The Greatest Works of J. M. Barrie: 90+ Titles in One Volume (Illustrated Edition). James Matthew Barrie

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СКАЧАТЬ (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 Iwish 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 friendliestway 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 faraway 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.

       The Mermaids' Lagoon

       Table of Contents

      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 СКАЧАТЬ