabs are full of poetic imagery.’ He was perhaps allowed to say +this sulkily on the sofa. + +Though _The Boy Castaways_ has sixteen chapter-headings, there is no +other letterpress; an absence which possible purchasers might complain +of, though there are surely worse ways of writing a book than this. +These headings anticipate much of the play of _Peter Pan_, but there +were many incidents of our Kensington Gardens days that never get into +the book, such as our Antarctic exploits when we reached the Pole in +advance of our friend Captain Scott and cut our initials on it for +him to find, a strange foreshadowing of what was really to happen. In +_The Boy Castaways_ Captain Hook has arrived but is called Captain +Swarthy, and he seems from the pictures to have been a black man. This +character, as you do not need to be told, is held by those in the know +to be autobiographical. You had many tussels with him (though you +never, I think, got his right arm) before you reached the terrible +chapter (which might be taken from the play) entitled ‘We Board the +Pirate Ship at Dawn--A Rakish Craft--No. 1 Hew-them-Down and No. 2 of +the Red Hatchet--A Holocaust of Pirates--Rescue of Peter.’ (Hullo, +Peter rescued instead of rescuing others? I know what that means and so +do you, but we are not going to give away all our secrets.) The scene +of the Holocaust is the Black Lake (afterwards, when we let women in, +the Mermaids’ Lagoon). The pirate captain’s end was not in the mouth +of a crocodile though we had crocodiles on the spot (‘while No. 2 was +removing the crocodiles from the stream No. 1 shot a few parrots, +_Psittacidae_, for our evening meal’). I think our captain had divers +deaths owing to unseemly competition among you, each wanting to slay +him single-handed. On a special occasion, such as when No. 3 pulled out +the tooth himself, you gave the deed to him, but took it from him while +he rested. The only pictorial representation in the book of Swarthy’s +fate is in two parts. In one, called briefly ‘We string him up,’ Nos. +1 and 2, stern as Athos, are hauling him up a tree by a rope, his face +snarling as if it were a grinning mask (which indeed it was), and his +garments very like some of my own stuffed with bracken. The other, the +same scene next day, is called ‘The Vultures had Picked him Clean,’ and +tells its own tale. + +The dog in _The Boy Castaways_ seems never to have been called Nana +but was evidently in training for that post. He originally belonged +to Swarthy (or to Captain Marryat?), and the first picture of him, +lean, skulking, and hunched (how did I get that effect?), ‘patrolling +the island’ in that monster’s interests, gives little indication of +the domestic paragon he was to become. We lured him away to the better +life, and there is, later, a touching picture, a clear forecast of the +Darling nursery, entitled ‘We trained the dog to watch over us while we +slept.’ In this he also is sleeping, in a position that is a careful +copy of his charges; indeed any trouble we had with him was because, +once he knew he was in a story, he thought his safest course was to +imitate you in everything you did. How anxious he was to show that he +understood the game, and more generous than you, he never pretended +that he was the one who killed Captain Swarthy. I must not imply that +he was entirely without initiative, for it was his own idea to bark +warningly a minute or two before twelve o’clock as a signal to No. +3 that his keeper was probably on her way for him (Disappearance of +No. 3); and he became so used to living in the world of Pretend that +when we reached the hut of a morning he was often there waiting for +us, looking, it is true, rather idiotic, but with a new bark he had +invented which puzzled us until we decided that he was demanding the +password. He was always willing to do any extra jobs, such as becoming +the tiger in mask, and when after a fierce engagement you carried home +that mask in triumph, he joined in the procession proudly and never +let on that the trophy had ever been part of him. Long afterwards he +saw the play from a box in the theatre, and as familiar scenes were +unrolled before his eyes I have never seen a dog so bothered. At one +matinee we even let him for a moment take the place of the actor who +played Nana, and I don’t know that any members of the audience ever +noticed the change, though he introduced some ‘business’ that was +new to them but old to you and me. Heigh-ho, I suspect that in this +reminiscence I am mixing him up with his successor, for such a one +there had to be, the loyal Newfoundland who, perhaps in the following +year, applied, so to say, for the part by bringing hedgehogs to the hut +in his mouth as offerings for our evening repasts. The head and coat +of him were copied for the Nana of the play. + +They do seem to be emerging out of our island, don’t they, the little +people of the play, all except that sly one, the chief figure, who +draws farther and farther into the wood as we advance upon him? He so +dislikes being tracked, as if there were something odd about him, that +when he dies he means to get up and blow away the particle that will be +his ashes. + +Wendy has not yet appeared, but she has been trying to come ever since +that loyal nurse cast the humorous shadow of woman upon the scene and +made us feel that it might be fun to let in a disturbing element. +Perhaps she would have bored her way in at last whether we wanted her +or not. It may be that even Peter did not really bring her to the +Never Land of his free will, but merely pretended to do so because she +would not stay away. Even Tinker Bell had reached our island before we +left it. It was one evening when we climbed the wood carrying No. 4 to +show him what the trail was like by twilight. As our lanterns twinkled +among the leaves No. 4 saw a twinkle stand still for a moment and he +waved his foot gaily to it, thus creating Tink. It must not be thought, +however, that there were any other sentimental passages between No. +4 and Tink; indeed, as he got to know her better he suspected her of +frequenting the hut to see what we had been having for supper, and to +partake of the same, and he pursued her with malignancy. + +A safe but sometimes chilly way of recalling the past is to force open +a crammed drawer. If you are searching for anything in particular you +don’t find it, but something falls out at the back that is often more +interesting. It is in this way that I get my desultory reading, which +includes the few stray leaves of the original MS. of Peter that I have +said I do possess, though even they, when returned to the drawer, are +gone again, as if that touch of devilry lurked in them still. They show +that in early days I hacked at and added to the play. In the drawer I +find some scraps of Mr. Crook’s delightful music, and other incomplete +matter relating to Peter. Here is the reply of a boy whom I favoured +with a seat in my box and injudiciously asked at the end what he had +liked best. ‘What I think I liked best,’ he said, ‘was tearing up the +programme and dropping the bits on people’s heads.’ Thus am I often +laid low. A copy of my favourite programme of the play is still in the +drawer. In the first or second year of Peter No. 4 could not attend +through illness, so we took the play to his nursery, far away in the +country, an array of vehicles almost as glorious as a travelling +circus; the leading parts were played by the youngest children in +the London company, and No. 4, aged five, looked on solemnly at the +performance from his bed and never smiled once. That was my first and +only appearance on the real stage, and this copy of the programme shows +I was thought so meanly of as an actor that they printed my name in +smaller letters than the others. + +I have said little here of Nos. 4 and 5, and it is high time I had +finished. They had a long summer day, and I turn round twice and now +they are off to school. On Monday, as it seems, I was escorting No. 5 +to a children’s party and brushing his hair in the ante-room; and by +Thursday he is placing me against the wall of an underground station +and saying, ‘Now I am going to get the tickets; don’t move till I come +back for you or you’ll lose yourself.’ No. 4 jumps from being astride +my shoulders fishing, I knee-deep in the stream, to becoming, while +still a schoolboy, the sternest of my literary critics. Anything he +shook his head over I abandoned, and conceivably the world has thus +been deprived of masterpieces. There was for instance an unfortunate +little tragedy which I liked until I foolishly told No. 4 its subject, +when he frowned and said he had better have a look at it. He read it, +and then, patting me on the back, as only he and No. 1 could touch me, +said, ‘You know you can’t do this sort of thing.’ End of a tragedian. +Sometimes, however, No. 4 liked my efforts, and I walked in the azure +that day when he returned _Dear Brutus_ to me with the comment ‘Not +so bad.’ In earlier days, when he was ten, I offered him the MS. of +my book _Margaret Ogilvy_. ‘Oh, thanks,’ he said almost immediately, +and added, ‘Of course my desk is awfully full.’ I reminded him that he +could take out some of its more ridiculous contents. He said, ‘I have +read it already in the book.’ This I had not known, and I was secretly +elated, but I said that people sometimes liked to preserve this kind of +thing as a curiosity. He said ‘Oh’ again. I said tartly that he was not +compelled to take it if he didn’t want it. He said, ‘Of course I want +it, but my desk----’ Then he wriggled out of the room and came back in +a few minutes dragging in No. 5 and announcing triumphantly, ‘No. 5 +will have it.’ + +The rebuffs I have got from all of you! They were especially crushing +in those early days when one by one you came out of your belief in +fairies and lowered on me as the deceiver. My grandest triumph, the +best thing in the play of _Peter Pan_ (though it is not in it), is +that long after No. 4 had ceased to believe, I brought him back to the +faith for at least two minutes. We were on our way in a boat to fish +the Outer Hebrides (where we caught _Mary Rose_), and though it was a +journey of days he wore his fishing basket on his back all the time, +so as to be able to begin at once. His one pain was the absence of +Johnny Mackay, for Johnny was the loved gillie of the previous summer +who had taught him everything that is worth knowing (which is a matter +of flies) but could not be with us this time as he would have had to +cross and re-cross Scotland to reach us. As the boat drew near the Kyle +of Lochalsh pier I told Nos. 4 and 5 it was such a famous wishing pier +that they had now but to wish and they should have. No. 5 believed at +once and expressed a wish to meet himself (I afterwards found him on +the pier searching faces confidently), but No. 4 thought it more of +my untimely nonsense and doggedly declined to humour me. ‘Whom do you +want to see most, No. 4?’ ‘Of course I would like most to see Johnny +Mackay.’ ‘Well, then, wish for him.’ ‘Oh, rot.’ ‘It can’t do any harm +to wish.’ Contemptuously he wished, and as the ropes were thrown on the +pier he saw Johnny waiting for him, loaded with angling paraphernalia. +I know no one less like a fairy than Johnny Mackay, but for two +minutes No. 4 was quivering in another world than ours. When he came +to he gave me a smile which meant that we understood each other, and +thereafter neglected me for a month, being always with Johnny. As I +have said, this episode is not in the play; so though I dedicate _Peter +Pan_ to you I keep the smile, with the few other broken fragments of +immortality that have come my way. + + + + +ACT I + + + + +ACT I + +THE NURSERY + + +_The night nursery of the Darling family, which is the scene of our +opening Act, is at the top of a rather depressed street in Bloomsbury. +We have a right to place it where we will, and the reason Bloomsbury is +chosen is that Mr. Roget once lived there. So did we in days when his_ +Thesaurus _was our only companion in London; and we whom he has helped +to wend our way through life have always wanted to pay him a little +compliment. The Darlings therefore lived in Bloomsbury._ + +_It is a corner house whose top window, the important one, looks upon a +leafy square from which Peter used to fly up to it, to the delight of +three children and no doubt the irritation of passers-by. The street is +still there, though the steaming sausage shop has gone; and apparently +the same cards perch now as then over the doors, inviting homeless +ones to come and stay with the hospitable inhabitants. Since the days +of the Darlings, however, a lick of paint has been applied; and our +corner house in particular, which has swallowed its neighbour, blooms +with awful freshness as if the colours had been discharged upon it +through a hose. Its card now says ‘No children,’ meaning maybe that the +goings-on of Wendy and her brothers have given the house a bad name. As +for ourselves, we have not been in it since we went back to reclaim our +old_ Thesaurus. + +_That is what we call the Darling house, but you may dump it down +anywhere you like, and if you think it was your house you are very +probably right. It wanders about London looking for anybody in need of +it, like the little house in the Never Land._ + +_The blind (which is what Peter would have called the theatre curtain +if he had ever seen one) rises on that top room, a shabby little room +if Mrs. Darling had not made it the hub of creation by her certainty +that such it was, and adorned it to match with a loving heart and all +the scrapings of her purse. The door on the right leads into the day +nursery, which she has no right to have, but she made it herself with +nails in her mouth and a paste-pot in her hand. This is the door the +children will come in by. There are three beds and (rather oddly) a +large dog-kennel; two of these beds, with the kennel, being on the left +and the other on the right. The coverlets of the beds (if visitors are +expected) are made out of Mrs. Darling’s wedding-gown, which was such +a grand affair that it still keeps them pinched. Over each bed is a +china house, the size of a linnet’s nest, containing a night-light. The +fire, which is on our right, is burning as discreetly as if it were in +custody, which in a sense it is, for supporting the mantelshelf are +two wooden soldiers, home-made, begun by Mr. Darling, finished by Mrs. +Darling, repainted (unfortunately) by John Darling. On the fire-guard +hang incomplete parts of children’s night attire. The door the parents +will come in by is on the left. At the back is the bathroom door, with +a cuckoo clock over it; and in the centre is the window, which is at +present ever so staid and respectable, but half an hour hence (namely +at 6.30 p.m.) will be able to tell a very strange tale to the police._ + +_The only occupant of the room at present is Nana the nurse, reclining, +not as you might expect on the one soft chair, but on the floor. She is +a Newfoundland dog, and though this may shock the grandiose, the not +exactly affluent will make allowances. The Darlings could not afford +to have a nurse, they could not afford indeed to have children; and +now you are beginning to understand how they did it. Of course Nana has +been trained by Mrs. Darling, but like all treasures she was born to +it. In this play we shall see her chiefly inside the house, but she was +just as exemplary outside, escorting the two elders to school with an +umbrella in her mouth, for instance, and butting them back into line if +they strayed._ + +_The cuckoo clock strikes six, and Nana springs into life. This first +moment in the play is tremendously important, for if the actor playing +Nana does not spring properly we are undone. She will probably be +played by a boy, if one clever enough can be found, and must never +be on two legs except on those rare occasions when an ordinary nurse +would be on four. This Nana must go about all her duties in a most +ordinary manner, so that you know in your bones that she performs them +just so every evening at six; naturalness must be her passion; indeed, +it should be the aim of every one in the play, for which she is now +setting the pace. All the characters, whether grown-ups or babes, must +wear a child’s outlook on life as their only important adornment. If +they cannot help being funny they are begged to go away. A good motto +for all would be ‘The little less, and how much it is.’_ + +_Nana, making much use of her mouth, ‘turns down’ the beds, and carries +the various articles on the fire-guard across to them. Then pushing the +bathroom door open, she is seen at work on the taps preparing Michael’s +bath; after which she enters from the day nursery with the youngest of +the family on her back._ + +MICHAEL (_obstreperous_). I won’t go to bed, I won’t, I won’t. Nana, it +isn’t six o’clock yet. Two minutes more, please, one minute more? Nana, +I won’t be bathed, I tell you I will not be bathed. + + (_Here the bathroom door closes on them, and_ MRS. DARLING, _who + has perhaps heard his cry, enters the nursery. She is the loveliest + lady in Bloomsbury, with a sweet mocking mouth, and as she is + going out to dinner to-night she is already wearing her evening + gown because she knows her children like to see her in it. It is + a delicious confection made by herself out of nothing and other + people’s mistakes. She does not often go out to dinner, preferring + when the children are in bed to sit beside them tidying up their + minds, just as if they were drawers. If_ WENDY _and the boys could + keep awake they might see her repacking into their proper places the + many articles of the mind that have strayed during the day, lingering + humorously over some of their contents, wondering where on earth they + picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, + pressing this to her cheek and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. + When they wake in the morning the naughtinesses with which they went + to bed are not, alas, blown away, but they are placed at the bottom + of the drawer; and on the top, beautifully aired, are their prettier + thoughts ready for the new day._ + + _As she enters the room she is startled to see a strange little face + outside the window and a hand groping as if it wanted to come in._) + +MRS DARLING. Who are you? (_The unknown disappears; she hurries to the +window._) No one there. And yet I feel sure I saw a face. My children! +(_She throws open the bathroom door and_ MICHAEL’S _head appears gaily +over the bath. He splashes; she throws kisses to him and closes the +door. ‘Wendy, John,’ she cries, and gets reassuring answers from the +day nursery. She sits down, relieved, on_ WENDY’S _bed; and_ WENDY +_and_ JOHN _come in, looking their smallest size, as children tend to +do to a mother suddenly in fear for them_.) + +JOHN (_histrionically_). We are doing an act; we are playing at being +you and father. (_He imitates the only father who has come under his +special notice._) A little less noise there. + +WENDY. Now let us pretend we have a baby. + +JOHN (_good-naturedly_). I am happy to inform you, Mrs. Darling, that +you are now a mother. (WENDY _gives way to ecstasy_.) You have missed +the chief thing; you haven’t asked, ‘boy or girl?’ + +WENDY. I am so glad to have one at all, I don’t care which it is. + +JOHN (_crushingly_). That is just the difference between gentlemen and +ladies. Now you tell me. + +WENDY. I am happy to acquaint you, Mr. Darling, you are now a father. + +JOHN. Boy or girl? + +WENDY (_presenting herself_). Girl. + +JOHN. Tuts. + +WENDY. You horrid. + +JOHN. Go on. + +WENDY. I am happy to acquaint you, Mr. Darling, you are again a father. + +JOHN. Boy or girl? + +WENDY. Boy. (JOHN _beams_.) Mummy, it’s hateful of him. + + (MICHAEL _emerges from the bathroom in_ JOHN’S _old pyjamas and + giving his face a last wipe with the towel_.) + +MICHAEL (_expanding_). Now, John, have me. + +JOHN. We don’t want any more. + +MICHAEL (_contracting_). Am I not to be born at all? + +JOHN. Two is enough. + +MICHAEL (_wheedling_). Come, John; boy, John. (_Appalled_) Nobody wants +me! + +MRS. DARLING. I do. + +MICHAEL (_with a glimmer of hope_). Boy or girl? + +MRS. DARLING (_with one of those happy thoughts of hers_). Boy. + + (_Triumph of_ MICHAEL; _discomfiture of_ JOHN. MR. DARLING _arrives, + in no mood unfortunately to gloat over this domestic scene. He is + really a good man as bread-winners go, and it is hard luck for + him to be propelled into the room now, when if we had brought him + in a few minutes earlier or later he might have made a fairer + impression. In the city where he sits on a stool all day, as fixed + as a postage stamp, he is so like all the others on stools that you + recognise him not by his face but by his stool, but at home the way + to gratify him is to say that he has a distinct personality. He is + very conscientious, and in the days when_ MRS. DARLING _gave up + keeping the house books correctly and drew pictures instead (which + he called her guesses), he did all the totting up for her, holding + her hand while he calculated whether they could have Wendy or not, + and coming down on the right side. It is with regret, therefore, + that we introduce him as a tornado, rushing into the nursery in + evening dress, but without his coat, and brandishing in his hand a + recalcitrant white tie._) + +MR. DARLING (_implying that he has searched for her everywhere and that +the nursery is a strange place in which to find her_). Oh, here you +are, Mary. + +MRS. DARLING (_knowing at once what is the matter_). What is the +matter, George dear? + +MR. DARLING (_as if the word were monstrous_). Matter! This tie, it +will not tie. (_He waxes sarcastic._) Not round my neck. Round the +bed-post, oh yes; twenty times have I made it up round the bed-post, +but round my neck, oh dear no; begs to be excused. + +MICHAEL (_in a joyous transport_). Say it again, father, say it again! + +MR. DARLING (_witheringly_). Thank you. (_Goaded by a suspiciously +crooked smile on_ MRS. DARLING’S _face_) I warn you, Mary, that unless +this tie is round my neck we don’t go out to dinner to-night, and if I +don’t go out to dinner to-night I never go to the office again, and if +I don’t go to the office again you and I starve, and our children will +be thrown into the streets. + + (_The children blanch as they grasp the gravity of the situation._) + +MRS. DARLING. Let me try, dear. + + (_In a terrible silence their progeny cluster round them. Will she + succeed? Their fate depends on it. She fails--no, she succeeds. + In another moment they are wildly gay, romping round the room on + each other’s shoulders. Father is even a better horse than mother._ + MICHAEL _is dropped upon his bed_, WENDY _retires to prepare for + hers_, JOHN _runs from_ NANA, _who has reappeared with the bath + towel_.) + +JOHN (_rebellious_). I won’t be bathed. You needn’t think it. + +MR. DARLING (_in the grand manner_). Go and be bathed at once, sir. + + (_With bent head_ JOHN _follows_ NANA _into the bathroom_. MR. + DARLING _swells_.) + +MICHAEL (_as he is put between the sheets_). Mother, how did you get to +know me? + +MR. DARLING. A little less noise there. + +MICHAEL (_growing solemn_). At what time was I born, mother? + +MRS. DARLING. At two o’clock in the night-time, dearest. + +MICHAEL. Oh, mother, I hope I didn’t wake you. + +MRS. DARLING. They are rather sweet, don’t you think, George? + +MR. DARLING (_doting_). There is not their equal on earth, and they are +ours, ours! + + (_Unfortunately_ NANA _has come from the bathroom for a sponge and + she collides with his trousers, the first pair he has ever had with + braid on them_.) + +MR. DARLING. Mary, it is too bad; just look at this; covered with +hairs. Clumsy, clumsy! + + (NANA _goes, a drooping figure_.) + +MRS. DARLING. Let me brush you, dear. + + (_Once more she is successful. They are now by the fire, and_ MICHAEL + _is in bed doing idiotic things with a teddy bear_.) + +MR. DARLING (_depressed_). I sometimes think, Mary, that it is a +mistake to have a dog for a nurse. + +MRS. DARLING. George, Nana is a treasure. + +MR. DARLING. No doubt; but I have an uneasy feeling at times that she +looks upon the children as puppies. + +MRS. DARLING (_rather faintly_). Oh no, dear one, I am sure she knows +they have souls. + +MR. DARLING (_profoundly_). I wonder, I wonder. + + (_The opportunity has come for her to tell him of something that is + on her mind._) + +MRS. DARLING. George, we must keep Nana. I will tell you why. (_Her +seriousness impresses him._) My dear, when I came into this room +to-night I saw a face at the window. + +MR. DARLING (_incredulous_). A face at the window, three floors up? +Pooh! + +MRS. DARLING. It was the face of a little boy; he was trying to get in. +George, this is not the first time I have seen that boy. + +MR. DARLING (_beginning to think that this may be a man’s job_). Oho! + +MRS. DARLING (_making sure that_ MICHAEL _does not hear_). The first +time was a week ago. It was Nana’s night out, and I had been drowsing +here by the fire when suddenly I felt a draught, as if the window were +open. I looked round and I saw that boy--in the room. + +MR. DARLING. In the room? + +MRS. DARLING. I screamed. Just then Nana came back and she at once +sprang at him. The boy leapt for the window. She pulled down the sash +quickly, but was too late to catch him. + +MR. DARLING (_who knows he would not have been too late_). I thought so! + +MRS. DARLING. Wait. The boy escaped, but his shadow had not time to get +out; down came the window and cut it clean off. + +MR. DARLING (_heavily_). Mary, Mary, why didn’t you keep that shadow? + +MRS. DARLING (_scoring_). I did. I rolled it up, George; and here it is. + + (_She produces it from a drawer. They unroll and examine the flimsy + thing, which is not more material than a puff of smoke, and if let + go would probably float into the ceiling without discolouring it. + Yet it has human shape. As they nod their heads over it they present + the most satisfying picture on earth, two happy parents conspiring + cosily by the fire for the good of their children_.) + +MR. DARLING. It is nobody I know, but he does look a scoundrel. + +MRS. DARLING. I think he comes back to get his shadow, George. + +MR. DARLING (_meaning that the miscreant has now a father to deal +with_). I dare say. (_He sees himself telling the story to the other +stools at the office._) There is money in this, my love. I shall take +it to the British Museum to-morrow and have it priced. + + (_The shadow is rolled up and replaced in the drawer._) + +MRS. DARLING (_like a guilty person_). George, I have not told you all; +I am afraid to. + +MR. DARLING (_who knows exactly the right moment to treat a woman as a +beloved child_). Cowardy, cowardy custard. + +MRS. DARLING (_pouting_). No, I’m not. + +MR. DARLING. Oh yes, you are. + +MRS. DARLING. George, I’m not. + +MR. DARLING. Then why not tell? (_Thus cleverly soothed she goes on._) + +MRS. DARLING. The boy was not alone that first time. He was accompanied +by--I don’t know how to describe it; by a ball of light, not as big as +my fist, but it darted about the room like a living thing. + +MR. DARLING (_though open-minded_). That is very unusual. It escaped +with the boy? + +MRS DARLING. Yes. (_Sliding her hand into his._) George, what can all +this mean? + +MR. DARLING (_ever ready_). What indeed! + + (_This intimate scene is broken by the return of_ NANA _with a bottle + in her mouth_.) + +MRS. DARLING (_at once dissembling_). What is that, Nana? Ah, of +course; Michael, it is your medicine. + +MICHAEL (_promptly_). Won’t take it. + +MR. DARLING (_recalling his youth_). Be a man, Michael. + +MICHAEL. Won’t. + +MRS. DARLING (_weakly_). I’ll get you a lovely chocky to take after it. +(_She leaves the room, though her husband calls after her._) + +MR. DARLING. Mary, don’t pamper him. When I was your age, Michael, I +took medicine without a murmur. I said ‘Thank you, kind parents, for +giving me bottles to make me well.’ + + (WENDY, _who has appeared in her nightgown, hears this and believes_.) + +WENDY. That medicine you sometimes take is much nastier, isn’t it, +father? + +MR. DARLING (_valuing her support_). Ever so must nastier. And as an +example to you, Michael, I would take it now (_thankfully_) if I hadn’t +lost the bottle. + +WENDY (_always glad to be of service_). I know where it is, father. +I’ll fetch it. + + (_She is gone before he can stop her. He turns for help to_ JOHN, + _who has come from the bathroom attired for bed_.) + +MR. DARLING. John, it is the most beastly stuff. It is that sticky +sweet kind. + +JOHN (_who is perhaps still playing at parents_). Never mind, father, +it will soon be over. + + (_A spasm of ill-will to_ JOHN _cuts through_ MR. DARLING, _and is + gone_. WENDY _returns panting_.) + +WENDY. Here it is, father; I have been as quick as I could. + +MR. DARLING (_with a sarcasm that is completely thrown away on her_). +You have been wonderfully quick, precious quick! + + (_He is now at the foot of_ MICHAEL’S _bed_, NANA _is by its side, + holding the medicine spoon insinuatingly in her mouth_.) + +WENDY (_proudly, as she pours out_ MR. DARLING’S _medicine_). Michael, +now you will see how father takes it. + +MR. DARLING (_hedging_). Michael first. + +MICHAEL (_full of unworthy suspicions_). Father first. + +MR. DARLING. It will make me sick, you know. + +JOHN (_lightly_). Come on, father. + +MR. DARLING. Hold your tongue, sir. + +WENDY (_disturbed_). I thought you took it quite easily, father, saying +‘Thank you, kind parents, for----’ + +MR. DARLING. That is not the point; the point is that there is more in +my glass than in Michael’s spoon. It isn’t fair, I swear though it were +with my last breath, it is not fair. + +MICHAEL (_coldly_). Father, I’m waiting. + +MR. DARLING. It’s all very well to say you are waiting; so am I waiting. + +MICHAEL. Father’s a cowardy custard. + +MR. DARLING. So are you a cowardy custard. + + (_They are now glaring at each other._) + +MICHAEL. I am not frightened. + +MR. DARLING. Neither am I frightened. + +MICHAEL. Well, then, take it. + +MR. DARLING. Well, then, you take it. + +WENDY (_butting in again_). Why not take it at the same time? + +MR. DARLING (_haughtily_). Certainly. Are you ready, Michael? + +WENDY (_as nothing has happened_). One--two--three. + + (MICHAEL _partakes, but_ MR. DARLING _resorts to hanky-panky_.) + +JOHN. Father hasn’t taken his! + + (MICHAEL _howls_.) + +WENDY (_inexpressibly pained_). Oh father! + +MR. DARLING (_who has been hiding the glass behind him_). What do you +mean by ‘oh father’? Stop that row, Michael. I meant to take mine but +I--missed it. (NANA _shakes her head sadly over him, and goes into +the bathroom. They are all looking as if they did not admire him, and +nothing so dashes a temperamental man._) I say, I have just thought +of a splendid joke. (_They brighten._) I shall pour my medicine +into Nana’s bowl, and she will drink it thinking it is milk! (_The +pleasantry does not appeal, but he prepares the joke, listening for +appreciation._) + +WENDY. Poor darling Nana! + +MR. DARLING. You silly little things; to your beds every one of you; I +am ashamed of you. + + (_They steal to their beds as_ MRS. DARLING _returns with the + chocolate_.) + +MRS. DARLING. Well, is it all over? + +MICHAEL. Father didn’t----(_Father glares._) + +MR. DARLING. All over, dear, quite satisfactorily. (NANA _comes back_.) +Nana, good dog, good girl; I have put a little milk into your bowl. +(_The bowl is by the kennel, and_ NANA _begins to lap, only begins. She +retreats into the kennel._) + +MRS. DARLING. What is the matter, Nana? + +MR. DARLING (_uneasily_). Nothing, nothing. + +MRS. DARLING (_smelling the bowl_). George, it is your medicine! + + (_The children break into lamentation. He gives his wife an + imploring look; he is begging for one smile, but does not get it. In + consequence he goes from bad to worse._) + +MR. DARLING. It was only a joke. Much good my wearing myself to the +bone trying to be funny in this house. + +WENDY (_on her knees by the kennel_). Father, Nana is crying. + +MR. DARLING. Coddle her; nobody coddles me. Oh dear no. I am only the +bread-winner, why should I be coddled? Why, why, why? + +MRS. DARLING. George, not so loud; the servants will hear you. + + (_There is only one maid, absurdly small too, but they have got into + the way of calling her the servants._) + +MR. DARLING (_defiant_). Let them hear me; bring in the whole world. +(_The desperate man, who has not been in fresh air for days, has now +lost all self-control._) I refuse to allow that dog to lord it in my +nursery for one hour longer. (NANA _supplicates him_.) In vain, in +vain, the proper place for you is the yard, and there you go to be tied +up this instant. + + (NANA _again retreats into the kennel, and the children add their + prayers to hers_.) + +MRS. DARLING (_who knows how contrite he will be for this presently_). +George, George, remember what I told you about that boy. + +MR. DARLING. Am I master in this house or is she? (_To_ NANA +_fiercely_) Come along. (_He thunders at her, but she indicates that +she has reasons not worth troubling him with for remaining where she +is. He resorts to a false bonhomie._) There, there, did she think +he was angry with her, poor Nana? (_She wriggles a response in the +affirmative._) Good Nana, pretty Nana. (_She has seldom been called +pretty, and it has the old effect. She plays rub-a-dub with her paws, +which is how a dog blushes._) She will come to her kind master, won’t +she? won’t she? (_She advances, retreats, waggles her head, her tail, +and eventually goes to him. He seizes her collar in an iron grip and +amid the cries of his progeny drags her from the room. They listen, +for her remonstrances are not inaudible._) + +MRS. DARLING. Be brave, my dears. + +WENDY. He is chaining Nana up! + + (_This unfortunately is what he is doing, though we cannot see + him. Let us hope that he then retires to his study, looks up the + word ‘temper’ in his_ Thesaurus, _and under the influence of those + benign pages becomes a better man. In the meantime the children have + been put to bed in unwonted silence, and_ MRS. DARLING _lights the + night-lights over the beds_.) + +JOHN (_as the barking below goes on_). She is awfully unhappy. + +WENDY. That is not Nana’s unhappy bark. That is her bark when she +smells danger. + +MRS. DARLING (_remembering that boy_). Danger! Are you sure, Wendy? + +WENDY (_the one of the family, for there is one in every family, who +can be trusted to know or not to know_). Oh yes. + + (_Her mother looks this way and that from the window._) + +JOHN. Is anything there? + +MRS. DARLING. All quite quiet and still. Oh, how I wish I was not going +out to dinner to-night. + +MICHAEL. Can anything harm us, mother, after the night-lights are lit? + +MRS. DARLING. Nothing, precious. They are the eyes a mother leaves +behind her to guard her children. + + (_Nevertheless we may be sure she means to tell_ LIZA, _the little + maid, to look in on them frequently till she comes home. She goes + from bed to bed, after her custom, tucking them in and crooning a + lullaby._) + +MICHAEL (_drowsily_). Mother, I’m glad of you. + +MRS. DARLING (_with a last look round, her hand on the switch_). Dear +night-lights that protect my sleeping babes, burn clear and steadfast +to-night. + + (_The nursery darkens and she is gone, intentionally leaving the + door ajar. Something uncanny is going to happen, we expect, for a + quiver has passed through the room, just sufficient to touch the + night-lights. They blink three times one after the other and go out, + precisely as children (whom familiarity has made them resemble) fall + asleep. There is another light in the room now, no larger than_ MRS. + DARLING’S _fist, and in the time we have taken to say this it has + been into the drawers and wardrobe and searched pockets, as it darts + about looking for a certain shadow. Then the window is blown open, + probably by the smallest and therefore most mischievous star, and_ + PETER PAN _flies into the room. In so far as he is dressed at all it + is in autumn leaves and cobwebs._) + +PETER (_in a whisper_). Tinker Bell, Tink, are you there? (_A jug +lights up._) Oh, do come out of that jug. (TINK _flashes hither and +thither._) Do you know where they put it? (_The answer comes as of a +tinkle of bells; it is the fairy language._ PETER _can speak it, but +it bores him_.) Which big box? This one? But which drawer? Yes, do +show me. (TINK _pops into the drawer where the shadow is, but before_ +PETER _can reach it_, WENDY _moves in her sleep. He flies onto the +mantelshelf as a hiding-place. Then, as she has not waked, he flutters +over the beds as an easy way to observe the occupants, closes the +window softly, wafts himself to the drawer and scatters its contents to +the floor, as kings on their wedding day toss ha’pence to the crowds. +In his joy at finding his shadow he forgets that he has shut up_ TINK +_in the drawer. He sits on the floor with the shadow, confident that he +and it will join like drops of water. Then he tries to stick it on with +soap from the bathroom, and this failing also, he subsides dejectedly +on the floor. This wakens_ WENDY, _who sits up, and is pleasantly +interested to see a stranger._) + +WENDY (_courteously_). Boy, why are you crying? + + (_He jumps up, and crossing to the foot of the bed bows to her in the + fairy way._ WENDY, _impressed, bows to him from the bed_.) + +PETER. What is your name? + +WENDY (_well satisfied_). Wendy Moira Angela Darling. What is yours? + +PETER (_finding it lamentably brief_). Peter Pan. + +WENDY. Is that all? + +PETER (_biting his lip_). Yes. + +WENDY (_politely_). I am so sorry. + +PETER. It doesn’t matter. + +WENDY. Where do you live? + +PETER. Second to the right and then straight on till morning. + +WENDY. What a funny address! + +PETER. No, it isn’t. + +WENDY. I mean, is that what they put on the letters? + +PETER. Don’t get any letters. + +WENDY. But your mother gets letters? + +PETER. Don’t have a mother. + +WENDY. Peter! + + (_She leaps out of bed to put her arms round him, but he draws back; + he does not know why, but he knows he must draw back._) + +PETER. You mustn’t touch me. + +WENDY. Why? + +PETER. No one must ever touch me. + +WENDY. Why? + +PETER. I don’t know. + + (_He is never touched by any one in the play._) + +WENDY. No wonder you were crying. + +PETER. I wasn’t crying. But I can’t get my shadow to stick on. + +WENDY. It has come off! How awful. (_Looking at the spot where he had +lain._) Peter, you have been trying to stick it on with soap! + +PETER (_snappily_). Well then? + +WENDY. It must be sewn on. + +PETER. What is ‘sewn’? + +WENDY. You are dreadfully ignorant. + +PETER. No, I’m not. + +WENDY. I will sew it on for you, my little man. But we must have more +light. (_She touches something, and to his astonishment the room is +illuminated._) Sit here. I dare say it will hurt a little. + +PETER (_a recent remark of hers rankling_). I never cry. (_She seems to +attach the shadow. He tests the combination._) It isn’t quite itself +yet. + +WENDY. Perhaps I should have ironed it. (_It awakes and is as glad to +be back with him as he to have it. He and his shadow dance together. +He is showing off now. He crows like a cock. He would fly in order to +impress_ WENDY _further if he knew that there is anything unusual in +that_.) + +PETER. Wendy, look, look; oh the cleverness of me! + +WENDY. You conceit; of course I did nothing! + +PETER. You did a little. + +WENDY (_wounded_). A little! If I am no use I can at least withdraw. + + (_With one haughty leap she is again in bed with the sheet over her + face. Popping on to the end of the bed the artful one appeals._) + +PETER. Wendy, don’t withdraw. I can’t help crowing, Wendy, when I’m +pleased with myself. Wendy, one girl is worth more than twenty boys. + +WENDY (_peeping over the sheet_). You really think so, Peter? + +PETER. Yes, I do. + +WENDY. I think it’s perfectly sweet of you, and I shall get up again. +(_They sit together on the side of the bed._) I shall give you a kiss +if you like. + +PETER. Thank you. (_He holds out his hand._) + +WENDY (_aghast_). Don’t you know what a kiss is? + +PETER. I shall know when you give it me. (_Not to hurt his feelings she +gives him her thimble._) Now shall I give you a kiss? + +WENDY (_primly_). If you please. (_He pulls an acorn button off his +person and bestows it on her. She is shocked but considerate._) I will +wear it on this chain round my neck. Peter, how old are you? + +PETER (_blithely_). I don’t know, but quite young, Wendy. I ran away +the day I was born. + +WENDY. Ran away, why? + +PETER. Because I heard father and mother talking of what I was to be +when I became a man. I want always to be a little boy and to have fun; +so I ran away to Kensington Gardens and lived a long time among the +fairies. + +WENDY (_with great eyes_). You know fairies, Peter! + +PETER (_surprised that this should be a recommendation_). Yes, but they +are nearly all dead now. (_Baldly_) You see, Wendy, when the first baby +laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and +they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies. +And now when every new baby is born its first laugh becomes a fairy. So +there ought to be one fairy for every boy or girl. + +WENDY (_breathlessly_). Ought to be? Isn’t there? + +PETER. Oh no. Children know such a lot now. Soon they don’t believe +in fairies, and every time a child says ‘I don’t believe in fairies’ +there is a fairy somewhere that falls down dead. (_He skips about +heartlessly._) + +WENDY. Poor things! + +PETER (_to whom this statement recalls a forgotten friend_). I can’t +think where she has gone. Tinker Bell, Tink, where are you? + +WENDY (_thrilling_). Peter, you don’t mean to tell me that there is a +fairy in this room! + +PETER (_flitting about in search_). She came with me. You don’t hear +anything, do you? + +WENDY. I hear--the only sound I hear is like a tinkle of bells. + +PETER. That is the fairy language. I hear it too. + +WENDY. It seems to come from over there. + +PETER (_with shameless glee_). Wendy, I believe I shut her up in that +drawer! + + (_He releases_ TINK, _who darts about in a fury using language it is + perhaps as well we don’t understand_.) + +You needn’t say that; I’m very sorry, but how could I know you were in +the drawer? + +WENDY (_her eyes dancing in pursuit of the delicious creature_). Oh, +Peter, if only she would stand still and let me see her! + +PETER (_indifferently_). They hardly ever stand still. + + (_To show that she can do even this_ TINK _pauses between two ticks + of the cuckoo clock_.) + +WENDY. I see her, the lovely! where is she now? + +PETER. She is behind the clock. Tink, this lady wishes you were her +fairy. (_The answer comes immediately._) + +WENDY. What does she say? + +PETER. She is not very polite. She says you are a great ugly girl, and +that she is my fairy. You know, Tink, you can’t be my fairy because I +am a gentleman and you are a lady. + + (TINK _replies_.) + +WENDY. What did she say? + +PETER. She said ‘You silly ass.’ She is quite a common girl, you know. +She is called Tinker Bell because she mends the fairy pots and kettles. + + (_They have reached a chair_, WENDY _in the ordinary way and_ PETER + _through a hole in the back_.) + +WENDY. Where do you live now? + +PETER. With the lost boys. + +WENDY. Who are they? + +PETER. They are the children who fall out of their prams when the nurse +is looking the other way. If they are not claimed in seven days they +are sent far away to the Never Land. I’m captain. + +WENDY. What fun it must be. + +PETER (_craftily_). Yes, but we are rather lonely. You see, Wendy, we +have no female companionship. + +WENDY. Are none of the other children girls? + +PETER. Oh no; girls, you know, are much too clever to fall out of their +prams. + +WENDY. Peter, it is perfectly lovely the way you talk about girls. John +there just despises us. + + (PETER, _for the first time, has a good look at_ JOHN. _He then + neatly tumbles him out of bed._) + +You wicked! you are not captain here. (_She bends over her brother who +is prone on the floor._) After all he hasn’t wakened, and you meant to +be kind. (_Having now done her duty she forgets_ JOHN, _who blissfully +sleeps on._) Peter, you may give me a kiss. + +PETER (_cynically_). I thought you would want it back. + + (_He offers her the thimble._) + +WENDY (_artfully_). Oh dear, I didn’t mean a kiss, Peter. I meant a +thimble. + +PETER (_only half placated_). What is that? + +WENDY. It is like this. (_She leans forward to give a demonstration, +but something prevents the meeting of their faces._) + +PETER (_satisfied_). Now shall I give you a thimble? + +WENDY. If you please. (_Before he can even draw near she screams._) + +PETER. What is it? + +WENDY. It was exactly as if some one were pulling my hair! + +PETER. That must have been Tink. I never knew her so naughty before. + + (TINK _speaks. She is in the jug again._) + +WENDY. What does she say? + +PETER. She says she will do that every time I give you a thimble. + +WENDY. But why? + +PETER (_equally nonplussed_). Why, Tink? (_He has to translate the +answer._) She said ‘You silly ass’ again. + +WENDY. She is very impertinent. (_They are sitting on the floor now._) +Peter, why did you come to our nursery window? + +PETER. To try to hear stories. None of us knows any stories. + +WENDY. How perfectly awful! + +PETER. Do you know why swallows build in the eaves of houses? It is to +listen to the stories. Wendy, your mother was telling you such a lovely +story. + +WENDY. Which story was it? + +PETER. About the prince, and he couldn’t find the lady who wore the +glass slipper. + +WENDY. That was Cinderella. Peter, he found her and they were happy +ever after. + +PETER. I am glad. (_They have worked their way along the floor close to +each other, but he now jumps up._) + +WENDY. Where are you going? + +PETER (_already on his way to the window_). To tell the other boys. + +WENDY. Don’t go, Peter. I know lots of stories. The stories I could +tell to the boys! + +PETER (_gleaming_). Come on! We’ll fly. + +WENDY. Fly? You can fly! + + (_How he would like to rip those stories out of her; he is dangerous + now._) + +PETER. Wendy, come with me. + +WENDY. Oh dear, I mustn’t. Think of mother. Besides, I can’t fly. + +PETER. I’ll teach you. + +WENDY. How lovely to fly! + +PETER. I’ll teach you how to jump on the wind’s back and then away we +go. Wendy, when you are sleeping in your silly bed you might be flying +about with me, saying funny things to the stars. There are mermaids, +Wendy, with long tails. (_She just succeeds in remaining on the nursery +floor._) Wendy, how we should all respect you. + + (_At this she strikes her colours._) + +WENDY. Of course it’s awfully fas-cin-a-ting! Would you teach John and +Michael to fly too? + +PETER (_indifferently_). If you like. + +WENDY (_playing rum-tum on John_). John, wake up; there is a boy here +who is to teach us to fly. + +JOHN. Is there? Then I shall get up. (_He raises his head from the +floor._) Hullo, I am up! + +WENDY. Michael, open your eyes. This boy is to teach us to fly. + + (_The sleepers are at once as awake as their father’s razor; but + before a question can be asked_ NANA’S _bark is heard_.) + +JOHN. Out with the light, quick, hide! + + (_When the maid_ LIZA, _who is so small that when she says she will + never see ten again one can scarcely believe her, enters with a + firm hand on the troubled_ NANA’S _chain the room is in comparative + darkness_.) + +LIZA. There, you suspicious brute, they are perfectly safe, aren’t +they? Every one of the little angels sound asleep in bed. Listen to +their gentle breathing. (NANA’S _sense of smell here helps to her +undoing instead of hindering it. She knows that they are in the room._ +MICHAEL, _who is behind the window curtain, is so encouraged by_ LIZA’S +_last remark that he breathes too loudly_. NANA _knows that kind of +breathing and tries to break from her keeper’s control_.) No more of +it, Nana. (_Wagging a finger at her_) I warn you if you bark again I +shall go straight for master and missus and bring them home from the +party, and then won’t master whip you just! Come along, you naughty dog. + + (_The unhappy_ NANA _is led away. The children emerge exulting from + their various hiding-places. In their brief absence from the scene + strange things have been done to them; but it is not for us to reveal + a mysterious secret of the stage. They look just the same._) + +JOHN. I say, can you really fly? + +PETER. Look! (_He is now over their heads._) + +WENDY. Oh, how sweet! + +PETER. I’m sweet, oh, I am sweet! + + (_It looks so easy that they try it first from the floor and then + from their beds, without encouraging results._) + +JOHN (_rubbing his knees_). How do you do it? + +PETER (_descending_). You just think lovely wonderful thoughts and they +lift you up in the air. (_He is off again._) + +JOHN. You are so nippy at it; couldn’t you do it very slowly once? +(PETER _does it slowly_.) I’ve got it now, Wendy. (_He tries; no, he +has not got it, poor stay-at-home, though he knows the names of all the +counties in England and_ PETER _does not know one_.) + +PETER. I must blow the fairy dust on you first. (_Fortunately his +garments are smeared with it and he blows some dust on each._) Now, +try; try from the bed. Just wriggle your shoulders this way, and then +let go. + + (_The gallant_ MICHAEL _is the first to let go, and is borne across + the room_.) + +MICHAEL (_with a yell that should have disturbed_ LIZA). I flewed! + + (JOHN _lets go, and meets_ WENDY _near the bathroom door though they + had both aimed in an opposite direction_.) + +WENDY. Oh, lovely! + +JOHN (_tending to be upside down_). How ripping! + +MICHAEL (_playing whack on a chair_). I do like it! + +THE THREE. Look at me, look at me, look at me! + + (_They are not nearly so elegant in the air as_ PETER, _but their + heads have bumped the ceiling, and there is nothing more delicious + than that_.) + +JOHN (_who can even go backwards_). I say, why shouldn’t we go out? + +PETER. There are pirates. + +JOHN. Pirates! (_He grabs his tall Sunday hat._) Let us go at once! + + (TINK _does not like it. She darts at their hair. From down below in + the street the lighted window must present an unwonted spectacle: the + shadows of children revolving in the room like a merry-go-round. + This is perhaps what_ MR. _and_ MRS. DARLING _see as they come + hurrying home from the party, brought by_ NANA _who, you may be sure, + has broken her chain._ PETER’S _accomplice, the little star, has seen + them coming, and again the window blows open_.) + +PETER (_as if he had heard the star whisper_ Cave). Now come! + + (_Breaking the circle he flies out of the window over the trees of + the square and over the house-tops, and the others follow like a + flight of birds. The broken-hearted father and mother arrive just + in time to get a nip from_ TINK _as she too sets out for the Never + Land_.) + + + + +ACT II + + + + +ACT II + +THE NEVER LAND + + +_When the blind goes up all is so dark that you scarcely know it has +gone up. This is because if you were to see the island bang (as Peter +would say) the wonders of it might hurt your eyes. If you all came in +spectacles perhaps you could see it bang, but to make a rule of that +kind would be a pity. The first thing seen is merely some whitish +dots trudging along the sward, and you can guess from their tinkling +that they are probably fairies of the commoner sort going home afoot +from some party and having a cheery tiff by the way. Then Peter’s +star wakes up, and in the blink of it, which is much stronger than in +our stars, you can make out masses of trees, and you think you see +wild beasts stealing past to drink, though what you see is not the +beasts themselves but only the shadows of them. They are really out +pictorially to greet Peter in the way they think he would like them to +greet him; and for the same reason the mermaids basking in the lagoon +beyond the trees are carefully combing their hair; and for the same +reason the pirates are landing invisibly from the longboat, invisibly +to you but not to the redskins, whom none can see or hear because +they are on the war-path. The whole island, in short, which has been +having a slack time in Peter’s absence, is now in a ferment because +the tidings have leaked out that he is on his way back; and everybody +and everything know that they will catch it from him if they don’t +give satisfaction. While you have been told this the sun (another of +his servants) has been bestirring himself. Those of you who may have +thought it wiser after all to begin this Act in spectacles may now take +them off._ + +_What you see is the Never Land. You have often half seen it before, +or even three-quarters, after the night-lights were lit, and you might +then have beached your coracle on it if you had not always at the great +moment fallen asleep. I dare say you have chucked things on to it, the +things you can’t find in the morning. In the daytime you think the +Never Land is only make-believe, and so it is to the likes of you, but +this is the Never Land come true. It is an open-air scene, a forest, +with a beautiful lagoon beyond but not really far away, for the Never +Land is very compact, not large and sprawly with tedious distances +between one adventure and another, but nicely crammed. It is summer +time on the trees and on the lagoon but winter on the river, which +is not remarkable on Peter’s island where all the four seasons may +pass while you are filling a jug at the well. Peter’s home is at this +very spot, but you could not point out the way into it even if you +were told which is the entrance, not even if you were told that there +are seven of them. You know now because you have just seen one of the +lost boys emerge. The holes in these seven great hollow trees are the +‘doors’ down to Peter’s home, and he made seven because, despite his +cleverness, he thought seven boys must need seven doors._ + +_The boy who has emerged from his tree is Slightly, who has perhaps +been driven from the abode below by companions less musical than +himself. Quite possibly a genius, Slightly has with him his home-made +whistle to which he capers entrancingly, with no audience save a Never +ostrich which is also musically inclined. Unable to imitate Slightly’s +graces the bird falls so low as to burlesque them and is driven from +the entertainment. Other lost boys climb up the trunks or drop from +branches, and now we see the six of them, all in the skins of animals +they think they have shot, and so round and furry in them that if +they fall they roll. Tootles is not the least brave though the most +unfortunate of this gallant band. He has been in fewer adventures +than any of them because the big things constantly happen while he has +stepped round the corner; he will go off, for instance, in some quiet +hour to gather firewood, and then when he returns the others will be +sweeping up the blood. Instead of souring his nature this has sweetened +it and he is the humblest of the band. Nibs is more gay and debonair, +Slightly more conceited. Slightly thinks he remembers the days before +he was lost, with their manners and customs. Curly is a pickle, and +so often has he had to deliver up his person when Peter said sternly, +‘Stand forth the one who did this thing,’ that now he stands forth +whether he has done it or not. The other two are First Twin and Second +Twin, who cannot be described because we should probably be describing +the wrong one. Hunkering on the ground or peeping out of their holes, +the six are not unlike village gossips gathered round the pump._ + +TOOTLES. Has Peter come back yet, Slightly? + +SLIGHTLY (_with a solemnity that he thinks suits the occasion_). No, +Tootles, no. + + (_They are like dogs waiting for the master to tell them that the day + has begun._) + +CURLY (_as if_ PETER _might be listening_). I do wish he would come +back. + +TOOTLES. I am always afraid of the pirates when Peter is not here to +protect us. + +SLIGHTLY. I am not afraid of pirates. Nothing frightens me. But I do +wish Peter would come back and tell us whether he has heard anything +more about Cinderella. + +SECOND TWIN (_with diffidence_). Slightly, I dreamt last night that the +prince found Cinderella. + +FIRST TWIN (_who is intellectually the superior of the two_). Twin, I +think you should not have dreamt that, for I didn’t, and Peter may say +we oughtn’t to dream differently, being twins, you know. + +TOOTLES. I am awfully anxious about Cinderella. You see, not knowing +anything about my own mother I am fond of thinking that she was rather +like Cinderella. + + (_This is received with derision._) + +NIBS. All I remember about my mother is that she often said to father, +‘Oh how I wish I had a cheque book of my own.’ I don’t know what a +cheque book is, but I should just love to give my mother one. + +SLIGHTLY (_as usual_). My mother was fonder of me than your mothers +were of you. (_Uproar._) Oh yes, she was. Peter had to make up names +for you, but my mother had wrote my name on the pinafore I was lost in. +‘Slightly Soiled’; that’s my name. + + (_They fall upon him pugnaciously; not that they are really worrying + about their mothers, who are now as important to them as a piece of + string, but because any excuse is good enough for a shindy. Not for + long is he belaboured, for a sound is heard that sends them scurrying + down their holes: in a second of time the scene is bereft of human + life. What they have heard from near-by is a verse of the dreadful + song with which on the Never Land the pirates stealthily trumpet + their approach--_ + + Yo ho, yo ho, the pirate life, + The flag of skull and bones, + A merry hour, a hempen rope, + And hey for Davy Jones! + + _The pirates appear upon the frozen river dragging a raft, on which + reclines among cushions that dark and fearful man_, CAPTAIN JAS + HOOK. _A more villainous-looking brotherhood of men never hung in a + row on Execution dock. Here, his great arms bare, pieces of eight + in his ears as ornaments, is the handsome_ CECCO, _who cut his name + on the back of the governor of the prison at Gao. Heavier in the + pull is the gigantic black who has had many names since the first + one terrified dusky children on the banks of the Guidjo-mo._ BILL + JUKES _comes next, every inch of him tattooed, the same_ JUKES _who + got six dozen on the_ Walrus _from_ FLINT. _Following these are_ + COOKSON, _said to be_ BLACK MURPHY’S _brother (but this was never + proved); and_ GENTLEMAN STARKEY, _once an usher in a school; and_ + SKYLIGHTS _(Morgan’s Skylights); and_ NOODLER, _whose hands are + fixed on backwards; and the spectacled boatswain_, SMEE, _the only + Nonconformist in_ HOOK’S _crew; and other ruffians long known and + feared on the Spanish main_. + + _Cruelest jewel in that dark setting is_ HOOK _himself, cadaverous + and blackavised, his hair dressed in long curls which look like black + candles about to melt, his eyes blue as the forget-me-not and of a + profound insensibility, save when he claws, at which time a red spot + appears in them. He has an iron hook instead of a right hand, and + it is with this he claws. He is never more sinister than when he is + most polite, and the elegance of his diction, the distinction of + his demeanour, show him one of a different class from his crew, a + solitary among uncultured companions. This courtliness impresses even + his victims on the high seas, who note that he always says ‘Sorry’ + when prodding them along the plank. A man of indomitable courage, the + only thing at which he flinches is the sight of his own blood, which + is thick and of an unusual colour. At his public school they said of + him that he ‘bled yellow.’ In dress he apes the dandiacal associated + with Charles II., having heard it said in an earlier period of his + career that he bore a strange resemblance to the ill-fated Stuarts. + A holder of his own contrivance is in his mouth enabling him to smoke + two cigars at once. Those, however, who have seen him in the flesh, + which is an inadequate term for his earthly tenement, agree that the + grimmest part of him is his iron claw._ + + _They continue their distasteful singing as they disembark--_ + + Avast, belay, yo ho, heave to, + A-pirating we go, + And if we’re parted by a shot + We’re sure to meet below! + + NIBS, _the only one of the boys who has not sought safety in his + tree, is seen for a moment near the lagoon, and_ STARKEY’S _pistol is + at once upraised. The captain twists his hook in him._) + +STARKEY (_abject_). Captain, let go! + +HOOK. Put back that pistol, first. + +STARKEY. ’Twas one of those boys you hate; I could have shot him dead. + +HOOK. Ay, and the sound would have brought Tiger Lily’s redskins on +us. Do you want to lose your scalp? + +SMEE (_wriggling his cutlass pleasantly_). That is true. Shall I after +him, Captain, and tickle him with Johnny Corkscrew? Johnny is a silent +fellow. + +HOOK. Not now. He is only one, and I want to mischief all the seven. +Scatter and look for them. (_The boatswain whistles his instructions, +and the men disperse on their frightful errand. With none to hear save_ +SMEE, HOOK _becomes confidential_.) Most of all I want their captain, +Peter Pan. ’Twas he cut off my arm. I have waited long to shake his +hand with this. (_Luxuriating_) Oh, I’ll tear him! + +SMEE (_always ready for a chat_). Yet I have oft heard you say your +hook was worth a score of hands, for combing the hair and other homely +uses. + +HOOK. If I was a mother I would pray to have my children born with this +instead of that (_his left arm creeps nervously behind him. He has +a galling remembrance_). Smee, Pan flung my arm to a crocodile that +happened to be passing by. + +SMEE. I have often noticed your strange dread of crocodiles. + +HOOK (_pettishly_). Not of crocodiles but of that one crocodile. (_He +lays bare a lacerated heart._) The brute liked my arm so much, Smee, +that he has followed me ever since, from sea to sea, and from land to +land, licking his lips for the rest of me. + +SMEE (_looking for the bright side_). In a way it is a sort of +compliment. + +HOOK (_with dignity_). I want no such compliments; I want Peter Pan, +who first gave the brute his taste for me. Smee, that crocodile would +have had me before now, but by a lucky chance he swallowed a clock, and +it goes tick, tick, tick, tick inside him; and so before he can reach +me I hear the tick and bolt. (_He emits a hollow rumble._) Once I heard +it strike six within him. + +SMEE (_sombrely_). Some day the clock will run down, and then he’ll get +you. + +HOOK (_a broken man_). Ay, that is the fear that haunts me. (_He +rises._) Smee, this seat is hot; odds, bobs, hammer and tongs, I am +burning. + + (_He has been sitting, he thinks, on one of the island mushrooms, + which are of enormous size. But this is a hand-painted one placed + here in times of danger to conceal a chimney. They remove it, and + tell-tale smoke issues; also, alas, the sound of children’s voices._) + +SMEE. A chimney! + +HOOK (_avidly_). Listen! Smee, ’tis plain they live here, beneath the +ground. (_He replaces the mushroom. His brain works tortuously._) + +SMEE. (_hopefully_). Unrip your plan, Captain. + +HOOK. To return to the boat and cook a large rich cake of jolly +thickness with sugar on it, green sugar. There can be but one room +below, for there is but one chimney. The silly moles had not the sense +to see that they did not need a door apiece. We must leave the cake on +the shore of the mermaids’ lagoon. These boys are always swimming about +there, trying to catch the mermaids. They will find the cake and gobble +it up, because, having no mother, they don’t know how dangerous ’tis to +eat rich damp cake. They will die! + +SMEE (_fascinated_). It is the wickedest, prettiest policy ever I heard +of. + +HOOK (_meaning well_). Shake hands on ’t. + +SMEE. No, Captain, no. + + (_He has to link with the hook, but he does not join in the song._) + +HOOK. + + Yo ho, yo ho, when I say ‘paw,’ + By fear they’re overtook, + Naught’s left upon your bones when you + Have shaken hands with Hook! + + (_Frightened by a tug at his hand_, SMEE _is joining in the chorus + when another sound stills them both. It is a tick, tick as of + a clock, whose significance_ HOOK _is, naturally, the first to + recognise. ‘The crocodile!’ he cries, and totters from the scene._ + SMEE _follows. A huge crocodile, of one thought compact, passes + across, ticking, and oozes after them. The wood is now so silent that + you may be sure it is full of redskins._ TIGER LILY _comes first. She + is the belle of the Piccaninny tribe, whose braves would all have her + to wife, but she wards them off with a hatchet. She puts her ear to + the ground and listens, then beckons, and_ GREAT BIG LITTLE PANTHER + _and the tribe are around her, carpeting the ground. Far away some + one treads on a dry leaf._) + +TIGER LILY. Pirates! (_They do not draw their knives; the knives slip +into their hands._) Have um scalps? What you say? + +PANTHER. Scalp um, oho, velly quick. + +THE BRAVES (_in corroboration_). Ugh, ugh, wah. + + (_A fire is lit and they dance round and over it till they seem part + of the leaping flames._ TIGER LILY _invokes Manitou; the pipe of + peace is broken; and they crawl off like a long snake that has not + fed for many moons_. TOOTLES _peers after the tail and summons the + other boys, who issue from their holes_.) + +TOOTLES. They are gone. + +SLIGHTLY (_almost losing confidence in himself_). I do wish Peter was +here. + +FIRST TWIN. H’sh! What is that? (_He is gazing at the lagoon and +shrinks back._) It is wolves, and they are chasing Nibs! + + (_The baying wolves are upon them quicker than any boy can scuttle + down his tree._) + +NIBS (_falling among his comrades_). Save me, save me! + +TOOTLES. What should we do? + +SECOND TWIN. What would Peter do? + +SLIGHTLY. Peter would look at them through his legs; let us do what +Peter would do. + + (_The boys advance backwards, looking between their legs at the + snarling red-eyed enemy, who trot away foiled._) + +FIRST TWIN (_swaggering_). We have saved you, Nibs. Did you see the +pirates? + +NIBS (_sitting up, and agreeably aware that the centre of interest is +now to pass to him_). No, but I saw a wonderfuller thing, Twin. (_All +mouths open for the information to be dropped into them._) High over +the lagoon I saw the loveliest great white bird. It is flying this way. +(_They search the firmament._) + +TOOTLES. What kind of a bird, do you think? + +NIBS (_awed_). I don’t know; but it looked so weary, and as it flies it +moans ‘Poor Wendy.’ + +SLIGHTLY (_instantly_). I remember now there are birds called Wendies. + +FIRST TWIN (_who has flown to a high branch_). See, it comes, the +Wendy! (_They all see it now._) How white it is! (_A dot of light is +pursuing the bird malignantly._) + +TOOTLES. That is Tinker Bell. Tink is trying to hurt the Wendy. (_He +makes a cup of his hands and calls_) Hullo, Tink! (_A response comes +down in the fairy language._) She says Peter wants us to shoot the +Wendy. + +NIBS. Let us do what Peter wishes. + +SLIGHTLY. Ay, shoot it; quick, bows and arrows. + +TOOTLES (_first with his bow_). Out of the way, Tink; I’ll shoot it. +(_His bolt goes home, and_ WENDY, _who has been fluttering among the +tree-tops in her white nightgown, falls straight to earth. No one could +be more proud than_ TOOTLES.) I have shot the Wendy; Peter will be so +pleased. (_From some tree on which_ TINK _is roosting comes the tinkle +we can now translate, ‘You silly ass.’_ TOOTLES _falters_.) Why do you +say that? (_The others feel that he may have blundered, and draw away +from_ TOOTLES.) + +SLIGHTLY (_examining the fallen one more minutely_). This is no bird; I +think it must be a lady. + +NIBS (_who would have preferred it to be a bird_). And Tootles has +killed her. + +CURLY. Now I see, Peter was bringing her to us. (_They wonder for what +object._) + +SECOND TWIN. To take care of us? (_Undoubtedly for some diverting +purpose._) + +OMNES (_though every one of them had wanted to have a shot at her_). +Oh, Tootles! + +TOOTLES (_gulping_). I did it. When ladies used to come to me in dreams +I said ‘Pretty mother,’ but when she really came I shot her! (_He +perceives the necessity of a solitary life for him._) Friends, good-bye. + +SEVERAL (_not very enthusiastic_). Don’t go. + +TOOTLES. I must; I am so afraid of Peter. + + (_He has gone but a step toward oblivion when he is stopped by a + crowing as of some victorious cock._) + +OMNES. Peter! + + (_They make a paling of themselves in front of_ WENDY _as_ PETER + _skims round the tree-tops and reaches earth._) + +PETER. Greeting, boys! (_Their silence chafes him._) I am back; why do +you not cheer? Great news, boys, I have brought at last a mother for us +all. + +SLIGHTLY (_vaguely_). Ay, ay. + +PETER. She flew this way; have you not seen her? + +SECOND TWIN (_as_ PETER _evidently thinks her important_). Oh mournful +day! + +TOOTLES (_making a break in the paling_). Peter, I will show her to you. + +THE OTHERS (_closing the gap_). No, no. + +TOOTLES (_majestically_). Stand back all, and let Peter see. + + (_The paling dissolves, and_ PETER _sees_ WENDY _prone on the + ground_.) + +PETER. Wendy, with an arrow in her heart! (_He plucks it out._) Wendy +is dead. (_He is not so much pained as puzzled._) + +CURLY. I thought it was only flowers that die. + +PETER. Perhaps she is frightened at being dead? (_None of them can say +as to that._) Whose arrow? (_Not one of them looks at_ TOOTLES.) + +TOOTLES. Mine, Peter. + +PETER (_raising it as a dagger_). Oh dastard hand! + +TOOTLES (_kneeling and baring his breast_). Strike, Peter; strike true. + +PETER (_undergoing a singular experience_). I cannot strike; there is +something stays my hand. + + (_In fact_ WENDY’S _arm has risen_.) + +NIBS. ’Tis she, the Wendy lady. See, her arm. (_To help a friend_) I +think she said ‘Poor Tootles.’ + +PETER (_investigating_). She lives! + +SLIGHTLY (_authoritatively_). The Wendy lady lives. + + (_The delightful feeling that they have been cleverer than they + thought comes over them and they applaud themselves._) + +PETER (_holding up a button that is attached to her chain_). See, the +arrow struck against this. It is a kiss I gave her; it has saved her +life. + +SLIGHTLY. I remember kisses; let me see it. (_He takes it in his +hand._) Ay, that is a kiss. + +PETER. Wendy, get better quickly and I’ll take you to see the mermaids. +She is awfully anxious to see a mermaid. + + (TINKER BELL, _who may have been off visiting her relations, returns + to the wood and, under the impression that_ WENDY _has been got rid + of, is whistling as gaily as a canary. She is not wholly heartless, + but is so small that she has only room for one feeling at a time._) + +CURLY. Listen to Tink rejoicing because she thinks the Wendy is dead! +(_Regardless of spoiling another’s pleasure_) Tink, the Wendy lives. + + (TINK _gives expression to fury._) + +SECOND TWIN (_tell-tale_). It was she who said that you wanted us to +shoot the Wendy. + +PETER. She said that? Then listen, Tink, I am your friend no more. +(_There is a note of acerbity in_ TINK’S _reply; it may mean ‘Who wants +you?’_) Begone from me for ever. (_Now it is a very wet tinkle._) + +CURLY. She is crying. + +TOOTLES. She says she is your fairy. + +PETER (_who knows they are not worth worrying about_). Oh well, not +for ever, but for a whole week. + + (TINK _goes off sulking, no doubt with the intention of giving all + her friends an entirely false impression of_ WENDY’S _appearance_.) + +Now what shall we do with Wendy? + +CURLY. Let us carry her down into the house. + +SLIGHTLY. Ay, that is what one does with ladies. + +PETER. No, you must not touch her; it wouldn’t be sufficiently +respectful. + +SLIGHTLY. That is what I was thinking. + +TOOTLES. But if she lies there she will die. + +SLIGHTLY. Ay, she will die. It is a pity, but there is no way out. + +PETER. Yes, there is. Let us build a house around her! (_Cheers again, +meaning that no difficulty baffles_ PETER.) Leave all to me. Bring the +best of what we have. Gut our house. Be sharp. (_They race down their +trees._) + + (_While_ PETER _is engrossed in measuring_ WENDY _so that the house + may fit her_, JOHN _and_ MICHAEL, _who have probably landed on the + island with a bump, wander forward, so draggled and tired that if you + were to ask_ MICHAEL _whether he is awake or asleep he would probably + answer ‘I haven’t tried yet.’_) + +MICHAEL (_bewildered_). John, John, wake up. Where is Nana, John? + +JOHN (_with the help of one eye but not always the same eye_). It is +true, we did fly! (_Thankfully_) And here is Peter. Peter, is this the +place? + + (PETER, _alas, has already forgotten them, as soon maybe he will + forget_ WENDY. _The first thing she should do now that she is here is + to sew a handkerchief for him, and knot it as a jog to his memory._) + +PETER (_curtly_). Yes. + +MICHAEL. Where is Wendy? (PETER _points_.) + +JOHN (_who still wears his hat_). She is asleep. + +MICHAEL. John, let us wake her and get her to make supper for us. + + (_Some of the boys emerge, and he pinches one._) + +John, look at them! + +PETER (_still house-building_). Curly, see that these boys help in the +building of the house. + +JOHN. Build a house? + +CURLY. For the Wendy. + +JOHN (_feeling that there must be some mistake here_). For Wendy? Why, +she is only a girl. + +CURLY. That is why we are her servants. + +JOHN (_dazed_). Are you Wendy’s servants? + +PETER. Yes, and you also. Away with them. (_In another moment they are +woodsmen hacking at trees, with_ CURLY _as overseer_.) Slightly, fetch +a doctor. (SLIGHTLY _reels and goes. He returns professionally in_ +JOHN’S _hat_.) Please, sir, are you a doctor? + +SLIGHTLY (_trembling in his desire to give satisfaction_). Yes, my +little man. + +PETER. Please, sir, a lady lies very ill. + +SLIGHTLY (_taking care not to fall over her_). Tut, tut, where does she +lie? + +PETER. In yonder glade. (_It is a variation of a game they play._) + +SLIGHTLY. I will put a glass thing in her mouth. (_He inserts an +imaginary thermometer in_ WENDY’S _mouth and gives it a moment to +record its verdict. He shakes it and then consults it._) + +PETER (_anxiously_). How is she? + +SLIGHTLY. Tut, tut, this has cured her. + +PETER (_leaping joyously_). I am glad. + +SLIGHTLY. I will call again in the evening. Give her beef tea out of a +cup with a spout to it, tut, tut. + + (_The boys are running up with odd articles of furniture._) + +PETER (_with an already fading recollection of the Darling nursery_). +These are not good enough for Wendy. How I wish I knew the kind of +house she would prefer! + +FIRST TWIN. Peter, she is moving in her sleep. + +TOOTLES (_opening_ WENDY’S _mouth and gazing down into the depths_). +Lovely! + +PETER. Oh, Wendy, if you could sing the kind of house you would like to +have. + + (_It is as if she had heard him._) + +WENDY (_without opening her eyes_). + + I wish I had a woodland house, + The littlest ever seen, + With funny little red walls + And roof of mossy green. + + (_In the time she sings this and two other verses, such is the + urgency of_ PETER’S _silent orders that they have knocked down + trees, laid a foundation and put up the walls and roof, so that she + is now hidden from view. ‘Windows,’ cries_ PETER, _and_ CURLY _rushes + them in, ‘Roses,’ and_ TOOTLES _arrives breathless with a festoon for + the door. Thus springs into existence the most delicious little house + for beginners._) + +FIRST TWIN. I think it is finished. + +PETER. There is no knocker on the door. (TOOTLES _hangs up the sole of +his shoe_.) There is no chimney; we must have a chimney. (_They await +his deliberations anxiously._) + +JOHN (_unwisely critical_). It certainly does need a chimney. + + (_He is again wearing his hat, which_ PETER _seizes, knocks the top + off it and places on the roof. In the friendliest way smoke begins to + come out of the hat._) + +PETER (_with his hand on the knocker_). All look your best; the first +impression is awfully important. (_He knocks, and after a dreadful +moment of suspense, in which they cannot help wondering if any one is +inside, the door opens and who should come out but_ WENDY! _She has +evidently been tidying a little. She is quite surprised to find that +she has nine children._) + +WENDY (_genteelly_). Where am I? + +SLIGHTLY. Wendy lady, for you we built this house. + +NIBS and TOOTLES. Oh, say you are pleased. + +WENDY (_stroking the pretty thing_). Lovely, darling house! + +FIRST TWIN. And we are your children. + +WENDY (_affecting surprise_). Oh? + +OMNES (_kneeling, with outstretched arms_). Wendy lady, be our mother! +(_Now that they know it is pretend they acclaim her greedily._) + +WENDY (_not to make herself too cheap_). Ought I? Of course it is +frightfully fascinating; but you see I am only a little girl; I have no +real experience. + +OMNES. That doesn’t matter. What we need is just a nice motherly person. + +WENDY. Oh dear, I feel that is just exactly what I am. + +OMNES. It is, it is, we saw it at once. + +WENDY. Very well then, I will do my best. (_In their glee they go +dancing obstreperously round the little house, and she sees she must +be firm with them as well as kind._) Come inside at once, you naughty +children, I am sure your feet are damp. And before I put you to bed I +have just time to finish the story of Cinderella. + + (_They all troop into the enchanting house, whose not least + remarkable feature is that it holds them. A vision of_ LIZA _passes, + not perhaps because she has any right to be there; but she has so few + pleasures and is so young that we just let her have a peep at the + little house. By and by_ PETER _comes out and marches up and down + with drawn sword, for the pirates can be heard carousing far away + on the lagoon, and the wolves are on the prowl. The little house, + its walls so red and its roof so mossy, looks very cosy and safe, + with a bright light showing through the blind, the chimney smoking + beautifully, and_ PETER _on guard. On our last sight of him it is so + dark that we just guess he is the little figure who has fallen asleep + by the door. Dots of light come and go. They are inquisitive fairies + having a look at the house. Any other child in their way they would + mischief, but they just tweak_ PETER’S _nose and pass on. Fairies, + you see, can touch him._) + + + + +ACT III + + + + +ACT III + +THE MERMAIDS’ LAGOON + + +_It is the end of a long playful day on the lagoon. The sun’s rays have +persuaded him to give them another five minutes, for one more race over +the waters before he gathers them up and lets in the moon. There are +many mermaids here, going plop-plop, and one might attempt to count the +tails did they not flash and disappear so quickly. At times a lovely +girl leaps in the air seeking to get rid of her excess of scales, which +fall in a silver shower as she shakes them off. From the coral grottoes +beneath the lagoon, where are the mermaids’ bedchambers, comes fitful +music._ + +_One of the most bewitching of these blue-eyed creatures is lying +lazily on Marooners’ Rock, combing her long tresses and noting effects +in a transparent shell. Peter and his band are in the water unseen +behind the rock, whither they have tracked her as if she were a trout, +and at a signal ten pairs of arms come whack upon the mermaid to +enclose her. Alas, this is only what was meant to happen, for she +hears the signal (which is the crow of a cock) and slips through their +arms into the water. It has been such a near thing that there are +scales on some of their hands. They climb on to the rock crestfallen._ + +WENDY (_preserving her scales as carefully as if they were rare postage +stamps_). I did so want to catch a mermaid. + +PETER (_getting rid of his_). It is awfully difficult to catch a +mermaid. + + (_The mermaids at times find it just as difficult to catch him, + though he sometimes joins them in their one game, which consists in + lazily blowing their bubbles into the air and seeing who can catch + them. The number of bubbles_ PETER _has flown away with! When the + weather grows cold mermaids migrate to the other side of the world, + and he once went with a great shoal of them half the way._) + +They are such cruel creatures, Wendy, that they try to pull boys and +girls like you into the water and drown them. + +WENDY (_too guarded by this time to ask what he means precisely by +‘like you,’ though she is very desirous of knowing_). How hateful! + + (_She is slightly different in appearance now, rather rounder, while_ + JOHN _and_ MICHAEL _are not quite so round. The reason is that when + new lost children arrive at his underground home_ PETER _finds new + trees for them to go up and down by, and instead of fitting the tree + to them he makes them fit the tree. Sometimes it can be done by + adding or removing garments, but if you are bumpy, or the tree is an + odd shape, he has things done to you with a roller, and after that + you fit._ + + _The other boys are now playing King of the Castle, throwing each + other into the water, taking headers and so on; but these two + continue to talk._) + +PETER. Wendy, this is a fearfully important rock. It is called +Marooners’ Rock. Sailors are marooned, you know, when their captain +leaves them on a rock and sails away. + +WENDY. Leaves them on this little rock to drown? + +PETER (_lightly_). Oh, they don’t live long. Their hands are tied, so +that they can’t swim. When the tide is full this rock is covered with +water, and then the sailor drowns. + + (WENDY _is uneasy as she surveys the rock, which is the only one in + the lagoon and no larger than a table. Since she last looked around a + threatening change has come over the scene. The sun has gone, but the + moon has not come. What has come is a cold shiver across the waters + which has sent all the wiser mermaids to their coral recesses. They + know that evil is creeping over the lagoon. Of the boys_ PETER _is of + course the first to scent it, and he has leapt to his feet before the + words strike the rock--_ + + ‘And if we’re parted by a shot + We’re sure to meet below.’ + + _The games on the rock and around it end so abruptly that several + divers are checked in the air. There they hang waiting for the word + of command from_ PETER. _When they get it they strike the water + simultaneously, and the rock is at once as bare as if suddenly they + had been blown off it. Thus the pirates find it deserted when their + dinghy strikes the rock and is nearly stove in by the concussion._) + +SMEE. Luff, you spalpeen, luff! (_They are_ SMEE _and_ STARKEY, _with_ +TIGER LILY, _their captive, bound hand and foot_.) What we have got to +do is to hoist the redskin on to the rock and leave her there to drown. + + (_To one of her race this is an end darker than death by fire or + torture, for it is written in the laws of the Piccaninnies that there + is no path through water to the happy hunting ground. Yet her face is + impassive; she is the daughter of a chief and must die as a chief’s + daughter; it is enough._) + +STARKEY (_chagrined because she does not mewl_). No mewling. This is +your reward for prowling round the ship with a knife in your mouth. + +TIGER LILY (_stoically_). Enough said. + +SMEE (_who would have preferred a farewell palaver_). So that’s it! On +to the rock with her, mate. + +STARKEY (_experiencing for perhaps the last time the stirrings of a +man_). Not so rough, Smee; roughish, but not so rough. + +SMEE (_dragging her on to the rock_). It is the captain’s orders. + + (_A stave has in some past time been driven into the rock, probably + to mark the burial place of hidden treasure, and to this they moor + the dinghy._) + +WENDY (_in the water_). Poor Tiger Lily! + +STARKEY. What was that? (_The children bob._) + +PETER (_who can imitate the captain’s voice so perfectly that even the +author has a dizzy feeling that at times he was really_ HOOK). Ahoy +there, you lubbers! + +STARKEY. It is the captain; he must be swimming out to us. + +SMEE (_calling_). We have put the redskin on the rock, Captain. + +PETER. Set her free. + +SMEE. But, Captain---- + +PETER. Cut her bonds, or I’ll plunge my hook in you. + +SMEE. This is queer! + +STARKEY (_unmanned_). Let us follow the captain’s orders. + + (_They undo the thongs and_ TIGER LILY _slides between their legs + into the lagoon, forgetting in her haste to utter her war-cry, but_ + PETER _utters it for her, so naturally that even the lost boys are + deceived. It is at this moment that the voice of the true_ HOOK _is + heard_.) + +HOOK. Boat ahoy! + +SMEE (_relieved_). It is the captain. + + (HOOK _is swimming, and they help him to scale the rock. He is in + gloomy mood._) + +STARKEY. Captain, is all well? + +SMEE. He sighs. + +STARKEY. He sighs again. + +SMEE (_counting_). And yet a third time he sighs. (_With foreboding_) +What’s up, Captain? + +HOOK (_who has perhaps found the large rich damp cake untouched_). The +game is up. Those boys have found a mother! + +STARKEY. Oh evil day! + +SMEE. What is a mother? + +WENDY (_horrified_). He doesn’t know! + +HOOK (_sharply_). What was that? + + (PETER _makes the splash of a mermaid’s tail_.) + +STARKEY. One of them mermaids. + +HOOK. Dost not know, Smee? A mother is--(_he finds it more difficult to +explain than he had expected, and looks about him for an illustration. +He finds one in a great bird which drifts past in a nest as large as +the roomiest basin._) There is a lesson in mothers for you! The nest +must have fallen into the water, but would the bird desert her eggs? +(PETER, _who is now more or less off his head, makes the sound of a +bird answering in the negative. The nest is borne out of sight._) + +STARKEY. Maybe she is hanging about here to protect Peter? + + (HOOK’S _face clouds still further and_ PETER _just manages not to + call out that he needs no protection_.) + +SMEE (_not usually a man of ideas_). Captain, could we not kidnap these +boys’ mother and make her our mother? + +HOOK. Obesity and bunions, ’tis a princely scheme. We will seize the +children, make them walk the plank, and Wendy shall be our mother! + +WENDY. Never! (_Another splash from_ PETER.) + +HOOK. What say you, bullies? + +SMEE. There is my hand on ’t. + +STARKEY. And mine. + +HOOK. And there is my hook. Swear. (_All swear._) But I had forgot; +where is the redskin? + +SMEE (_shaken_). That is all right, Captain; we let her go. + +HOOK (_terrible_). Let her go? + +SMEE. ’Twas your own orders, Captain. + +STARKEY (_whimpering_). You called over the water to us to let her go. + +HOOK. Brimstone and gall, what cozening is here? (_Disturbed by their +faithful faces_) Lads, I gave no such order. + +SMEE. ’Tis passing queer. + +HOOK (_addressing the immensities_). Spirit that haunts this dark +lagoon to-night, dost hear me? + +PETER (_in the same voice_). Odds, bobs, hammer and tongs, I hear you. + +HOOK (_gripping the stave for support_). Who are you, stranger, speak. + +PETER (_who is only too ready to speak_). I am Jas Hook, Captain of the +_Jolly Roger_. + +HOOK (_now white to the gills_). No, no, you are not. + +PETER. Brimstone and gall, say that again and I’ll cast anchor in you. + +HOOK. If you are Hook, come tell me, who am I? + +PETER. A codfish, only a codfish. + +HOOK (_aghast_). A codfish? + +SMEE (_drawing back from him_). Have we been captained all this time by +a codfish? + +STARKEY. It’s lowering to our pride. + +HOOK (_feeling that his ego is slipping from him_). Don’t desert me, +bullies. + +PETER (_top-heavy_). Paw, fish, paw! + + (_There is a touch of the feminine in_ HOOK, _as in all the greatest + pirates, and it prompts him to try the guessing game_.) + +HOOK. Have you another name? + +PETER (_falling to the lure_). Ay, ay. + +HOOK (_thirstily_). Vegetable? + +PETER. No. + +HOOK. Mineral? + +PETER. No. + +HOOK. Animal? + +PETER (_after a hurried consultation with_ TOOTLES). Yes. + +HOOK. Man? + +PETER (_with scorn_). No. + +HOOK. Boy? + +PETER. Yes. + +HOOK. Ordinary boy? + +PETER. No! + +HOOK. Wonderful boy? + +PETER (_to_ WENDY’S _distress_). Yes! + +HOOK. Are you in England? + +PETER. No. + +HOOK. Are you here? + +PETER. Yes. + +HOOK (_beaten, though he feels he has very nearly got it_). Smee, you +ask him some questions. + +SMEE (_rummaging his brains_). I can’t think of a thing. + +PETER. Can’t guess, can’t guess! (_Foundering in his cockiness_) Do you +give it up? + +HOOK (_eagerly_). Yes. + +PETER. All of you? + +SMEE and STARKEY. Yes. + +PETER (_crowing_). Well, then, I am Peter Pan! + + (_Now they have him._) + +HOOK. Pan! Into the water, Smee. Starkey, mind the boat. Take him dead +or alive! + +PETER (_who still has all his baby teeth_). Boys, lam into the pirates! + + (_For a moment the only two we can see are in the dinghy, where_ + JOHN _throws himself on_ STARKEY. STARKEY _wriggles into the lagoon + and_ JOHN _leaps so quickly after him that he reaches it first. The + impression left on_ STARKEY _is that he is being attacked by the_ + TWINS. _The water becomes stained. The dinghy drifts away. Here + and there a head shows in the water, and once it is the head of + the crocodile. In the growing gloom some strike at their friends_, + SLIGHTLY _getting_ TOOTLES _in the fourth rib while he himself is + pinked by_ CURLY. _It looks as if the boys were getting the worse of + it, which is perhaps just as well at this point, because_ PETER, _who + will be the determining factor in the end, has a perplexing way of + changing sides if he is winning too easily_. HOOK’S _iron claw makes + a circle of black water round him from which opponents flee like + fishes. There is only one prepared to enter that dreadful circle. His + name is_ PAN. _Strangely, it is not in the water that they meet._ + HOOK _has risen to the rock to breathe, and at the same moment_ PETER + _scales it on the opposite side. The rock is now wet and as slippery + as a ball, and they have to crawl rather than climb. Suddenly they + are face to face._ PETER _gnashes his pretty teeth with joy, and is + gathering himself for the spring when he sees he is higher up the + rock than his foe. Courteously he waits_; HOOK _sees his intention, + and taking advantage of it claws twice_. PETER _is untouched, but + unfairness is what he never can get used to, and in his bewilderment + he rolls off the rock. The crocodile, whose tick has been drowned + in the strife, rears its jaws, and_ HOOK, _who has almost stepped + into them, is pursued by it to land. All is quiet on the lagoon now, + not a sound save little waves nibbling at the rock, which is smaller + than when we last looked at it. Two boys appear with the dinghy, and + the others despite their wounds climb into it. They send the cry + ‘Peter--Wendy’ across the waters, but no answer comes._) + +NIBS. They must be swimming home. + +JOHN. Or flying. + +FIRST TWIN. Yes, that is it. Let us be off and call to them as we go. + + (_The dinghy disappears with its load, whose hearts would sink it if + they knew of the peril of_ WENDY _and her captain. From near and far + away come the cries ‘Peter--Wendy’ till we no longer hear them._ + + _Two small figures are now on the rock, but they have fainted. A + mermaid who has dared to come back in the stillness stretches up her + arms and is slowly pulling_ WENDY _into the water to drown her_. + WENDY _starts up just in time_.) + +WENDY. Peter! + + (_He rouses himself and looks around him._) + +Where are we, Peter? + +PETER. We are on the rock, but it is getting smaller. Soon the water +will be over it. Listen! + + (_They can hear the wash of the relentless little waves._) + +WENDY. We must go. + +PETER. Yes. + +WENDY. Shall we swim or fly? + +PETER. Wendy, do you think you could swim or fly to the island without +me? + +WENDY. You know I couldn’t, Peter; I am just a beginner. + +PETER. Hook wounded me twice. (_He believes it; he is so good at +pretend that he feels the pain, his arms hang limp._) I can neither +swim nor fly. + +WENDY. Do you mean we shall both be drowned? + +PETER. Look how the water is rising! + + (_They cover their faces with their hands. Something touches_ WENDY + _as lightly as a kiss_.) + +PETER (_with little interest_). It must be the tail of the kite we made +for Michael; you remember it tore itself out of his hands and floated +away. (_He looks up and sees the kite sailing overhead._) The kite! Why +shouldn’t it carry you? (_He grips the tail and pulls, and the kite +responds._) + +WENDY. Both of us! + +PETER. It can’t lift two. Michael and Curly tried. + + (_She knows very well that if it can lift her it can lift him also, + for she has been told by the boys as a deadly secret that one of the + queer things about him is that he is no weight at all. But it is a + forbidden subject._) + +WENDY. I won’t go without you. Let us draw lots which is to stay behind. + +PETER. And you a lady, never! (_The tail is in her hands, and the kite +is tugging hard. She holds out her mouth to_ PETER, _but he knows they +cannot do that_.) Ready, Wendy! + + (_The kite draws her out of sight across the lagoon._ + + _The waters are lapping over the rock now, and_ PETER _knows that it + will soon be submerged. Pale rays of light mingle with the moving + clouds, and from the coral grottoes is to be heard a sound, at once + the most musical and the most melancholy in the Never Land, the + mermaids calling to the moon to rise._ PETER _is afraid at last, and + a tremor runs through him, like a shudder passing over the lagoon; + but on the lagoon one shudder follows another till there are hundreds + of them, and he feels just the one._) + +PETER (_with a drum beating in his breast as if he were a real boy at +last_). To die will be an awfully big adventure. + + (_The blind rises again, and the lagoon is now suffused with + moonlight. He is on the rock still, but the water is over his feet. + The nest is borne nearer, and the bird, after cooing a message to + him, leaves it and wings her way upwards._ PETER, _who knows the + bird language, slips into the nest, first removing the two eggs and + placing them in_ STARKEY’S _hat, which has been left on the stave. + The hat drifts away from the rock, but he uses the stave as a + mast. The wind is driving him toward the open sea. He takes off his + shirt, which he had forgotten to remove while bathing, and unfurls + it as a sail. His vessel tacks, and he passes from sight, naked and + victorious. The bird returns and sits on the hat._) + + + + +ACT IV + + + + +ACT IV + +THE HOME UNDER THE GROUND + + +_We see simultaneously the home under the ground with the children +in it and the wood above ground with the redskins on it. Below, the +children are gobbling their evening meal; above, the redskins are +squatting in their blankets near the little house guarding the children +from the pirates. The only way of communicating between these two +parties is by means of the hollow trees._ + +_The home has an earthen floor, which is handy for digging in if you +want to go fishing; and owing to there being so many entrances there is +not much wall space. The table at which the lost ones are sitting is a +board on top of a live tree trunk, which has been cut flat but has such +growing pains that the board rises as they eat, and they have sometimes +to pause in their meals to cut a bit more off the trunk. Their seats +are pumpkins or the large gay mushrooms of which we have seen an +imitation one concealing the chimney. There is an enormous fireplace +which is in almost any part of the room where you care to light it, and +across this Wendy has stretched strings, made of fibre, from which she +hangs her washing. There are also various tomfool things in the room of +no use whatever._ + +_Michael’s basket bed is nailed high up on the wall as if to protect +him from the cat, but there is no indication at present of where +the others sleep. At the back between two of the tree trunks is a +grindstone, and near it is a lovely hole, the size of a band-box, with +a gay curtain drawn across so that you cannot see what is inside. This +is Tink’s withdrawing-room and bed-chamber, and it is just as well that +you cannot see inside, for it is so exquisite in its decoration and +in the personal apparel spread out on the bed that you could scarcely +resist making off with something. Tink is within at present, as one +can guess from a glow showing through the chinks. It is her own glow, +for though she has a chandelier for the look of the thing, of course +she lights her residence herself. She is probably wasting valuable +time just now wondering whether to put on the smoky blue or the +apple-blossom._ + +_All the boys except Peter are here, and Wendy has the head of the +table, smiling complacently at their captivating ways, but doing +her best at the same time to see that they keep the rules about +hands-off-the-table, no-two-to-speak-at-once, and so on. She is +wearing romantic woodland garments, sewn by herself, with red berries +in her hair which go charmingly with her complexion, as she knows; +indeed she searched for red berries the morning after she reached the +island. The boys are in picturesque attire of her contrivance, and if +these don’t always fit well the fault is not hers but the wearers’, for +they constantly put on each other’s things when they put on anything +at all. Michael is in his cradle on the wall. First Twin is apart on a +high stool and wears a dunce’s cap, another invention of Wendy’s, but +not wholly successful because everybody wants to be dunce._ + +_It is a pretend meal this evening, with nothing whatever on the table, +not a mug, nor a crust, nor a spoon. They often have these suppers and +like them on occasions as well as the other kind, which consist chiefly +of bread-fruit, tappa rolls, yams, mammee apples and banana splash, +washed down with calabashes of poe-poe. The pretend meals are not +Wendy’s idea; indeed she was rather startled to find, on arriving, that +Peter knew of no other kind, and she is not absolutely certain even now +that he does eat the other kind, though no one appears to do it more +heartily. He insists that the pretend meals should be partaken of with +gusto, and we see his band doing their best to obey orders._ + +WENDY (_her fingers to her ears, for their chatter and clatter are +deafening_). Si-lence! Is your mug empty, Slightly? + +SLIGHTLY (_who would not say this if he had a mug_). Not quite empty, +thank you. + +NIBS. Mummy, he has not even begun to drink his poe-poe. + +SLIGHTLY (_seizing his chance, for this is tale-bearing_). I complain +of Nibs! + + (JOHN _holds up his hand_.) + +WENDY. Well, John? + +JOHN. May I sit in Peter’s chair as he is not here? + +WENDY. In your father’s chair? Certainly not. + +JOHN. He is not really our father. He did not even know how to be a +father till I showed him. + + (_This is insubordination._) + +SECOND TWIN. I complain of John! + + (_The gentle_ TOOTLES _raises his hand_.) + +TOOTLES (_who has the poorest opinion of himself_). I don’t suppose +Michael would let me be baby? + +MICHAEL. No, I won’t. + +TOOTLES. May I be dunce? + +FIRST TWIN (_from his perch_). No. It’s awfully difficult to be dunce. + +TOOTLES. As I can’t be anything important would any of you like to see +me do a trick? + +OMNES. No. + +TOOTLES (_subsiding_). I hadn’t really any hope. + + (_The tale-telling breaks out again._) + +NIBS. Slightly is coughing on the table. + +CURLY. The twins began with tappa rolls. + +SLIGHTLY. I complain of Nibs! + +NIBS. I complain of Slightly! + +WENDY. Oh dear, I am sure I sometimes think that spinsters are to be +envied. + +MICHAEL. Wendy, I am too big for a cradle. + +WENDY. You are the littlest, and a cradle is such a nice homely thing +to have about a house. You others can clear away now. (_She sits down +on a pumpkin near the fire to her usual evening occupation, darning._) +Every heel with a hole in it! + + (_The boys clear away with dispatch, washing dishes they don’t have + in a non-existent sink and stowing them in a cupboard that isn’t + there. Instead of sawing the table-leg to-night they crush it into + the ground like a concertina, and are now ready for play, in which + they indulge hilariously._ + + _A movement of the Indians draws our attention to the scene above. + Hitherto, with the exception of_ PANTHER, _who sits on guard on top + of the little house, they have been hunkering in their blankets, + mute but picturesque; now all rise and prostrate themselves before + the majestic figure of_ PETER, _who approaches through the forest + carrying a gun and game bag. It is not exactly a gun. He often + wanders away alone with this weapon, and when he comes back you are + never absolutely certain whether he has had an adventure or not. He + may have forgotten it so completely that he says nothing about it; + and then when you go out you find the body. On the other hand he may + say a great deal about it, and yet you never find the body. Sometimes + he comes home with his face scratched, and tells_ WENDY, _as a thing + of no importance, that he got these marks from the little people for + cheeking them at a fairy wedding, and she listens politely, but she + is never quite sure, you know; indeed the only one who is sure about + anything on the island is_ PETER.) + +PETER. The Great White Father is glad to see the Piccaninny braves +protecting his wigwam from the pirates. + +TIGER LILY. The Great White Father save me from pirates. Me his velly +nice friend now; no let pirates hurt him. + +BRAVES. Ugh, ugh, wah! + +TIGER LILY. Tiger Lily has spoken. + +PANTHER. Loola, loola! Great Big Little Panther has spoken. + +PETER. It is well. The Great White Father has spoken. + + (_This has a note of finality about it, with the implied ‘And now + shut up,’ which is never far from the courteous receptions of + well-meaning inferiors by born leaders of men. He descends his tree, + not unheard by_ WENDY.) + +WENDY. Children, I hear your father’s step. He likes you to meet him at +the door. (PETER _scatters pretend nuts among them and watches sharply +to see that they crunch with relish_.) Peter, you just spoil them, you +know! + +JOHN (_who would be incredulous if he dare_). Any sport, Peter? + +PETER. Two tigers and a pirate. + +JOHN (_boldly_). Where are their heads? + +PETER (_contracting his little brows_). In the bag. + +JOHN. (_No, he doesn’t say it. He backs away._) + +WENDY (_peeping into the bag_). They are beauties! (_She has learned +her lesson._) + +FIRST TWIN. Mummy, we all want to dance. + +WENDY. The mother of such an armful dance! + +SLIGHTLY. As it is Saturday night? + + (_They have long lost count of the days, but always if they want to + do anything special they say this is Saturday night, and then they do + it._) + +WENDY. Of course it is Saturday night, Peter? (_He shrugs an +indifferent assent._) On with your nighties first. + + (_They disappear into various recesses, and_ PETER _and_ WENDY _with + her darning are left by the fire to dodder parentally. She emphasises + it by humming a verse of ‘John Anderson my Jo,’ which has not the + desired effect on_ PETER. _She is too loving to be ignorant that he + is not loving enough, and she hesitates like one who knows the answer + to her question._) + +What is wrong, Peter? + +PETER (_scared_). It is only pretend, isn’t it, that I am their father? + +WENDY (_drooping_). Oh yes. + + (_His sigh of relief is without consideration for her feelings._) + +But they are ours, Peter, yours and mine. + +PETER (_determined to get at facts, the only things that puzzle him_). +But not really? + +WENDY. Not if you don’t wish it. + +PETER. I don’t. + +WENDY (_knowing she ought not to probe but driven to it by something +within_). What are your exact feelings for me, Peter? + +PETER (_in the class-room_). Those of a devoted son, Wendy. + +WENDY (_turning away_). I thought so. + +PETER. You are so puzzling. Tiger Lily is just the same; there is +something or other she wants to be to me, but she says it is not my +mother. + +WENDY (_with spirit_). No, indeed it isn’t. + +PETER. Then what is it? + +WENDY. It isn’t for a lady to tell. + + (_The curtain of the fairy chamber opens slightly, and_ TINK, _who + has doubtless been eavesdropping, tinkles a laugh of scorn_.) + +PETER (_badgered_). I suppose she means that she wants to be my mother. + + (TINK’S _comment is ‘You silly ass.’_) + +WENDY (_who has picked up some of the fairy words_). I almost agree +with her! + + (_The arrival of the boys in their nightgowns turns_ WENDY’S _mind to + practical matters, for the children have to be arranged in line and + passed or not passed for cleanliness._ SLIGHTLY _is the worst. At + last we see how they sleep, for in a babel the great bed which stands + on end by day against the wall is unloosed from custody and lowered + to the floor. Though large, it is a tight fit for so many boys, and_ + WENDY _has made a rule that there is to be no turning round until one + gives the signal, when all turn at once_. + + FIRST TWIN _is the best dancer and performs mightily on the bed and + in it and out of it and over it to an accompaniment of pillow fights + by the less agile; and then there is a rush at_ WENDY.) + +NIBS. Now the story you promised to tell us as soon as we were in bed! + +WENDY (_severely_). As far as I can see you are not in bed yet. + + (_They scramble into the bed, and the effect is as of a boxful of + sardines._) + +WENDY (_drawing up her stool_). Well, there was once a gentleman---- + +CURLY. I wish he had been a lady. + +NIBS. I wish he had been a white rat. + +WENDY. Quiet! There was a lady also. The gentleman’s name was Mr. +Darling and the lady’s name was Mrs. Darling---- + +JOHN. I knew them! + +MICHAEL (_who has been allowed to join the circle_). I think I knew +them. + +WENDY. They were married, you know; and what do you think they had? + +NIBS. White rats? + +WENDY. No, they had three descendants. White rats are descendants also. +Almost everything is a descendant. Now these three children had a +faithful nurse called Nana. + +MICHAEL (_alas_). What a funny name! + +WENDY. But Mr. Darling--(_faltering_) or was it Mrs. Darling?--was +angry with her and chained her up in the yard; so all the children flew +away. They flew away to the Never Land, where the lost boys are. + +CURLY. I just thought they did; I don’t know how it is, but I just +thought they did. + +TOOTLES. Oh, Wendy, was one of the lost boys called Tootles? + +WENDY. Yes, he was. + +TOOTLES (_dazzled_). Am I in a story? Nibs, I am in a story! + +PETER (_who is by the fire making Pan’s pipes with his knife, and is +determined that_ WENDY _shall have fair play, however beastly a story +he may think it_). A little less noise there. + +WENDY (_melting over the beauty of her present performance, but without +any real qualms_). Now I want you to consider the feelings of the +unhappy parents with all their children flown away. Think, oh think, of +the empty beds. (_The heartless ones think of them with glee._) + +FIRST TWIN (_cheerfully_). It’s awfully sad. + +WENDY. But our heroine knew that her mother would always leave the +window open for her progeny to fly back by; so they stayed away for +years and had a lovely time. + + (PETER _is interested at last_.) + +FIRST TWIN. Did they ever go back? + +WENDY (_comfortably_). Let us now take a peep into the future. Years +have rolled by, and who is this elegant lady of uncertain age alighting +at London station? + + (_The tension is unbearable._) + +NIBS. Oh, Wendy, who is she? + +WENDY (_swelling_). Can it be--yes--no--yes, it is the fair Wendy! + +TOOTLES. I am glad. + +WENDY. Who are the two noble portly figures accompanying her? Can +they be John and Michael? They are. (_Pride of_ MICHAEL.) ‘See, dear +brothers,’ says Wendy, pointing upward, ‘there is the window standing +open.’ So up they flew to their loving parents, and pen cannot inscribe +the happy scene over which we draw a veil. (_Her triumph is spoilt +by a groan from_ PETER _and she hurries to him_.) Peter, what is it? +(_Thinking he is ill, and looking lower than his chest._) Where is it? + +PETER. It isn’t that kind of pain. Wendy, you are wrong about mothers. +I thought like you about the window, so I stayed away for moons and +moons, and then I flew back, but the window was barred, for my mother +had forgotten all about me and there was another little boy sleeping in +my bed. + + (_This is a general damper._) + +JOHN. Wendy, let us go back! + +WENDY. Are you sure mothers are like that? + +PETER. Yes. + +WENDY. John, Michael! (_She clasps them to her._) + +FIRST TWIN (_alarmed_). You are not to leave us, Wendy? + +WENDY. I must. + +NIBS. Not to-night? + +WENDY. At once. Perhaps mother is in half-mourning by this time! Peter, +will you make the necessary arrangements? + + (_She asks it in the steely tones women adopt when they are prepared + secretly for opposition._) + +PETER (_coolly_). If you wish it. + + (_He ascends his tree to give the redskins their instructions. The + lost boys gather threateningly round_ WENDY.) + +CURLY. We won’t let you go! + +WENDY (_with one of those inspirations women have, in an emergency, to +make use of some male who need otherwise have no hope_). Tootles, I +appeal to you. + +TOOTLES (_leaping to his death if necessary_). I am just Tootles and +nobody minds me, but the first who does not behave to Wendy I will +blood him severely. (PETER _returns_.) + +PETER (_with awful serenity_). Wendy, I told the braves to guide you +through the wood as flying tires you so. Then Tinker Bell will take you +across the sea. (_A shrill tinkle from the boudoir probably means ‘and +drop her into it.’_) + +NIBS (_fingering the curtain which he is not allowed to open_). Tink, +you are to get up and take Wendy on a journey. (_Star-eyed_) She says +she won’t! + +PETER (_taking a step toward that chamber_). If you don’t get up, Tink, +and dress at once---- She is getting up! + +WENDY (_quivering now that the time to depart has come_). Dear ones, if +you will all come with me I feel almost sure I can get my father and +mother to adopt you. + + (_There is joy at this, not that they want parents, but novelty is + their religion._) + +NIBS. But won’t they think us rather a handful? + +WENDY (_a swift reckoner_). Oh no, it will only mean having a few +beds in the drawing-room; they can be hidden behind screens on first +Thursdays. + + (_Everything depends on_ PETER.) + +OMNES. Peter, may we go? + +PETER (_carelessly through the pipes to which he is giving a finishing +touch_). All right. + + (_They scurry off to dress for the adventure_.) + +WENDY (_insinuatingly_). Get your clothes, Peter. + +PETER (_skipping about and playing fairy music on his pipes, the only +music he knows_). I am not going with you, Wendy. + +WENDY. Yes, Peter! + +PETER. No. + + (_The lost ones run back gaily, each carrying a stick with a bundle + on the end of it._) + +WENDY. Peter isn’t coming! + +(_All the faces go blank._) + +JOHN (_even_ JOHN). Peter not coming! + +TOOTLES (_overthrown_). Why, Peter? + +PETER (_his pipes more riotous than ever_). I just want always to be a +little boy and to have fun. + + (_There is a general fear that they are perhaps making the mistake of + their lives._) + +Now then, no fuss, no blubbering. (_With dreadful cynicism_) I hope you +will like your mothers! Are you ready, Tink? Then lead the way. + + (TINK _darts up any tree, but she is the only one. The air above is + suddenly rent with shrieks and the clash of steel. Though they cannot + see, the boys know that_ HOOK _and his crew are upon the Indians. + Mouths open and remain open, all in mute appeal to_ PETER. _He is + the only boy on his feet now, a sword in his hand, the same he slew + Barbicue with; and in his eye is the lust of battle._ + + _We can watch the carnage that is invisible to the children._ HOOK + _has basely broken the two laws of Indian warfare, which are that + the redskins should attack first, and that it should be at dawn. + They have known the pirate whereabouts since, early in the night, + one of_ SMEE’S _fingers crackled. The brushwood has closed behind + their scouts as silently as the sand on the mole; for hours they + have imitated the lonely call of the coyote; no stratagem has been + overlooked, but, alas, they have trusted to the pale-faces’ honour + to await an attack at dawn, when his courage is known to be at + the lowest ebb._ HOOK _falls upon them pell-mell, and one cannot + withhold a reluctant admiration for the wit that conceived so subtle + a scheme and the fell genius with which it is carried out. If the + braves would rise quickly they might still have time to scalp, but + this they are forbidden to do by the traditions of their race, for + it is written that they must never express surprise in the presence + of the pale-face. For a brief space they remain recumbent, not a + muscle moving, as if the foe were here by invitation. Thus perish + the flower of the Piccaninnies, though not unavenged, for with_ LEAN + WOLF _fall_ ALF MASON _and_ CANARY ROBB, _while other pirates to bite + dust are_ BLACK GILMOUR _and_ ALAN HERB, _that same_ HERB _who is + still remembered at Manaos for playing skittles with the mate of the_ + Switch _for each other’s heads_. CHAY TURLEY, _who laughed with the + wrong side of his mouth (having no other), is tomahawked by_ PANTHER, + _who eventually cuts a way through the shambles with_ TIGER LILY _and + a remnant of the tribe_. + + _This onslaught passes and is gone like a fierce wind. The victors + wipe their cutlasses, and squint, ferret-eyed, at their leader. He + remains, as ever, aloof in spirit and in substance. He signs to them + to descend the trees, for he is convinced that_ PAN _is down there, + and though he has smoked the bees it is the honey he wants. There is + something in_ PETER _that at all times goads this extra-ordinary man + to frenzy; it is the boy’s cockiness, which disturbs_ HOOK _like an + insect. If you have seen a lion in a cage futilely pursuing a sparrow + you will know what is meant. The pirates try to do their captain’s + bidding, but the apertures prove to be not wide enough for them; he + cannot even ram them down with a pole. He steals to the mouth of a + tree and listens._) + +PETER (_prematurely_). All is over! + +WENDY. But who has won? + +PETER. Hst! If the Indians have won they will beat the tom-tom; it is +always their signal of victory. + + (HOOK _licks his lips at this and signs to_ SMEE, _who is sitting + on it, to hold up the tom-tom. He beats upon it with his claw, and + listens for results._) + +TOOTLES. The tom-tom! + +PETER (_sheathing his sword_). An Indian victory! + + (_The cheers from below are music to the black hearts above._) + +You are quite safe now, Wendy. Boys, good-bye. (_He resumes his pipes._) + +WENDY. Peter, you will remember about changing your flannels, won’t you? + +PETER. Oh, all right! + +WENDY. And this is your medicine. + + (_She puts something into a shell and leaves it on a ledge between + two of the trees. It is only water, but she measures it out in + drops._) + +PETER. I won’t forget. + +WENDY. Peter, what are you to me? + +PETER (_through the pipes_). Your son, Wendy. + +WENDY. Oh, good-bye! + + (_The travellers start upon their journey, little witting that_ HOOK + _has issued his silent orders: a man to the mouth of each tree, and + a row of men between the trees and the little house. As the children + squeeze up they are plucked from their trees, trussed, thrown like + bales of cotton from one pirate to another, and so piled up in the + little house. The only one treated differently is_ WENDY, _whom_ HOOK + _escorts to the house on his arm with hateful politeness. He signs to + his dogs to be gone, and they depart through the wood, carrying the + little house with its strange merchandise and singing their ribald + song. The chimney of the little house emits a jet of smoke fitfully, + as if not sure what it ought to do just now._ + + HOOK _and_ PETER _are now, as it were, alone on the island. Below_, + PETER _is on the bed, asleep, no weapon near him; above_, HOOK, + _armed to the teeth, is searching noiselessly for some tree down + which the nastiness of him can descend. Don’t be too much alarmed + by this; it is precisely the situation_ _PETER_ _would have chosen; + indeed if the whole thing were pretend--. One of his arms droops over + the edge of the bed, a leg is arched, and the mouth is not so tightly + closed that we cannot see the little pearls. He is dreaming, and in + his dreams he is always in pursuit of a boy who was never here, nor + anywhere: the only boy who could beat him._ + + HOOK _finds the tree. It is the one set apart for_ SLIGHTLY, _who + being addicted when hot to the drinking of water has swelled in + consequence and surreptitiously scooped his tree for easier descent + and egress. Down this the pirate wriggles a passage. In the aperture + below his face emerges and goes green as he glares at the sleeping + child. Does no feeling of compassion disturb his sombre breast? The + man is not wholly evil: he has a_ Thesaurus _in his cabin, and is no + mean performer on the flute. What really warps him is a presentiment + that he is about to fail. This is not unconnected with a beatific + smile on the face of the sleeper, whom he cannot reach owing to + being stuck at the foot of the tree. He, however, sees the medicine + shell within easy reach, and to_ WENDY’S _draught he adds from a + bottle five drops of poison distilled when he was weeping from the + red in his eye. The expression on_ PETER’S _face merely implies that + something heavenly is going on_. HOOK _worms his way upwards, and + winding his cloak around him, as if to conceal his person from the + night of which he is the blackest part, he stalks moodily toward the + lagoon._ + + _A dot of light flashes past him and darts down the nearest tree, + looking for_ PETER, _only for_ PETER, _quite indifferent about the + others when she finds him safe_.) + +PETER (_stirring_). Who is that? (TINK _has to tell her tale, in one +long ungrammatical sentence_.) The redskins were defeated? Wendy and +the boys captured by the pirates! I’ll rescue her, I’ll rescue her! +(_He leaps first at his dagger, and then at his grindstone, to sharpen +it._ TINK _alights near the shell, and rings out a warning cry_.) Oh, +that is just my medicine. Poisoned? Who could have poisoned it? I +promised Wendy to take it, and I will as soon as I have sharpened my +dagger. (TINK, _who sees its red colour and remembers the red in the +pirate’s eye, nobly swallows the draught as_ PETER’S _hand is reaching +for it_.) Why, Tink, you have drunk my medicine! (_She flutters +strangely about the room, answering him now in a very thin tinkle._) +It was poisoned and you drank it to save my life! Tink, dear Tink, are +you dying? (_He has never called her dear Tink before, and for a moment +she is gay; she alights on his shoulder, gives his chin a loving bite, +whispers ‘You silly ass,’ and falls on her tiny bed. The boudoir, which +is lit by her, flickers ominously. He is on his knees by the opening._) + +Her light is growing faint, and if it goes out, that means she is +dead! Her voice is so low I can scarcely tell what she is saying. +She says--she says she thinks she could get well again if children +believed in fairies! (_He rises and throws out his arms he knows not +to whom, perhaps to the boys and girls of whom he is not one._) Do you +believe in fairies? Say quick that you believe! If you believe, clap +your hands! (_Many clap, some don’t, a few hiss. Then perhaps there is +a rush of Nanas to the nurseries to see what on earth is happening. +But_ TINK _is saved_.) Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you! And now to +rescue Wendy! + + (TINK _is already as merry and impudent as a grig, with not a thought + for those who have saved her_. PETER _ascends his tree as if he were + shot up it. What he is feeling is_ ‘_Hook or me this time!_’ _He + is frightfully happy. He soon hits the trail, for the smoke from + the little house has lingered here and there to guide him. He takes + wing._) + + + + +ACT V + + + + +ACT V + + +SCENE 1 + +THE PIRATE SHIP + +_The stage directions for the opening of this scene are as follows:--1 +Circuit Amber checked to 80. Battens, all Amber checked, 3 ship’s +lanterns alight, Arcs: prompt perch 1. Open dark amber flooding back, +O.P. perch open dark amber flooding upper deck. Arc on tall steps at +back of cabin to flood back cloth. Open dark Amber. Warning for slide. +Plank ready. Call Hook._ + +_In the strange light thus described we see what is happening on the +deck of the_ Jolly Roger, _which is flying the skull and crossbones and +lies low in the water. There is no need to call Hook, for he is here +already, and indeed there is not a pirate aboard who would dare to call +him. Most of them are at present carousing in the bowels of the vessel, +but on the poop Mullins is visible, in the only great-coat on the ship, +raking with his glass the monstrous rocks within which the lagoon is +cooped. Such a look-out is supererogatory, for the pirate craft floats +immune in the horror of her name._ + +_From Hook’s cabin at the back Starkey appears and leans over the +bulwark, silently surveying the sullen waters. He is bare-headed and is +perhaps thinking with bitterness of his hat, which he sometimes sees +still drifting past him with the Never bird sitting on it. The black +pirate is asleep on deck, yet even in his dreams rolling mechanically +out of the way when Hook draws near. The only sound to be heard is made +by Smee at his sewing-machine, which lends a touch of domesticity to +the night._ + +_Hook is now leaning against the mast, now prowling the deck, the +double cigar in his mouth. With Peter surely at last removed from his +path we, who know how vain a tabernacle is man, would not be surprised +to find him bellied out by the winds of his success, but it is not so; +he is still uneasy, looking long and meaninglessly at familiar objects, +such as the ship’s bell or the Long Tom, like one who may shortly be +a stranger to them. It is as if Pan’s terrible oath ‘Hook or me this +time!’ had already boarded the ship._ + +HOOK (_communing with his ego_). How still the night is; nothing +sounds alive. Now is the hour when children in their homes are a-bed; +their lips bright-browned with the good-night chocolate, and their +tongues drowsily searching for belated crumbs housed insecurely on +their shining cheeks. Compare with them the children on this boat +about to walk the plank. Split my infinitives, but ’tis my hour of +triumph! (_Clinging to this fair prospect he dances a few jubilant +steps, but they fall below his usual form._) And yet some disky spirit +compels me now to make my dying speech, lest when dying there may be +no time for it. All mortals envy me, yet better perhaps for Hook to +have had less ambition! O fame, fame, thou glittering bauble, what if +the very---- (SMEE, _engrossed in his labours at the sewing-machine, +tears a piece of calico with a rending sound which makes the Solitary +think for a moment that the untoward has happened to his garments_.) +No little children love me. I am told they play at Peter Pan, and that +the strongest always chooses to be Peter. They would rather be a Twin +than Hook; they force the baby to be Hook. The baby! that is where +the canker gnaws. (_He contemplates his industrious boatswain._) +’Tis said they find Smee lovable. But an hour agone I found him +letting the youngest of them try on his spectacles. Pathetic Smee, the +Nonconformist pirate, a happy smile upon his face because he thinks +they fear him! How can I break it to him that they think him lovable? +No, bi-carbonate of Soda, no, not even---- (_Another rending of the +calico disturbs him, and he has a private consultation with_ STARKEY, +_who turns him round and evidently assures him that all is well. The +peroration of his speech is nevertheless for ever lost, as eight bells +strikes and his crew pour forth in bacchanalian orgy. From the poop +he watches their dance till it frets him beyond bearing._) Quiet, you +dogs, or I’ll cast anchor in you! (_He descends to a barrel on which +there are playing-cards, and his crew stand waiting, as ever, like +whipped curs._) Are all the prisoners chained, so that they can’t fly +away? + +JUKES. Ay, ay, Captain. + +HOOK. Then hoist them up. + +STARKEY (_raising the door of the hold_). Tumble up, you ungentlemanly +lubbers. + + (_The terrified boys are prodded up and tossed about the deck._ HOOK + _seems to have forgotten them; he is sitting by the barrel with his + cards_.) + +HOOK (_suddenly_). So! Now then, you bullies, six of you walk the plank +to-night, but I have room for two cabin-boys. Which of you is it to be? +(_He returns to his cards._) + +TOOTLES (_hoping to soothe him by putting the blame on the only person, +vaguely remembered, who is always willing to act as a buffer_). You +see, sir, I don’t think my mother would like me to be a pirate. Would +your mother like you to be a pirate, Slightly? + +SLIGHTLY (_implying that otherwise it would be a pleasure to him to +oblige_). I don’t think so. Twin, would your mother like---- + +HOOK. Stow this gab. (_To_ JOHN) You boy, you look as if you had a +little pluck in you. Didst never want to be a pirate, my hearty? + +JOHN (_dazzled by being singled out_). When I was at school I--what do +you think, Michael? + +MICHAEL (_stepping into prominence_). What would you call me if I +joined? + +HOOK. Blackbeard Joe. + +MICHAEL. John, what do you think? + +JOHN. Stop, should we still be respectful subjects of King George? + +HOOK. You would have to swear ‘Down with King George.’ + +JOHN (_grandly_). Then I refuse! + +MICHAEL. And I refuse. + +HOOK. That seals your doom. Bring up their mother. + + (WENDY _is driven up from the hold and thrown to him. She sees at the + first glance that the deck has not been scrubbed for years._) + +So, my beauty, you are to see your children walk the plank. + +WENDY (_with noble calmness_). Are they to die? + +HOOK. They are. Silence all, for a mother’s last words to her children. + +WENDY. These are my last words. Dear boys, I feel that I have a message +to you from your real mothers, and it is this, ‘We hope our sons will +die like English gentlemen.’ + + (_The boys go on fire._) + +TOOTLES. I am going to do what my mother hopes. What are you to do, +Twin? + +FIRST TWIN. What my mother hopes. John, what are---- + +HOOK. Tie her up! Get the plank ready. + + (WENDY _is roped to the mast; but no one regards her, for all eyes + are fixed upon the plank now protruding from the poop over the ship’s + side. A great change, however, occurs in the time_ HOOK _takes to + raise his claw and point to this deadly engine. No one is now looking + at the plank: for the tick, tick of the crocodile is heard. Yet it + is not to bear on the crocodile that all eyes slew round, it is that + they may bear on_ HOOK. _Otherwise prisoners and captors are equally + inert, like actors in some play who have found themselves ‘on’ in a + scene in which they are not personally concerned. Even the iron claw + hangs inactive, as if aware that the crocodile is not coming for it. + Affection for their captain, now cowering from view, is not what has + given_ HOOK _his dominance over the crew, but as the menacing sound + draws nearer they close their eyes respectfully_. + + _There is no crocodile. It is_ PETER, _who has been circling the + pirate ship, ticking as he flies far more superbly than any clock. + He drops into the water and climbs aboard, warning the captives + with upraised finger (but still ticking) not for the moment to give + audible expression to their natural admiration. Only one pirate sees + him_, WHIBBLES _of the eye patch, who comes up from below_. JOHN + _claps a hand on_ WHIBBLES’ _mouth to stifle the groan; four boys + hold him to prevent the thud_; PETER _delivers the blow, and the + carrion is thrown overboard. ‘One!’ says_ SLIGHTLY, _beginning to + count_. + + STARKEY _is the first pirate to open his eyes. The ship seems to + him to be precisely as when he closed them. He cannot interpret + the sparkle that has come into the faces of the captives, who are + cleverly pretending to be as afraid as ever. He little knows that the + door of the dark cabin has just closed on one more boy. Indeed it is + for_ HOOK _alone he looks, and he is a little surprised to see him_.) + +STARKEY (_hoarsely_). It is gone, Captain! There is not a sound. + + (_The tenement that is_ HOOK _heaves tumultuously and he is himself + again_.) + +HOOK (_now convinced that some fair spirit watches over him_). Then +here is to Johnny Plank-- + + Avast, belay, the English brig + We took and quickly sank, + And for a warning to the crew + We made them walk the plank! + + (_As he sings he capers detestably along an imaginary plank and his + copy-cats do likewise, joining in the chorus._) + + Yo ho, yo ho, the frisky cat, + You walks along it so, + Till it goes down and you goes down + To tooral looral lo! + + (_The brave children try to stem this monstrous torrent by breaking + into the National Anthem._) + +STARKEY (_paling_). I don’t like it, messmates! + +HOOK. Stow that, Starkey. Do you boys want a touch of the cat before +you walk the plank? (_He is more pitiless than ever now that he +believes he has a charmed life._) Fetch the cat, Jukes; it is in the +cabin. + +JUKES. Ay, ay, sir. (_It is one of his commonest remarks, and is only +recorded now because he never makes another. The stage direction_ +‘_Exit_ JUKES’ _has in this case a special significance. But only the +children know that some one is awaiting this unfortunate in the cabin, +and_ HOOK _tramples them down as he resumes his ditty_:) + + Yo ho, yo ho, the scratching cat + Its tails are nine you know, + And when they’re writ upon your back, + You’re fit to---- + + (_The last words will ever remain a matter of conjecture, for from + the dark cabin comes a curdling screech which wails through the ship + and dies away. It is followed by a sound, almost more eerie in the + circumstances, that can only be likened to the crowing of a cock._) + +HOOK. What was that? + +SLIGHTLY (_solemnly_). Two! + + (CECCO _swings into the cabin, and in a moment returns, livid_.) + +HOOK (_with an effort_). What is the matter with Bill Jukes, you dog? + +CECCO. The matter with him is he is dead--stabbed. + +PIRATES. Bill Jukes dead! + +CECCO. The cabin is as black as a pit, but there is something terrible +in there: the thing you heard a-crowing. + +HOOK (_slowly_). Cecco, go back and fetch me out that doodle-doo. + +CECCO (_unstrung_). No, Captain, no. (_He supplicates on his knees, but +his master advances on him implacably._) + +HOOK (_in his most syrupy voice_). Did you say you would go, Cecco? + + (CECCO _goes. All listen. There is one screech, one crow._) + +SLIGHTLY (_as if he were a bell tolling_). Three! + +HOOK. ’Sdeath and oddsfish, who is to bring me out that doodle-doo? + + (_No one steps forward._) + +STARKEY (_injudiciously_). Wait till Cecco comes out. + + (_The black looks of some others encourage him._) + +HOOK. I think I heard you volunteer, Starkey. + +STARKEY (_emphatically_). No, by thunder! + +HOOK (_in that syrupy voice which might be more engaging when +accompanied by his flute_). My hook thinks you did. I wonder if it +would not be advisable, Starkey, to humour the hook? + +STARKEY. I’ll swing before I go in there. + +HOOK (_gleaming_). Is it mutiny? Starkey is ringleader. Shake hands, +Starkey. + + (STARKEY _recoils from the claw. It follows him till he leaps + overboard._) + +Did any other gentleman say mutiny? + + (_They indicate that they did not even know the late_ STARKEY.) + +SLIGHTLY. Four! + +HOOK. I will bring out that doodle-doo myself. + + (_He raises a blunderbuss but casts it from him with a menacing + gesture which means that he has more faith in the claw. With a + lighted lantern in his hand he enters the cabin. Not a sound is to + be heard now on the ship, unless it be_ SLIGHTLY _wetting his lips to + say ‘Five.’_ HOOK _staggers out_.) + +HOOK (_unsteadily_). Something blew out the light. + +MULLINS (_with dark meaning_). Some--thing? + +NOODLER. What of Cecco? + +HOOK. He is as dead as Jukes. + + (_They are superstitious like all sailors, and_ MULLINS _has planted + a dire conception in their minds_.) + +COOKSON. They do say as the surest sign a ship’s accurst is when there +is one aboard more than can be accounted for. + +NOODLER. I’ve heard he allus boards the pirate craft at last. (_With +dreadful significance_) Has he a tail, Captain? + +MULLINS. They say that when he comes it is in the likeness of the +wickedest man aboard. + +COOKSON (_clinching it_). Has he a hook, Captain? + + (_Knives and pistols come to hand, and there is a general cry ‘The + ship is doomed!’ But it is not his dogs that can frighten_ JAS HOOK. + _Hearing something like a cheer from the boys he wheels round, and + his face brings them to their knees._) + +HOOK. So you like it, do you! By Caius and Balbus, bullies, here is +a notion: open the cabin door and drive them in. Let them fight the +doodle-doo for their lives. If they kill him we are so much the better; +if he kills them we are none the worse. + + (_This masterly stroke restores their confidence; and the boys, + affecting fear, are driven into the cabin. Desperadoes though the + pirates are, some of them have been boys themselves, and all turn + their backs to the cabin and listen, with arms outstretched to it as + if to ward off the horrors that are being enacted there._ + + _Relieved by_ PETER _of their manacles, and armed with such weapons + as they can lay their hands on, the boys steal out softly as + snowflakes, and under their captain’s hushed order find hiding-places + on the poop. He releases_ WENDY; _and now it would be easy for them + all to fly away, but it is to be_ HOOK _or him this time. He signs + to her to join the others, and with awful grimness folding her cloak + around him, the hood over his head, he takes her place by the mast, + and crows._) + +MULLINS. The doodle-doo has killed them all! + +SEVERAL. The ship’s bewitched. + + (_They are snapping at_ HOOK _again_.) + +HOOK. I’ve thought it out, lads; there is a Jonah aboard. + +SEVERAL (_advancing upon him_). Ay, a man with a hook. + + (_If he were to withdraw one step their knives would be in him, but + he does not flinch._) + +HOOK (_temporising_). No, lads, no, it is the girl. Never was luck on a +pirate ship wi’ a woman aboard. We’ll right the ship when she has gone. + +MULLINS (_lowering his cutlass_). It’s worth trying. + +HOOK. Throw the girl overboard. + +MULLINS (_jeering_). There is none can save you now, missy. + +PETER. There is one. + +MULLINS. Who is that? + +PETER (_casting off the cloak_). Peter Pan, the avenger! + + (_He continues standing there to let the effect sink in._) + +HOOK (_throwing out a suggestion_). Cleave him to the brisket. + + (_But he has a sinking feeling that this boy has no brisket._) + +NOODLER. The ship’s accurst! + +PETER. Down, boys, and at them! + + (_The boys leap from their concealment and the clash of arms resounds + through the vessel. Man to man the pirates are the stronger, but they + are unnerved by the suddenness of the onslaught and they scatter, + thus enabling their opponents to hunt in couples and choose their + quarry. Some are hurled into the lagoon; others are dragged from dark + recesses. There is no boy whose weapon is not reeking save_ SLIGHTLY, + _who runs about with a lantern, counting, ever counting_.) + +WENDY (_meeting_ MICHAEL _in a moment’s lull_). Oh, Michael, stay with +me, protect me! + +MICHAEL (_reeling_). Wendy, I’ve killed a pirate! + +WENDY. It’s awful, awful. + +MICHAEL. No, it isn’t, I like it, I like it. + + (_He casts himself into the group of boys who are encircling_ HOOK. + _Again and again they close upon him and again and again he hews a + clear space._) + +HOOK. Back, back, you mice. It’s Hook; do you like him? (_He lifts up_ +MICHAEL _with his claw and uses him as a buckler. A terrible voice +breaks in._) + +PETER. Put up your swords, boys. This man is mine. + + (HOOK _shakes_ MICHAEL _off his claw as if he were a drop of water, + and these two antagonists face each other for their final bout. They + measure swords at arms’ length, make a sweeping motion with them, and + bringing the points to the deck rest their hands upon the hilts._) + +HOOK (_with curling lip_). So, Pan, this is all your doing! + +PETER. Ay, Jas Hook, it is all my doing. + +HOOK. Proud and insolent youth, prepare to meet thy doom. + +PETER. Dark and sinister man, have at thee. + + (_Some say that he had to ask_ TOOTLES _whether the word was sinister + or canister_. + + HOOK _or_ PETER _this time! They fall to without another word._ PETER + _is a rare swordsman, and parries with dazzling rapidity, sometimes + before the other can make his stroke_. HOOK, _if not quite so nimble + in wrist play, has the advantage of a yard or two in reach, but + though they close he cannot give the quietus with his claw, which + seems to find nothing to tear at. He does not, especially in the most + heated moments, quite see_ PETER, _who to his eyes, now blurred or + opened clearly for the first time, is less like a boy than a mote of + dust dancing in the sun. By some impalpable stroke_ HOOK’S _sword is + whipped from his grasp, and when he stoops to raise it a little foot + is on its blade. There is no deep gash on_ HOOK, _but he is suffering + torment as from innumerable jags_.) + +BOYS (_exulting_). Now, Peter, now! + + (PETER _raises the sword by its blade, and with an inclination of + the head that is perhaps slightly overdone, presents the hilt to his + enemy_.) + +HOOK. ’Tis some fiend fighting me! Pan, who and what art thou? + + (_The children listen eagerly for the answer, none quite so eagerly + as_ WENDY.) + +PETER (_at a venture_). I’m youth, I’m joy, I’m a little bird that has +broken out of the egg. + +HOOK. To ’t again! + + (_He has now a damp feeling that this boy is the weapon which is to + strike him from the lists of man; but the grandeur of his mind still + holds and, true to the traditions of his flag, he fights on like + a human flail._ PETER _flutters round and through and over these + gyrations as if the wind of them blew him out of the danger zone, and + again and again he darts in and jags_.) + +HOOK (_stung to madness_). I’ll fire the powder magazine. (_He +disappears they know not where._) + +CHILDREN. Peter, save us! + + (PETER, _alas, goes the wrong way and_ HOOK _returns_.) + +HOOK (_sitting on the hold with gloomy satisfaction_). In two minutes +the ship will be blown to pieces. + + (_They cast themselves before him in entreaty._) + +CHILDREN. Mercy, mercy! + +HOOK. Back, you pewling spawn. I’ll show you now the road to dusty +death. A holocaust of children, there is something grand in the idea! + + (PETER _appears with the smoking bomb in his hand and tosses it + overboard_. HOOK _has not really had much hope, and he rushes at his + other persecutors with his head down like some exasperated bull in + the ring; but with bantering cries they easily elude him by flying + among the rigging_. + + _Where is_ PETER? _The incredible boy has apparently forgotten the + recent doings, and is sitting on a barrel playing upon his pipes. + This may surprise others but does not surprise_ HOOK. _Lifting a + blunderbuss he strikes forlornly not at the boy but at the barrel, + which is hurled across the deck._ PETER _remains sitting in the air + still playing upon his pipes. At this sight the great heart of_ + HOOK _breaks. That not wholly unheroic figure climbs the bulwarks + murmuring_ ‘Floreat Etona,’ _and prostrates himself into the water, + where the crocodile is waiting for him open-mouthed_. HOOK _knows the + purpose of this yawning cavity, but after what he has gone through he + enters it like one greeting a friend_. + + _The curtain rises to show_ PETER _a very Napoleon on his ship. It + must not rise again lest we see him on the poop in_ HOOK’S _hat and + cigars, and with a small iron claw_.) + + +Scene 2 + +THE NURSERY AND THE TREE-TOPS + +_The old nursery appears again with everything just as it was at the +beginning of the play, except that the kennel has gone and that the +window is standing open. So Peter was wrong about mothers; indeed there +is no subject on which he is so likely to be wrong._ + +_Mrs. Darling is asleep on a chair near the window, her eyes tired with +searching the heavens. Nana is stretched out listless on the floor. She +is the cynical one, and though custom has made her hang the children’s +night things on the fire-guard for an airing, she surveys them not +hopefully but with some self-contempt._ + +MRS. DARLING (_starting up as if we had whispered to her that her brats +are coming back_). Wendy, John, Michael! (NANA _lifts a sympathetic +paw to the poor soul’s lap_.) I see you have put their night things +out again, Nana! It touches my heart to watch you do that night after +night. But they will never come back. + + (_In trouble the difference of station can be completely ignored, + and it is not strange to see these two using the same handkerchief. + Enter_ LIZA, _who in the gentleness with which the house has been run + of late is perhaps a little more masterful than of yore_.) + +LIZA (_feeling herself degraded by the announcement_). Nana’s dinner is +served. + + (NANA, _who quite understands what are_ LIZA’S _feelings, departs + for the dining-room with our exasperating leisureliness, instead of + running, as we would all do if we followed our instincts_.) + +LIZA. To think I have a master as have changed places with his dog! + +MRS. DARLING (_gently_). Out of remorse, Liza. + +LIZA (_surely exaggerating_). I am a married woman myself. I don’t +think it’s respectable to go to his office in a kennel, with the +street boys running alongside cheering. (_Even this does not rouse her +mistress, which may have been the honourable intention._) There, that +is the cab fetching him back! (_Amid interested cheers from the street +the kennel is conveyed to its old place by a cabby and friend, and_ +MR. DARLING _scrambles out of it in his office clothes_.) + +MR. DARLING (_giving her his hat loftily_). If you will be so good, +Liza. (_The cheering is resumed._) It is very gratifying! + +LIZA (_contemptuous_). Lot of little boys. + +MR. DARLING (_with the new sweetness of one who has sworn never to lose +his temper again_). There were several adults to-day. + + (_She goes off scornfully with the hat and the two men, but he has + not a word of reproach for her. It ought to melt us when we see how + humbly grateful he is for a kiss from his wife, so much more than he + feels he deserves. One may think he is wrong to exchange into the + kennel, but sorrow has taught him that he is the kind of man who + whatever he does contritely he must do to excess; otherwise he soon + abandons doing it._) + +MRS. DARLING (_who has known this for quite a long time_). What sort of +a day have you had, George? + + (_He is sitting on the floor by the kennel._) + +MR. DARLING. There were never less than a hundred running round the +cab cheering, and when we passed the Stock Exchange the members came +out and waved. + + (_He is exultant but uncertain of himself, and with a word she could + dispirit him utterly._) + +MRS. DARLING (_bravely_). I am so proud, George. + +MR. DARLING (_commendation from the dearest quarter ever going to his +head_). I have been put on a picture postcard, dear. + +MRS. DARLING (_nobly_). Never! + +MR. DARLING (_thoughtlessly_). Ah, Mary, we should not be such +celebrities if the children hadn’t flown away. + +MRS. DARLING (_startled_). George, you are sure you are not enjoying it? + +MR. DARLING (_anxiously_). Enjoying it! See my punishment: living in a +kennel. + +MRS. DARLING. Forgive me, dear one. + +MR. DARLING. It is I who need forgiveness, always I, never you. And now +I feel drowsy. (_He retires into the kennel._) Won’t you play me to +sleep on the nursery piano? And shut that window, Mary dearest; I feel +a draught. + +MRS. DARLING. Oh, George, never ask me to do that. The window must +always be left open for them, always, always. + + (_She goes into the day nursery, from which we presently hear her + playing the sad song of Margaret. She little knows that her last + remark has been overheard by a boy crouching at the window. He steals + into the room accompanied by a ball of light._) + +PETER. Tink, where are you? Quick, close the window. (_It closes._) +Bar it. (_The bar slams down._) Now when Wendy comes she will think +her mother has barred her out, and she will have to come back to +me! (TINKER BELL _sulks_.) Now, Tink, you and I must go out by the +door. (_Doors, however, are confusing things to those who are used +to windows, and he is puzzled when he finds that this one does not +open on to the firmament. He tries the other, and sees the piano +player._) It is Wendy’s mother! (TINK _pops on to his shoulder and +they peep together_.) She is a pretty lady, but not so pretty as my +mother. (_This is a pure guess._) She is making the box say ‘Come +home, Wendy.’ You will never see Wendy again, lady, for the window is +barred! (_He flutters about the room joyously like a bird, but has to +return to that door._) She has laid her head down on the box. There are +two wet things sitting on her eyes. As soon as they go away another +two come and sit on her eyes. (_She is heard moaning ‘Wendy, Wendy, +Wendy.’_) She wants me to unbar the window. I won’t! She is awfully +fond of Wendy. I am fond of her too. We can’t both have her, lady! (_A +funny feeling comes over him._) Come on, Tink; we don’t want any silly +mothers. + + (_He opens the window and they fly out._ + + _It is thus that the truants find entrance easy when they alight on + the sill_, JOHN _to his credit having the tired_ MICHAEL _on his + shoulders. They have nothing else to their credit; no compunction for + what they have done, not the tiniest fear that any just person may be + awaiting them with a stick. The youngest is in a daze, but the two + others are shining virtuously like holy people who are about to give + two other people a treat._) + +MICHAEL (_looking about him_). I think I have been here before. + +JOHN. It’s your home, you stupid. + +WENDY. There is your old bed, Michael. + +MICHAEL. I had nearly forgotten. + +JOHN. I say, the kennel! + +WENDY. Perhaps Nana is in it. + +JOHN (_peering_). There is a man asleep in it. + +WENDY (_remembering him by the bald patch_). It’s father! + +JOHN. So it is! + +MICHAEL. Let me see father. (_Disappointed_) He is not as big as the +pirate I killed. + +JOHN (_perplexed_). Wendy, surely father didn’t use to sleep in the +kennel? + +WENDY (_with misgivings_). Perhaps we don’t remember the old life as +well as we thought we did. + +JOHN (_chilled_). It is very careless of mother not to be here when we +come back. + + (_The piano is heard again._) + +WENDY. H’sh! (_She goes to the door and peeps._) That is her playing! +(_They all have a peep._) + +MICHAEL. Who is that lady? + +JOHN. H’sh! It’s mother. + +MICHAEL. Then are you not really our mother, Wendy? + +WENDY (_with conviction_). Oh dear, it is quite time to be back! + +JOHN. Let us creep in and put our hands over her eyes. + +WENDY (_more considerate_). No, let us break it to her gently. + + (_She slips between the sheets of her bed; and the others, seeing the + idea at once, get into their beds. Then when the music stops they + cover their heads. There are now three distinct bumps in the beds._ + MRS. DARLING _sees the bumps as soon as she comes in, but she does + not believe she sees them_.) + +MRS. DARLING. I see them in their beds so often in my dreams that I +seem still to see them when I am awake! I’ll not look again. (_She sits +down and turns away her face from the bumps, though of course they are +still reflected in her mind._) So often their silver voices call me, +my little children whom I’ll see no more. + + (_Silver voices is a good one, especially about_ JOHN; _but the heads + pop up_.) + +WENDY (_perhaps rather silvery_). Mother! + +MRS. DARLING (_without moving_). That is Wendy. + +JOHN (_quite gruff_). Mother! + +MRS. DARLING. Now it is John. + +MICHAEL (_no better than a squeak_). Mother! + +MRS. DARLING. Now Michael. And when they call I stretch out my arms to +them, but they never come, they never come! + + (_This time, however, they come, and there is joy once more in the + Darling household. The little boy who is crouching at the window sees + the joke of the bumps in the beds, but cannot understand what all the + rest of the fuss is about._ + + * * * * * + + _The scene changes from the inside of the house to the outside, and + we see_ MR. DARLING _romping in at the door, with the lost boys + hanging gaily to his coat-tails. So we may conclude that_ WENDY _has + told them to wait outside until she explains the situation to her + mother, who has then sent_ MR. DARLING _down to tell them that they + are adopted. Of course they could have flown in by the window like + a covey of birds, but they think it better fun to enter by a door. + There is a moment’s trouble about_ SLIGHTLY, _who somehow gets shut + out. Fortunately_ LIZA _finds him_.) + +LIZA. What is the matter, boy? + +SLIGHTLY. They have all got a mother except me. + +LIZA (_starting back_). Is your name Slightly? + +SLIGHTLY. Yes’m. + +LIZA. Then I am your mother. + +SLIGHTLY. How do you know? + +LIZA (_the good-natured creature_). I feel it in my bones. + + (_They go into the house and there is none happier now than_ + SLIGHTLY, _unless it be_ NANA _as she passes with the importance of a + nurse who will never have another day off_. WENDY _looks out at the + nursery window and sees a friend below, who is hovering in the air + knocking off tall hats with his feet. The wearers don’t see him. They + are too old. You can’t see_ PETER _if you are old. They think he is a + draught at the corner._) + +WENDY. Peter! + +PETER (_looking up casually_). Hullo, Wendy. + + (_She flies down to him, to the horror of her mother, who rushes to + the window._) + +WENDY (_making a last attempt_). You don’t feel you would like to say +anything to my parents, Peter, about a very sweet subject? + +PETER. No, Wendy. + +WENDY. About me, Peter? + +PETER. No. + + (_He gets out his pipes, which she knows is a very bad sign. She + appeals with her arms to_ MRS. DARLING, _who is probably thinking + that these children will all need to be tied to their beds at night_.) + +MRS. DARLING (_from the window_). Peter, where are you? Let me adopt +you too. + + (_She is the loveliest age for a woman, but too old to see_ PETER + _clearly_.) + +PETER. Would you send me to school? + +MRS. DARLING (_obligingly_). Yes. + +PETER. And then to an office? + +MRS. DARLING. I suppose so. + +PETER. Soon I should be a man? + +MRS. DARLING. Very soon. + +PETER (_passionately_). I don’t want to go to school and learn solemn +things. No one is going to catch me, lady, and make me a man. I want +always to be a little boy and to have fun. + + (_So perhaps he thinks, but it is only his greatest pretend._) + +MRS. DARLING (_shivering every time_ WENDY _pursues him in the air_). +Where are you to live, Peter? + +PETER. In the house we built for Wendy. The fairies are to put it high +up among the tree-tops where they sleep at night. + +WENDY (_rapturously_). To think of it! + +MRS. DARLING. I thought all the fairies were dead. + +WENDY (_almost reprovingly_). No indeed! Their mothers drop the babies +into the Never birds’ nests, all mixed up with the eggs, and the mauve +fairies are boys and the white ones are girls, and there are some +colours who don’t know what they are. The row the children and the +birds make at bath time is positively deafening. + +PETER. I throw things at them. + +WENDY. You will be rather lonely in the evenings, Peter. + +PETER. I shall have Tink. + +WENDY (_flying up to the window_). Mother, may I go? + +MRS. DARLING (_gripping her for ever_). Certainly not. I have got you +home again, and I mean to keep you. + +WENDY. But he does so need a mother. + +MRS. DARLING. So do you, my love. + +PETER. Oh, all right. + +MRS. DARLING (_magnanimously_). But, Peter, I shall let her go to you +once a year for a week to do your spring cleaning. + + (WENDY _revels in this, but_ PETER, _who has no notion what a spring + cleaning is, waves a rather careless thanks_.) + +MRS. DARLING. Say good-night, Wendy. + +WENDY. I couldn’t go down just for a minute? + +MRS. DARLING. No. + +WENDY. Good-night, Peter! + +PETER. Good-night, Wendy! + +WENDY. Peter, you won’t forget me, will you, before spring-cleaning +time comes? + + (_There is no answer, for he is already soaring high. For a moment + after he is gone we still hear the pipes._ MRS. DARLING _closes and + bars the window_.) + + * * * * * + +_We are dreaming now of the Never Land a year later. It is bed-time +on the island, and the blind goes up to the whispers of the lovely +Never music. The blue haze that makes the wood below magical by day +comes up to the tree-tops to sleep, and through it we see numberless +nests all lit up, fairies and birds quarrelling for possession, others +flying around just for the fun of the thing and perhaps making bets +about where the little house will appear to-night. It always comes and +snuggles on some tree-top, but you can never be sure which; here it is +again, you see John’s hat first as up comes the house so softly that it +knocks some gossips off their perch. When it has settled comfortably +it lights up, and out come Peter and Wendy._ + +_Wendy looks a little older, but Peter is just the same. She is cloaked +for a journey, and a sad confession must be made about her; she flies +so badly now that she has to use a broomstick._ + + * * * * * + +WENDY (_who knows better this time than to be demonstrative at +partings_). Well, good-bye, Peter; and remember not to bite your nails. + +PETER. Good-bye, Wendy. + +WENDY. I’ll tell mother all about the spring cleaning and the house. + +PETER (_who sometimes forgets that she has been here before_). You do +like the house? + +WENDY. Of course it is small. But most people of our size wouldn’t +have a house at all. (_She should not have mentioned size, for he has +already expressed displeasure at her growth. Another thing, one he has +scarcely noticed, though it disturbs her, is that she does not see him +quite so clearly now as she used to do._) When you come for me next +year, Peter--you will come, won’t you? + +PETER. Yes. (_Gloating_) To hear stories about me! + +WENDY. It is so queer that the stories you like best should be the ones +about yourself. + +PETER (_touchy_). Well, then? + +WENDY. Fancy your forgetting the lost boys, and even Captain Hook! + +PETER. Well, then? + +WENDY. I haven’t seen Tink this time. + +PETER. Who? + +WENDY. Oh dear! I suppose it is because you have so many adventures. + +PETER (_relieved_). ’Course it is. + +WENDY. If another little girl--if one younger than I am---- (_She can’t +go on._) Oh, Peter, how I wish I could take you up and squdge you! (_He +draws back._) Yes, I know. (_She gets astride her broomstick._) Home! +(_It carries her from him over the tree-tops._ + + _In a sort of way he understands what she means by ‘Yes, I know,’ but + in most sorts of ways he doesn’t. It has something to do with the + riddle of his being. If he could get the hang of the thing his cry + might become ‘To live would be an awfully big adventure!’ but he can + never quite get the hang of it, and so no one is as gay as he. With + rapturous face he produces his pipes, and the Never birds and the + fairies gather closer till the roof of the little house is so thick + with his admirers that some of them fall down the chimney. He plays + on and on till we wake up._) + + +_The End_ + + * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber’s note + + +Minor punctuation errors have been changed without notice. Italization +was standardized. + +Spelling was retained as in the original except for the following +changes: + + Page 48: “the tidings has leaked” “the tidings have leaked” + Page 140: “he has a sinking” “he has a sinking feeling” + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78131 *** |