Chapter VII

Panicking

The fall had not hurt her in the slightest, but the mound of grass on which she had fallen was so comfortable, and the day so delightfully warm, that Alice quite forgot she had been trying to reach the book. Instead she simply closed her eyes, lay back and enjoyed the sun - until she was rudely awoken by a cold shower of scented water which caught her full in the face.

Alice sat up, spluttering, and opened her eyes to find two strange characters1 staring down at her. The first, Alice deduced from the large frying pan attached to his belt, was a Friar. “And the other is almost definitely a Monk, judging by his bald patch,” she said to herself. “Although I didn’t know that Monks also wore pony-tails.” Both were wearing long robes tied about with string, and with any number of items hanging from them, and both sported the strangest of haircuts.

    She was just about to admonish them most severely for drenching her (just as she was scolded whenever she threw water over one sister or another), when they spoke.

    “Is it recovered?” asked the Monk, a little timidly (he was holding an empty bucket, and was obviously afraid of retribution).

    “I don’t know,” replied the Friar. “Do you think it bites?”

    “Most probably, I’m afraid,” answered the other, and he sat on the bucket and sighed deeply. “However, as to its recovery, it cannot possibly be well yet, since we have only administered half the cure.”

    “Quite right! Quite right!” the Friar cried. “We have all but forgotten the incense!” And he pulled from his belt a large and smoking censer, which he began to wave wildly around Alice’s head, so that within moments she was enveloped in a sweet-smelling cloud of purple smoke, making her cough all the more.

    “Stop it, can’t you?” the girl shouted, for what with the water and the incense she was quite annoyed, and she stamped her foot hard on the ground until the censer stopped swinging around her head and the smoke had blown away. Alice wiped her eyes to find the Friar and the Monk still facing her, though a fair way further off, and managing to look both fearful and sheepish at the same time. There was a long silence, during which Alice contrived to frown at the pair so that they would come to realise that the drenching and the smoke were not at all welcome.

    “I think it’s recovered,” the Monk said at last.

    “Good show!” the Friar said. “And about time too, if I might say so. Now if you will excuse us . . .” And with that, the pair started to slowly sidle away, always keeping half an eye on the girl. “I do believe they are terrified of me,” Alice thought, and as if to test the hypothesis she turned directly towards them, and said very politely: “there really is no need to be afraid.”

    At this the Monk and the Friar dropped everything they were holding, and ran straight behind the nearest tree, waving their hands in the air and shouting: “Monster! Monster!” all the while. The sight was so comical the Alice could not help but burst out laughing, and had to forgive them their actions. (The water had dried now anyway, and she had all but forgotten the incense burner.)

    The Monk and the Friar slowly peered in horror around the trunk at the girl, who was still in fits of giggles; then, feeling a little braver, they came out from behind the tree and simply stared at her; finally, they wandered slowly back, a little sheepish and a little embarrassed, picking up the bows and books and cakes and keys that they had dropped on the way.

    “It’s not all that funny, you know,” the Friar said. “You may have been a monster.”

    “Quite so,” agreed the Monk. “And I am sure that you have been told it is bad manners to laugh at Monks and Friars before matins.”

    “As to that,” retorted Alice (who didn’t believe she had ever been told any such rule, although she had to admit she usually forgot her etiquette lessons within minutes), “it must be equally bad manners to throw water over someone who is lying quietly, and then to envelope them in smoke.”

    “Water? Smoke?” enquired the Friar severely. “I hope you don’t think we were doing it for larks!”

    “Why, no!” continued the Monk. “’Tis our mission, d’you see. To Rush to the Aid of Monsters in their Hours of Need.”

    “Indeed,” said the Friar. “To purvey our Cure-All near and far. And that, you understand, is the reason for the water and the censer, to cure you of your pains! Our scented waters are an antidote to all known ills, and we pass it on to you freely.”

    “Even though,” the Monk added, “you are the most hideous, scary monster we have ever seen.” He said this with a huge grin on his face (the Friar also) as if he had just asked about the price of nails, so that Alice was not entirely sure whether she had been insulted, or had simply misheard the man. However, before she had a chance to ask, the strange pair took hold of an arm each and started to skip away with her through the ruin2, on a thorough exploration of the ancient monument. “Why,” Alice said to herself as they ran, “it must be at least twenty-five years old! Just think of the traditions in must have seen built up in its grounds!”

    The girl did not have much chance to see the edifice, though, since the clerics were far too eager to run on. They pulled her passed over little bridges beside dilapidated ponds, and through arches of red brick which seemed to have no purpose whatsoever, and past walls and stones and steps and doors, all of which were broken and useless. They wandered into a tower and up seven flights of stairs, before shouting: “It’s moved! It’s moved!” and dragging her all the way down again. And while they ran through the ruin they hummed a little tune about socks and cogs and maps and moles, and skipped around so, that before very long Alice was dizzy and feeling quite exhausted.

    Suddenly the two clerics let go of Alice’s arms and dropped to sit on the ground of a small cloister, where the Monk fished a couple of sandwiches from his cloak and passed one to the Friar. They then proceeded to much away, while looking at Alice expectantly, so she sat down also and tried to strike up a conversation.

    “What are in your sandwiches?” she asked.

    “Why, best sand,” the Monk replied. “Which is what one would expect.”

    “That is, of course, why they are called sandwiches,” reasoned the Friar.

    “I am not sure that such a thing follows at all!” said Alice. “Why, if that were the case, one would also expect to find logs in log cake.”

    “One does, if one knows where to look,” retorted the Monk, but before Alice could ask his meaning the Friar changed the subject.

    “You know,” he said, “this used to be a place of great learning, before all the best students left. Now it has fallen to rack and ruin.” And the clerics expectantly leaned towards the girl again.

    “What did they study here?” asked Alice, not for any real wish to know the answer - she was still quite interested in the food - but rather because the Monk and the Friar so obviously wanted to be asked.

    “Oh, a great many things!” answered the Monk, smiling as if to say she had asked exactly the right question. “Oh yes, very many disciplines3. There was Commuting with Artful Interference, for example . . .”

    “Ah!” interposed the Friar. “The study of the very soul of Man, through the medium of messing about on trains!”

    “. . . and Fallacy of Mind, and Mystery of Heart,” continued the Monk. “Accidental, Detrimental and Soulful Soliloquy also. And we had the Model Languishments: Scallion, Stench and Sermon. And Anguished Lacritude, of course.”

    “That was my subject,” the Friar interrupted. He was obviously very proud of the fact. “I was very good at Anguished Lacritude.”

    “And what did you study?” Alice asked the Monk.

    “Oh, most things, at one time or another,” he replied vaguely4. “I always made the utmost effort to remain co-operative during my time here, and it paid off in the end.” He sighed, and looked around the decrepit ruin wistfully. “Ah, yes!” he said, “I was here for a great many years, and a wonderful place it was, too.” He pointed around the ivy-covered walls, and sighed again. “There’s nothing left of it now, of course. Nothing of worth at all, except for its crypt5.”

    “We still come back regularly, though,” said the Friar. “We come back once a week to hold a great party. We sit in the crypt, to sing sad songs, and to watch crowds of our friends while away the hours of the night. Sometimes, the whole world comes to our Panics.”

    “The whole world,” the Monk continued, “and everybody else. Sometimes it is so full that the world just can’t get in. It has to sit around outside, listening to the music. A very sorry sight it is, too.”

    “At other times, of course,” the Friar said, “hardly anybody comes. Only the Monk and I are here . . .”

    “. . . and then not always he,” added the Monk, pointing to the other. “Sometimes only I attend the Panic.”

    “And then, too, not even he,” said the Friar, pointing in his turn. “Why, sometimes he is more than three thousand miles away. It is all he can do to hear the music!” And the pair of them sighed deeply in unison, and rested their heads on their hands.

    “I say,” said the Monk suddenly, brightening a little. “Shall we Panic now for the child?” (They seemed to have accepted that Alice wasn’t a monster.)

    “I do believe we shall,” the Friar replied. “Let’s explain our Cure-All to her once more.”

    The two of them jumped to their feet to quickly clear the ground, and then stood side by side, very straight, before the girl. “Ahem,” coughed the Monk, and both said together: “Our Mission - a Panic in Two Verses,” before taking their places.

    The first verse (it was explained, although later Alice could not remember by whom) would be sung by the Monk, while the Friar entertained with a dance. The Friar readied himself for this by slowly raising his right leg into the air in front of him, until it was level with his waist. The dance, it transpired, consisted of the Friar mildly waving his foot around in concentric circles, in vague time with the verse’s meter; although this Alice found quite difficult to catch anyway:

Do you suffer from chilblains?6
Do you constantly complain
That there are prayer mats in your pantry
And a twitching in your whiskers?
If you lie awake in bed
With a chortling in your head,
As you hide from the moaning of teamsters,

Then these remedies
Will make you feel fine;
Just half a pound of liquorice
Mixed with bramble wine, and taken twice
With bread and beef at noon.
You’ll be up and out right soon,
All thanks to Antidotal Incense

Now, the Friar lowered his leg to the ground and stood up straight. The Monk, in his place, chose to lean over to one side so that he could bob up and down to the rhythm of the other’s voice, his hands tightly clasped over his stomach.

    The Friar began to intone the second verse:

Let us offer you some ointment
With or without an appointment;
Apply it three times daily
To those parts least afflicted.
If it doesn’t meet our boast
Then return it by first post
And we’ll suggest that you are directed

To our ministry,
Where we’ll try to make you well.
There’s evensong at half past one
And matins after twelve, during which
Your pains will start to go;
You’ll be up before you know
It, thanks to Antidotal Incense

Their Panic over, the Monk and the Friar sat back down again, one on each side of Alice, and presently fell asleep. Alice would have been quite happy to doze also (the sun was still pleasantly warm); however, the clerics’ snoring was loud enough to keep anyone awake, and anyway, time was passing swiftly and she was still no nearer to finding the Rabbit’s watch. “Come,” she said to herself. “You really must begin to search in earnest, Alice, or the thing will never be found.”

    Gently, so as not to disturb the Monk and the Friar, the girl rose to her feet and tiptoed away (although she did nod a goodbye to the sleeping pair before she left). She walked swiftly through the ruin, past the tumble-down walls and empty rooms, and soon the girl had passed straight through the place to come into a small field which backed onto a dark and dingy wood.

    Rather than enter the wood (which looked a most forbidding place) Alice decided to skirt its edge. However, it was only a few minutes before she came to the corner of the field, and a little stile in its hedge which led straight into the place. She immediately turned on her heal and tried the other direction; but within seconds the girl was again back at the stile. “Oh dear,” she said out loud. “I don’t seem to have a choice in the matter.”

“One always has a choice,” said a voice. “One can go forward, or one can go ba-a-ack.”

    Startled, Alice looked up to find herself face to face with a young lamb7, sitting on the stile, staring back at her intently. It seemed to be chewing on something, and Alice noticed that the creature was holding a large box of chocolates, and had a tell-tale brown ring around its mouth.

    “Well,” the girl replied, “I wish to go forward . . .”

    “There! You see?” said the Lamb. “That wasn’t so difficult, was it?”

    “Only, I don’t wish to go into the wood,” Alice finished.

    The Lamb took another chocolate from the box to pop in its mouth, before offering one to the girl and saying: “Then your choice is even simpler. Take a chocolate to help you decide.”

    “I can’t very well go back,” Alice said, taking an orange creme, “since I don’t think anyone I have met so far will be able to help me more. Oh, what am I to do?”

    “Ah, choices, choices!” bleated the Lamb. “So many to be made, and so difficult to choose!” It leaned closer to Alice, and went on: “Do you wish to know what I do, when faced with a difficult choice?”

    “Why, yes,” declared Alice, “if you would be so kind.”

    “Why, ’tis simple,” the Lamb cried, and it so bubbled with excitement that it almost fell from the stile. “When I have such a difficult decision to make, I put it off till Winceday and have another chocolate!” And, as if to prove the point, it did just that.

    “I’m not sure it’s wise to eat so much chocolate,” Alice scolded the creature (although, secretly, she really wished that she had been offered another also). “It is far too rich for a young lamb. It will make your hair fall out and your teeth lose their curl.” Alice had been told something like that herself, when she had eaten far too many barley-sugars the previous summer; but it had sounded a much more sensible idea then, and the Lamb had just taken another truffle in spite of the scolding, so she decided to try a different tack.

    “If you go on like that,” she said, “you will soon have eaten all the chocolate in the world. And where would everyone be if we ran out of chocolate?”

    “As to tha-a-at,” the Lamb replied, “I do not believe we shall ever run out. Why, I used to live on top of a chocolate mountain; there’s always plenty more where this came from.” Alice had to admit that the Lamb’s chocolate box showed no signs of emptying, and that the Lamb looked extremely healthy on the diet, so most of her arguments came to nothing.

    “Please,” she said, changing the subject. “Could you tell me where this path leads?”

    “Certainly,” replied the Lamb. “It will take you into the woods and out again, depending on the direction you wish to travel.”

    “I think I shall go into the wood,” Alice decided bravely, even though the Lamb’s advice had been somewhat less than useful. The Lamb politely moved to one side, so that the girl could clamber over the stile, and she was soon on the other side looking along a dark and path which disappeared between the trees.

    “Please, take this,” said the Lamb, and it handed Alice a milk chocolate. “It will help you on your wa-a-ay.”

    “Thank you kindly,” Alice replied, and she popped the sweet into her mouth before setting off down the track. It was a delightful flavour - partly butterscotch, it seemed, and partly venison broth - but it had the annoying trick of all chocolates of melting away after only moments. “Come,” Alice thought. “I shall ask the Lamb for just one more, since it must have plenty, and then I shall be truly on my way.” And she turned around to enquire of the creature, only to find that the Lamb, the stile and even the path had disappeared. She was lost in the dark wood, with trees on all sides, and not so much as a track to follow out.

    “Oh dear,” sighed Alice, and she sat down to decide what to do next. She was an eminently practical girl usually, but here she found that she could not think of a thing to do. “I suppose I shall miss the entire first act, now,” she said to herself, and started to weep a little. However, her sobs were interrupted by a familiar voice.

    “There, there, don’t take on so,” said the Lamb, which had appeared on the ground beside her. “Tell me what the problem is.”

    “I seem to be lost,” answered Alice, through a little sniffle. “I climbed over the stile, and followed the path, and now I’m stuck in this horrid wood.”

    “Never fear,” said the Lamb, brightly. “There is always a way out. For example, the way out of an argument is to always be right, and the way out of trouble is to never get into any. And, of course, the way out of this wood is through its door.”

    The Lamb pointed over its shoulder at the trunk of a large oak which, to Alice’s surprise, contained a small, blue door. The girl quickly jumped up and pushed it open, to find behind it a tall staircase which twisted down into the depths of the earth. Without a moment’s hesitation she was running down it two steps at a time.

    As Alice ran she heard the Lamb behind her calling: “Bon voyage! Bon voya-a-age!” However, she was far to eager to escape the wood to reply.

Chapter VI - The Voyage of the Pwmgraf Chapter VI - The Voyage of the Pwmgraf | Chapter VIII - The Major and the Miner Chapter VIII - The Major and the Miner